FSE

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Hidden: Chapter 13

Change of Scenery

"Wake up." A sharp voice caused me to groan and cove my ears. "Wake up, the admiral wants to see you." The mention of the admiral got my attention and I knew that it wasn't that damn douche who had been bugging me. I opened my crusty lids and gave my eyes a few moments to adjust to the light. There stood a guard with his hands on his hips and tapping his foot. He walked over to me and began to shake me roughly.

I swatted my paws at him in a half-assed effort to get him to stop. "I'm up. I'm up. Stop." I whined. The shaking stop, but the guard still stood there looking very annoyed with me. I slowly pushed myself off my back into an upright position on the bed. I hated each morning, not because I was tired, but because of the fur. It was the worst case of bed head possible every day, for the rest of my life.

"Come one, let's get you cleaned up." The guard grabbed me and pulled me up. I yelped and covered my mouth since it was another noise I had only heard come from animals. I was extremely self-conscience after yesterday. The guard just looked at me startled, but grabbed my arm again and pushed me out of the door. "Fucking sending me as his nanny." The guard mumbled as I composed myself from the harsh treatment.

We didn't have any more issues after that. I was plenty awake that he didn't have to man handle me anymore. I was led to the showers and was left alone to clean myself. The guard didn't stand in the corner like the first time I took a shower. He had left and was probably just outside. It went much faster this time since I was getting used to washing my fur. It was a lot different than hair, it had two coats and required extra time to really get the shampoo into it. Also, I was shedding a bit as well. I would run my paw through my fur and come out with large clumps. I knew that I would have to do this every day and dreaded it.

When I was finished, I was given a hair dryer that the guard had gotten from somewhere. It was an industrial one and was more powerful than the ones from the woman's washroom. I took my time to ensure I was completely dry, again it was the double coat part that was tricky. Just because the top layer was dry, it didn't mean the bottom one was. I got no help from the guard who just continued to mumble about doing better things rather than watching me. I just ignored it, at least he wasn't calling me a mongrel or something really offensive.

I was given a clean set of naval fatigues and escorted, not to the admiral's office, but the cafeteria where the admiral was waiting for me at the same table as before. He got up and walked over to us.

'Thank you, I'll take it from here." He said to the guard who was all to happy to leave. When the guard had departed the admiral put his hand on my shoulder. "How about some breakfast?" A bit of drool falling from my muzzle was all the answer he needed.

The buffet table had scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal and toast. I took 'healthy' portions of them all and some OJ before sitting down. I wasn't nearly as hungry as the last time I was here so I was able to keep my dining under control. I spooned some cereal into my mouth and took care to ensure none of the milk spilled out of the sides. It was too much hassle, I would have to avoid eating cereal in the future. I pushed the bowl of cereal away when the admiral sat down across from me.

"I've got good news captain." He took a small bite from his toast and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "After making those call yesterday, I was given permission from above to transfer you from Spec Enforcers to my own command." I looked up and waited for him to get to the main point. "This means, you will be working for me and will no longer be considered an... inmate." My tail wagged at that.

"It's good to know that someone is watching out for me." I smiled and began to work on the eggs. I used the fork carefully. Stabbing, bringing up the eggs up to my mouth and chewing slowly and deliberately.

"There is no reason for you to be a prisoner when you haven't been convicted of anything." He returned the smile. "All I really had to do was threaten to sue on your behalf and they agreed." He chuckled at this and took only his second bite. I myself, despite going what I considered slow was quickly running out of food.

"How is this all going to affect my stay here?" Everything he told me sounded good and I was hoping that it would only get better. He did not disappoint.

He finished chewing swallowed then began to list off everything that would happen. "You will get your own officer's quarters for starters. You will have freedom to wander when you are not working." He became stern for a bit and looked at me. "Though, you are not to leave this section of the facility. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir." Nothing else to say.

"Good." He returned to his old self and continued. "Your pay will be reinstated along with an anonymous account where all of your current funds are being held. How you're going to spend money here is beyond me though. Also, you will be switching from the marines command structure to the naval command structure. Before you held the rank of captain, now you will hold the rank of lieutenant commander after the post mortem promotion." He smiled. "Dying in the field has its benefits."

My tail was now wagging fast enough to get the attention of the others in the room. They were looking at us, wondering what was happening. What was happening was I was going to get away from that cell and that one prisoner. "Thank you sir. I owe so much already."

He waved that away. "Don't worry about it. It's simply the right thing to do. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a breakfast to finish. The ensign will show you to your quarters." He looked down at his cereal that had turned onto a mush and began to eat.

"What ens..." I began to question.

"Commander." I jumped a bit and turned around. There was a woman behind me. I noticed that she must have just been in her early twenties, but looked completely professional. She had her brown hair cut short and her uniform was pressed and spotless. She stood straight and didn't look at me, instead she looked straight ahead. "If you will follow me." She gestured towards the exit and began to walk off without me.

Unable to do anything, I left my mostly finished tray of food and hurried after her, but was cut short by a call from the admiral. "Oh, commander. I nearly forgot" The ensign had stopped at the door and waited there. I quickly turned and went back to the admiral.

He laced his fingers together and looked at me. "Remember that there are cameras everywhere. I saw what happened in the cell block last night." My ears instantly flattened and my tail tucked. He ignored this and kept talking. "Now I won't disagree that he got what he deserved, but as long as you are working for me you will keep that temper in check. I worked too hard to get you to this point, don't disappoint me... You can go now." He went back to eating without another glance or word.

I walked away unsure of how to feel. I fell into step behind the ensign who began to head out as soon as I was a dew step behind her. I thought about how lucky I was that the admiral was still helping me along even though I had proven a bit volatile. I had no doubt though that he would cut me loose from the life line he gave me if I did abuse the trust he had put on me. I would have to extremely careful about how I acted. The admiral didn't seem to mind when I slipped a bit with a small sound or with my ears and tail, but a snarl of any kind would ruin everything. I was on thin ice.

"These are your quarter's commander." I hadn't noticed that we had arrived. We were standing in front of a door in a hall that was lined with similar doors. Each door had a name tag on them, mine didn't. I would get once eventually. "You start working tomorrow at 0600 hours. I will be back then to help you adjust." She saluted, which I returned sloppily, nearly stabbing myself in the eye with a claw. Those would have to be filed down. I watched her walk away for a few seconds and opened the door.

I walked in and closed the door behind me and turned around to take a look at my new 'home.' I wasn't surprised that it was pretty much just a carbon copy of my room that was in Germany. Bed, closet, chest, a laptop that sat on the cheap desk, nothing fancy, though a box with my name that sat in the corner caught my eye. It was cardboard or rather a plastic synthetic cardboard since the environmentalists went all crazy about the trees back at the end of the twenty first century. All of the logging industries collapsed under the weight of regulations that swept across Earth. There was no danger of us running out of trees now, but with plastic essentially in everything, logging just wasn't viable anymore on the large scale. Only small private companies that catered to the rich still upheld the ancient practice to make commodities such as the admiral's desk that now had claw marks in them.

I winced at the thought of how much that desk must have cost. I hope he didn't come after me for it and demand compensation for damages. 'No.' I thought, something like that would be insured. I laughed out loud at that, I had never heard of furniture insurance, but I was sure it existed. I pondered on that just a bit more and then opened the box.

A small colored cube sat on the top of the pile of my old belongings. I picked it up, remembering how Sergeant Crane had inquired about it. I had actually planned to teach him, or attempt to teach him how to solve it.

"The world just keeps reminding me of the past." I sighed and set the Rubik's cube on the desk, taking care to not just toss it. I continued to rummage through the box. It was all here, all of the things that were in my old chest were in the box. More reminders, more precious artifacts of the past.

I spent the next several hours moving the content of the box out and around my room. They wouldn't be tossed into my new chest where they would be forgotten. I set them in various locations so I would see them whenever I came into the room. I felt a bit like a hoarder when I saw exactly how much stuff I actually owned. I would fix it up and organize more later, but for now this was fine.

With my room taken care of, I decided that I should take the time to familiarize myself with the area. I opened up the lap top and was met with a login screen. There wasn't a username or password, just 'Identify User' typed in black.

'Cap... Lieutenant Commander Jay Anderson." I said, nearly calling myself captain.

'Authorizing...Voice recognition confirmed. Welcome Lieutenant Commander Anderson.' I smiled at what I considered a small victory.

I sat down and brought up a schematic. Most of the area was blurred out since I didn't have clearance to those parts of the facility, but I wasn't interested in those. I zoomed in on the prison section and barracks since these were the areas I would spend most of my time in. it was compact, but large. The prison section had at least 5 cell blocks in addition to the one that I occupied recently and then there were all of the necessary facilities to accommodate the prisoners, showers, kitchens, laundry rooms and other logistics. It would take time to memorize the area, I decided that it would just be easier to walk the halls.

I closed the laptop and left the room and chose a random direction to go down. The halls reminded me a bit of the Eurasia. How they seemed to just go on and on, no sign of change other than the occasional intersection. I could just imagine it filled with werewolves and their damned barking. In fact I didn't have to imagine it, I actually heard barking. My ears perked up and swiveled like radar dished attempting to locate the sound of my bane. I took shaky steps toward the noise, I was deathly afraid of what I would see, but there was a part of me that was drawn to the noise.

I rounded a corner and was met with a strange sight. I had made my way onto a cargo hold where there were large transparent cages that held werewolves. Soldiers were posted all around and others were pushing the cages around on rollers, arranging them in rows. A soldier saw me and raised a rifle at me and I took a step back and reached for a side arm that wasn't there.

"Put that gun down soldier." I voice yelled out and the soldier complied with some hesitation. The source of the voice, a middle aged man in an officer's uniform walked up to me. He was a naval captain and I saluted and he returned it. "Sorry about that commander, I'll be sure to reprimand him when I get a chance."

"No worries sir." I said, a bit perplexed.

"Well, it will take some time for people to get used to you. I've heard of your exploits commander, very impressive." He smiled and then frowned a bit. "Where are my manners? I'm Captain Freeman, officer in charge of transporting these." He pointed to them with disinterest. "Actually I should get back to work before the admiral comes out and yells at me. Good day commander."

"Sir." I nodded and saluted which he again returned and went back to find the soldier who nearly killed me.

I went back to watch the whole operation, more specifically to see if I could see any sign of Sergeant Crane. It was impossible, there were at least one hundred cages and I wouldn't even know what to look for, I had no idea if the man was alive or what he would look like if he changed. I gave up after a few minutes and left the room and the barking behind.

I wandered the halls for a few more hours. I was surprised at the amount of respect I was getting form the other personnel. They saluted when appropriate, gave nods or said, "Sir" when they passed. I could occasionally see them glance at me with looks of confusion, hate or even happiness occasionally, though everyone was respecting the rank I held.

"Perhaps." I mused. "Perhaps this won't be too bad." I walked back to my room feeling that adjusting to my new life in this place wouldn't be so bad as long as I kept my inner animal in check. I could do this.