It’s a fine summer day in the city. The sun is shining, birds are flying across the clear blue sky, and the asphalt is boiling hot. Yet despite the downright oppressive heat, there’s still plenty of people on the sidewalk, nearly every one of them done up in business formal. It might look snappy in an air conditioned boardroom, but from the speed most of them are walking, it’s not hard to tell that a three-piece suit is the last thing you want to wear when it’s ninety-five degrees outside. But that’s to be expected around here, with all the various offices clustered together like cells in a beehive. If I were feeling particularly haughty, I’d extend that metaphor and call them drones as well, but I’m hardly in a position to judge. I’m a wolf, and my outfit is quite a few pegs lower in terms of fanciness. Work boots, jeans, T-shirt, hazard vest, and a yellow hard hat to top it all off. The spitting image of the blue collar worker. I’m even carrying a toolbox to really tie the whole thing together. Of course, it’s all an act. I’m no tradesman, hell, I’ve never done a day of manual labour in my entire life. That doesn’t matter a bit, though: people part to let me pass, a few out of disdain for working Joes like I’m pretending to be, but most of them out of a sort of respect. It’s all in the vest. When you wear a hazard vest, people let you go wherever you want. It’s like it flips some switch in their brain. Endless towers of glass and concrete surround me as I walk down the street, and I let my gaze wander across the signs pasted above their doors. Morgan Electric. Amaterasu Software. CyberClave. They’re all the same to me, really. I wind up slipping through the doors of one Ackermann Financial, a curtain of cool air washing over me as I step into the lobby. The interior is just as interesting as the exterior, which is to say, not at all. Instead of concrete and windows, now it’s all glossy tile and fluorescent lights. I’m almost moved to spit, just to offset some of the sterility of it all, but there’s someone else here. An eagle, all wrapped up in a classy red dress, sitting at a desk just across from the entrance. She’s got an earpiece in, and her fingers are flying across the keyboard of her computer, clacking furiously. Must be the secretary. I stroll up to the front desk, leaning against it and resting my toolbox on its edge, and the eagle doesn’t even look up at me before speaking. “One moment, please.” Despite the courtesy, her cold, almost venomous tone makes it clear exactly what she thinks of me. One of the stuck up ones, that’s fine. That just means she’ll work faster to get me out of her hair, or feathers, as it were. After a couple more moments of typing, she finally deigns to look at me, her eyes filled with thinly veiled disgust. “Can I help you, sir?” She draws out that last word, like I barely even deserve to be called it. She’d probably prefer mutt, or cur. I have no idea how someone like her gets a job interacting with people. Still, I’m not here to judge, so I give her my warmest smile. “I’m here to fix a busted light in marketing?” Of course, I have no idea if there is a busted light in marketing, how I would even begin to fix one if there were, or if there’s a marketing department at all. But she doesn’t need to know that. She squints at me over her beak, and for a moment, I think she’s going to call my bluff. Maybe she’ll phone marketing to verify my story, or just call security outright and have them escort me out. It wouldn’t be the first time. But she doesn’t, just jerks out a hand, pointing at an elevator across the lobby with a talon. “Floor three,” she says, and then she’s back at her computer. I feel a bit of giddiness start to rise in my stomach. She’s practically given me carte blanche to the whole office just by not kicking me out. Entry’s always the hardest part, but once you get in, everyone just assumes that you’re supposed to be there. “Much obliged,” I say, tipping the front of my hard hat towards her, and I can hear her scoff under her breath. To be honest, it makes me want to grab the back of her head and smash her into her keyboard over and over again until her beak is going through the desk like a woodpecker’s, but I don’t. No way I’d get away with something like that in the front lobby. Instead, I turn and make my way over to the elevator, pressing the call button and slipping inside when the doors slide open. --- “Hey, Finn?” I jump slightly at the sound of my name, clicking out of the document I was working on and returning to my desktop. Not that I was doing anything inappropriate, of course, but it’s practically second nature at this point. Twisting around in my seat, I look back over my shoulder at my coworker, a maned wolf named Geoff. He’s spun his whole chair around to face me, so I do the same. “Yeah?” I ask, rolling my chair back a bit to better block my screen. I don’t know why I’m so particular about people not seeing what I’m working on, but it’s definitely a habit I need to break. Not conductive to an office environment, as my supervisor would put it. “Could you go drop these off with Wilson real quick?” He holds out a thick sheaf of papers towards me, held together with a paperclip in one corner. Forms for something or other, judging by all the tick boxes and initials on the front page. “I’d do it myself, but, y’know how it is.” I know exactly how it is. Geoff likes to offload little menial tasks like this onto me because he knows I’m too nervous to say no to something so minor. He thinks he’s real slick, and I find myself eager for that transfer request I put in last week to go through. “Sure, no problem,” I say, giving him a polite little smile, and grab the stack of papers with one hand. I take a moment to lean over the back of my chair and lock my terminal before I turn back around and walk out of the cubicle, thankful for the opportunity to put some distance between myself and Geoff. “Thanks man, you’re a lifesaver!” Geoff’s voice calls from behind me, but I don’t look back or acknowledge it in any way, just keep walking forward. The smile’s already slipped from my face, and I roll my eyes at his empty platitudes, but adopt a more neutral expression as I pass by one of the other occupied cubicles. Lifesaver, indeed. --- I’ve been walking around the halls of the third floor for a good ten minutes or so now, trying not to look too lost while I case the place. Thankfully, most everyone is cooped up in their cubicles and too focused on their work to even notice I’m here. The few people that aren’t either give me a wide berth or a respectful nod before going back to what they were doing. The vest: best fifteen bucks I’ve ever spent. After a bit more wandering, I manage to find what I’m looking for. In one of the less populated corners of the floor, there’s a storage closet, big enough to fit four people standing. The walls are covered in shelves packed with stationery, staplers, pens, general office supplies. More importantly, it has a thick door, one that completely muffles the hum of the office when it’s shut. Not quite soundproof, but close enough for my purposes; I’ll just have to be a little more careful. Finding a spot is only step one of my plan, though. Step two is going to take a bit of patience. Setting down my toolbox, I lean against the inside of the closet door, slipping into a bit of a daydream while I wait for someone to come down the hall. Thankfully, I don’t have to wait long. Even for a low trafficked area, this is still a hallway in a big office, and I can hear footsteps approaching after only eight minutes or so. I walk out of the closet, doing my best to look natural, and glance over at who it is. Mink, brown fur, white polo, khakis. Business casual, no tie. He’s got a stack of papers in one hand, and he’s staring at the ground while he walks, barely moving his arms. He glances up to meet my gaze, and he immediately breaks eye contact, staring off into space and tensing up for just a second. You can tell a lot about a person from how they walk, and I can immediately tell that this guy is the anxious type. Nervous, socially awkward, and with any luck, a pushover. Exactly what I’m looking for. --- It’s the moments when I’m in the hallway that I’m most tense. You don’t have the comfortable glow of your monitor to distract you, all packed away in your cubicle, as hidden from prying eyes as you can get in an office. No, all you have is the clicking of your claws against tile while you walk past cubicles full of prying eyes. Like a catwalk. But I’m exaggerating. It’s not that bad, really. I know that everyone else cares about what I’m doing just as much as I care about what they’re doing, which is to say not at all, but that knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. I still don’t know what to do with my hands, I can still feel the fabric of my clothes brushing against my fur with every step, I still can’t help but worry about whether my shirt is too wrinkled, and I still worry a million other little things that I’m doing wrong with every step. Still, even if every second that I spend walking the halls is an exercise in self-conscious torture, there’s still some small saving grace. At least I don’t actually have to talk to anyone. Usually. Most times. But looking up, I see a wolf in one of those orange worker vests staring at me, and I get the sinking feeling that this is not going to be one of those times. I look away as soon as I see him, turning my head to the side to inspect the wall. It occurs to me that this position is incredibly unnatural, but looking a bit strange seems a worthy sacrifice if it’ll let me avoid having to interact with a stranger. I’m already planning my route back to my cubicle, back around through the other corridor so I don’t have to walk through here again. Shouldn’t be too— “Hey, guy.” Oh, Lord, he’s talking to me. I stop mid-stride and take a moment to check my posture, straightening my back a little bit. My tail is a little bristly from not having brushed it this morning, but there’s nothing I can really do about that right now. I turn around to face him, hiding it behind myself as best I can. We stare at each other for a couple seconds, and I realise that he’s probably expecting me to say something. Greet him, maybe. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off before I can make any more of a fool of myself. “Could you give me a hand? I just need you to hold a screwdriver for me, it’ll only take a second.” “Sure.” Consent is spilling out of me before I can even fully register what he’s asked. Not like I actually want to do it, but he’s phrased it so it seems like such an infinitesimal little thing, and it’d be rude to say no. Can’t abide being rude, gotta go through every step in the constant dance that is the social contract. “Thanks, just step in here.” He jerks a thumb towards the supply closet then bends down, digging through a toolbox on the ground. “Replacing a burnt out wire, but I only got two hands, you know?” “Heh, yeah,” I murmur, even though I have no idea what he’s talking about. I’m about as good with electrical wiring as I am with social interaction, which is to say I know it exists and that’s about as far as my knowledge extends. Walking around the wolf, I set my bundle of papers onto the floor just outside the closet, then step inside. It’s exactly what you’d expect. Cramped, dark, and full of junk. I squint up at the ceiling, looking for whatever wire he was talking about, but it’s a bit too dim to see. There’s no light in here, so I can only work with whatever shines in from the lights in the hallway. Maybe it’s on the floor? I lean down a bit and peek under the shelves, checking if there’s anything there. Nothing. I straighten up and start to turn around, hoping to ask him where the wire he’s talking about is. I only get about halfway before a hand clamps over my muzzle and I can feel sharp metal pressing into my neck, just under my chin. --- It’s ridiculously easy. They never even ask any questions, they just trust me outright, eager to do whatever I say like the whole goddamn building is gonna collapse if I can’t do my ‘job’. Haven’t even said ten words to the guy and I’ve already got him in a closet with a knife against his throat. I press a hand over his chest, pinning him back against me. “Make a sound and you’re dead,” I whisper. I feel his Adam’s apple push up against the blade of my knife as he gulps, but he doesn’t make a peep. Seems like my impression was right, this is the kind of guy who can follow orders. I kick out a paw behind me and shut the door of the closet, snuffing out the light from the hallway and plunging us into darkness. Even though he’s keeping quiet, I can hear his breath quicken, feel the rise and fall of his chest start to get faster and faster under my grip. He’s afraid, probably more afraid than he’s ever been in his entire life. His breath hitches when I press my knife just a tiny bit harder into his neck, and I squeeze my hand down against his ribs until I can feel the beating of his heart. It’s pounding wildly, slightly faster than my own, albeit for entirely different reasons. --- I can feel wet blood dripping down the outside of my throat from where steel is cutting into it, and the inside is no better, choked and dry from panic. All the sensation has fled from my knees, and the only thing keeping me on my feet is the wolf’s hand squeezing my rib cage so tightly I can barely breathe, only able to take shallow, hyperventilating breaths. That and the fear that if I collapse, his knife’ll slit me open right then and there. It’s odd, really. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, and I can feel every muscle and organ in my body shifting into fight or flight mode. My stomach is churning, my intestines feel like they’ve tied themselves into knots, and my lungs are burning even though I’ve barely even moved an inch. I can feel myself starting to shake, brimming with energy that’s begging me to make use of it, to [i]run[/i]. Yet despite all of that, I feel a strange kind of lucidity. I wouldn’t call it calmness, because I’m the furthest thing from being calm I’ve ever been. It’s more a kind of clarity, the realisation that yes, I could very well die in this situation unless I plan every move as carefully as I can. It’s the only reason I’m able to keep myself from screaming. I can feel the cold moisture of his nose pressing against the back of my ear, then his low, gravelly voice, reverberating through my skull. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” He might as well have asked me to turn into a butterfly, it’d be about as easy. My throat shifts as I stifle a sob, and I can feel his knife cut another fraction of a millimetre into my flesh from the motion. --- The feeling of his body pressed against mine, squirming slightly despite his best efforts to stay still, panic boiling up within him… it’s exactly what I want. I just stay like that for a little bit, muzzle buried in his head fur, taking in his scent. The smell of sweat has grown stronger since I grabbed him, and I can pick out two distinct threads in the aroma. Mine is a mixture of exertion and excitement, but his has that acidic tang of fear and adrenaline. Delightful. I shift my hand lower down his body, moving from his sternum to his stomach. The pressure of his body against mine shifts lower as well, grinding against a growing bulge in my pants, but that’s not what I’m focused on at the moment. My mind is drinking in the sensations of his abdomen, the heat there, the shifting of his innards under a layer of fur, skin, and muscle that I know is oh-so-thin. Like they’re begging to be set free. My claws slip out and extend right through the fabric of his clothes, scraping against his belly. I push my fingers in a bit more and they poke right through his skin, drawing five little specks of blood that are quickly wicked up by his shirt. He makes a sort of strained wheeze that I can tell would be a shriek if he wasn’t trying his absolute hardest to keep from making any noise. It’s adorable, the way he’s trying to hold back. Almost like we’re two high school lovers, trying not to get caught doing it in a bathroom stall. I twist my fingers in the wounds I’ve created, and he starts letting out a low warble of pain. The idea of just shoving my hand right into his body and pulling out his guts one-by-one comes to my mind, and it’s a testament to my restraint that I don’t drop the knife and start ripping him apart from the middle-out right then and there. But that’d be a little too messy, take too long, and I doubt he’d be able to keep quiet with my hand gripped around his gall bladder. So instead I move my knife from under his throat to the side of his neck and jam it in, slicing sideways right through his carotid artery. The trickle of blood from his stomach is nothing compared to the absolute flood that’s started pouring out from just behind his jaw. A gush of it drenches the knuckles of my hand, squishing between my fingers and the rubber handle of my knife. He goes stiff as a board while the stuff sluices down along his front and soaks the rest of his shirt, and I know I only have seconds left before he starts thrashing and screaming. Acting quickly, I grip my knife firmly and jerk the handle, stabbing down towards his clavicles. I can feel flesh and tendons rip under my assault, but I keep pushing and yanking, working the knife into his throat like I’m churning butter. The hope is that I’ll sever his vocal cords, so he won’t be able to scream and attract unwanted guests. Judging from the hissing, gurgling noises he’s making instead of yelling for help, it seems to have done the job. But enjoyable as it was, there’s still a couple more things I want to do before he goes, and now I’m working with borrowed time. The mink starts jerking around in my arms, one of his hands slapping at my grip around his stomach while the other’s flown up to where my knife is buried in his neck, pressing down around the flesh there like he doesn’t want it to leave. I slide the knife back out of his throat and flip it around, adopting an icepick grip. I shift the hand on his stomach back up to his chest and start stabbing into him, hammering the blade of my knife into his gut over and over. I can feel the force of my blows pounding back into my own body through his. A wet sound that might be a yip bubbles out of his throat, and his fingers clutch at his punctured stomach protectively, like I won’t be able to stab right through them. He realises his mistake when I pull back for another blow and stab forward once again, the harsh steel of my knife cleaving the meat of his fingers and pushing them aside before sinking into his intestines. More gurgling, and his hands fall away from his stomach, now just gripping weakly around the hand I have planted on his sternum. Maybe he’s trying to pry me away, or maybe it’s some sort of non-verbal plea for his life. I don’t really care. But you can only stay conscious for so long with your carotid gushing blood everywhere, starving your brain of oxygen, and that time isn’t exactly increased by multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. I can feel his struggles dying down, his body starting to go limp in my arms, and the stream flowing down his neck is turning from a deluge into more of a trickle. Still, I don’t let up, jamming my knife into his guts over and over again. I’ve actually lost count of how many times. Twenty? Thirty? Something like that. I kind of lose myself in it, and I actually don’t notice that I’ve started dry humping him with every stab until I’m a good three or four thrusts in. What brings me back to my senses is a foul odour seeping into the air, overpowering the coppery smell of the blood coating seemingly every surface. I have a suspicion as to what it is, and I wipe a finger across the mink’s stomach. It feels like a pile of roast beef down there, formerly smooth abs transformed into so much ragged flesh. As expected, my finger comes away coated in something hot, wet, but most certainly not blood. It’s thick, gritty, and smells awful. Seems I’ve focused on his intestines a little bit too much, and they’ve started to leak. Unpleasant, but hardly enough to shake me; I’ve seen far worse, and opportunities like this come along infrequently enough that I’m dead set on making the most of it. I stick my dirty digit into the mink’s mouth, his lips already slightly parted with his jaw hanging limp as it is. Rubbing the filth coating my finger into his still-warm tongue, I hump harder, grinding myself against his tailbone. Divine. My thrusts keep increasing in intensity until I’m mashing him against the wall with every push of my hips, grunting and panting like a wild animal. My mind is still coursing with all sorts of ideas of what I’d like to do to this pretty little mink’s body, and as I approach orgasm, one in particular sticks out to me. I shift my fingers from his tongue to just behind his lower front teeth, gripping tightly around his jawbone. There’s no resistance from him, all the muscles in his face having already gone slack. Once I get a good hold, I yank. Hard. It’s surprisingly easy. There’s a pop as his jaw dislocates from the rest of his skull, and I can hear flesh and tendons straining to keep the now loose bone attached. One more good jerk and they tear too, leaving me with a fistful of freshly freed mandible. That’s enough for me. I toss the bone down onto the floor and thrust against the mink one last time, crushing him against the wall while my dick spurts freely into my pants, soiling my boxers with my load. I clamp down hard onto the back of his neck while I ride out my orgasm, a mating bite that leaves deep gouges on either side of his spine and sends yet more blood rolling down his back. It takes me a minute to catch my breath, and I just lie there, gripping a mouthful of the mink’s furry neck flesh between my jaws while my hands roam over the rest of his ruined body. Knife wounds, strips of flesh, organs spilling out of gaping holes formed of countless smaller punctures. He’s barely holding together, like a mesh bag of wet meat. Feeling how thoroughly I’ve mutilated him makes me want to take him home so I can use him over and over until he rots, but barring that, I at least want to see what I’ve done. I lay his body down flat on the floor, though his knees bunch up a bit to fit in the confined space, then dip my hand into my pocket. I fumble around until I find my lighter, then take it out and flick my thumb against the flint wheel, illuminating the closet with a tiny orange flame. He looks grisly, to put it simply. The polo shirt he’s been wearing is in tatters at this point, ragged around his rib cage and completely torn off past his belly button. His stomach looks just as bad as it felt, a third of it transformed into an open pit full of severed intestines, spilling out alongside a slurry of blood and digested food. It’s surrounded by a dozen smaller wounds, where my knife wandered a little bit further than usual. That’s not even touching on his face. His eyes are dull and glassy, frozen over in that oh-so-familiar deathly stare, but at least they’re intact. Most of his features are, his rounded ears, his snub nose, they’re fine. But between his neck and his snout where a jaw should be, there’s nothing, cheeks torn and dangling from his muzzle. His tongue lolls out with nothing to contain it, dripping blood and saliva onto his front. It’s faced away from me right now, but I know on the other side of his head, there’s a massive hole just behind his ear that runs all the way down into his throat. And, of course, there’s the tiny slit on his neck from where my knife pressed against it. It’s funny to see it contrasting all the carnage on his head and stomach. It seemed so important, so dangerous just a few minutes ago, and now it’s barely even noticeable in comparison. Is that funny? Maybe it’s just me. Looking down at myself, I can see I’m not in the best shape either. While the mink managed to catch most of the blood, my shoulder and front are still good and soaked, and my hands are absolutely coated with the stuff. But it’s fine. I prepared for this situation. Slipping the lighter back into my pocket, I turn and open the closet door a crack, just enough to reach around the corner and grab my toolbox before I shut it again. I fumble around inside, tools clanking against each other, my search made slightly more difficult by the lack of light. Still, I’m familiar with my equipment, and it doesn’t take long before I’ve got everything I need laid out in front of me. Wet wipes—which I take a moment to use on my hands before touching anything else—a fresh set of clothes, a can of disgustingly powerful body spray, and a mirror to make sure I don’t miss anything. Five minutes later, I’m walking out of the closet, looking clean as I’m going to get without a proper shower and stinking like a high school locker room. Not ideal, but enough to divert suspicion. I give myself a quick once-over with the mirror to make sure I didn’t miss anything. My fur is still a bit wet and tacky around my neck and arm, but there’s no red visible. Good enough. After that, it’s a quick elevator ride back to ground level, and I’m back in the lobby. I look over at the eagle secretary with a smile, this one genuine, and she looks back at me with a look of barely concealed disdain. I give her a parting wave, and her face crinkles like she just tasted something foul. I keep walking towards the exit, but I can’t tear my eyes away from her withering gaze until the door shuts behind me and the glare of the sun on the glass obscures her face. Glancing up above the entrance, I read the corporate logo printed on the sign again. Ackermann Financial. I repeat the name over and over again in my mind, engraving it into my memory. Ackermann Financial. Definitely going to make a repeat visit.