DYER - The Durban Wolves [discontinued - pending V2, someday, maybe]

.:11:. Extraction

Quion fell into bed, a wreck.

Highschool? Survived it. Boot camp? Bearable. The army? No problem. Special forces? Owned it - but whiskers be plucked, this whole fashion thing was a new beast altogether.

He had been against it from the start, since falling into the public eye totally nullified all of the effort poured into disappearing. Quion had been completely overridden by Glade and the Smits, and Jex... that guy just went for whatever seemed like the most fun without regard for safety most times.

Astiva no longer owed him a favour after breaking him out of the lab, so there was no telling when the hacker would decide to ditch the group and go back to her regular crimes. If it weren't for Jex's shortbread recipe, Quion was pretty sure she would have left ages back, but he was not certain how long the confections would be able to control her. She was becoming more and more Feral each time she saw them and did not have one between her teeth.

Quion sighed.

He had no right to talk.

The beast inside had taken over twice today during the photoshoot. The first time had been when a particularly meaty scent had wafted to him during the lunch break and he ended up stalking at Ling expectantly the moment she appeared carrying the boxes of take aways.

The second had been when an alsatian decided that Quion looked annoying and challenged him regarding his presence on the dog's promenade, as if the four-legged canine owned the place.

Both made cute pictures, but Quion was worried.

Behaving like a canine came so naturally to him, he feared that soon he'd go into dog mode and simply not come back. He'd seen Astiva go Feral enough to know that turning fully would be a really bad thing. When she turned, it was slight, but it almost seemed as though her proportions changed and truly became more animalistic. Quion didn't want to know if something like that was genetically possible, but if the shifting of bones and flesh he observed really was happening every time she went Feral, it meant that it happened to him too. Anyone with less self-control would probably lose themselves in a minute.

Astiva's saving grace was that all of the occasions on which she turned Feral were directlye due to the presense of a rainbow shortbread cookie.

Quion was not so lucky.

The slightest out-of place sound sent his ears swivelling in search of the source, every alien scent on the wind drew his attention. His hightened senses taunted him, as if the paranoia of being traced and his ingrained special forces training had not left him attentive enough already.

Quion tossed about for a few hours, too hot to sleep and without a fan or air conditioning unit to make the nearly seasonless African climate more bearable. Eventually he gave up and stood to fetch something to drink, hoping that cooling his insides would make his outsides feel better.

He had hardly opened the door and stepped into the dark corridor when a sudden impact resounded through his chest, accompanied by a quiet yelp.

"Astiva?" Quion blinked as he peeled the hacker off his chest. "What are you still doing up?"

"It's the Dyer program...!" Astiva panted quietly, and Quion realized she must have been running to wake him up.

"What about it?" He asked sincerely.

Astiva drew a deep breath as she tried to regulate her intakes of air. "The guy in the police that ordered the raid on the Smits - he's been receiving large payments from an account owned by Croex and Co."

"You were at the banks again!?" Quion growled.

"The only way to catch corruption is to follow the money." Astiva defended. "That's not the point, though. The lab you were held in - that place was a secret devision of the Croex and Co. genetics department."