MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED IN PRINTED FORMAT! ELECTRONIC FORMAT ONLY!
					-DER AUTEUR
17,800 words
(c)1994 Thomas Pluck


                          Cutting Edge
                                 by Thomas Pluck


     The July 4th Massacre was old hat, but the furries were

still bitching about it, thought Detective Victor Davis, as he

sat in his patrol car. He sipped his dark, sweet coffee and

rolled the events through his mind. It was a simple demonstration

for Recom Rights, a movement that urged the repeal of the McLaren

Amendments, which curtailed the rights of all engineered

organisms, even sentient ones.

     It had been a hot day, a hazy sun beating down on the police

in their black reactive fiber riot gear, shock batons tapping the

clear shields with restrained agitation. There looked to be about

thirty of them. Davis had been there, just watching, off duty. So

had Inspector Rrillha, the token Recom of the department, but he

was demonstrating, holding a picket sign that read, "We serve, we

should be free." Rrillha, like all first-generation Recoms, was

ex-military. The uncharacteristically tall and muscular skunk

Recom walked in the middle of the march, but stood at least a

head above his fellows, except for the wolves. The march was a

rainbow of different fur colors, from the simple black and white

of Rrillha to the calico conglomerate of the coon-cats.

     It had all been so peaceful. Davis had stood by a post-box,

drinking a coffee much like he did now, with a wary nonchalance

that gave him a 'not there' look. The combination of his receding

hairline and large chin gave him the look of an immovable

automaton. Fellow police said that even though he was short, if

you drove a truck into him, he would just grunt and give you a

ticket. That image came from his weight more than anything else.

The years off the beat could be counted as rolls on his waist, or

stretch-marks across his hips, like rings on a tree. Sweat beaded

across his broad forehead, and his breathing was quietly labored,

as he watched all the panting Recoms go by.

     So peaceful, the rhythmic chanting of slogans, the constant

flutter of footsteps. Then the counter-demonstrators arrived. The

Recoms remained surprisingly calm as the human crowd shouted

"Animals!" and other taunts. They were used to it. They knew a

hostile reaction would only hurt their cause. A few younger

Recoms were quieted by their elders.

     And then, right under his slowly blinking gaze, all hell

broke loose.

     Smack in the middle of the human agitators, there was a

fireburst of white smoke and glowing sparks. The explosion echoed

off the labyrinth of buildings, rocking the flexi-plast

storefronts as it skirled up into the hazy grey sky. Suddenly

police ran through both crowds, as fear burst from its primal

hideaway and overthrew the rational.

     The riot police bolted through the crowds, jointed

shock-batons

pole-axing everyone in their way. Davis stood in silent awe, his

coffee spilling down the front of the blue metal post-box. Black

uniforms swarmed through the Recoms, the assault of a disturbed

hive. Davis saw it happen; a clubbed wolverine, who wore a purple

heart on his vest, scrabbled at a riot officer as his legs gave

out from the electric shock. The shock had made him grit his

teeth and flare his claws, which raked through the riot suit and

the officer's side like a tiller through fresh soil.

     At the sight of blood, hands went to holsters. Davis's jaw

dropped as he heard the first pop and zip of a service pistol,

and the thump of the small fragmentary rocket as it knocked the

wolverine to the concrete. It was a quiet, almost comical sound,

but unique and chilling enough to make him shudder. It was the

next half-dozen shots that made the day one of martyrdom.

     Davis saw the big skunk Recom take the round as he was

trying to pull his fellows to the pavement. To Victor, it all

seemed like a dream or a VR game... he was just along for the

ride. He ran through the human crowd as fast as he could,

knocking members of the mob out of his way as if he didn't even

know they were there. Later on, he wondered why his chest was

bruised.

     Even Rrillha dropped like a felled tree when he took the AP

round. It had hit his shoulder blade and fragmented, sending tiny

pieces of shrapnel up through his neck and skull, leaving red

pinholes in his fur. Victor flashed his badge to the riot police

who began to surround him, and heaved the big skunk into his lap.

Rrillha's head hung onto his chest, his tongue lolling out as he

shuddered silently.

     Then it was over, as soon as it started, as the riot squad

saw the badge on the Recom's shorts. Davis wasn't even thinking,

just hugging the quiet form to his chest protectively. He hadn't

even liked the furry... he just saw an officer go down... and

that was what he told the committee, when they asked him if he

believed in the Recoms' cause.

     People were screaming and whimpering around him, but all he

could hear was his own labored breathing, and Rrillha's mindless

sputtering. The memory faded away, smoldering and intense. Three

Recoms still sat in holding cells on suspicion of throwing the

concussion grenade, which hadn't killed anybody, and one of the

riot officers had been suspended pending a grand jury

investigation. It was over now, but the incident had changed the

Recoms' attitude; it had sharpened their claws a little.

     So Davis sat in his hovering patrol car, fans humming

quietly as he sipped his coffee and thought back on the recent

past. The area had once been called Hell's Kitchen, then Clinton,

and now was part of The Jungle, because of the concentration of

furries in the neighborhood. Only after the Massacre did it get

any more violent than the rest of Manhattan. In fact, up until

the Zoning, it was pretty gentrified.

     Davis's presence was usually enough; the sleek white prowler

had a simple intimidating look. He glanced at the VR screens that

served as windows, and kept the heat-scanner on, monitoring a 50

foot radius. His thoughts wandered to Inspector Rrillha's

brain-dead form at St. Clare's Hospital. He had no family, so the

vote was up to the Precinct to see if the plug was pulled and his

organs sold for the PBA fund. Davis chuckled cynically and shook

his head. The poor furry didn't have a chance. Victor thought for

a moment what it would be like to have no parents, to be made,

and treated like a lab animal that was set free, with too many

strings attached. Then of how Rrillha was treated at the station.

     The guys at the Precinct called him "Stinky" to his face,

even though he was in perfect control of his tail. Davis

remembered calling him "Stripes" once, but Rrillha preferred that

to the other insulting nickname. Even though he could probably

break the neck of any officer at the station, he bore all their

taunts. He knew his grip on the job was tenuous at best.

     Davis had nothing against the guy. He was a good cop, andhad

made several important busts and investigations. He had been

urging the upstairs brass to fund a Recom Task Force in his

precinct, hopefully as an example nationwide. His latest case

involved what seemed to be the first Recom serial killer; the

species of the murderer was unknown, but his victims were all

furries, found knifed to death in abandoned buildings or even

their own homes, totaling six in all. So far. Surprisingly,

Rrillha seemed to have no leads. The culprit had made no

mistakes.

     Davis unwrapped one of the greasy cheeseburgers he had

picked up at the KwikBite Shop when he was cruising downtown,

before work. He was just about to take a lukewarm bite when two

small forms were picked up by the heat-scan, closing in from the

left. He clicked on the image enhancer and a small window

appeared on the front screen, showing two small furred forms

huddled behind a pile of garbage.

     "Kids," he grumbled. It was after 4 PM, and they were

supposed to be at home or in a designated play area, not in this

mostly abandoned quadrant.

     He flicked on the high-beams and muttered into the megaphone

feed, "Go home kids. You know there's nothing to do here." He

began eating the burger, and grumbled because the clueless cook

had fried the onions instead of leaving them raw, how he liked

them. Again.

     He flicked on the sound telescope and heard them giggling as

they scampered closer, behind the rusted shell of a stripped

automobile. Davis sighed and flicked on the neons. The bubble on

the roof of the car strobed and burst into a swirling red and

blue whirlpool.

     Just in case, he took the Hardballer, a beanbag pistol, from

under his seat. It would knock them to their furry little asses,

if they gave him any trouble. They looked unarmed to him, and he

wasn't taking any chances, but he wasn't going to plug a kid for

tossing rocks.

     He had nabbed the Hardballer off a young smartass in

Bensonhurst, who tried to mug him when he was visiting a woman he

stopped seeing years ago. As he checked the chamber for a round,

he heard something hit the car and splatter; when he looked up,

the VR screen was blank. The second paint balloon hit the

passenger side, and slowly washed down, turning most of that

window green.

     The scanners showed them running past the car toward a

crumbling pre-fab apartment complex. From the tails he saw waving

on the heat-scan, and the sound of their giggles, he guessed they

were felines.

     He stepped out of the car in time to see the calico kits

scampering into the building with their quick, yet awkward-

looking bipedal gait. Davis had grown up during the years the

military "declassified" the recombinant species, but he still

wasn't used to the unnatural springiness of their toe-stepping

legs.

     Shutting the door of the prowler behind him, he jogged off

after them, quickly losing his breath. He kept very alert for any

sign of ambush; his cool grey eyes darted about warily. If they

didn't give him any trouble, he'd let them go with a scare or a

warning. If they hadn't interrupted his lunch, he might have just

taken the car to be washed.

     He jogged over to the door, and scanned the hall before

stepping in. Two pairs of glimmering yellow eyes, one on top of

the other, blinked at him from the darkened stairwell before

dashing up with a giggle.

     "Coon cats," he muttered, trotting after the kits. They

looked very young, maybe not even teens. Running up the stairs,

Davis began to sweat; being built like a bull gave him very

little endurance.

     When he reached the first landing, he checked all the

doorways, and then the stairs. There, two yellow eyes gleamed

back from the shadows cast by the dim light that seeped through

the shattered windows. "Little shits," Victor panted, coming down

the hallway.

     He nearly fired, when the giggling shadow threw the object

at him, before he realized what it was. The stale donut bounced

off his shoulder. Crumbs of dried glaze marked his coat and

dotted the rotten wood floor where the donut rolled to a stop at

his feet.

     "Why you little furball!" Davis growled, and rushed the

laughing kits under a hail of donuts. When he reached tackling

range, they sped up the creaking stairs, and he followed in a

rage. Especially since chocolate glazed was his favorite.

     He still had the sense to skip the broken stairs, watching

his step as rage stole his breath from him. As he reached the top

flight, he saw the two young Recoms in the weak light that

filtered through the ragged holes in the roof. The two

coon-kittens smiled and giggled down mockingly, throwing the last

of the donuts at him as he ran up the stairs. Their long and

thick

calico fur seemed dappled with shimmering white spots...

     He felt so light. There was a strangled gurgling coming from

somewhere, and the mocking smiles of the wildcats faded into a

mixture of awe and horror. Davis's back arched like an angry

cat's, and a crushing pain burst across his chest, searing

ripples across his nervous system.

     The Hardballer went off, knocking a shower of sheet rock

down from the ceiling. Victor's whole world shifted upward,

tumbling and blurring, before it was blotted out by an inky

onrush of blackness.

                               *I*

     "...him to see a comforting face," said the somewhat

effeminate, but undoubtedly male voice that swirled along the rim

of his consciousness.

     Another voice, softly growling, joined the whirlpool of

sound. "Scan shows little signs of shock." The voice had a

guttural tang to it. "Looks like a nice smooth slip."

     The maelstrom of sound soon made him feel like he was in

orbit around a conversation; when he reached the apogee, all the

voices mixed into a slurring buzz.

     He seemed farther away now. The voices were distant, but

much clearer. "We can begin therapy in the next few days," the

effeminate voice said. "Too bad he didn't have any close

relatives."

     "Doesn't have," a gravely male voice interrupted.

     The whirlpool slowly calmed, like a spinning coin finally

coming to rest. Victor heard a lot of quiet breathing, but no one

was speaking anymore.

     He slowly became aware of his body, as if every muscle had

been asleep, but without the pins and needles, only numbness. A

soft unrecognizable hum teased at his memory.

     "Victor?" asked the gravelly voice. It sounded a little

familiar. He couldn't place it. He stirred slightly, and someone

held his arm. The feeling felt muffled by bandages, and he

groaned with a sigh.

     As he breathed deeply for the first time, his nose was

flooded with distinctive scents. The thick scent of a fox, which

always tickled the back of his throat; some human had doused

himself with a pheromonal cologne. An underlying tinge of skunk

scent wrinkled his nose, which was beginning to feel cold.

     He was trying to avoid opening his eyes. He didn't want to

see a roomful of cold physicians tending a network of tubes

leading from him to a stack of bleak, sterile machines. His dry

eyes split open and he saw exactly that.

     At the end of the bed, hands on the metal footboard, stood a

grave-looking man of about forty years, skin weathered and

tanned. Like Victor, he looked as if gravity worked overtime on

him; his jaw hung open just a little, and he slouched like a

weary Atlas. His brown and silver hair was slicked back in the

current style, and his long face had the texture of sandstone. He

reminded Victor of an Easter Island monolith.

     One on each side of him, there stood a thin hawk-nosed man

in a lab coat, and a slim fox Recom in a skirt with a long white

jacket thrown over. She wore the coat as a matter of profession,

it seemed- most Recoms preferred to wear as little as possible,

especially in hot weather. Fur was enough, even in the cool

hospital room.

     Victor blinked. "Yes?" The word was drawn out, and it felt

like parts of his mouth didn't work. One word pulsed through his

mind, a wash of cold.  Stroke.

     The big man at the foot of the bed owned the gravelly voice,

and smiled. "You made it." He walked up to Victor's side.

     The hawkish man inserted a syringe into one of the tubes in

the mass of plastic spaghetti that trailed from a humming machine

to IV's on his wrists, neck, and elbows. Victor saw his black arm

and winced, thinking he'd been bruised from head to toe.

     "Victor. You had a heart attack. By the time the paramedics

found you, you were nearly gone. Now you couldn't afford a

transplant, you know how the hospitals are, they checked your

BankCard right after they had you stabilized on the machines."

The big man, who Victor remembered seeing once in Captain

Thompson's office, put a hand on his shoulder.

     He began looking down at himself and blinking. He seemed

much bigger, he figured he would have wasted away or at least

lost some weight in the hospital... his skin was black along his

sides, pale in the middle...

     "We paid to keep you out of the freezer in stasis, but a

Kennedy bought the last heart at the hospital's organ bank that

was your blood type... OA negative, pretty rare. Now there's

still hope if you're patient..."

     Victor pulled the sheets off of himself, careful not to tug

any IV's. "I- I'm a skunk," he squeaked. His throat felt like he

was wearing a tie three inches too tight. Trembling, he began to

pant.

     The hook-nosed doctor emptied the syringe into the IV while

the vixen watched Victor curiously. Soon his shaking stopped, as

the sedative began to settle him.

     The rough-voiced human put on his best comforting face,

which wasn't much. "Victor, it's temporary. Mindslip. You've

heard how it's used to wipe the minds of serial killers and such,

to study their minds and brains separately. You remember how

Nelson Walker bought a brain-dead teen, and got slipped into the

body to beat bone cancer. It made all the papers, and right after

it, organ donation got regulated into a meat market."

     He placed a hand on Victor's shoulder. Even his meaty paw

was dwarfed by the form Victor now inhabited. He looked like a

bodybuilder, and the lush fur made him seem even bigger.

     "I want my body back!" He covered his eyes with black-furred

hands, and sobbed softly.

                               *II*

     Victor strained to lift the bar that hung over him. His

chest felt like a furnace about to burst, and his huge tail

twitched and fluttered between his legs on the bench.

     "Come on," Demetroulakos urged him, squatting beside the

weight machine. His grey suit bulged at the inseam, and his voice

was as rough as ever.

     Victor growled and forced the last rep of the set. He had

locked his elbows, and rubbed them, panting as he sat up.

Rrillha's body was still trim, but all his tone was lost as he

lay in a capsule wasting away. The therapy was supposed to put

him back in shape as it let him get used to his new body.

     "You're trying to kill me, Gavin," Victor panted. He looked

over at the display, which read 325 pounds in red LCD.

     Svarla, the lab-coated vixen, walked over and looked at

Victor's diagnostic wristband and tsked. "You're just not used to

it. According to records this is Rrillha's average workout, and

we've worked you up to it." She sat lazily on a curl-machine's

padded seat, and her tail wafted to the thinly carpeted floor.

     Victor smirked and wanted to tell her to try lifting those

bars. He looked at his arms and poked the muscles. The workouts

did show a difference, and he was oddly satisfied to finally be

in shape, even if he had to die to do it.

     Gavin stood, slicked back his grey hair with a hand, and

threw the skunk a towel. "Go shower and cool off."

     "It's time for your first briefing," Svarla interrupted,

with her deeply trilling voice. That seemed odd to Victor; he

didn't remember Rrillha ever feeling free enough to do that. She

curled her tail around a bar of the machine.

     Gavin nodded, and the two left him there to catch his

breath. The shower was invigorating, even if wet fur weighted him

down, and looked awful when towel-dried... and he was too lazy to

brush it all.

     He made do by brushing his topknot of head-fur that was

always getting in his eyes, and most of his facial fur. His tail

looked frizzy, but it was too much trouble to pull around and

brush properly.

     He was expecting the briefing to be held in a cavernous dark

room, with men in dark suits seated at a huge oak table, but it

was just Gavin and Svarla in a small sun-lit office near the top

of the building. It had been a week or so (he'd lost count) since

they woke him, and he had been outside to jog a couple times. The

building was inhumanos plas