Paul's tail swayed thoughtfully as he waited for drinks at the end of the counter. It got him looks from the handful of humans in the coffee shop, likely assuming that basically any time a canid's tail moves it means they're wagging and thinking about something happy. The coyote morph, his fur sandy-brown, his ears sharp, glanced over the midday crowd.

It was busier than he's have liked, busy enough to stir some paranoia. Was anyone here watching? Recording? Pretending to read something and simply listening in?

The center of his concern focused around a table by the wall. His boyfriend, a tan fennec with even taller, sharper ears named Alex, sat across from a pair of middle-aged raccoons. The raccoons, Lester and Marion Briscoe, were old enough that the weight of years and food showed on their frames, the edges of their eyemasks uneven. Lester and Marion poked at a phone and a tablet, respectively, with blunt clawtips. Alex wore an eyepiece clinging to the side of his head, looking at something on a little screen that hung over one eye. They had the posture of a group waiting for a bus. A folder sat on the table between them.

A barista set down a tray with four beverages on it. Paul resisted the urge to mutter 'finally' and carried it over to the table. Iced tea of varying sweetness for himself and Alex, iced coffee for Lester, and an Arnold Palmer for Marion. Alex sniffed his iced tea, switched it with Paul's, and stuck a straw in. The coyote rolled his eyes as he sat down. Lester finished up with his phone and Alex turned off his eyepiece without removing it.

"Mr. Clark, Mr. Benson, let's begin," Lester said, nodding to Alex and Paul, respectively. "I've looked over your case. The file you have is pretty extensive. You've taken good notes, done good research on the contracts, found similar cases. I'm genuinely impressed." He tapped the folder. "I've checked my own libraries, talked to a few other attorneys, and looked at the precedents on these body-lease contracts. And I am afraid to say that in my professional opinion, you're screwed."

"Does that mean you can't help us?" Alex asked, his ears flattening. "They made me Convert and get an interface to take the job, and it's going to take another... I dunno, at least seven years to pay it off, assuming they don't nickel-and-dime me more than they already do. I thought I was just getting a job with really cheap company housing, and..." He sighed and trailed off.

"And technically, it is cheap company housing. That's why they bodyswapped you from human to fennec, so the desert housing is bearable. They installed the datajack in your head so you could do the job. But they've also covered their bases on the contracts, I'm afraid. They are technically delivering everything, and with a minimum of confusing fine print."

"What about the Graham v. Catalyst lawsuit?" Paul asked, gesturing towards the folder with his iced tea. "There's a precedent there."

"That's because Catalyst was Converting people using cheap equipment from a Swap Meat -- gene-mod black market, sorry -- with med students performing the procedure. The bodies didn't live up to the contract they presented."

"I can guarantee you that Quint used cheap, second-hand tech," Paul sighed. "I've seen it, on inspections. It's a refurbished patchwork, and not a great one."

"But there haven't been any huge health problems from it because they did a better job," Lester said. He held up a hand to forestall Alex's objection. "I mean by comparison, Alex. Obviously, none of these things ever come out one-hundred percent all the time, even with professional med-techs."

"Alex, Paul's a second-gen so he wouldn't know -- no offense," Marion chimed in from behind her tablet. "But from someone else who came of age as human, our unmodded bodies weren't a hundred percent, either. You should know this."

"There's an unwritten threshold as to the point where the courts will intervene," Lester said as he shot her a look. "And I mean both public and corp courts. Right now, it's cheaper for the company to cover any health problems gratis than write off the cost of the bodyswap."

"And Catalyst was actually adding that to the debt," Paul sighed as he stared at the table. "Right."

"So you're saying the contract is air-tight?" Alex asked. "There aren't any loopholes? Not a single spot where they've failed thoroughly enough to breach?"

"Not that I've seen," Lester said with a headshake.

"Which means they've probably covered it up," Marion added, bitterly, still poking at her tablet.

"Dear," Lester sighed.

"What?" She set the tablet down with a furrowed brow. "It's true. You know how this works, you know how it always--" She cut herself off, recognizing the rising volume of her voice and the very public space.

"She's right, though," Alex said, a whine edging into his voice. "I've seen their computers, I know how their internal reporting works. Problem is, as many engineers and programmers as they've hired, their digital security guy is just better. Not even Je--" He bit his tongue. "Not even an independent security consultant, who may or may not have done me a solid for this purpose, has found their skeleton closet yet."

Marion's ears pricked up with recognition at the mention of the couple's hacker friend. They hadn't mentioned him to the Briscoes before, Paul noted. He filed her reaction away for later inquiry.

"Is there any way you can get the security guy on-board?" Lester asked. "Even just one internal document that could be verified by a corporate court might be enough to tip the balance."

Alex shook his head. "The DigSec guy is human, doesn't live in the town. Works remotely out of, I wanna say, a luxury condo in..." He thinks. "It doesn't matter. He's not sympathetic and doesn't have much reason to be."

"So what are our options?" Paul asked, in the hopes of getting something productive out of this meeting.

"Barring private negotiation or proof of intentional misconduct, not much..." He thought a moment and glanced at Marion with a meaningful gleam in his eye. "What do you think?"

Marion returned her husband's look and turned to the coyote and fennec. "Don't focus on the contract," she began with a lowered voice. "The contract is, for the moment, teflon. Assume nothing will stick. Instead, what you need to do is to improve the living conditions. Make them fix things on time, force them to properly stock the scrip market, stuff like that. If you're stuck working with them for seven years, you make them a decent seven years for you and/or an annoying seven years for them." Her sharp, even tone carried the weight of unfortunate experience.

"And if you're very, very lucky," Lester added with a nod of agreement. "They may just bribe you by reducing or even dropping the debt just to get you to go away."

"If you can live with abandoning the rest of Zerda Town to it," Marion said, her frown and the tilt of her ears signaling her opinion of that idea.

"I'm not encouraging it. I'm not even saying it's ideal," Lester was quick to say, as much to her as to the two young men. "But the option may come up and it might be worth discussing because it could very well be your best option."

That thought hung in the air for several uncomfortable seconds, accompanied solely by the sounds of the nearby espresso machine and not-quite-indie music coming from the coffee shop's speakers.

"Thank you very much for your time," Alex said, flatly.

The fennec unceremoniously scooped up the files they'd brought and got up to head for the door. Paul quickly stood up, muttered a quick apology, and grabbed their drinks. Marion reached out, quick as a whip, and gripped his arm.

"If you find anything new, let us know. There are options," she whispered.

"I thought the contract was 'air-tight.'"

"I'm not talking about the contract." The older raccoon woman's mask gave her expression an ominous quality as she released his arm.

"If you knew our hacker friend, you'd know that if he can't find it..." Paul offered her an apologetic smile.

The coyote, taking a moment to remind himself which beverage was which, quickly followed his boyfriend out the door.

"They're adorable at that age, aren't they?" Marion said with a bitter edge to her voice. She turned to Lester and met his gaze. He gave her a questioning, if concerned look. Her eyes carried determination, but her tail brushed over his in a simple gesture to assuage his concern.

* * *

"It's not 'worth discussing,'" Alex said as Paul caught up with him just outside.

They pushed past a human woman on her way in to the coffee shop. Alex immediately turned to growl something unpleasant at her, anything to feel like he'd regained a modicum of control over his life, when Paul grabbed his shoulder. That broke his momentum enough to notice she had kids with her, and that more or less muzzled him. He sighed and just tucked his smaller body under Paul's arm as they walked to where his car was plugged in.

As suited as they both were to handle the heat outside Vegas, the car was still something of a sauna when they got in. They sat there for a few moments, in silence, as the car's A/C pumped the hot air out. Alex sipped his drink and rested his head against the passenger side of the dashboard, feeling warm plastic under his forehead.

"Maybe we can have Jex take another run at their servers?" Paul asked. "Marion seems to think that we've still got options, but I'm not sure what they are."

"I think they might have been talking about organizing," Alex said. "They mentioned 'improving living conditions' and all that, and that's sure as hell not something I can do on my own."

"What, like a union?" Paul considered that a moment. "If you can get the rest of Zerda Town in on it, it could work."

"Could it? You work for the Labor Commission."

"If you can do it and get them to respect it. But you'd need everyone on-board and preferably some sort of outside backing. It could go either way, though. There's a non-zero chance they say 'screw it,' fire you all, install extra air conditioners in Zerda Town, and hire scabs. And we've seen the legalese; they can fire you and to keep you on the hook for paying off the Conversion."

Alex released a snarl of frustration at the ceiling of the car and resisted the urge to hit either it or the dashboard. After a moment's fidgeting he just buried his muzzle in his hands to restrain another such snarl. "Dammit!"

"But we could try," Paul said, reaching out to squeeze the fennec's shoulder. "The threat of it alone should give us negotiating leverage."

The coyote hoped that sounded more convincing than it felt.

"We should continue this at home," Paul added, glancing in his mirror. A security guard for the shopping plaza had just finished a conversation with the woman Alex almost growled at, and was headed their way. Without explaining, he hit the button to disconnect and retract the car's charging cable and pulled out of the parking lot as quickly as he could without hurting anyone.

* * *

Paul drove down a street in the small community semi-officially named 'Zerda Town.' Morphs with bodies designed to cope with desert conditions -- fennecs, mostly, but also a couple of coyotes and some sort of cat species he could never remember -- strolled the streets, either heading to or from the Quint Corp-built complex in the middle, nicknamed 'The Hub.' The ground floor of the complex handled what little shopping and dining there was: a pair of chain restaurants, an unremarkable grocery store, a clothing store, and a food court that sometimes served double duty for 'community center'-type activities. The remaining half-dozen floors consisted of office spaces and computer labs where the employees of Zerda Solutions worked off the indentured servitude that came with the initial promises of 'low-cost living' and 'networking with potential future employers.' A station outside served as a pick-up and drop-off point for a self-driving shuttle bus moving between the Hub and nearby towns.

Concentric circles of identical, functional, inexpensive townhomes radiated outwards from the complex. Solar panel roofs took in the desert's abundance of sunlight. Paul navigated the streets with ease, knowing by heart how to find his way back to Alex's unit. He pulled into the driveway and got out to plug his car in and top off the charge. He and Alex hadn't spoken since leaving the coffee shop.

Alex's large ears drooped as he opened up the front door and made a beeline for the kitchen, folders tucked under one arm. Paul followed him in, knowing when to let Alex stew in his own frustrations. He just sat at the table as Alex dumped out what was left of his watered down iced tea and grabbed a beer from the fridge. He pulled out a second one and held it up, but Paul shook his head and he put it back before opening his beer and sitting down. The papers hit the table with a dull 'smack.'

"That could have gone better," Alex said.

"What were you expecting?" Paul asked, trying to sound non-judgmental. "Some sort of legal magic bullet that could hit all of Quint's lawyers at once?"

"A little bit?" He took a sip of the beer. It was cheap and he'd need a few more to get any sort of buzz, but he was in it for the act of 'cracking open a cold one' more than any desire to get drunk just past lunchtime. "I thought that maybe there was some way to get out of this mistake I've made."

"There are ways," Paul said. "And it wasn't a total mistake. I mean, if you hadn't followed up on the job offer, we wouldn't have met." Paul smiled at a thought. "Also, you'd still be human, and that never works out for anyone." He winked with that playful smirk you could only really get on a coyote muzzle.

Alex gave a grateful half-smile at the attempt to lighten the mood before turning to stare balefully, ears slightly back, at the folders full of papers and research.

"I just thought... I mean, the job offer was essentially 'come work for us for a couple years, live someplace cheap, build up a nest egg, and all you need to do is Convert into a morph so the desert is more livable.' I didn't know the 'nest egg' would be company scrip that's next to worthless more than a 10 minute walk from here, 'a couple years' would be most of a decade, and 'someplace cheap' is a rathole a half-hour bus ride from the city."

Paul bit back a snarky comment about Alex's tendency towards inflated expectations. But only barely.

"But the way out is going to involve... what?" the fennec continued. "Organizing some sort of workers' union out of the other folks stuck here? How am I supposed to do that myself? Or just the two of us, for that matter?"

"Well, first off, it's not just the two of us," Paul gently reminded him. "There have to be other people willing to work with you on this and convince everyone else. That's literally how unions work, that you're sharing the burden and empowering each other."

Paul got up and tossed his cup in the trash, then went to a shiny black box about a cubic meter in size on the kitchen counter. A column on the front lit up to reveal a touchscreen interface. He browsed some menus, tail thoughtfully swaying, while he opened a front hatch and put in a pair of empty plates.

"Okay, so where do I start?" Alex asked as the coyote tapped in an order for lunch.

"Well, first off, we start with the laziest, most basic of research. See if there's any existing local unions we can get to back us, or less-local looking to expand. But until then, we go with an old trick. Head into The Hub and put up a flier for a pickup game of... oh geez, what can you play in the desert; we'll say softball."

Alex just blinked at him.

"'Pickup game' is an old code for 'secret union meeting,'" Paul explained.

"How old?"

"Before bodyswapping. Before the corporate courts. I don't know how many people will still get the reference, but it's a start -- and unless we're literally the only ones there who haven't put any thought into something like this, we'll at least get a few people who want to help. We get them, they talk to the rest, and so forth."

Alex just stared at Paul for a minute as he opened up the food maker and withdrew two plates of spaghetti and meatballs.

"You really think we can do this?" he asked.

"I think we're more likely to pull it off by actually trying to do it than not. And even a corporate judge isn't going to let them punish us for unionizing." An unspoken 'probably' punctuated the sentence.

"Really?" Alex tilted an ear. "That'd be a weird exception given what they get away with."

"I think the idea is that if your employees successfully unionize, you deserve whatever they manage to wrangle out of you."

Alex took a bite of his pasta, a thoughtful frown on his muzzle. He seemed less than reassured. But he also knew, deep down, that it was his own decisions that got him into this. Maybe less 'wallowing' and more 'trusting Paul's instincts' would be the right play.

* * *

"The term they use is 'collective bargaining,'" Paul explained to Alex's neighbors in the corner of the diner. "We use that, and it gives us leverage over Quint."

Alex looked uneasily over the group. The flier had gotten about a dozen of the others from Zerda Town to meet with them at a small casual restaurant in the city proper to discuss the possibility of unionizing the programmers and engineers of Zerda Solutions. Paul, who was used to talking shop about business as an investigator with the state Labor Commission, consulted talking points on his phone. His thumb swiped the screen as he beamed digital copies of pamphlets he'd found to others at the table. The fennecs around the long table in the corner, all Converts off the same template, looked like a tan picket fence about to fall apart with their tall, sharp ears bobbing or moving when someone asked a question or got a refill from one of the pitchers.

Alex, nursing something fruity and non-alcoholic, self-consciously glanced at the rest of the clientele. The place was mostly unaltered humans, with only a couple of morphs among customers and none among the staff. That was common in places that served food and drink, for 'health reasons.' Either way, it meant that the dozen-ish morphs were probably more than the place had seen in the previous month. But even this being slightly more of a restaurant that served beer than a bar that served food, Alex couldn't put it out of his head that one of the human customers would find an excuse to start trouble.

A year and a half ago, he'd have been on the other side of that divide. While he didn't think he'd ever really been prejudiced against morphs then, he still questioned what the view would have been like if he were behind the counter. Or that woman with her kids at the coffee shop the other day. Even before his Conversion, he wasn't the best with people, and now his boyfriend was trying to convince his co-workers to join a union to help him out.

It didn't sit right that he was just sitting there.

The fact that Alex had largely checked out of Paul's spiel meant that he was the first to notice the approaching doom that was Earl Mason. He nudged Paul's foot under the table, but either he was kicking the wrong person or Paul just didn't get the hint before the boss showed up. The conversation -- not just at the table, but seemingly through the restaurant, faded to ominous silence.

Earl was human, 40's with brown hair and blue eyes. He made enough money to restore his hairline with gene mods (subtle unless you knew what to look for) but not enough to adjust his metabolism to flatten his gut. He eschewed his normal suit for an unflattering turtleneck and khakis.

"Oh, don't stop on my account," he said with a grin, showing off slightly too-straight teeth.

The 'fence' collapsed. Ears drooped and laid back all at once when everyone noticed Earl's presence. Twitching lips and tilted ears painted the group with a mix of fear and anger. They all began nervously looking at each other, each one waiting for someone to speak up. More than a few eyes turned towards Paul and Alex.

"I was out and about and happened to notice that a bunch of my employees were having a get-together here," Earl continued. "Thought I'd be friendly. So how'd the game go? Celebrating?" He nodded to the empty pitchers of beer, a knowing gleam in his eye.

"We're still sorting a few things out, but we appreciate the interest," Paul said evenly. "Nobody here has anything to be afraid of." He stood up to stare down the boss. "We're talking options on improving a few things around Zerda Town."

"Who the hell are you again?" Earl sneered. "Getting any sort of finder's fee for getting union cards signed?"

Paul's ears flattened so quick Alex was sure he could feel the breeze. "No, that's not--"

"Anyway," the man interrupted, holding his arms out as if he was trying to be everyone's friend. "I should get going here in a minute. But y'know, my car's down for the night. Software patch, darnedest thing. So I'm gonna commandeer the shuttle to get home." He looked around at the crowd at the table. "After that, though, I'm probably gonna shut it down for the night to patch it, too."

The insides of the fennecs' ears paled at that, and more than a few eyes widened. Without the shuttle, they'd be stranded without bumming rides, and car services weren't cheap even if your spending ability wasn't throttled by company scrip. The unspoken message was clear: Meeting's over if you want to make it home tonight. Earl remained quiet for a few moments, watching them all have the same unspoken conversation, and waited for the perfect moment to speak again.

"Anyone need a lift?" he casually asked, like he was doing them a favor.

Most of the Zerda Town residents at the table got up, heads hung low. A few cast worried or guilty looks at Paul and Alex, but within moments a group of about a dozen was reduced to three besides the meeting's organizers. By the time they finished shuffling out, Paul had sat back down, his muzzle in his hands. He muttered something you couldn't say on TV before 11pm.

"We can make sure you guys get home if you need it," Alex quickly said. The remaining three, a sand cat of his acquaintance named Brenda and pair of fennecs he didn't know, looked wary.

"I got them," she said, nodding towards the other two. "But is the union paying for this?"

"No, not at all," Paul quickly said, his head snapping up. "I'm still reaching out to individual organizations. We've got a few unions waiting for a call but nobody has endorsed this. I held off on committing to anyone specifically to avoid this sort of accusation. For all the good it's done me. I'm getting nothing out of this beyond the satisfaction of knowing I'm helping."

"And making life easier for your boyfriend," one of the fennecs said.

"Yes, that's a part of it, I've never pretended otherwise," Paul said. "But my job -- my career -- is about trying to make things better and easier for the people who work in Nevada." He sighed, defeated. "I just want to help," he whimpered.

"Well, you find another way to help and I'll be there. Good luck," the cat said. She stood up and made sure she had her keys. "You two coming?"

The remaining employees, still looking uncertainly at Paul and Alex, got up and followed her outside.

"What was that?" Alex whispered. "What just happened?"

"What happened is that he moved a lot sooner than I thought he would." Paul checked his tab with his phone for the food and drink he bought for the meeting, winced, and paid it with a thumb swipe. "There's an extremely short list of retaliations he can legally get away with, but that's on it. I thought if we got people on the same page before something like this, that'd give us a foundation of trust to work on, but..."

"Even if people know he's full of crap, even if they know he's just going to keep yanking their chains, he just broke a lot of momentum." Alex frowned. "So what now?"

"I'm not sure," Paul sighed, staring at the door.

* * *

A few days after the disastrous meeting, when Alex woke, he reflexively reached over to jiggle his phone to 'snooze' the alarm. When that didn't work, he perked an ear up and realized it wasn't his alarm but a special notice. He sat up as quickly as he could without disturbing Paul asleep next to him. He reached up to fix an inside-out ear but that did nothing for his mussed and ruffled fur. He grabbed the phone and read the screen.

"Oh come on," he growled. "Paul, get up."

"Everything okay?" Paul asked, taking a moment to check his own phone just to see he was up about an hour and a half earlier than usual.

"'For security reasons, starting next week we will be issuing a limited number of entrance-slash-parking passes for non-employees visiting the Zerda Solutions Company Campus, to prevent industrial espionage,'" Alex read aloud. "And there's a link here to apply for one, with fine print saying it may take up to two weeks to hear back. And then, let's see, a little further down... 'We would also like to make sure all employees are aware of the clause in your work contracts regarding termination as it applies to your Upgrade Repayment Agreement. This also includes willful self-termination. If your work contract is terminated and you would like to return to work with us, we will find an entry-level position for you, out of generosity.'"

Paul frowned. "Okay, yeah, see, I knew that if they fire you you're still on the hook for the Conversion and any interface implants. But the rest... are they basically threatening to fire people and then hire them back for less?"

"Yup." Alex dumped the phone onto the bed and shuffled downstairs towards the kitchen. Paul got up to follow.

The fennec put a couple of mugs in the food box and hit the 'Morning Preset 1' menu button. He scowled at the appliance and the logo marking it as a knockoff of a major brand, as if his anger at the device could punish the company that put it there in the first place. Paul followed him in and planted himself at the table. The maker dinged and Alex pulled out two cups of coffee. He set one in front of Paul and sat down with the other.

"What are you going to do?" Paul asked, a little worried about the anger reflected in Alex's muzzle and his puffed-up tail.

"I'm... Oh hell, I don't know. Something stupid." He rubbed his face, took a few deep breaths, and sipped his coffee. "Actually, I'm going to submit an official complaint about the new parking policy when I get in to work today."

"That does seem excessive just to get me."

"No, I know how these people think. It's not just you and me, even if we were the proverbial straw." Alex lowered his mug and looked at Paul. "It's anyone here who doesn't want to live and die according to the shuttle schedule, and city busses don't come out here. You notice how few cars there are in Zerda Town? It's not just because we don't need to drive to work; it's because most of us can't afford to maintain a vehicle on what they pay us, especially after converting scrip to cash. Most of the cars you see parked here are friends and partners." He leaned in, looking Paul in the eyes. "If we can't come and go on our own terms, we're stuck here at Quint's whims. And this makes it that much harder."

"Okay, I hadn't thought of that," the coyote said between sips of his coffee, a slight blush coloring his ears. "So you're gonna complain?"

"Damn right. And I'm gonna include an itemized list of stuff that needs to be fixed, or upgraded, or whatever, to make this whole little community livable. The roads, the stores, the network access nodes, all of it. And if it's gotta be, that list is gonna be weekly."

"You know what you should do," Paul said with a playful glint and that coyote-smirk. "See if you can BCC that list to the companies that contract Zerda Solutions."

"There's a thought," Alex said, perking up and considering the possibilities. "I'd have to dig up the list but that... that's a good idea. Let them know who they're hiring, and maybe hope that one of them will have enough of a conscience to say something."

"Like writing to advertisers to get shows canceled back in the old days," Paul added.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "How old are you again? Are you sure you're not some senior citizen who blew a long-built fortune on becoming young again?"

"You got me. I'm actually 164 years old, and I've used bodyswap tanks twice to restore my youth, just to date hot fennecs and work for an underfunded state office," Paul joked. He glanced at the clock. "Speaking of which, this old man thinks we've got plenty of time for a nice, long shower before work if you're up for it."

Alex was indeed up for it.

* * *

Alex stared at the cubicle wall as he tried to remember the password he needed to get a list of Zerda Solution's clients. Quint Corp had Zerda build its own software designs, but other companies contracted Zerda to offload technical busywork. That often consisted of building and maintaining net sites and augmented reality ads, running certification tests on software, and some 'find what's wrong with this app' technical support. But to make sure he had the complete list, he needed his billing supervisor Randy's system access.

Which, really, meant remembering the names of his pets. It would be easier if he saw the human Quint Corp accountant more than once every two weeks, but he had to make do. The guy had three cats, and the first two (Loki and Shadow) hadn't worked. Alex swiveled his ears nervously, tracking the others in the office by sound, making sure nobody saw him trying to guess the password of someone he mostly worked for. Or, for that matter, saw him screwing around when he was supposed to be working through lunch.

Not that there was much to work on, as he couldn't continue work on that virtual pleasure palace until another member of his team finished a driver compatibility test. That just left him to remember the name of Randy's striped tabby.

Wait, could it be that simple? He typed in 'Tiger' followed by the last two digits of Randy's birth year.

"The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage," he whispered as he found himself with Randy's access in the company database. He found a basic contact list -- names and contact information for each of their clients, plus a vague description of the work done and the lead on that team. He paired a touchpad to the computer and dumped that list into the data storage space intended to hold on-board drivers, rather than risk putting it on his technically-still-company-owned head drive that came with his implant.

He glanced over the names a bit before logging out and covering his tracks, but one thing stuck with him. A company called "Brezhnev Investment Group" was contracting Zerda for 'financial processing,' which was completely unlike anything else the company did. The entry also included the lead on that team, and as luck would have it he knew her extension.

"Brenda Simms," the voice on the other end said as the sand cat picked up.

"Hey Brenda, it's Alex Clark, we talked the other night?"

"I remember," she said warily, immediately concerned about where the conversation could be going.

"Can I buy you lunch? I wanted to talk to you about an... investment opportunity that might benefit both of us."

"Would this be related to the deal we were talking about the other evening?"

"It would, as a matter of fact. I found another way to help make that deal happen." Alex glanced at his screen, thinking a moment. "I just need to process some finances first."

"I'm currently working through lunch, but I could step away. Meet you at the tables outside? Shade-side?"

"Of course. I'll see you in a few."

A few minutes later Alex strolled across a small plaza next to the Hub, on the side currently in the shadow from the sun. Brenda sat at the table with a brown paper bag. The fennec quickly moved to sit across from her.

"I decided I technically owed you a meal," she said, sliding the bag in his direction.

Alex raised an eyebrow and peeked in the bag to find a couple of sandwiches purchased from one of the vending machines and a small bag of dried fruit. He pulled the sandwich out and spotted a napkin-wrapped bundle about the size and shape of a thumb drive. He glanced at her.

"Go ahead and eat," she said, pulling out one of the sandwiches and removing the plastic cover. She took a bite. "It's harder for the cameras to make out what we're saying with the 'interference,'" she mumbled around the food, and Alex followed suit.

"You figured out what I was asking about?" Alex said, tapping the bag with a finger.

"The Brezhnev data, yeah." She took another bite. "That's not everything I got, but it's the most I could download without setting off alarms. Mostly transfer records, some account numbers, routing stuff. My whole department is shady as hell, and I'm stuck there. I'm doing things I don't like."

He nodded as he took another thoughtful bite. The sandwich was perfectly edible without being strictly good. He wasn't even sure what type of meat it was, but it had cheese and mayo so it wasn't all bad.

"I'm helping to build a virtual brothel," Alex said with a shrug.

"Not that it's a competition, but I'm doing crime."

Alex inhaled a chunk of bread crust and started coughing, his body reflexively trying to dislodge it. "What?" he rasped.

Brenda leaned in. "My team at Zerda is managing software that automates laundering money through investments," she said, her voice low.

"Not that it's a competition," Alex said, his throat clear now. "But you win." He took another bite off his sandwich.

"You'd better do something with that. Something useful, something quick. You even knowing the name of my team's client is enough to get me fired, if they find out." She took a big bite out of her sandwich, rewrapped the rest of it, and stood up. "You can have the rest of that," she said, loudly, gesturing to the bag before she strolled back inside.

Still eating the sandwich with one hand -- he was still hungry, what with the working through lunch and all -- Alex pulled his phone out, unfolded it, and sent a text to the Briscoes consisting solely of the words "Something new."

* * *

Alex and Paul hung out just off the Vegas Strip, at a bar with an outdoor patio, someplace nice and public. Alex tried and failed to not glance at his phone on the table every couple of minutes. Being out in the open, while apparently a safety measure they had to consider, brought on its own paranoia. Paul dealt with it by sampling assorted beverages with the '-tini' suffix, but Alex was fine just to nurse a beer for however long it took.

Alex's phone beeped, and before the fennec morph could even process that it had happened Paul managed to deftly spin the phone around to read the message.

"Okay, it's Marion. 'Everything's set. Order a taxi to...'" he trailed off with a 'yada yada yada.' "There's an address. And she says specifically to get an autocab, not a driven one, which is weird." He spun the phone back. "You get this, I'll pay for drinks."

An app later for each of them, and they went from watching Alex's phone to glancing at the nearby street for the cab. A surprisingly short wait later, Alex's phone beeped that their vehicle had arrived as the cab pulled up on the street. The fennec and coyote got up, the former a little steadier than the latter, and moved over to the cab.

Alex opened the door to find a vixen with almost blood-red fur sitting on the bench seat facing towards the rear of the vehicle. Her eyes had an almost unnatural shine to them in the dim light of the cab. She held out a black-furred hand and waved them in. Alex shot Paul a look and climbed into the bench seat in the back, across from her. Paul followed and both waited until the door closed and the car got on its way before saying anything. Alex reached up and turned on the overhead light to get a decent look at her.

She wore a t-shirt with the "Arcadia Casino and Hotel" logo on it and a pair of shorts. What at first looked like a series of rings in one ear turned out to be one single, long, coil-shaped piercing reminiscent of the binding on one of Paul's old notebooks. The shine in her eyes was either from a pair of high-end AR contacts or she'd actually gotten implants on the surface of her eye. A thin plastic strip ran around the back of her head, which would have passed for certain types of headphones on an unmodded human.

Aside from the tech, anyone who saw her on the Strip would have written her off as a tourist.

"Who are you?" Paul asked.

"The Briscoes and I go way back," she said, sounding a little rough. Her voice and the appearance of the fur around her muzzle suggested she might be Marion's age, but in the car it was tough to tell from her physique. "Do you have the drive?"

"Hold on, why should we assume you are who we think you are?" Alex asked. He glanced out the tinted windows, reasonably sure they weren't actually going to the address he'd punched in on the app.

The vixen raised a hand and simply glanced up at the ceiling (or maybe she was rolling her eyes) and the sound of a phone line ringing came over the cab's speakers. Halfway through the second ring, someone picked up.

"You got them?" Marion Briscoe asked over the speaker.

"I got them," she said. "They're questioning it."

"I didn't tell them who they were meeting, just gave them the instructions you told me."

"We're right here," Alex said, annoyed.

"You should have told me I was on speaker," Marion chided. "Alex, Paul, this is an old friend of mine. She used to work with Lester, and our kids are friends with her son--"

"They don't need my life story," the vixen said, frowning as she cut off the raccoon. She looked at Alex and Paul and gestured to the speaker as if to ask 'is that good enough?' before hanging up the call without waiting for a reaction.

"Now that was rude," Paul said, bluntly, his speech slightly slurred from the alcohol he'd been drinking.

"They know what they're getting. Do you have the drive?" she asked, holding a hand out.

Alex handed it to her. She turned it over in her fingers, and he was sure he could see something in her eye twitch as she examined it. She reached up and slid back a small panel on the strip running around her head and plugged it in. She nodded after a moment and unplugged it before tucking it into a pocket. Alex and Paul just stared at her, waiting to see if she was going to say anything.

"Well?" the fennec asked after a couple of minutes of silence, his ears laying back with frustration.

"What?" she asked.

"Is that what you need? Where are we going?" He raised his voice. "What in the world is going on?"

She sighed disdainfully. "There's useful data on the drive. We're going back to my workshop and I'm going to use the trail of breadcrumbs to find something 'scandalous.'" She said the last word mock-dramatically.

"What's on it, anyway?" Paul asked as he tried to will himself to sober up. "Alex said it's routing numbers and things."

"I'll take a closer look on my shielded system back home, but I'm pretty sure it's proof that Zerda is helping the Russian mob launder money. Or at least it will be once I fill in the dots."

"Are you kidding me?" Alex asked, sitting up, his ears going ramrod-straight and brushing the ceiling.

"I recognize the routing methods and the geo-traces match on the IPs," she explained. "Between that and what Alex told Marion, I have trouble imagining it being anything else. Which is good because not even the corporate courts will respond well to that."

"What do you think they'll do?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We'll get to that once I've had the chance to look it over. Speaking of which..." The car stopped. "We're here. I'll get you a fresh car when we're done."

The doors unlocked and the three of them got out into a two-car garage. There was barely enough space to park the cab, and as soon as they closed the doors it pulled back out into the night and the garage door closed either automatically or by the vixen's mental command.

The garage had several long work tables full of computer equipment, much of it taken apart, but Alex recognized no fewer than four separate desktop systems of different models. He noticed what he could only describe as a metal latticework on the inside of the walls and ceilings with a variety of devices attached to it that he couldn't recognize. He took a moment to check his phone and determined two things -- there was no cell signal, but there were local network routers available should he need them. In one corner stood a pair of dusty bookcases with full shelves drooping from the weight.

"Why do you have a Faraday cage but also wireless access?" he asked her as he put his phone away.

"You, coffee," she said, turning Paul towards a coffee pot that looked like it'd been liberated from a hotel lobby when their parents were kids. "You, here," she said to Alex, taking him over to one of the computers and plugging the drive in.

"It's easier to mask the location if I can intercept wireless signals and send them through hardlines, and the cage makes sure nothing else gets in or out without my knowledge or permission."

The computer already began running a variety of processes and scans on the drive, and it was in that moment that Alex realized that none of the systems he saw had keyboards, touchpads, or anything like that plugged in. He glanced at the band on the back of the vixen's head and realized that it would cover up any neural interface she had.

"You're controlling all this with implants?"

"I'm better with systems than people," she said as if that explained everything. "One of the reasons why being a lawyer didn't work out. I work pro bono publica now," she said, smiling for the first time as if enjoying a private joke.

She went to a humming fridge easily as old as the coffee pot and pulled out a bottled water for herself, then offered one to Alex, who accepted it and took a sip. She flopped down into the only chair -- a beat-up recliner, which like the fridge and the coffee pot contained no digital components whatsoever. Every few moments she stopped and tilted her head as if considering something, and straightened up with an eartwitch.

"Are you finding anything?" Alex asked, glancing at a framed photo (wooden frame, paper photo) of the vixen standing next to another red fox her age, watching a fox boy blow out 10 candles on a cake that read 'Happy Birthday, Larry.' Also in the photo he distinctly recognized a younger Marion Briscoe with a son and daughter. He hadn't been a morph long enough to gauge their ages, but figured they were probably within a couple of years in either direction. The photo was the only personal touch that suggested she had anything resembling a life outside of this Faraday cage.

She looked at Alex like she'd forgotten he was there. "Plenty, and already following up. I'll put together something that works for both the press and the corp courts. I'll be honest, Quint has some pretty impressive DigSec, but I've got workarounds."

"We've got a guy who's tried getting in, but he didn't have any luck."

"Marion told me about your friend Jex. He's good, but his usual approaches are..." she stopped. "Are you a hacker?"

"I'm a computer engineer, a coder," Alex said, a little defensively. "Never got into the serious hacking, though." He shot a glance at Paul, who was busy looking over the bookshelves and not paying attention to the conversation. "You know Jex, though?"

"I don't know him personally, but we've crossed paths. Short version, he's good but my methods are more effective."

"Should I tell him I met... who are you, again? I never got your name."

"I'm Sophie. He'll know me as 'Pro Bono.'" She paused for a beat. "Because I help people and I don't get paid for it. I've got an alternative revenue stream."

"Have you been doing this long, Sophie?"

"The hacker stuff? Close to twenty years. But the legal stuff? Longer, but I haven't done it in-depth in a while. The late legal stuff overlaps with the early hacker stuff. It's all about helping guys like you fight the system." She turned towards the bookcases and saw Paul there. "Hey, could you leave those alone, please?"

Paul put back the book he was looking at, brushed his dusty fingers off on his pants, and came back over with his empty coffee cup.

"Find anything?" the coyote asked, clearly much more stable now.

"I'm putting a file together that should do some damage. Everything there will be independently verifiable so they can't necessarily prove we broke the law to get it. It's tailored to your needs." She grinned. "So, do you want this company destroyed, anyone specific ruined, or...?"

Both Alex and Paul blinked.

"I can't bring down Quint, they're too big," she continued. "But I could financially burn Zerda to the ground if it comes to it."

"No, no!" Paul and Alex both said, more or less simultaneously.

"People still need those jobs, and the company owns their houses, and they still have them all under contracts to pay off Conversions and implants and those won't go away," Paul explained.

"Then what do you want?"

"We want to be out from under Quint's thumb," Alex blurted out. "Long story short? If we could take the company independent, run it ourselves -- like, all of us, not just me and Paul -- and just rework it to be a little less... evil. That's what we want."

Sophie stared at him for a moment.

"You're a better person than I, Alex," the vixen said. Somehow, her tone when saying 'better' made it sound a lot like 'dumber.' Or maybe 'weaker.' "Okay, then. I'll give you a copy of the data. Lester can probably go over it more with you, but you should be able to use this to get Quint to get rid of Zerda, even if it's just to dodge their own consequences. Then, maybe, someone less evil can acquire it, or you and your fellow workers can scrape together the cash to buy it yourselves. However you decide to go about it, this should give you the leverage you need to do whatever it is you want to do."

She got up from her chair and rummaged through her equipment. Alex and Paul looked at each other, sharing a glance of uncertain optimism. She came back over with a portable drive and handed it to the fennec.

"This is a loaded gun," she said softly, with a tone that could only be described as reverence. "Once you fire it, you can't stop what happens next."

The pair looked at the drive, and then at each other, and simply nodded as they pocketed it.

* * *

"So you boys have some options now," Marion said the next day as she read over Lester's shoulder, skimming the data they'd acquired from Sophie. "Some planning to do."

"Well, we just release the data, right?" Alex asked with a frown. "Then..." He blinked and trailed off. "Oh."

"'Oh' is right," Lester said. He closed down the file, made sure the local copy was wiped, that his computer was airgapped, and that all of his basic legal client-security protocols were in effect. "You didn't think too far ahead, did you?" he asked, in a tone that carried no judgment.

"I defer to the experienced," Alex admitted, rubbing his face and running one hand back over his head, pushing his ears back and causing them to stick back up once his hand passed.

"There are two workable options," Lester said. "One, Paul gets this to his superiors, courts are contacted, charges get filed, then the usual negotiations to pay the fines begin."

"I thought the courts wouldn't ignore something like money laundering for the mob," Alex said.

"Yeah, that usually just means fines, unless somebody's dead or something," Paul admitted.

"Paul's right," Lester said with a nod. "We're talking about Zerda suddenly becoming a financial liability. They might sell off Zerda Solutions, or just dissolve it and either sell off the assets or rebuild it under a different name just to save the hassle. But fines would get paid, probably see some jail time for a few bosses. The workers would be legally fine, but Quint would still own your contracts and all that."

"But it would hurt them," Marion said, sounding like she wouldn't entirely mind that option.

"Or, you could release this to the media," Lester said, giving Marion a look. "It'd be a scandal, there'd be talk of investigations, and Quint would probably cut Zerda loose to save their butts. It'd probably be a little more intact, it'd be easier for somebody to buy it out, but the Zerda employees would likely be in better shape in the long run. Quint would get away with a lot of the stuff they've pulled up until now, but they'd be out of your lives."

"Or you could just try to blackmail Earl Mason," Marion said. "At which point he probably finds some way to destroy you either literally or metaphorically, take the data, maybe somebody gets hurt. I don't recommend it, but I believe in being thorough."

Alex took the portable drive and turned it over in his fingers, feeling the light plastic between his fingerpads, as if some clearer answer would appear on the casing.

"I mean, if it works," Marion continued. "It would get immediate and possibly dramatic results in your favor, or might lead to you just being paid to leave like we talked about in the coffee shop. But it would probably end badly for you."

"'Immediate and possibly dramatic results,'" Alex thought out loud. "Okay, I've got an idea, but I've got a couple more questions before we move forward," he said, eyes and ears pointed towards Lester with a laser-like focus.

* * *

One week later...

'IS ORGANIZED CRIME OUTSOURCING MONEY LAUNDERING?' the headline read on the news bulletin. Alex decided against reading the article, as he already knew most of the content. Much of the early articles to come out about Quint Corp using Zerda Solutions as a 'front' for criminal purposes read like someone scribbled notes from Sophie's acquired data onto index cards and just shuffled the order around.

"The investigators are starting to take an interest," Paul said as he looked up from his phone to see Alex skimming the news. "I've been asked to use up some paid vacation days while they work on it because I'm so close to the case, but I still hear things."

Alex used his own phone as a remote to browse through the video options on Paul's streaming accounts. He sat on the coyote's couch, his feet up on his suitcase as he relaxed in the apartment. Even having Converted some time ago, he was still getting used to being in living spaces that didn't smell like him, that carried the aromas of different fur and food -- even if it was familiar fur and familiar food.

"Well, you're likely to hear more than I would," the fennec said. "According to Brenda, everybody's department is shut down. I'm glad I got out while I could, because she said she's seen guys in suits going in and out of my place a few times."

Paul rolled his eyes. "Delightful."

"Hey, speaking of Brenda and the investigation..."

"She's fine, her team are all fine," Paul quickly said, an unspoken 'for now' ending the thought. "The 'just following orders' defense is working in their favor, though if Quint tries to fight the investigation too hard we'll see what happens." He tried not to give away his concern, but the way his ears flicked back for a second said it all.

Alex was about to reply when his phone chirped with an incoming video call. A number he didn't recognize. He raised an eyebrow at Paul and with a thumb-swipe answered it and sent it to the big screen. A middle-aged vixen in a suit in front of an office backdrop appeared. Her eyes were normal, her ears lacking in piercings, and there was no band wrapping around the back of her head, but he was certain this was Sophie. The fennec could spot the telltale signs of a digitally-created background, the sort of thing he wouldn't have noticed if he didn't literally pay the bills by creating virtual spaces.

"Mr. Clark, is this a good time?" she asked, her tone sounding dull and rehearsed.

"Sure, I guess."

"I represent a party that has expressed an interest in making an offer to acquire Zerda Solutions from Quint Corp." A set of legal credentials flashed on the screen, identifying the vixen as Sophia Matheson, attorney at law. "We are interviewing the team leads and internal management to gauge interest in a temporary acquisition and investment to get you on your feet as an independent software engineering firm."

Alex glanced at Paul, as if to ask 'is she reading this off cue cards?' "Can this... 'party,' do that?"

"Here is the experience and investment power that the company I represent brings to the table," she said. A window opened in front of her face, showing a data sheet on the company, how long it had been around, and so forth.

"This is so obviously fake," Paul whispered in Alex's ear. "But as long as it holds to casual scrutiny, I doubt anybody's going to challenge it. Quint won't, and as long as the state finds an excuse to fine Quint they won't care about the rest."

The window closed, rendering Sophie visible on the screen again. For the briefest of moments Alex was pretty sure he saw Sophie as she actually appeared, with her workshop in the background, before the virtual masking and backdrop reasserted themselves. Or maybe he just imagined it. The suit was real, though.

"Mr. Clark, do you think you and your people can work with my clients on this proposition?"

"Sure, though I'm wondering how they're finding the money to make the offer."

"My clients operate on an alternative revenue stream. That is all I am at liberty to say."

The briefest hint of a smirk crossed her muzzle.

"Just covering my bases," Alex said with a grin. "Let's get the ball rolling."

* * *

One month later...

Alex groaned as the tablet dinged with an incoming file. He sighed and scrolled to the end of the contract, skimming it in the process, and applied his thumbprint to sign it. Then he went to the next one, the tablet reading his eye movements to control the scroll of the text as he sat back in his own kitchen and sipped his now-cold cup of coffee.

"Hey, did you get the documents I sent you?" Paul asked as he came in to rummage through the fridge, setting some lunchmeat on the counter.

"I'm getting all of the documents," Alex sighed. "And I'm gonna take a break after this next one." He sat back and rubbed his eyes and jumped slightly when Paul gave him a surprise kiss on the cheek.

"You're the one that wanted the company in the hands of the employees. It means the new management has to do all of the paperwork."

Alex sighed. "And why can't..." He squinted at a name on a form. "...Petrillo Corp do this paperwork?"

"Because they're a front that only exists on paper to make this all easier in the short run," Paul said with a grin.

"You know that you're probably supposed to prevent me from engaging in any sort of fraud with these companies," Alex commented to the coyote as he hit the end of one of the shorter bits of paperwork and thumbed his 'signature' to it.

"Hey, we're not the ones who set up the phony company, and we actually can't prove who really did or that it's phony at all. All we know is all of the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed, and you guys are managing Zerda Solutions yourself." Paul looked at the tablet and rubbed Alex's shoulders, getting a pleased churring noise from his boyfriend. "The tricky part is reworking everything to use money and not scrip, especially since you can't just nullify the medical contracts."

"It's not perfect," Alex admitted with a frown. "But if I have to make a choice between dealing with a company that wants long-term indentured servants and a bank that doesn't give a crap as long as we're making payments, I'll take the bank."

"That's good, because getting the bank to take over those contracts was an absolute bitch," Paul muttered playfully. He kissed Alex's cheek and went back to making the sandwich he'd abandoned on the counter.

"Don't kill your appetite," Alex said. "As soon as I finish this next handful of signatures, Brenda and I are taking a bunch of folks out to dinner to celebrate and get the ball rolling on the new management structure."

"Am I buying? Again?"

"Nah, I got this one. But you're driving."

"Ugh, fine," Paul said with an exaggerated groan, kissing Alex's cheek. "Just lemme know when you're ready, I'll be in the living room," he said before he wandered off with his sandwich, leaving his boyfriend to finish transferring power from Quint Corp to Zerda Solutions.