Chapter 1
Chapter 2
The building was once a three-story bank that did all the banking not only for this city, but for the entire county of Clebourne. The ill-informed person may have viewed this as a reputable and fair bank to do service with, but that was all part of the owner’s ruse. This bank was not as respected as one would have anticipated. From the powerful and wealthy aristocrat to the bloodthirsty drug lord who wanted to make a name for themselves were all welcomed and operated through this bank. The owner, Mr. Richard Mulroy, was a particular connoisseur of malicious banking. He ran his bank like the mafia showed him, money laundering for hire that made him richer than most. He spent years perfecting the art of dodging federal regulations, and masterfully employing tax evasion so he could do banking with whomever he pleases all the while scamming and robbing from the honest hardworking citizens of the county. His small empire on the county was short lived when an anonymous individual sent a dossier to the feds and they cracked down on Mr. Mulroy’s operation. While he sits in prison for almost the rest of his natural life, the building was to be demolished as it was a luxuriously grime reminder of the damage Mr. Mulroy had done to the community, but as fortune would have it for this extravagant building, it would receive new life as the state’s main headquarters for the Fluffy Regulatory Division (FRD) headed by none other than the company that started it all: Hasbio.
The new CEO of Hasbio wanted to help reverse what was done by the former CEO of the company and their botched attempts to corral the mass infestation of fluffies throughout the country. The CEO, Miss Warren Spingler, founded a small extermination group called the Fluffy Annihilation or Capture Team, or FACT, to drastically curb the fluffies exploding population to a more manageable, controlled growth. This program did slow the growing population, but it wasn’t fairing as well as the projections predicted, and with fluffies being a pathogenic transmitter along with multiple mutations with fluffies due to their unfinish and unstable genetics, something more had to be done. The FRD formed as a sister company under the banner of Hasbio; however, you won’t see the Hasbio logo on any of the FRD’s uniforms or brands because of the nature of the work and the PR nightmare that would have been added to the already abysmal reputation Hasbio if had gotten out.
The FRD is split up into three divisions within itself:
The Fluffy Annihilation or Capture Team (FACT) is the backbone and the most numerous of the FRD. FACT is just known to the public as Fluffy Control and handles the ins and outs of regular fluffy ponies and take ninety percent of all calls coming in. Anyone has the opportunity to join this division since there are no special training. There are policies in place to keep hardcore abusers, that only think about killing fluffies all day, out so they don’t tarnish, well further tarnish, the FRD. If they kill a customer’s pet by mistake, or traumatize their kids with their indiscriminate bloodthirst, they will be fired on the spot and have to pay for damages and for pain and suffering for their shortsighted actions.
The Biological Enhancement Division, or BED, is the research and development department of the FRD. The others’ just take up to calling them the lab, and the researchers notably as eggheads. As much flak as the other divisions throw at them, they are the brains of the operation handling everything from biological testing and production, ammunition development, pathology, classification, genealogy, partnership modifications, and overall equipment modification and production. They can look up the genetic sequence of a fluffy and tell you where they were born and sold from, by their genetics.
And the Identify, Reconnaissance, Acquisition, Targeting, and Elimination Division, or IRATE Division, is the spearhead of the operation. They are the ones that collect actionable intel in the field so the lab can find out what is going on. They are specially trained in biological, pathological, and mental diseases/mutations, identifying new mutations and trait among feral and domestic populations, elimination of hazardous or dangerous mutations in those populations, working with local law enforcement to stop the manufacturing of said mutations, and search and recovery for the lab to prevent massive pandemics and epidemics from infected fluffies.
“…….so come by and see us to find what fit may be right for YOU,” as the quasi-military recruitment advertisement echoed through the large marble rotunda of the lobby, Dylan wondered if that sale pitch even worked as he passed by the receptionist desk with Stryker and the hunter’s carcass in tow. There were a lot of office space for the old bank building, most converted into meeting rooms and classrooms for the over eager or the uneducated, but most were run by the phone operators or just sat empty. The back of the offices held the elevator. Dylan and Stryker got into the car of the elevator and selected the B3 button. As the elevator hiss on its way down to the desired floor, Stryker broke the otherwise silent entrance into work.
“You sure leaving the pink thing in the truck alone was a good idea? What is dies of heat stroke? Wouldn’t your breeder friend be upset about the demise of their wanted product?”
Dylan sigh reverberated off the metal walls of their descending coffin, “No. I left it water and the windows cracked, so the heat stroke theory is scratched. As for my friend, she doesn’t know I have it. She just asked to be on the lookout for a pink fluffy, that’s it. So, if it does die on us, it’s not a huge loss for me, or her,” Dylan pondered how much damage it could endure before kicking the bucket.
“Ah. So, it was a surprise then. Let’s just hope we didn’t traumatize it too much then. Wouldn’t want to give her any damaged goods now would we,” Stryker’s remarked as he recalled the chaos that enveloped the house last night.
Dylan didn’t really care if the mental fortitude of the creature locked in his truck was still the same after the evils of inebriation took hold of his body. All it needed was to say one of many magic words and it would quickly and easily forget all that it had been through. His train of thought broke when the ding of the elevator and the doors sliding to grant him access to floor he requested. Stepping off, Dylan and Stryker were transported from a metallic lunchbox to a sterile white hallway with rooms inhabited by several people adorning white lab coats and latex gloves. The room to the right, where several people sat at an oak table looking at a screen of possible products they could push out, was the starting place of all inventions and gadgets used inhouse by the FRD whether that be the shock batons for fluffy resets used by FACT, or the newest gadget, the flashorb, a nifty little device used by the IRATE division to deploy to disorient and distract targets of opportunity. It acted much like a flashbang used by police and military; however, it was small enough, light enough, and easy to operate for even the agent’s partner could use them. To the left, the room where an assortment of beakers and tubes filled it like a chemistry room of a mad scientist, just more well light. Dylan always imagined that was how the first fluffies were created; in a dark basement of a disgruntled Hasbro employee who just wanted to make toys, but instead go shoved somewhere else.
In the middle, the rooms bowed out to create a circular center which would lead to more rooms of labs and offices. The large ‘C’ shaped receptionist desk took center stage of the round chamber. The workplace was comfortably occupied by three receptionists during the day, they were the information center of the lab and were the best in at it. As Dylan reaches within ear shot, he can see a small petit woman, arms folded while leaning against the desk, nearing the end of an argument with a six-foot eight gorilla about a failure with one of the flashorbs. The woman with spiky blue hair looks as though she was a small breeze away from being blow to another state. Her look and appearance were that of an experimental preteen trying to stand out from their peers in the most extreme way; however, she was definitely not one to mess with. She wasn’t lovingly given the nickname honey badger by everyone for nothing.
“Your stupid device didn’t work, the damn thing almost blinded me. You should really test the radius of these before pushing them out,” the mountain of a man yelled at the woman, who remained unmoving as he ranted, “And how is my partner even supposed to deploy it? It’s a griffin, not a human with the intelligence to use it!”
“I guess your partner was smart enough not to look into it as it was going off, so how is it the smarter one of you two? If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on your partner,” the woman quipped with a stab to the man’s pride.
“I… uh….grah… Fine! If that’s the way you want to play,” the man lifted his fist with the intent to hit her, but, with a swift and powerful kick, she swept his feet from under him causing him to fall on his side. She followed up with a wrapping the man’s arm up in an arm bar applying enough pressure to cause the man to yelp in pain.
“You call yourself a man, trying to hit a civilized person trying to help you fix a problem, huh? Yell at my people who try and make your job easier, and try to place blame on other for your own stupidity? You really are a man, you fucking idiot,” she finished with a blow to the head with her boot. The man blacking out from the strike.
She released his limb arm, called in security to drag him to the infirmary, and resumed her day as if nothing had happened. Dylan, knowing not to interrupt her during her lesson of respect, now walked up to her to deliver the body.
“Hello, Dylan. Last night’s hunt,” she pointed towards the bag, “Hopefully, it wasn’t too much of a hassle to find,” she inquired.
“Yeah. It wasn’t too bad. What the hell was that about, Heidi? Is he new, or just stupid because there is no way anyone working here long enough would want to fight ex-special forces,” Dylan still reeling from what he just witnessed.
“Ah. I’m not sure. Maybe a bit of both. Not to worry, honey badger won’t let that asshole get the better of her,” she huffs as she puffs out her chest in defiance. Heidi has always played on the dramatics after a victory even if it was as serious situation as this, “Michael, could you send a report to IRATE’s division head and let them know what happened?”
“Yes ma’am. Already on it,” the man said as he his fingers glided over the keys with such speed and precision that it was almost robotic.
Michael, the interdepartmental receptionist, handled the communication from and to the lab to different departments. One would assume that his job would be the easiest since there are only three divisions, but his is most arguably the hardest since he must translate most of the doctor’s lingo to basic watered-down English, so the grunts know what they were wanting. Ivan, the head of intradepartmental, sat next to him and did have the easiest job but an extremely important one, nonetheless. He holds the department together through cohesive communication and thorough understanding that way there are no hiccups that could cause some irreputable damage. Finally, Heidi, the head receptionist and total badass, handles all the complaints from both within the division and out. She takes all the verbal beating and bashing all day from those who are furious with the lab or about some new equipment. She has earned the nickname: Honey Badger
“Thank you, and you, Dylan, can go to the back to genealogy to figure if we can’t find out where this hunter came from; speak with Abigail. And Stryker, don’t let him do anything stupid, alright? He needs constant supervision.” Stryker confirm his new orders with an inspired nod. Dylan let out a chuckled sigh and headed towards the directed department.
The room look like most of the others in the department apart from the multitude of dead bodies of fluffies and their mutations giving the room much more contrasting color than the whole department combined. A woman with thick glasses and disheveled black hair was so focused looking into a microscope, she didn’t even see or hear Dylan and Stryker enter. Dylan leaned against the wall by the door as to not to disturb her attempt to be absorb every last detail she was analyzing and shifted back to dissecting a bit more of the dead creature. She lifted her head only slightly to mark anything of interest on a document that held her fevered notes. She stepped back from the microscope and turned to see who entered her lab.
“Can I help you,” the irritated Abigail asked who never really like social interactions.
“Yes, I’m here to drop off this hunter to see if we can’t find out where it can from, or at least who owned it,” Dylan explained tossing the bag on an empty dissection table in front of her as if it were a bag of money at a hostage negotiation.
“Hmph. I’ll see what I can do. You may go,” she waved Dylan off was about to get to work dissecting the body she was initially working on.
“Of course. I’ll let you do your thing,” Dylan left without saying anything else.
The process in that department does take a while since they have to go through the laundry list of updated genetic sequencing from all of the fluffy vets that have to send a blood sample to Hasbio’s extensive data base. In the meantime, there was a certain problem he was needed to get rid of that could burn some time as he waited for the results. It’s time to paid someone a visit.
Chapter 4