I had a fairly long and uneventful journey to Antwerp, where over the course of the next three days, I walked miles, hunted, then skinned and preserved animal skins, and slowly built a reserve capacity in my nanocloud for future functionality by increasing the nanomachine count in my body.

On the fourth morning, I reached the address in Antwerp where one of the volunteers of the experiment used to reside. He wasn't around, of course, and despite two more days of looking around, listening to conversations, observing people and places, I never found him. I had no idea what had happened to him, but he appeared to have vanished off of the face of the Earth.

Maybe he'd died some time ago.

Either way, I'd lost a lot of time trying to find the guy, so I decided to quickly move on. Thankfully, I had plenty of provisions on hand, so I set off immediately for my next destination, an address in Eindhoven.

I walked for another two days, and in that time, I managed to keep my food supplies topped up, avoided getting into any combat with humans, and found myself reassured by the presence of some very serious-looking and well-armed people who made their presence known just by walking the routes and keeping an eye out, nodding to anyone passing the opposite direction, including me when I passed them. Having seen their conduct farther back, I felt safe enough not to try to sneak past or hide from them, and this was as well, because shortly after they had stepped past me, maybe a hundred or so metres back along my path, I saw someone take off running from some natural hiding place, all of the officers in pursuit.

Finally, I reached the city limits of Eindhoven, and stepped into a city that was both far more familiar with what I was used to, and so strange at the same time.

When I arrived at the address for the Dutch volunteer with Synergy, I discovered that she had moved on from the area after the outbreak had started to take people's lives. 78 year old Johanneke Van Dijk lived as a quadruple amputee following a severe accident in 2007 when she was 19 years old. The injuries had effectively left her dependant on others for absolutely everything, and her file had included a history of depression and suicidal thoughts that she had no ability to act upon, and no-one who would assist her in taking her own life. She'd therefore lived half a life, with no apparent way out. Synergy provided her with a way out of such an existence through two possible routes, both as a result of the nanocloud.

They'd injected her with a far denser concentration of nanomachines than even I'd received when I went into the experiment, and she'd begun her treatment far earlier. She had been in cryogenic suspension for almost six months before I'd even heard of the experiment, and came out of it when they woke her up at the first signs of the outbreak. She'd therefore gone to sleep in a world she hated to live in, and woke up in a world gone mad.

Unlike the previous volunteer I'd searched for, Johanneke was still very much alive, and incredibly active in the world, having managed through her nanocloud to partially regrow her lost limbs, with nanocloud-driven prosthetics managing the rest. While I was busy trying to dig up information on this incredible woman, she managed to find me near a market where I was observing people.

"Why are you trying to find me?" She asked me in English, surprising the shit out of me. Her stare was unnerving for how calculating it looked, and for how utterly still, controlled and decisive every movement seemed to be coming from her.

I hadn't even expected to be able to find her, much less have her sneak up on me like this. I decided to be direct. "I'm also a volunteer for the Synergy project, and-"

"Name?" She interrupted coolly, staring me down.

"Rick Reyes," I told her quietly. "I was in-"

"Now, why are you looking for me?"

I was already sick of this shit, and blew out a breath in exasperation. "If you'd actually allow me to finish a fucking sentence, I might be able to explain it to you, yeah?" Her only response was to glare at me in a way that suggested I'd better watch my tone or she'd cut my head off. I refused to be intimidated, even if I was useless in a fight. "Well? Can I fucking finish?"

"Why were you looking for me?" She persisted.

"Because I have reason to believe you are being hunted for your nanocloud-"

"My what?!" She exclaimed.

"Jesus," I muttered. "Everyone talking over me like I don't exist. It's what I call the nanomachine cluster that's in my body."

After glaring at me for a moment longer, she nodded. "Go ahead."

"Thank you ever so much-"

"And enough with the petulant behaviour," she cut me off again. "Just remember. You're the one skulking around looking for me. I wanted no part of whatever it is you are bringing to my doorstep, and you've effectively encroached on my right to decide the course of my life by bringing me into this business of yours, so this will go much more smoothly if you just answer my questions and stop behaving like a toddler-"

"We're done, here," I told her, turning to walk off. There were other volunteers I could speak to.

"No, we're not," she spoke sharply. "Why are you here?"

I ignored her and continued to walk away. The next moment, she sprinted past me far faster than I'd ever seen anyone run, coming to a skidding stop just outside of what I'd feel was an invasion of my personal space. I stopped walking, took a deep breath, and spoke quickly. "I don't know what your problem is, but if you really want to be left alone, then I'm more than happy to oblige. Just watch out for anyone that might be sneaking around after you, and I hope you've learned how to hide and to fight in the last forty-three years of your life, because these people mean business. Goodbye," I then stepped around her and walked off.

A few moments passed as I continued walking, trying to decide where to go next for information and supplies.

"Wait," she called out. "Please."

That surprised me, because I hadn't heard a word of courtesy from anyone since I woke up in this post-apocalyptic environment. Slowly, I turned to face her again. "I woke up in a world I don't recognise, and have been trying to survive it ever since," I began in what was quickly becoming a rant. "I was captured by who knows what kind of people, all looking to try and track down an unknown number of Synergy volunteers for the original experiments. I've been threatened, violated and beaten for this information, and I know these people won't stop. I'm trying to get to the volunteers first so that I might be able to save some lives, and maybe try to find out more about what happened to the world."

Johanneke's gaze lost much of its' hostility at that moment. "Alright, I understand," she then said. "I know of a pair of philanthropists in the city who have lived for a long time in both the old world and in this one. You'll want to speak to them and explain your situation, see if they can point you in the right direction. They run a number of interests here, including an orphanage for anyone who's been displaced. If anyone can help you on this mission of yours, they can."

I nodded slowly. "Alright, who am I looking for?"

"Here," she stepped forward, extending her hand. "This'll speed things up."

I knew what she was doing, so I gripped her hand, allowing data to be freely exchanged between us. I also provided her with some of my nanocloud so she could parse the medical directives I ran, and she apparently had the same idea, since I'd received an alert about it shortly after.

10,000 nanomachines received.

Handshake protocol established.

Exchanging directives.

Nanomachine repurpose complete.

New medical functionality can be processed from data.

Time to completion is exactly 16 days.

I wondered what it was that her nanocloud did that could help me out here.

1 new memory assist file received.

Additional linguistics data can be parsed: Dutch (Netherlands).

A memory asist file? What was that?

Memory assist files contain information that can be parsed directly into memory emgrams.

It allows for information exchange without conscious processing beforehand.

That seemed like some spooky shit to me. Still, it might explain a few things, or it might contain the information I needed to find the two people Johanneke told me about.

"Anyway, I wish you luck," she interrupted my thoughts. "But I didn't stay alive as long as I have by staying in one place for too long. Do not come looking for me, but..." She paused, her features softening slightly. "I would not be averse to future interactions under better circumstances. Perhaps if you make a habit of visiting my two friends, we will bump into each other again?"

I had little to say at her terse manner, but appreciated the warning she tried to convey to me, so I nodded. "Thanks for the help."

Her nod was sharp. "Good luck," she said before turning around and walking, then jogging, before finally leaping out of sight at the next intersection she met.

Well... That was an interesting meeting, I thought. I also briefly marvelled at the fact that I detected no hint of an accent in her speech... Nor in anyone else I'd spoken to in my recent travels.

Very curious, I thought to myself. My nanocloud also ventured a possibility.

Host dialect observations noted.

Possible explanation: Each observed host may receive active adjustment to speech patterns when communicating in non-native languages.

This functionality is coded into translation module host obtained in Calais.

Exceedingly curious... But I had a task to work on.

Process the memory assist.

Confirmed.

Without any delay or feeling of transition or abrupt change of mental state, I was suddenly aware of the names, faces and mannerisms of Laurent and Aline Cuisset, two French philanthropists in this very city, not more than a kilometre away from where I currently stood. I also suddenly understood how to speak fluent Dutch, as well as I became aware of the existence of a new and so far unseen class of people that stayed as far east of France and the western world as possible.

The reasons they did so, I would no doubt discover in the not too distant future.

Like most of the towns and cities I've so far encountered on the continent, and unlike many areas of England, where towns like Yate were deserted, or Milton Keynes were under the control of criminal gangs, Eindhoven looked almost normal, as if it were a last bastion of the old world resisting the collapse of world society.

It was also unique as the only city I'd visited so far that had the aesthetic of a pre-industrial town, a perception that was only occasionally contradicted by the odd modern-styled building and the presence of very few electric vehicles still serviceable from the old world. Many of the buildings in service throughout were clearly knock-offs of tudor houses in various historic cities throughout other European cities in centuries past, although many of the modern buildings I was used to seeing were still standing, and apparently in good repair.

Mostly, the inhabitants had decided to transform the city completely.

Unlike the buildings, people's style of dress tended to vary so wildly, I had no clue what the standard was supposed to be these days. Nonetheless, I had an address to visit, and a name to ask for.

Laurent Cuisset,

Brandrood,

5507 ND Veldhoven

The building itself was across the way from an old apartment complex that had been converted into an orphanage, from what I could tell of the children running around outside and the supervision they had among them. It had a similar look of disrepair externally that many buildings in England did, but my nanocloud gave me the same indications via my overlay that suggested the building was actually sturdier than a bank vault. It also seemed to be sighted right next to a medical facility of some description. In the background, I could see the steeple for an old church, in a surprisingly good state of repair.

"You look lost," a man called out to me, startling me a bit. "New arrival?"

"Err," I was somewhat surprised by the fact that this man, dressed in a sharp-looking suit, had the snout of a wolf, fur that was silvering all across his visible body parts, hands that looked like they were tipped with claws, legs that were bent backward like those of a wolf, and ears that pointed up and out. "Yes," I finally managed a reply.

This was the first time I had ever seen a wolf wearing a fucking suit and able to talk to me.

I was a bit freaked out, to be honest.

"Well, maybe we can find someone who might be able to help," the wolf-man addressed me with a surprisingly pleasant bass voice and a courteous gesture for me to walk alongside him on the street. "Do you know anyone here?"

As we walked along the street, I paid very careful attention to what was happening. Human beings were in the majority here, as expected. Unfortunately, a small number of them gave occasional looks of distaste, and it was clear to me that they were directed toward my new wolf companion as we walked along. A few of them even glared at us both, probably wondering why I would be associating with "filthy animals" like that.

I couldn't know for sure that this was what they were thinking, of course. They said nothing, probably well aware of nanocloud enhancements that boosted people's hearing, but that didn't stop bigotry from rearing its' ugly head. No matter where in the world one went, no matter what the world has gone through, it seemed to me that there were no end of people willing to debase themselves and look down their noses at others who were different, just so they could feel better about themselves.

"Laurent Cuisset?" I asked tentatively. "He's supposed to be well-known in these parts, and I'm hoping he can help me find some people I'd like to help."

The wolf nodded, and gave what suspiciously looked like a canine equivalent of a smile. "The Cuisset family are well-known in this part of the world for being an old-world connected family that has become philanthropic in the new one. They're very well liked."

I nodded in acknowledgment. "What's your name?"

"Charles," the wolf told me. "Charles Grummann."

"Sounds Germanic," I commented without thinking. Thankfully, he didn't seem to be offended.

"It is," he agreed. "I grew up in Hanover, started travelling when I was in my twenties. Now, I travel frequently for the Cuisset family in order to keep their staff updated in different parts of the world."

Strange, I thought. Had the Internet collapsed? I suspected it might have, with so few people alive, it was possible there weren't enough left to maintain the physical systems needed to keep it all running, and I was sure that the EMP events I'd been told about by Phil would also have caused damage. "Wait, don't you have some way of making calls?"

"Oh, I do," Charles corrected me. "Our communications systems are serviceable here. It's not what the rumours suggested once existed, and its' capacity is greatly diminished, but it still exists." He then stopped and let out a sigh. "Laurent feels that a personal touch can often make a major difference in dealing with regional politics, which often comes into conflict with his mission."

"Which is?"

Charles' eyes brightened. "He wants equality for people like myself," his voice was slightly rough, and I could understand why.

Even as we were talking this over, I could see, hear and feel the hostility from all around us. To be fair, there were a number of humans who either ignored us completely, gave the occasional friendly look our way, or outright displayed contempt and distaste for anyone showing us anything other than common courtesy, but they were balanced against the hostility coming from the others.

I felt myself building up to respond to some who were sneering at us, when Charles gripped my shoulder in a surprisingly comforting gesture.

"It's alright, my friend," he said quietly. "It is enough to know that people like myself have allies."

His steady gaze was both reassuring and heartbreaking at the same time. It reminded me of the struggles that David and Dani had to go through when we were all younger, and that just didn't sit well with me a single fucking bit. "Sorry, but I had to watch friends and family go through what I'm seeing right now, and it just isn't right," I told him in tightly-controlled anger. "I'm never going to be OK with this kind of treatment."

"I'm not OK with it either," Charles said, his voice continuing to be quiet, even though there was an almost imperceptible tightening around his eyes. "But it will help neither of us right now to lose our heads. Let's go see Laurent. I'm sure he'd be glad to meet you."

I resolved to ignore the sneering humans as best as possible, as Charles and I continued on our journey. After a few more minutes of walking, we stepped up to the tall doors of what appeared to be a large mansion converted from a series of terraced houses belonging to the old world, only with a series of extensions built, floors added, and the structural work from what I could tell, had been blended in to make it appear as though this was always the way the building had existed.

Charles gave no hesitation as he pounded the door three times in quick succession, and stepped back alongside me while we waited. After a few minutes, the door opened to a man dressed in what was clearly a butler's uniform, immaculately pressed, with shoes that gleamed in the sunlight. He appeared to be the epitome of opulence and concentrated wealth in a world which needed neither. I was all set to dislike this family immediately.

One thing I did find even more odd than this though, was my visual overlay highlighted the man in an almost white outline, indicating he had a highly-dense concentration of nanomachines. If I had to guess, it was the highest concentration I'd seen in anyone I'd met to date.

"Welcome to the- Charles?!" The butler had started out with a studiously-neutral visage, which gave way to surprise as he recognised the wolf-man next to me. "But Master Laurent was not expecting you for another two days!"

"I'm early and wanted to surprise him," Charles replied with a deep bass rumble of a laugh. "Is he available, by any chance?"

"He was about to set off on his walk of the orphanage and the residences, but I'm sure he will be willing to delay for your arrival! Come, let us not stand outside in the street." And with that, the butler stepped back, waving us in to the property.

I stepped inside, and holy fucking shit...

This place was well-furnished, alright. If the ornately-detailed archways leading from one section of hallway to another weren't a dead giveaway, then the checkerboard patterned marble flooring underneath our feet would have done it, and I'm not talking about the kind of cheap lino shit that just looks like marble flooring. No, this was real marble, quarried from some place and laid down directly onto the foundation. It felt as solid as granite, and my boots echoed throughout the hallway as we walked. The curtains and assorted furnishings were either red, green or burgundy, the walls were adorned with a brilliant white, bordered with black and gold relief, and the couches were a soft royal burgundy affair much like some of the curtains in this place.

At least there wasn't gold paint all over the place to make it look like a tacky fucking Trump building.

As we proceeded past the hallways that made the entrance to the building, we passed from what looked ridiculous and extravagent in the extreme, into a far more modest and lightly-decorated wing of the building, where there were smaller rooms and offices. It was into one of these that our butler had led Charles and I, and I'd expected that we would be asked to wait in some sort of conference room or similar while this butler went and fetched Laurent from some ridiculously overdone section of the building.

So, I was greatly surprised when the butler knocked on a door that wouldn't have looked out of place on my own apartment back in Milton Keynes, and was immediately answered with a pleasant and warm greeting from the man on the other side of it. Our escort opened the door and led us inside.

The office had an executive desk containing a dense concentration of nanites, its' own nanocloud, if you will. I was fascincated by this, as I was at the twenty-five-year-old man sat behind the desk in an executive office chair. The desk was bare, except for a coffee cup and an array of what appeared to be plastic wafers. The man himself was dressed in a dark red T-shirt, cargo shorts, and had a well-groomed head of golden hair, the image of Aryan perfection for a poster promoting the Nazi party during World War Two. His smile was warm, and it reached his eyes though, as he stood.

"Master Cuisset, sir," the butler began in far too deferential a tone for my liking, causing me to frown involuntarily at him. "I present to you, Charles Grummann, and his companion, who did not provide me with a name upon entering your residence."

I decided I was done with buffoonery and pompous bollocks, so I spoke up. "Rick Reyes, guy from England, one who doesn't think decadence has any place in this world."

Laurent gave a sharp, appraising look toward me, and I knew he was trying to get some idea of who I was that I could not only walk into his home like this, but exactly what I represented. His next question surprised me greatly. "Who was the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?" he asked in English, with a very slight Parisian accent.

"Fuck me," I said under my breath. "James Scarborough, another Eton toff who thought he could get away with raping our country and letting innocent people suffer as a consequence. He was little better than that toffee-nosed-"

"That's enough," the butler started to interrupt, only to be interrupted in turn by Laurent himself.

"That's alright, Bernhard," he told the man, whose manner abruptly changed from the deferential butler, to a rather displeased soldier-type, standing rigidly to attention and giving me a glare that would strip paint off of the walls. "Rick Reyes here is a man from the old world, as he just proved with his knowledge of what happened before the outbreak," he said as an aside to Bernhard, the butler who appeared now to be far more thqan just a servant. Laurent turned to look me full on. "Your story must be an interesting one, Rick. Mind if I call you Rick?"

I shrugged. "Why not?"

"Thanks," Laurent continued. "So, for someone like you, a man who clearly lived in the old world, grew up with politicians from the last days of the old regimes of our planet, and who also exists in this world but with apparently barely enough knowledge to get by and absolutely no knowledge of who I am or what I'm really doing here, you must have been out of the loop for the past forty or so years. Would that be a good guess?"

I shrugged, not giving anything away.

"Well, regardless. If you must know, I'm what might be called an old-worlder. I grew up with nothing, built myself an empire in the textiles business here on the continent, and by the time I reached seventy-five years old, I'd married and had some children, then brought this property with the intention of retiring in it with my wife. As you well know," Laurent gazed at me with a look of resignation. "The outbreak changed much of that."

Not wanting to antagonise the man any further, and still undecided about how I felt about what was clearly an extravagent property in the midst of a world that had gone through a recent apocalypse, I decided to ask the obvious question. "What happened?"

"I can't speak for the world at large beyond what I've learned within my own sphere of influence," Laurent told me in a resigned tone. "What I do know is from my own perspective. My wife and I were both in our seventies when we bought this place, and we were going to retire here, live out our twilight years in relative comfort. The grand hall you saw coming in was the beginning of the process, and I admit, we were goingt to have the rest of this house converted to much the same standard.

"Then the first reports of the nanomachine clusters started to filter through Europe. By that time, it was January, twenty twenty-eight, and most people I've met since those days have told me they had reports of nanomachines appearing in not only humans, but other creatures in nature. A few isolated pockets of the world to begin with, but very quickly spreading. By the time governments of the world had decided to 'do something' about the problem, it would have already been too late to prevent their spread.

"We were probably infected closer to the beginning of the year."

I waited for Laurent to continue, nodding at his mention of infection. Then, as the silence dragged out for a little too long, I prompted. "What makes you think that was when you were infected?"

"That was when I started to notice some changes. First, I noticed that a lot of problems with my health, Arthritis for example, began to ease. Over the weeks, I had completely forgotten what it felt like to feel that kind of pain, and my heart and lungs, which had begun to falter at the start of the year, were in very good condition by the time summer was here. Then there were the more obvious changes. As the weeks turned into months, my skin became more elastic, less stained by liver spots, the wrinkles smoothing out, my hair became less brittle, the colour growing back into it. My eyesight improved, and as it did, I noticed that they looked less milky in the mirror in the mornings, far sharper, the dark shades of my youth coming back. I began to notice these same changes in Aline."

"Aline?" I asked, though I suspected I knew the answer already.

"My wife," Laurent continued. "To this day, I'm amazed at how young, fit and healthy she looks compared to when this started."

I had no idea how any of this worked, and my only experience was limited by being put into a cryosleep capsule for nearly half a century. "I'd started to notice changes when I was first assigned to the project and injected with my nanocloud," I began. "I'd previously been diagnosed with some late stage throat cancer, but within a week, my nanocloud had shrunk it. If I had to guess, I'd say I'd have been cleared of cancer within a month at most?"

"It's what they were designed for," Laurent agreed. "By the way, nanocloud sounds far easier to say than 'nanomachine cluster'. Your idea?"

I nodded. "I thought it would be an improvement. My nanocloud accepted the new designation straight away."

Laurent nodded sagely. "Well, I suspect we have a fair amount to talk over, Rick," he told me. "Would you like-" he was interrupted by a rapid knock on the door. "Come on in!"

The door opened gently, and a young woman stepped inside. She was short, unquestioningly young-looking, wore a silk dress that hugged her curves like a wetsuit, and was probably one of the most striking looking women I had ever laid eyes on in any world. Her jet-black curls were glossy and voluminous, her complexion flawless, her expression serene, with a steady gaze and green eyes that looked like emeralds, accented by a dark green eyeshadow and soft green blush. Her lips were full and generous, and curved in an amused smile as she caught me staring at her.

I really needed to get a grip over myself, I realised. One of the downfalls of getting younger while asleep is the fact that I'm much more easily influenced by attractive women now, than I was in my fifties.

"Bernhard," The woman said in a soft voice, barely a hint of an accent. "I was curious where you were." She then turned to Laurent. "The orphanage will be opening their doors for an inspection late today. Amélie wanted to let you know."

"Thank you, my love," Laurent told her absently, confirming that she was indeed the Aline that he had been referring to in our conversation. "Gentlemen, would you two like to join me on my walk today?"

The walk around the local residences was relaxing. Instead of having to lie in wait for animals to hunt for food and pelts, I was able to just walk around and soak in the environment, paying attention to nature around me, the trees growing behind the houses and across the streets. Much like an affluent area anywhere in the world, there were also trees growing in central divides along road-ways. As I looked among them all, I could see that all of them had nanoclouds of their own. They were hardly the densest concentrations of nanomachines I'd ever seen, but they no doubt helped the trees and grasslands to grow without disrupting the cultivated environment around them.

We then turned onto a cobblestone-and-clay-brick road. While nanocloud obsolescence had eliminated the need for many labour-saving machines and devices they had effectively replaced, building maintenance and construction still needed heavy machinery, even with the presence of greatly-enhanced humans and hybrids whose strength often rivalled small-scale JCB and other earthmoving equipment. I took note of a crane lowering a pre-fab tudor-style wall section that looked incredibly sturdy as it was positioned and lowered into place as part of a bungalow.

Laurent introduced each structure as he passed it along the street, waving politely at passers-by. Charles nodded to those who were friendly toward himself, and I met more hybrid creatures as we made our rounds, including another wolf-man like Charles.

He was tall, lean and wiry, with a light coat of fur and wolf-like ears. His face resembled a curious fusion of wolf and human, with a mouth capable of forming words like a human (or so I assumed) and very intelligent eyes as he quickly looked me up and down, but his nose, while not exactly being a snout, was elongated slightly, had whiskers, and was shaped like that of a husky, the tip slightly damp like any dog. His fur extended across from his face all the way through every part of his body, and he had wolf ears that sat flush against the side of his head where a human's ears would. His arms, while being covered with fur, were very similar to a human, including having hands with opposable thumbs. Instead of fingernails, this wolf fellow had claws. It made him look mean.

Most unusual were his legs. While he seemed to possess typical male thighs, below the knee his legs had shortened shins, an elongated upper foot, and much wider at the front, complete with far stronger looking toes. It was clear that footwear was not only impractical for this man, but also completely unnecessary.

His clothing was much like most men in this village, a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of slacks, custom fitted to take into account the unusual configuration of his legs, with space for the long tail that sat upright on his back. He nodded to Charles, a wolfish grin on his face.

"Hello, Charles," he greeted his counterpart. "Laurent? You are both well?"

"We are," Laurent replied in an amiable tone. "How are the cubs?"

"Growing up fast," the newcomer laughed. "They're keeping us all busy."

"Indeed, they are so full of energy at that age," Laurent agreed. "Let me introduce you to Rick Reyes. Rick, this is Rhett Visser."

The newcomer turned to nod toward me. I nodded back. "Pleasure, Rhett," I said in what probably came across as too enthusiastic a tone, but this newcomer was probably used to that.

"Caitlynne asked if you were heading to the orphanage," he told Laurent. "I think she wants to speak with Amélie before the evening."

"Very popular woman today," Laurent quipped. "I'll let her know. We're heading there now."

Laurent and Rhett made some small talk for a bit, and then we headed toward a building that was converted from an old church, the bell tower still intact. While we approached, Laurent continued speaking to me in English. "My wife and I know a lot of the beastfolk in this town."

Curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself asking. "Beast folk?" I got a good glimpse at a large population of hybrids at this point. "How did they come into existence, anyway?"

"They were genetically-engineered," Laurent replied genially. "A cadre of unscrupulous individuals wanted to start a slave trade in furry beast folk like this one. Most of those that were made were intended for fetishists in brothels, and there were some unethical geneticists who decided to help them out with their sordid project."

I stepped aside as Laurent hocked a loogie on the pavement in disgust. Clearly, he was disgusted by this practice.

"We rescued them as kids and did our best," Laurent's expression lost its' anger, only for it to be replaced with sorrow. "Not all of them made it out alive."

My own sense of justice was greatly offended at kids suffering through no fault of their own. "How many are there?" I asked.

"We rescue as many as we can," Laurent answered mournfully. "Sometimes none are found for years. Other times we find two or three of these operations a year. There are three hundred beast folk in the region, thirty in this town, twenty of them kids."

We continued our tour of the town, coming across a play area near the orphanage that this church had been converted into. There seemed to be a party happening, various hybrid children loosely resembling cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels, and even a fox, all running around and playing games with each other. Occasionally, there would be a fully human child in the mix, although most were on the sidelines cheering the participants. Watching over them were two beastfolk and three humans.

Laurent called out to the crowd. "Amélie, Eveline!"

The two beast folk who Laurent had called, turned to face us. Both were obviously female. One was a wolf, with clearly wolf-like tendencies, pointed ears high up the sides of her head, brown eyes, a canine nose with a slight elevation that was a vestige of a snout, and pointed canines atop her lower lip. She wore a wraparound fabric atop her upper torso, paired with synthetic leggings. She had a bushy tail that pointed up and away from her, and her legs were very similar to the hind legs of a wolf, though the feet were larger and adapted for bipedal locomotion. Her entire body was covered with varying lengths of silver fur, including her hands, which while having opposable thumbs, were tipped with claws that looked to be blunted through constant filing down.

She clearly had more than a passing family resemblance to the two wolves I'd met previously, including Charles who was still with us.

As she regarded Laurent and I, she bounded toward both of us, much like a dog would toward a member of its pack, her greeting cordial and somewhat enthusiastic.

"Hello," she greeted in slightly slurred French. "Glad you have visited us again, Monsiour Cuisset. And who is our guest?"

Laurent beamed at her. "Amélie, as always, it's wonderful to see you," he replied, bowing slightly. "This is Rick".

The wolf's eyelashes started to flutter almost imperceptibly, her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly. She was clearly about to flatter me. "Pleasure to meet you, Rick." She held out her paw, palm down with her knuckles facing me. "You may call me Amélie."

I took hold of her hand, raised it to my lips and kissed the knuckles gently before releasing her. It was remarkably soft and the bones felt delicate. "Thank you Amélie, the pleasure is all mine," I gave her my best genial tone of voice, feeling slightly flushed.

By this time, the second of the two women approached. This one seemed unusual as a hybrid, and despite her unusual nature, taking just one look at her near floored me.

She had a short coat of fine, downy fur across most parts of her visible body, striped like a tabby cat, but with a head of hair like a lion mane. Her eyes were similar to those of a cat, with feline irises and whiskers in place of eyebrows, her fur was like peach fuzz around her nose, eyes, mouth, down her neck, and down into the top of her vest. Her arms were similarly patterned from the pits of her arms to her wrists, and I could see her palms were bare, though the skin there appeared tougher. As much as the fur covered her skin and gave no hint of its' tone away, it did little to disguise just how ripped she was underneath. She looked like she put some serious amount of effort into keeping in shape, and I doubted very much that it was all down to her nanocloud, which my visual overlay told me was incredibly dense. Her hands looked delicate, the fur across the backs soft and glossy, and her fingers were almost human, except for the retractable claws in place of fingernails. Where Amélie had wolf-like hind-legs, this woman had a very human-shaped chest, waist, hips and thighs, all shaped in a way that was highly appealing to me and set my heart racing, with a cat-like configuration below the knee, cat paws with retractable claws, both feet slightly larger than a human foot to provide balance. Her tail was very cat-like and swished quickly in agitation.

She had cat ears, which unlike Amélie's, were mounted in the same place a human ear would be. Her nose and her lips were entirely human, her features somewhat similar to someone from east Asia. I thought that features like this were decidedly odd to find on a hybrid beast person and in this part of the world. Her lips would be rather generous if they weren't pressed in a thin line of displeasure. Apparently, I've been giving her a poor impression of myself.

I still felt like I'd need a cold shower in liquid nitrogen after we parted ways.

What the fuck was the matter with me and all these women I was meeting? It was driving me nuts, literally like being a teenager all over again.

"Eveline, this is Rick," Laurent prompted. "Rick, this is my adopted daughter Eveline."

I nodded, reading Eveline's mood and restraining the impulse to try flattering her. "Hello," I said in English without realising it.

"Hello," she replied tersely, looking between Laurent and I. "Mother?" she asked in dutch.

"She will be along shortly," Laurent told her, also in dutch, before turning back to me. "These two provide daytime care and guidance for our younger beast folk, as well as protection during the evenings and nights."

I believed it. Eveline looked like a ferocious lion-tiger hybrid waiting to stalk anyone who would cause her family harm, and her severe expression and harsh stance did not dissuade such a notion. Amélie, while clearly being friendly and personable, nonetheless resembled a killer wolf, and no doubt entered my mind that she would ferociously fight off any who threatened her pack.

I tried to mask my nervousness, especially in light of that displeased glare Eveline was giving me.

Abruptly, she about-faced and headed into a nearby residence.

Laurent was apparently used to this, and turned his attention to Amélie. "Rhett told me that Caitlynne wanted to see you earlier."

Amelie's breathing quickened slightly, her eyes brightening. "She's been planning something special! Excuse me, please!" She said in an almost breathless tone before she bounded off in apparent excitement. I shrugged and continued my tour with Laurent and Charles.