FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Ugh. I need coffee. Lydia Castillo turned off the shower, stepped onto the soft, burgundy rug on the diamond-pattern linoleum, and yawned. The aroma of the pot brewing reached her and she smiled and inhaled deeply. She often forgot to set the timer the previous night, and wasn't awake enough to brew any until much later in the morning. But she'd remembered, for once, and this time there was a fresh pot waiting for her.

She toweled off, yawned again, and wiped the steam off the mirror above the wash basin. Sharp green eyes peered back at her from her reflection, surrounded by brown skin with the mileage from her years of military service only now beginning to show. A few faint lines across her forehead, a couple more small ones on either side of her mouth. Farther south, the rest of her was as fit as ever, though her breasts weren't quite as resistant to gravity as they once were.

Not that it mattered. It'd been a long time since she'd had much of a social life.

She shrugged and turned away. The coffee's aroma caught her attention again and she debated with herself whether to put on her robe first or skip straight to her first cup of the morning. Since she lived alone and hadn't opened any curtains yet, there was no one to see her, so the coffee won effortlessly. She walked into the kitchen, poured a cup, stirred in a bit of sugar and cinnamon creamer, and took a sip.

Mmm. Two weeks away from the base, nothing urgent to do all day, and a whole pot of wake-up juice all to myself. Perfection.

This was the first vacation she'd taken in more years than she wanted to think about. She intended to milk it for all it was worth.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and smiled. She kept her eyes closed and took another sip.

The floor behind her creaked.

She snapped her eyes open just in time to catch a glimpse of a thin metal wire whipping down past her face. The garrote closed around her neck and dug into her skin.

Her training kicked in before panic could take hold. She braced her feet against the stainless steel fridge door and shoved herself into her assailant. Coffee sloshed out of her mug. He staggered back through the kitchen door and into the front room, but regained his balance and continued bearing down on her neck.

She couldn't breathe. The pain around her neck was so sharp, she was sure the wire had already sliced through her skin. Her heart pounded.

She slipped her left leg behind his, but he whipped his around and immobilized hers without loosening his grip. She flicked her cup over her shoulder and splashed hot coffee into his face. He burst out a quick scream and the garrote slipped ever so slightly.

Castillo braced her feet on the edges of the doorway and pushed again, sending him staggering across the room to crash into the bookshelf beside the front window. A quick elbow to his gut made him release his grip. She spun around and backhanded him with her coffee mug. She caught a glimpse of a dark blue jumpsuit and helmet as he stumbled away, then she backed up , coughed, and gasped for breath. She raised her hand to her neck, pulled it away and glanced at it, but found no blood.

The garrote slipped from the guy's left hand as he tried to push himself back upright.

Castillo grabbed it, whipped it around his neck, and turned her back to him. She lunged forward, bent at the waist, and hoisted his feet off the floor, supporting his whole body on her back. His arms and legs thrashed as she pulled the wire tighter.

She gave it one more solid wrench and -

Crunch!

His body turned ragdoll. Castillo let go of the garrote and straightened up. The body tumbled to the floor.

She sucked in a few more ragged breaths and rushed through the front room to check the door. She found it locked, which meant the guy had come in through a window. Castillo checked the kitchen window - locked. That left the bedroom.

Where she kept her guns.

And more intruders could be waiting in there.

She returned to the body, searched it, and found a pistol, a submachine gun, and several knives. No ID, unsurprisingly.

She held the SMG in her right hand, sneered, and gave the corpse the finger. Wait until the first day of my first vacation in years_, and_ then you try to kill me? Buddy, you pissed off the wrong Mexican.

She picked up the handgun and charged into the bedroom. Empty.

A breeze fluttered the curtain on the window to her left.

Ah. That's how he got in. Must've been when I was in the shower._She peeked into the closet, closed and locked the window, and headed back to the front room. _Let's see if I can figure out who you are.

She took a closer look at the man's jumpsuit. Very dark blue, almost black, with no markings on ...

Oh, hold on. Castillo dragged the body into the pool of sunlight streaming in through the thin kitchen curtains, and was able to make out a dark red, stylized snake emblem on the suit's left shoulder.

Huh. Now there's_a blast from the past._She returned to the kitchen window and gave the street a quick visual sweep before heading back into the front room. She picked up her phone and found the tiny message light flashing. She woke the phone up and found a barrage of texts and voicemails, all from the same number.

Her boss, General Farnsworth.

She redialed without bothering to play back the messages. The general picked up his phone before the first ring finished.

"Colonel, it's about time! An extraction team is on its way to you. You need to come in immediately. There's a chance someone may try to assassinate you."

Castillo raised an eyebrow, rubbed her throat, and turned to stare at the body of the would-be assassin.

"I kinda got that impression, yeah."

#

"Ah, there we go." Avril Belmont stood with her hands in her pockets, leaned forward slightly, and stared into the open crate. "Okay, Gunslinger, whaddaya think?"

Veronika Schofield stepped forward and gave the crate's contents a quick look-over with her softly glowing, golden cybernetic eyes. She nodded, moved the front of her leather duster aside to put a hand on her hip, and adjusted the angle of her ten-gallon hat. Her figure was much closer to what society currently considered normal, but she was all machine except for her brain, having abandoned her original body years ago. She was easier on the eyes than Belmont, and her girl-next-door face and slightly buck teeth added a "cute" flavor to her look, though many people found her eyes off-putting.

"Just what we were looking for," she said with a grin.

"Sweet." Belmont smiled at the four men standing behind the crate, her teeth brilliant against her ebony skin, and clapped her hands together. Her black, studded, fingerless gloves muffled the sound, but it was still loud enough to startle them. She couldn't really fault them for being nervous around her. Her body had no cybernetic enhancements, but she lifted weights in her time off and her muscles were bigger than most men's. Her workouts had gradually reduced her breasts to almost nothing, but that came with her diet and exercise regimen, not to mention her refusal to get implants. That kind of thing never worked for women with her physique, as far as she was concerned. It usually ended up looking like balloons shoved under the skin, or huge blisters.

Even though her long dreadlocks and the general curves of her body made it clear she was actually a "she," her muscles had limited her dating options considerably. Still, her intimidating stature was often an advantage in her line of work.

"Okay, let's get this done. What's the account number? We'll transfer the -"

A barely-audible pop came from somewhere behind and above her, followed almost instantly by a wet thump. The middle guy's head snapped back and he toppled over. The others stared in shock for a few seconds before regaining their senses. They bolted for whatever cover they could find in the nearly empty parking lot, whipping out their guns at the same time. One dived behind an old, dented truck; another crouched behind a trash bin; the third sprinted for the nearest building, well over one hundred feet away.

Belmont and Schofield rushed in the opposite direction, heading for the van in which they'd arrived.

The sniper drilled the third man right between the shoulder blades before he could reach the building.

The other two opened fire on Belmont and Schofield. A hail of bullets pierced Schofield's synthetic skin and bounced off her alloy endoskeleton before they dived into their van.

"Crap," Schofield grumbled. "Diamondback just fixed a bunch of bullet holes, like, two days ago. She's gonna be pissed."

"Only if we live through this." Belmont stuck her head out the door and yelled, "Hey! What is this?"

"What are you, cops or something?" The dude behind the truck popped up long enough to squeeze off a few shots before dropping back under cover.

"No! Not cops!" File us under 'or something.' "We're just here to buy what you're selling! That's all! I don't know what -"

Another spray of bullets cut her off and she crouched on the floor and sighed.

"You know, backup would be nice right about now, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah. Where's our backup?"

Belmont dug her earpiece out of her pocket, put it in, and activated it. "Guys? Where the hell are you?"

Another burst of gunfire peppered the van and both women flinched.

"Guys? You copy? Guys?" She glanced at Schofield and shrugged. "Nothing. The channel's open, but nobody's answering."

"Ah, hell." Schofield's eyes seemed to focus something only she could see. "Scanning. Their transponders are still in the same location, but since they're not answering ..."

"Either unconscious or dead." Belmont grimaced. "Damn it!"

"Whoever the sniper is, they're probably here to wipe us all out and steal the crate and our money." Schofield nodded at the steering wheel. "Drive."

"What about the crate?"

"I'm on it. Just get us out of here." Schofield scooted to the back of the van, grabbed her duffel bag, and unzipped it.

Belmont grumbled and started the engine. She glanced over her shoulder and found Schofield arming a satchel charge.

"Oh, come on!"

"We still have a job to do. Even if we can't arrest these guys, we can still get that weapon off the streets." She braced her left hand on the edge of the open side door. "Pass as close to the crate as you can."

Belmont grumbled again and floored it. As the van whipped past the crate, Schofield tossed the satchel charge into it and slammed the door shut. She held the detonator up, flipped the safety cover open, and waited.

One last hail of bullets smashed into the front and driver's side of the van as it roared out of the parking lot. Belmont charged through a red light and continued accelerating.

Finally, Schofield jammed her thumb down on the button. A flash erupted in the rearview mirror and twisted chunks of debris shot into the air and across the street. The shockwave cracked windows up and down the street, and whacked the van forward. It swerved until Belmont got it back under control.

She sucked in a few deep breaths before turning to Schofield and arching an eyebrow. "I'm not sure the blast was big enough."

"Had to be sure that thing couldn't be put back together." Schofield parked herself in the passenger seat and crossed her arms over her chest. "Things might've gone differently if you'd carry a gun."

"I've told you before, I don't like guns." Belmont glanced into the mirrors and made a right turn. "Can you detect anyone following us?"

"No. We're clear, at least for the moment."

"Alright. Let's find out what happened to the rest of our team." Belmont slowed to the speed limit to avoid attracting any more attention and made the required left and right turns at a leisurely pace despite her urge to jam the pedal to the floor.

A few minutes later, she eased the van into a parking lot containing a set of warehouses. She cruised past eight of them and parked behind the ninth. She and Schofield got out and headed for the back door.

"Their transponders are still inside, but I'm not detecting any life signs." Schofield stared at the wall - through the wall, rather. "I'm seeing five heat signatures, but they're cooler than they should be."

Belmont yanked the door open and strode across the floor. The lights had been left on and the four cars parked near the center appeared to be untouched.

"On the left," Schofield said softly. "At the workstation they set up."

Belmont turned to the left and found the bodies sprawled on the floor. She rushed over to them and checked for pulses.

"Oh, no." She slumped against the nearest workbench. "Oh, no. The whole team."

"We'll find out what's going on, but we can't do it here. Come on." Schofield turned away, but then she spun back around and scowled at the floor. She pointed and said, "Look at that. Looks like it was painted with someone's blood."

Belmont glanced around until she spotted the outline of a stylized cobra with its hood spread. "Huh. Some kind of cult, maybe? Or a terrorist organization?"

"Terrorists. I've seen that symbol before. Used to work for an outfit that fought them almost exclusively. They're long gone, though."

"Who?"

"Not here." Schofield gave Belmont's arm a gentle tug. "Let's get the hell out of here."

#

"Okay, Marvin, try it now." Diamondback waited for a reply, but there was only silence in the maintenance bay. She waited a few more seconds for her coworker to try to start the engine, then she frowned and slid out from under the combat car. "Marvin?"

No answer.

She glanced around and couldn't find him. The bay was empty aside from the vehicles they were working on and the half-dozen cars and mini-tanks in the "waiting line" along the wall opposite the elevator doors.

Huh._She tried to shrug off the sudden unease that had begun creeping up her spine. _Maybe he's in the bathroom again. He really needs to cut back on that wheat cereal he loves so much.

She slithered over to the workbench and packed up her tools. It was past lunchtime, anyway; if the car still wouldn't start, it could wait until afternoon. She headed for the nearest wash basin and cleaned the grime off all four hands. She stared into the mirror to check for smudges on her reptilian face and found none. Her scales glistened as she turned her head one way and then another. Red eyes with slit-shaped pupils gazed back at her through wire-frame glasses custom-built to fit her human-snake hybrid features, framed by shoulder-length, wavy black hair.

The people running the lab all those years ago had intended to use her as a weapon, but fortunately they hadn't been allowed to complete their plans, and she'd made her own purpose in life. And, for a living weapon, she'd been told many times that she was kind of cute. Or, in Marvin's case, "adorable." She laughed softly at the thought.

Once she'd dried off, she grabbed a clean towel and wiped the dust and dirt off her glasses. She returned to the car, inserted her torso through the open door, and pushed the ignition button.

The engine started right up and quickly settled into a soft whir. She grinned, let it run for a few more seconds, and shut it down.

"Like it's brand new. Damn, I'm good." She chuckled, slid around the front of the car and turned toward the restroom door on the opposite side of the shop. "Hey, Marvin! Been eating too much of your high-fiber cereal again? If you're not careful with that, you'll start passing wicker furniture."

Again, there was no answer. She let out a nervous chuckle and shrugged again before making her way back across the shop toward the elevator.

That was when she caught it in the corner of her eye - the unmistakable shape of a pair of legs sticking out from behind one of the other vehicles scheduled for minor repairs.

"Marvin?"

He didn't reply. Didn't even move.

A cold sensation surged through Diamondback's chest and for a moment she couldn't breathe.

"H-hey, Marvin, quit screwing around!" Even as the words left her mouth, she knew her friend wasn't just having a bit of fun at her expense. He had a sense of humor, alright, but in the four years she'd known him, he'd never pranked her or gone any further than a bit of verbal teasing every now and then.

Could he have hurt himself without me noticing? Knocked himself out, somehow? Could I have been so absorbed in working on that car ... ?

Yet she knew that wasn't it. There were several things that could be happening now, but somehow ... she knew.

She raced toward him, slid to a stop, and hovered over his body. His eyes stared up and to the right, at a spot near the corner of the shop. Holding her breath, Diamondback turned his head slowly and recoiled at the sight of the exit wound in the other side. She cried out and flung herself away from the body.

_Get hold of yourself! Whoever did this is probably still here._She covered her mouth with her upper hands and fumbled in her pockets with her lower hands. She dug her comlink out of her cargo skirt and checked it to be sure it was turned on.

Then she froze.

Someone's behind me. She held her breath. Both hearts pounded hard enough to shake her whole body. Right behind me.

She exhaled slowly, silently, preparing herself to erupt into the speed-burst ability that had been built into her bioengineered body.

Movement ... air shifting ... something moving into position at the back of my head.

She boosted herself and her sense of time slowed down.

Now!

She whipped herself aside and spun a split-second before a suppressed pistol discharged. A muzzle flash expanded slowly and propelled a slug through the space her head had occupied less than a heartbeat before. She clamped her upper-right hand around his wrist, twisted it and yanked him forward, while at the same time bracing her upper-left hand on his shoulder and pushing him, and snapping her lower-left hand out to grab the Bowie knife from its sheath on his belt.

The man pivoted, wrenched his arm out of her grasp, and swung his gun around to point it at her face. She blocked it with both right arms and passed the knife from her lower-left hand to her upper.

His finger tightened on the trigger as she forced his arm upward, and he popped four rounds into the ceiling. She pulled him off-balance again and hilted the knife in the side of his neck. His fists clenched and his finger clamped down on the trigger, firing round after round into the ceiling and walls until the clip was spent.

He fell to his knees and slumped over sideways.

Hands trembling, Diamondback picked up his gun and searched the body for fresh clips. After finding three, she reloaded the gun and shoved the other two into her pocket. She glanced at poor Marvin and looked away quickly.

Why?

She took a slow breath, pulled herself together, and slithered over to the elevator.

Ding.

She gasped and zipped into a U-turn. There was no one else in this small facility, so who the hell was in the elevator?

She glanced over her shoulder as she slid behind the biggest vehicle within reach, an armored van, and caught a glimpse of a huge rifle through the still-opening doors. She ducked out of sight, coiled her body up, gripped the pistol awkwardly in her inhuman hands, and tried not to hyperventilate.

#

"I have to apologize for being out of uniform, sir." Castillo waved a hand over her T-shirt and cargo pants before standing at attention and saluting. "I'd left it in my closet here on the base. I figured I should report to you as soon as I arrived."

"Don't worry about it, Colonel. You were on vacation, after all, and this is no time to worry about formalities, anyway." General Farnsworth motioned at her neck and winced.

Castillo rubbed her hand over her throat again and shrugged. "He slipped into my house while I was in the shower and tried to garrote me before I could even have my first cup of coffee of the morning." She managed a wry smile. "Made me a little cranky."

"So I heard. The extraction team told me what you did to him. Walk with me." Farnsworth led her from his office to the Operations center. Though he was in his fifties, he had the stride of a twenty-year-old. He appeared to be in tip-top shape, had broad shoulders, and a full head of close-cropped hair that was only beginning to get gray streaks in it. "The team leader also said you recognized the insignia on your assailant's jumpsuit."

"Yes, but I didn't want to say anything else over the radio, just in case."

Farnsworth stopped at a particular console. Castillo joined him and met his gaze.

"It was Cobra, sir."

The general grimaced. "That's what I was afraid of. There have been numerous assassination attempts all over the world, and the only thing the targets have in common is that they were once members of the old GI Joe unit."

"Huh. Interesting that someone would wait so long after we disbanded to take us out." Castillo shook her head. "And Cobra was finished off nearly two decades before the Joes were declared obsolete and shut down. Now, suddenly, they're crawling back out from under a rock somewhere?"

"Could be them, could be copycats or someone who decided to take up their fight for whatever reason. We don't have enough information to go on yet." Farnsworth nodded at the huge monitor in front of them. "Lieutenant."

"On it, sir." The man at the console brought up a series of windows on the screen. One showed a global map, others displayed personnel files.

"A lot of the surviving Joes have already disappeared or been confirmed killed. A few of the original team members are still clinging to life, but they're so old, they probably fart dust. They opted out of the cyberization program when it began, and never changed their minds." Farnsworth shook his head. "They're no threat to anyone."

"Seems like it might be personal, then. The guy who attacked me could've sniped my head off from a distance or stuck a bomb in my car or simply put a monomolecular-filament net across one of the doorways in my house while I was out shopping. I would've stepped through the door and been diced, and I'd never have known what hit me. But instead he decided to do it up close."

"Which doesn't make sense because the last of Cobra's command, the Baroness, rotted away in an ultra-max security prison years ago." The general sighed. "Well, we can figure it out later. For now, teams have been dispatched to guard the retired Joes and bring in the ones who are still active in other units."

"Good to hear, sir."

The lieutenant pointed at one of the windows. "Sir, we've picked something up. Two former Joes are nearby - in the city, I mean. They're working in a small team. One of them was spotted on traffic cameras, fleeing a large explosion in a van driven by one of her associates. They're heading back to their base now."

Castillo leaned forward for a better look at the personnel files. "Ah, the Gunslinger."

"You served with her?"

"Yeah, for a few years on the USS Flagg, before it was decommissioned. Schofield and I didn't do anything really noteworthy during that time, unless you count still being there when they turned off the lights. We certainly weren't involved in any ops against Cobra. Just a bit before our time." Castillo glanced at the screen again and raised an eyebrow. "I don't recognize the other one."

"Avril Belmont. She was just a kid during the last few years GI Joe was still active."

"Oh. Ouch. Now I feel old."

"Hah, you and me, both." Farnsworth nodded at another pair of files, a human named Marvin Kaminski and a weird, twenty-foot-long snake-woman with four arms and four breasts - and glasses perched on her broad, somewhat flat nose. "That one's Jasmine Miyoko, codename_Diamondback_. She was grown in a Cobra lab - one of their many twisted experiments - and was among those rescued when a Joe strike team shut the place down. She joined up, went through all the requisite training, and ended up on the Joe maintenance-slash-engineering-slash-tech crew." Farnsworth chuckled. "Three weeks before the whole unit was disbanded. Now she works with Schofield and Belmont."

"So, that makes her a target, too. Has anyone been sent to assist them yet?"

"A team is prepping right now. Standing orders - when a new target is found, someone is automatically dispatched to bring them in." Farnsworth sighed. "Problem is, we've only been able to locate a few, so far."

"I'd like to lead the extraction team, sir."

"You sure you want to go back out there? You're still a target."

"They took their shot and missed. Probably be a while before they're able to set up another attempt. Since I worked with Gunslinger before, I'm sure she'd appreciate seeing a familiar face right now."

The general thought it over for a few seconds and nodded. "Okay, gear up. Bring our people in alive."