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M U S K
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McCUMBIE HAD CLEVERLY cloaked the operation in the inscrutable
veil of wildlife conservation. While carbon sequestration initiatives were gradually easing the worst excesses of Climate Change, and bioengineering advances had given humanity mastery over the very building blocks of life, a powerful pang still reverberated whenever one of the cuter species became extinct. Naomi Campbell's traipse down the catwalk in an authentic fur coat in 1999 had set the world off in a particular philosophical
direction, that so much is fact. But overall, most people were still fond regard for the pre-human kingdoms. To put it in layman terms: gorillas were politically correct. Nonetheless, Cassius Croon knew this wasn't about saving gorillas. Obviously it was a political stunt, and the aim was to embarrass the Chinese government. In this age of east/west trade wars and Chinese companies muscling into every field from textiles to robotics, in this time of Taiwanese Tension... to expose the hideous exploitation of animals in the Middle Kingdom, to trace this exploitation to the top of the Communist Party: well, it would be excellent PR for the vested interests of the White House. Anyway, everyone was into animal exploitation these days - you couldn't just pin this on the Chinks. Even Croon had a pet wallaby... and a girlfriend called Thelma T. Thelma was cuddled up with the wallaby on the mink bedspread when Croon arrived home. He stripped out of his shredded leather suit and strode across the room bare torse - two bullet scars on his abdomen flexing, large Māori tattoo rippling over his back. Thelma smiled at this development, curled as she was on the purring bed, but Cassius just walked right past her to a wardrobe where he began putting on a suit which was half spider silk, half imported yak hair. <<Come on>> Thelma said. <<Why don't you hop over here and jump into my pouch?>> Croon lit a Cuban cigar, sniggered. <<Hell baby, I ain't got the time for jumping about. I got a fucking job to do.>> And he started packing a suitcase with binoculars, mosquito repellent and at least three safari suits. <<Don't expect me to be waiting here when you get back>> Thelma said.
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