Chapter Text
[Chapter One]
“I’ll never stop feeling as ‘upset as I can get’, to use your rather arrogant words,” the irritated lady announced, “when I hear you and other English speakers use that bizarre term of ‘Soviet Concorde’! Especially since it’s honestly just as close-minded and narrow as, say, referring to those NASA employees voyaging into space as ‘American Cosmonauts’ or even ‘Yankee Gagarins’!”
The tall, confident leopardess stood up straight as her back lined up against a massive granite slab that seemingly kept the whole room held in place. She raised her voice moment by moment as she declared her opinion, with her slender, white arms slipping her paws against the sides of her midriff. Her full, confident eyes also narrowed second by second as she glared at her human companion.
“As you wish,” the human man blankly replied.
He blinked a bunch of times as he leaned a little bit forwards in his seat. While the immense airport featured a huge variety of individuals jostling from place to place, their specific section of the wide and tall waiting room appeared mostly deserted. Taking in the full force of the lady's statements, one of his big hands idly rubbed through his scruffy, dark hair.
“I’ll guess I’ll just say that, like, that’s what the European press call it. And the Anglo-American press. And basically everybody across the whole, well, North American continent as a whole.”
"That may be so." She clearly hardly cared.
"For what it's worth," he murmured, not really finishing his thought.
The anthropomorphic creature said nothing else for a few moments. She simply stepped over from the edge of their shared row of seats and went over to a wall covered in vending machines. The human man couldn’t have helped from gazing all across her muscular, shapely legs and focusing on her incredible rear end even if he had tried. And he didn’t try at all. Her arrogance and assertiveness unfortunately matched her beauty in terms of seeming larger than life.
“It has always been, and will always be,” she started to say, her tail swishing as her voice raised a bit while she stepped back to his side, “the Tupolev Tu-144!”
She had apparently acquired a light-ish green beverage that he didn’t recognize. It appeared to be one of those dicey products vomited out by one of those state-owned Eastern European countries that the man had read so much about. He guessed at it precisely being a certain Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, or such type of carbonated fruit juice that he had learned somewhat about yet had little desire to experience firsthand. Those horrid drinks functioned as another example of the ‘they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work, and everybody pretends that it can last for a few more decades without collapsing’ Marxist-Leninist mindset that the man tolerated at best and hated at worst.
At any rate, it seemed perfectly fit to fill her Soviet belly. She practically inhaled the beverage. He watched.
“Why are you even on this demonstration flight, anyways?” she asked. Her bright fur seemed to shine as she posed the question, with her seemingly showing some simple, even friendly curiosity.
“I’m just sort of… here,” the man muttered. He scratched all around his neck for a moment. “My father’s cousin is a mid-level airline executive… like… a business figure of note. If you’re from the Midwest in the U.S., then he's got some influence. He’s done well for himself. He brings my father to various things. And then I get brought along too.”
He had been very conscious of the fact that, throughout that morning, his solid blue t-shirt with a gigantic logo honoring Elvis Presley coupled alongside his darkened grey cargo shorts made him look incredibly out of place. Amongst the European and Soviet passengers of socio-economic and political clout all around him, he felt like a shiny yet vulnerable caterpillar surrounded by dull yet dominating moths. Their determined expressions matched their prestigious outfits.
He had studied some things to do with both international business and advanced engineering in college. He, though, had no particular expertise in either field. Still, he knew that he would become more or less equally uncertain and full of anxiety about the whole situation if he’d been in a suit-and-tie about to speak with Kremlin officials after the flight ended. The gap between their worldviews resembled an entire canyon.
“This aircraft cruises at a regular speed of around 2,200 kilometers-per-hour,” the leopardess commented out of nowhere, with one of her paws sliding against the plastic edge of her seat, “and that’s a full 1,400 miles-per-hour or so if you use the less intelligent standard of measurement.”
“Getting into ‘Mach 2’, then,” the man remarked. He finished the last of his small bag of flavored crackers beneath his legs and then tossed it into a nearby trash can. “That’s genuinely impressive.”
“Of course!” She wiggled her legs from side to side as she smiled. Her grin featured a variety of sharp teeth that the man found both intimidating and strangely attractive. "I truly do love talking about it!"
“I didn’t catch your name.” He scratched both sides of his nose for a while.
“I didn’t give it.”
“I also didn’t ask for you to begin talking to me in the first place." He made a little sigh. "I was sitting here. Minding my own business. Snacking by myself. Reading this magazine about the Apollo program. And then you decided, all of a sudden, to march right next to me, sit down, turn to me, poke the glossy paper with one of your paws, and begin lecturing me about Soviet technology.”
“That’s true.” She said those words with the finality of a KGB officer delivering an order.
The man rubbed his temples for a bit while closing his eyes. He tried not to laugh. He managed to do so, but he still smiled at the absurdity of the situation a bit.
“I could give you my name, though, if you wanted,” the man murmured, finally opening his eyes.
“There wouldn’t be a point to that, since you’ve got a name-tag,” the leopardess commented, her tail suddenly rubbing against her belly and chest as her uniform crinkled a bit, “and I, the last time I checked, have eyeballs.”
“Are you sure?” He rolled up his magazine and held it up right above his nose, pretending that it had become a telescope. “All I see above that thick neck is a lot of white fluff and whiter fangs. Oh, and some spots. A lot of spots. How curious.”
“You’re very closed-minded,” she retorted, though she also looked about to laugh. Her immense chest shivered a bit along with the rest of her.
“And you’ve got an incredible grasp of English. Either fluency or something close to that." The man paused to think through a few things. "And an accent that’s a bit tricky. I get the feeling that you’re from a family of mixed nationality and species. Grew up in various places. Maybe Canada. Maybe England. Maybe Scotland. This Anglo-Scots kind of… vibe… is there. If you’ve got some engineering related uniform on… one that’s… not exactly that of a military officer per se, apparently, then I’d suppose that you’re a technician with an advanced degree tied to some outfit that’s not necessarily working for the Ministry of Defense. Though, you’re a loyal Soviet citizen nonetheless. Am I right? Or am I right?”
“None of those educated guesses are impressive at all,” she declared, feeling smugly confident with every single word.
“How about this: despite your height, your build, your tail’s flexibility and length, your teeth, and a lot of other things, you’ve got a heritage crammed full of those who weren’t felines. I’d bet money that we’re not just talking about foxes and wolves but humans. Lots and lots of humans. You're probably more or less half human when all of your heritage gets all teased out.”
“Betting on everything? How, well, capitalist of you,” she commented, letting herself chuckle a little bit.
“Since you didn’t deny anything, then, I know beyond any doubt that I’m entirely right.” The man let himself smile as he reached for his wallet.
“The name’s Natalya, by the way,” she chimed in, tossing her empty bottle into the wastebasket nearby. She shut her eyes for a moment and went deep into thought. “I do, still, want to know: how and why did you make that latter guess?”
“First, in crude terms, human men are human men throughout Asia and Europe alike. And have been for centuries upon centuries. Everybody knows that. What they call in the U.S. by the term ‘hopping the fence’ faces some pointed stigma if we’re talking about scraggly, fuzzy foxes, mousey wanderers, scared tube-ish mammals, or the like. Yet, well, if we’re talking about elegant, forceful felines that’re mythically tied to the snow? Yeah, come on, that ‘fence’ isn’t going to stand up." He pulled out a pair of coins from a small pocket within his wallet. "At all.”
“That’s an interesting phrase that you just used. I’ll try to remember it.” Natalya blinked rapidly as she let out her cryptic words. “It seems rather enjoyable. ‘Hopping the fence’.”
“The key, though, is that your spots look different. Than what I expected. They’re all faded and washed out, almost. It’s as if the fates, if you believe in them, metaphysically hoisted you up into the air and intensely cleaned all of the little color patterns so much that you had them wrinkle into nothingness from place to place after you got hung out to dry.”
“Such a creative image,” she remarked, giggling yet again.
Although he knew that he'd regret this choice, the man still headed over to the wall of vending machines. He went ahead and picked up his own strangely-colored beverage. The Cyrillic writing on the side might as well had been the scribbles of a child for all he knew. He then made his way back to his spot in the waiting area alongside the leopardess, who'd gotten somewhat engrossed in looking at his magazine left atop the nearby table during the past few seconds.
“May I ask what your full name is?" The man tried to relax as he leaned his body out across two seats at once. "No reason, I know, just pure curiosity on my part,” the man went on. He scratched all across his arms as he waited for a response.
“Natayla Gagarin.”
He blinked rapidly. He sucked in a deep breath. And then he pointed upwards at the various electronic components still under construction across the ceiling above their waiting room, though he had no understanding as to why he actually did that.
“Wait, like, really?” He blinked some more. “Are you related or something?”
“Yes. And yes.” She grinned. Natalya’s cheeks then showed off so many powerful fangs between them that it appeared as if she could literally chomp his limbs in half without much of a care. “Distant cousins.”
“Greenwood.” He took in yet another breath. “Jack Greenwood.”
“Sounds familiar as well, to be honest,” Natalya commented, with a look of deep thought flashing across her face. She seemed to have begun scanning through a mental library of facts having to do with international economics and the natural sciences alike. “Quite familiar.”
“I mean, well, ‘Greenwood’ isn’t that much removed from something like ‘Hill’, ‘Stone’, ‘Wood’, or any other stereotypically... like... Anglosphere names having to do with places.” He awkwardly coughed for a moment. He wondered if she wanted to go someplace deeply serious for a moment in the conversation.
“Do you or your family have any connection whatsoever to the Kennedys?”
Jack stared back blankly. He pressed his hands together. He nodded.
“I thought so.” She grinned for the umpteenth time.
“Blood relations? Nah. Marriage or other things like that? Nah. Friendships? Being neighbors? Yes... that sort of thing.” Jack felt his insides turn from blood to what felt like liquid mercury as he wondered if some intense socio-political argument was coming. “A family story that’s basically become ‘the’ family story is that Bobby Kennedy is only still breathing because my uncle kept him from accidentally drowning one fateful this very early morning. Not that either of them were great swimmers, in truth.”
"Fascinating."
Natalya felt compelled to return to the vending machines after stating that single word as a response. Jack equally gave into the desire of lewdly watching her amazingly pretty body shift about with every single step. Even her tail curled in a beautiful way through his eyes.
He couldn't help but fantasize about petting every last inch of it. The delightful shades and tones seemed like something from a Renaissance painting. Still, he eventually looked right into the middle of her eyes and let his anxiety show through a bit when she returned to their shared space in the waiting room, her having gotten yet another light-ish green beverage for herself.
Jack sipped his own drink instead of continuing the conversation. He glanced around the windows that stood a far distance away from his spot. Two gigantic jet airplanes them touched down.
Neither of them were the one that we was about to board. They still looked truly impressive, especially given the sleek stripes along their sides that kept constantly shining in the morning light. His beverage seemed surprisingly plain and overall decent enough. Although, it made him think that he should've just had some ice-water and then licked a sliced-up lime a few times to save time.
"Okay, so, I'd really like you to tell me: how the hell did you know that?" Jack finally asked, with him cocking his head to the side for a bit.
"It was in 'Time', the glossy news-magazine, from the first week of January during the course of last year," she calmly replied, picking up a backpack from underneath her seat, "and it was a rather interestingly revealing piece about the Kennedy family's difficulties in holding onto two seats in the U.S. Senate in terms of New England's cultural and social turmoil as of late.”
“Turmoil…”
“The aristocratic impulses of the local Democratic Party organizations contrast with the more militaristic and emotionally populistic feelings of the proletariat as well as many within the lower bourgeoisie, with David and James Greenwood of the exploitative class within the military-industrial complex being firmly aligned with the latter. Airline executives boosting their fortunes from international tensions? Am I right? Or... am I right?"
Jack said nothing. He finished the last of his beverage. He snorted a bit.
"I'm surprised that you found that drink tolerable," Natalya remarked.
"It's basically no different than what you'd just call in English 'mineral water'," he murmured, "which, well, I'm sure that you know."
"I find it amazing how American products and other goods across the West throughout Europe are so intensely flavorful in an artificial and even, what's the word, overly aggressive or even genuinely goofy fashion," she started to say, letting herself rant a bit as she rifled through her backpack for something that Jack couldn't see, "most soft drinks seem like slightly diluted syrup. And it's like eating a spoonful of raw sugar. Others come across like refined medicine to improve one's heart or lungs. I suppose."
"That's probably fair enough," Jack muttered with a bit of a smile.
"Ah, there we are! I can spot our airplane out in the distance, yes," she suddenly noted. She held something that looked like a large, black calculator against her chest as she calmly but happily marched over to the windows. Her tail seemingly accidentally smacked Jack's shorts as she went past him.
It only took a few seconds for him to follow. They both took in the sight of the immense aircraft coming into view. The supersonic machine appeared equally as impressive in the aluminum and titanium 'flesh' as it did on paper to both of them.
Jack, in particular, gazed upon the mustache-ish looking small wings besides the tip of the huge white object's nose. He felt honored to be able to fly inside of it during any circumstance at all, let alone during some fascinating Anglo-American and Soviet joint event that he barely understood. If he ever had children, eventually, then he'd tell them about all that too many times to count.
Jack turned to his far left and witnessed Natalya twisting her body around in a full spin while her tail raised up. She also loudly sniffed over and over again, her scrunchy face looking cuter than ever through his eyes. He tried not to chuckle at the little scene.
"Who're you looking for?" he asked, stepping over a bit closer to her spot besides the windows.
"Dr. Simonov," she calmly replied, still sniffing as her eyes grew wide as well, "he's got a distinct kind of... musk... it's difficult to explain the significance of that to a human."
"That name seems familiar," Jack commented, with him closing his eyes and trying to remember back the past few weeks.
"You certainly could say that," she went on, "since, after all, he's the one who masterminded the team behind the breaking parachute."
Jack silently followed the leopardess as she marched a bit over to the corner of the massive room in which they both had found themselves. He zoned out for a while as various men in fancy dress gathered into a oval-ish shape around them. Several individuals, being wolf-ish looking furfolk with determined expressions on their large, fuzzy faces, wore engineering related outfits like Natalya's get-up and constantly gestured both at each other and at the leopardess.
The fact that the supersonic aircraft literally required a massive parachute in order to properly reduce its speed before a safe landing was news to Jack. It caused him to reflect on quite a number of things that he'd heard about the entire production process. A particularly nasty rumor picked up by his family had asserted that things got so rushed that even the bathrooms aboard the aircraft didn't all work. He'd also heard that the ceiling tiles often fit together so poorly that they poked and prodded against each other constantly, with some even partially peeling off. The overall vibe was that of a clueless European child trying to assemble a massive jigsaw puzzle or so the most cynical businessmen had remarked.
At the same time, he knew enough about aerospace related science to understand that 'breaking parachutes' weren't actually a negative sign either conceptually or practically. He also got at a fundamental level that, of course, English speaking capitalists had absolutely no reason to be charitable towards Marxist-Leninist projects. They would say those things. They would even believe those things. Regardless of the truth.
Jack silently stepped past a gate patrolled by a team of five tall, stocky foxes in intimidating Soviet military uniforms. He already had an official nametag on. He reached into his pocket for another bit of identification still. The largest fox nodded. Jack thought that he could probably grate a block of cheddar cheese on the soldier's chiseled face.
He had lost sight of Natalya. Of course, he had no reason to assume that she still wanted to spend any more time with him, let alone keep talking to him. Yet he spotted her only a few yards away while boarding. The insides of the aircraft more than distracted him. He couldn't help but find almost everything insufferably ugly.
His eyes bounced from seat to seat as he took in the bright orange colors of chunk after chunk of fabric. Half of the Tupolev Tu-144 made him feel as if he had stepped into the inside of a gigantic pumpkin. He then stared straight upwards for a few seconds. Panel after panel indeed seemed to have gotten poorly pieced together in a way that became even worse due to the runny and stuffy seeming visual design involved. The shades and tones also include spotted brown and grey touches as well as sickly whites. Everything looked 'off' compared to an American or British piece of machinery.
Natalya loudly laughed all of a sudden. Jack gazed back at her spot in the 'first class area' or whatever the Soviets had chosen to technically call it. She had apparently found Dr. Simonov. The professional's short stature and skinny frame shocked Jack for a few seconds. He couldn't help but think of a living toothpick and not the sort of quasi-giant with a Siberian attitude that he'd come to expect from notable Russian men. The 'shortie' and the leopardess apparently kept sharing a set of hilarious remarks with each other that Jack couldn't quite hear.
Jack leaned against a wall inside of the aircraft for a little bit. He double-checked a written note he'd made for himself. He had, apparently, a seat rather close to the cockpit. He hadn't really had an emotional reaction to that information at first, and time hadn't changed a thing. Jack hadn't felt like even thinking about the crew flying the Tupolev Tu-144 either when up in the air or on the ground, let alone taking opportunities to look at them and listen to them as well as engage them in conversation if at all possible.
Everybody slowly but surely went to their seats. Jack did the same. Natalya did the same. Dr. Simonov apparently sat a far distance away from either of them. Being quite near the cockpit, the leopardess had gotten surrounded by various military personnel. Furfolk and humans mingled together without much distinction. Americans and British travelers were outnumbered by those from the communist bloc by far, though.
Jack and Natalya had sat across from each other. He smiled in her direction and nodded, without really thinking. As if on cue, she noticed him right back and did the same. Their particular area had space for less than three dozen individuals. The two men sitting right besides Jack 'gave him the creeps' immediately. Though, still, he didn't know why at first.
He realized the truth before too long after they both pulled out a set of dark brown folders from some carrying case, with each of them staring intensely at detailed paperwork featuring a variety of grainy photographs. Jack thought back to a certain key term: the 'Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union'. Those walking, talking corpses pretending to be human beings were 'commissars' of the classic variety. He had seen pictures of them before. 'Sovet Ministrov' types had that caustic aura to them in person even more so than in photographs of them illustrating violent geopolitical conflicts.
Jack turned back over to Natalya. She had apparently figured out, to her great dismay, that her nearby window possessed some fundamental defect. She'd only be able to see out through about a third of it.
For whatever reason, they locked eyes yet again. She smiled once more. He smiled back.
"How long until we're airborne? Do you think?" he idly asked.
"Soon!" She cocked her head to the side. "Quite soon!"
He paused to handle his bulky yet not that big item between his legs. He hadn't needed to bring much. Still, he constantly had the urge to possess not just a variety of drinks and snacks wherever he went but also include everything from hand lotion to antibacterial sprays to tiny bandages and more 'just in case'. He clutched an extremely skinny beverage filled with nutritional fluids.
Jack glanced back over at Natalya. She had comically smushed her face onto the exposed part of the window that hadn't gotten blocked. Her tail wiggled against the sides of her seat.
"God," he began murmuring to himself, "I've got the crush of a lifetime? Haven't I?" He sipped his drink. "Damn it." Her poses looked almost too pretty to be real.
He turned back to the Soviet officials for a moment. They clearly both knew that he had started watching them. They also clearly didn’t want to acknowledge his existence other than by making tight, subtle changes in their breathing as well as their posture. At the same time, naturally, Jack knew that they understood about how he knew all about then.
If Jack had really wanted to, he could’ve pressed the matter into as many ‘I know that you know’ loops as he so desired. The notion of caring any more about those men felt to his subconscious mind almost like trying to nap in a bed that used sandpaper for blankets. He awkwardly coughed and turned his attention back to the leopardess. By sheer coincidence, she had started to poise her body back over in his direction.
“Hello, again,” he jokingly remarked.
“Likewise,” she calmly replied.
Natalya leaned in a bit closer, her eyes twinkling with an intensity that Jack couldn't quite decipher. He still loved it all the same. Feeling quite interested in learning more about the aircraft’s particular quirks, he pointed up towards the cockpit with both hands. The leopardess didn’t quite understand at first.
“How exactly is powering everything up going to work?” Jack asked, raising his eyebrows in curiosity.
“It’s, well,” the leopardess started to say. She hesitated, clearly looking for the right terminology to use with somebody who was far from an engineering expert. “Oh!” The hum of the engines suddenly began to grow louder as the aircraft prepared for takeoff, drowning out any ambient sounds within the cabin. “You’re about to witness all of that, now!”
The looming presence of the Soviet officials nearby still seemed to cast a shadow over their conversation, adding an aura of tension to the already partially strained atmosphere. As the aircraft started to move along the runway, Jack felt a surge of conflicting emotions welling up inside him. On one hand, he still felt excited at the prospect of experiencing supersonic flight aboard such a groundbreaking piece of machinery. Nonetheless, on the other hand, he couldn't shake off the nagging sense of unease that had been creeping across the various depths of his mind after actually stepping into the aircraft.
The mechanical hum beneath them seemed to grow louder in a zig-zag type fashion, filling the cabin with a low, ominous thrum. The noises didn’t quite come across like Jack recalled from numerous flights in his past. He also started to make out a bizarre smell that also barely connected to anything in his mind, which certainly didn’t help matters either.
Jack stole a glance at the leopardess' profile, her jawline seeming angular and determined as he focused above her neck. He additionally took in how her eyes fixed ahead with a steely resolve. There was something still captivating about her presence even in an uncomfortable environment, being something that drew him in despite his best efforts to get a hold of himself. More than almost all furfolk, her physical and mental powers matched perfectly, being so unlike shorter and skinner individuals who seemed 'all facade'.
Natalya turned to him suddenly, breaking the cacophony that had settled between them like a heavy fog while the engines grew louder and louder. It seemed to Jack more like they were in an interplanetary rocket than any sort of airplane. Jittering sensations rippled all around, to his great annoyance.
"Do you ever wonder about the choices we make?" she asked, her voice carrying a weight that seemed to echo through the confines of the cabin.
“Choices?” Jack repeated, confusion pouring across his entire body like a sudden burst of rain. Meanwhile, the aircraft prepared to actually take off.
“Like as a matter of destiny. Fate. That sort of thing.” Natalya reached something like a shout in order to be heard above the sounds of everything else. “I don’t mean to bring it up nowhere, but I keep mulling over what the Doctor said. About today being this big anniversary having to do the Great Patriotic War.”
“Oh, I see,” Jack replied, though he absolutely didn’t get it at all. And that fact showed with his immense frown and blank seeming eyes.
“If life’s something like a big, long film, or something like that, then it seems morally wrong and just logically terrible somehow, especially if you’re one of the characters! Right? To know that you’re fated to go into battle after battle after battle and be utterly put through so much? Yeah? It seems like you somehow should be able to leap past this and that if you think you can? Or to simply refuse to follow the script? Why can’t you toss those papers into the air like a ugly little candy wrapper?” The leopardess comically mimed doing just that with an imaginary piece of garbage. "Why can’t you just say ‘no’?"
Jack blinked rapidly. He got the sense that she had somehow received something like a psychic premonition. He hated that fact. He hated it even more when the groaning, rattling, shaking, snapping, and wobbling noises of the aircraft reached a fever pitch. It then began to rapidly ascend.
He wondered if the horrid smells would ramp up as well. He fears got proven right. He shut his eyes and rubbed his nose with both hands. He then shut his nose with one hand, pressing down hard, and rubbed his eyes with his other hand.
The depersonalized aura that went over his entire body as the Tupolev Tu-144 rose higher and higher burned his senses so badly that Jack seemingly became able to stare down at his own entire aisle from above. He finally rubbed his head over and over again on the back of the seat and sucked in an immense breath. The phantom feelings somewhat tamped down.
He managed to look back at Natalya. She somehow barely cared about the incredible sights, smells, and sounds compared to him and other human passengers, the leopardess seemingly focusing on manipulating a chunk of torn fabric on the ceiling above her aisle. Jack hesitated for a moment. He then reached over and tapped her shoulder as best he could.
She turned over. She smiled. She gazed at him. He smiled back. He gazed back.
“Oh, God, I kind of hate myself for falling in love so quickly and so totally, like some kind of a lame CBS nighttime show,” Jack muttered to himself.
"Yes? What is it?" she asked.
He took a gulp. “Is it going to be this loud? All throughout the flight? And this smelly? Too?” He tried not to scream at the top of his lungs, but he seriously wanted to. “Really?”
“Of course!” Natalya’s grin seemed as wide as a literal football stadium, at least to Jack.
“Right, comrade!” Jack found himself making a mock salute.
As if on cue, a piece of the messed-up fabric from above Natalya’s head peeled completely off. It landed on one of her fluffy ears. The moment only took a few seconds. Yet, to Jack, it felt as if the nature of space-time itself had ripped as well.
He found himself then looking down at the icon on his shirt. The embossed version of Elvis Presley, "the King" or "the King of the Night Time World" as Jack always declared to his friends, confidently locked eyes back at him as he clutched a massive electric guitar and swayed his hips. That helped. Jack thanked God that it wasn't Buddy Holly. Or the Big Bopper. Or Ritchie Valens. That would've felt a bit too 'on script', so to speak.
[End of Chapter One]