Five minutes of walking. Five minutes of Parker talking my ear off about every way he knows how to skin a Fluffy while keeping it alive. And five fucking minutes of my headache pounding my skull. Though the peaceful night air and the sound of chirping crickets set me at ease slightly, that was short lived as we all soon heard the distinct babbling of Fluffspeak.
Crouching down, we maintained position, not moving any closer until we have a better idea of the nest’s situation. “Tracker, what do you see?” Paul asks, peeking over his shoulder at me as I fiddle with the controls of the Fluffy Sniffer before the screen blinks to life, showing a satellite map of our current position as well as seven green dots representing us, and only about half a kilometre North West of us was a shifting mass of red dots all shifting around each other.
“Nest seems to be about half a kilome-” before I could finish, Paul swiftly interrupts me. “Half a klick, recruit, get the proper lingo down.” Rude interruption out of the way, I continue, rolling my eyes. “Half a klick North West of our current position.” Finishing the report, Paul gives me a nod before reaching into his belt and pulling out his survival knife, sticking the tip into the dirt path.
With several swift movements he draws out a rough layout of a generic Feral nest, referencing the Fluffy Sniffer’s read out to pinpoint possible locations of burrows and the like. After spending a few minutes staring at the screen I felt my brow furrow, something felt wrong about this readout, like it was wrong, horribly wrong. “Sir?” I voice quietly, adjusting my respirator.
Paul jams his knife into the dirt and glances up at me, “Speak your mind, Tracker.” he replies bluntly, the rest of the squad shifting to look at me, almost made me feel like I was back in high school about to give an oral lecture on the history of Egyptian architecture. “The Sniffer is wrong.” I expect Paul to order me to shut my mouth, or try and defend the clearly inaccurate device.
“Correct. But corporate wants us to fulfil a quota for tech use in every mission so that’s what we have to do.” Paul’s tone shifted, sounding almost normal as if having to acknowledge Hasbio’s presence broke some kind of immersion he had built for himself. “Honestly I highly doubt there’s as few Ferals here as the Sniffer suggests, I’ve dealt with nests closer to urban areas and they tend to be around three or four dozen Fluffies, they need those kinds of numbers to feel secure so close to humans, maybe less if the Smarty has a bigger stomach than a brain.”
As Paul explained the population dynamics of Feral nests, a small shape began to shift in the bushes behind him, Peter and I being the only ones to notice as a small cherry red snout poked out and sniffed the air before its owner stepped out revealing a rather scruffy looking adult Fluffy with cherry red fluff and a tawny orange mane and tail, his left eye was shut with a large scar running from the brow, over the eyelid, and to the cheek, while its orange right eye stared at us with an unreadable expression.
Peter looked about ready to rip the Fluffy in half for wandering into the meeting only for Paul to notice the Fluffy as well and halt Peter’s pounce. “Keep your underwear on recruit.” Peter hissed in a deep whisper, clearly trying to keep quieter than he’d like to be. “This here’s our resident double agent, Redrum.” The red Fluffy, ‘Redrum’, gives a proud look as he’s introduced by Peter before the Fluffy trots up to Peter. “Wedwum wepowtin’!” Redrum squeaks out, his front left hoof moving upwards into a clumsy recreation of a salute.
“Sorry what? A Fluffy double agent?” Peter asked, slowly sheathing his knife. “What you got a problem with that? Redrum here’s one of our top operatives, an expert in Feral espionage and scouting. What’ve you got for us?” Peter crouches down in front of Redrum, I and the others all crowding around to hear what kind of information a Fluffy double agent can gather.
“Wedwum saw twenty-fow fwuffies in dah nest. Smawty vewwy smawt, keeps babbehs and soon-mummahs in othah smaww nest away fwom main nestie.” As Redrum spoke the first thing that hit me like a truck was a Fluffy capable of counting not just to four, but to twenty-four, something unheard of for creatures as moronic as Fluffies. And Peter seemed to agree as he leaned over to Paul. “How the Hell did you teach a shitrat how to count that high?”, Paul meets Peter’s question with a smile hidden beneath his respirator. “A lot of time with a sorry stick and sorry box.”
Returning his attention to Redrum, Paul reaches into his belt and pulls out a spaghetti-flavoured biscuit, a treat for Fluffies. Offering it to Redrum who gets a bright look in his eye as he greedily scarfs down the biscuit faster than any of us could really follow, one moment the biscuit was in Paul’s gloved hand and the next it was gone and Redrum looked very proud of himself.
“So the dams and foals are kept in a separate area? Any idea how many there are in there?” Paul asks as Redrum gets a sad look on his face and shakes his head grimly. “Smawty no wet Wedwum into babbeh nest, says onwy he an Toughies get ta go in. Wedwum am sowwy daddeh Paw’, pwease no gib sowwy stick…” Redrum quivers with fear as Paul reaches out to him, only for his fear to melt into love as Paul pets his mane, scruffing the already matted mass of hair.
“You’ve done a good job Redrum. Just tell us where the ‘babbeh nest’ is.” Paul has to give Redrum a quick shake, the stallion having gotten distracted hugging Paul’s hand, seems no matter how well trained a Fluffy is, at the end of the day it’s still as attention seeking as any Fluffy. “Otay daddeh! Babbeh nestie is pwayin hide-an-peekies, wook unda big wock! Babbeh nest is der!” Redrum dilligently responds before Paul gives him another pat on the head and turns on his radio. “Truck, sending Redrum over to you now, make sure he gets a nice bath and a warm bed, he deserves it.” with that Paul sends Redrum up the path and back to the area the Hasbio truck that brought us here was parked.
“Alright thanks to Redrum we’ve got a proper idea of what we’re working with, two dozen Fluffies at least and a hidden nest where they keep their dams and foals safe, likely from predators like foxes and birds.” Paul repeats the information from Redrum, his tone significantly lighter, as if interacting with Redrum gave his slacking energy a kick up the ass. “Nest should be close now so put on your goggles and ID any domestics before we move in.”
We all lower our ID goggles, switching them on as I squint slightly at the sudden barrage of data, mostly the current weather as well as my current heart rate. As we slowly make our way through the forest, the dirt path is quickly consumed by the underbrush and still having questions I move up to trek next to Paul. “So are there more Fluffies? Like Redrum I mean.”, Paul glances at me though with the respirator and now goggles on I couldn’t tell what kind of face he was making. “A few, they’re hard to train and require a very specific kind of Fluffy, smart but not arrogant, sometimes Smarty’s can get obedience drilled into them, but most of them come from Farms. I bought Redrum from a Fluffmart, apparently he had a bit of a reputation for trying progressively more elaborate tricks to get adopted, had the mart scared thinking they accidentally put a Smarty on the shelves till I came and took him off their hands.”
Thinking back on how he acted, Redrum was certainly unusual for a Fluffy, clever but polite with humans, unlike the many times I encountered small pack leaders while taking Periwinkle to the park. “Huh, unsurprising I guess, he seems to like you.” Before Paul could reply he gestured for everyone to stop, the babbling Fluffspeak in the distance was close enough to be annoying as we peeked through some bushes to spy a clearing filled with Fluffies, most of them in Fluffpiles, looking like the result of downing a packet of Skittles and too much alcohol, though some bigger looking Fluffies, the Toughies of the herd, stood on night watch. To the side I could see a tree stump with a large (for a Fluffy) rock propped against the side, likely where the baby nest is, while on the opposite end was a shaded area filled with various flowers and berries, food stores most likely.
Paul’s voice dropped to a conspiring whisper, his tone once more sounding closer to how he spoke before seeing Redrum, like he was back in his element. “See the big Fluffpile there?” He pointed out the largest mound, and at the top was a shockingly well-kempt Fluffy with aquamarine fluff and a navy blue mane and tail. “Smarty. We take him out quick and the rest of the herd will lose what little composition they have, I’ll handle him. Tracker, go with the Sweepers around the perimeter of the nest, keep low and keep quiet, when things go loud you three will kill any stragglers, there’s a single domestic according to the ID goggles so we’ll be counting on you to catch it alive.” I, Peter, and the second masked Sweeper nodded in unison before Paul turned to the Sound Tech and Flufficiders.
“Sound Tech, move around the right and use those recordings of dogs growling to draw the Toughies attention, the Flufficiders meanwhile will go around the left and get as close to the middle of the nest as possible before any of the Fluffies notice them. Once Flufficide fills the air I’ll make my move to take out the Smarty and everything else should fall neatly into place.” With that everyone moved away from the vantage point to their positions.
Parker looked like he was trying to force himself to keep to the plan, fiddling with his grabber’s claw and using it to cut a few absent blades of grass, probably trying to relieve what excitement he can before the Flufficiders, Sound Tech, and Paul make their moves. The second Sweeper seemed far more nervous, rubbing his thumbs together. Either he wasn’t half the abuser Peter was, or he had a weird way of showing anticipation. Peter takes the top left of the nest, the second Sweeper the top tight, with me in the middle to coordinate them both.
With a deep breath I hear the crackly sounds of dogs growling and panting, obviously a sound recording to a human but to a Fluffy it might as well have been the real deal as I spotted the Flufficiders sneaking closer to the centre of the nest, double checking the hoses attaching their spray guns to the Flufficide canisters slug over their shoulders.
Time to make some noise.
