FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Neo Titania was one of the world's first ever “mega-cities." Its skyline was a fetching and tourism-marketing-material-ready cacophony of colored lights and ambitious architecture. However, get a bit further inside city limits, and things would quickly become darker. Older. The closer one got to the center, the more tightly packed everything started to get, as if the city was collapsing in on itself. Neighborhoods became more and more abandoned, as the megacorps cleared land and sought ever more ambitious properties out where they still had a clear view of the sky. Freeways snaked over historic districts, their very existence deemed irrelevant as the masses moved from work to home to work again.

At the very center of this accelerating urban decay was a community that the people just called “the Warrens." It used to have a name, some fashionable thing that called to mind images of trees or freedom or community. Not even city officials used that name, anymore. Mainly because city officials didn't want to think about the Warrens. Sure, it contained a staggering number of people, all huddled together in the oldest and most venerable buildings the city had to offer (or the ruins of said buildings, as it sometimes shook out). However, it and its surrounding neighborhoods were also well-known to be the home of some of Neo Titania's most... eclectic citizens. The people who could not (or would not) submit themselves to registration. It was a place where one could, at least officially, cease to exist.

Kayden, the young mountain lion who marched down Old Main Street, had heard all the horror stories. He knew to keep his head up, to walk like he knew where he was and where he was going. He wore long sleeves on his dress shirt, long slacks, and gloves on his hands to cover up the obvious cyberware that would have marked him as, potentially, having money. Not that it seemed to matter, especially when he started getting close to the little neon-studded hole in the wall that his display had led him to. The people who filtered in and out of Flannigan's were a cacophony of fur and muscle, fabric and leather, various colors and styles of industrial carapace. Several furs wore their prosthetics out in the open. Kayden had half a notion in his head that some of the larger and rougher patrons were showing them off, daring people to stare.

Of course, he knew better than to stare.

Flannigan's was, by the standards of bars, very large. It was plopped into the lobby of a building that, at one point, had been a stately and venerable hotel. When its owners moved to the edge of town, the inhabitants came in with spray paint and sledgehammers, in that order. The faux-roman marble was still visible in places, where it wasn't covered with rugs or tables or graffiti or suspect stains. The decor that was added, that replaced the lobby as it aged and broke, was seemingly whatever people happened to have to hand. It gave the place a busy, but organic look, a bar designed by a neighborhood.

The bartender was an androgynous mouse in a big loud jacket and small tight shorts, with a smile almost bright enough to merit sunglasses. “Heyo," they chirped. “Ain't seen you around, before. You here for work?"

Kayden leaned against the bar, trying not to let it slip how overdressed he felt. “No," he lied, “I'm meeting a friend." He reached a hand out, hovering his wrist over one of the register sensors and making a gesture with his fingers. “Whiskey, neat."

The bartender's smile faltered ever so slightly, while they waited for the payment info to show up on the display under the bar. Then, it came back, just as bright as before. “You got it, see-oh."

With a glass of something strong and whiskey-flavored in his hands, Kayden made an attempt to take in the patrons. Nearly everyone here was a riot of different colors and materials. No two furs looked quite the same. There were a handful of people who, like him, were dressed like they had just come in from the office. There was a thoroughly inebriated sheep in one corner, a portly lion being aggressively seduced in a booth, a weasel playing some game on his tab with a group of rowdy locals. They stuck out from the crowd, straight lines in an otherwise tangled mass, though in being among the people they had lost much of their corporate shine.

In such a large crowd, trying to find the person he was here to meet was next to impossible. With one last little scan of the room, to make sure he was not being eyeballed by some less-than-savory character, he pulled his wrist up off the bar. With a gesture, a little circular hologram appeared. Jamming the pointer finger of his other hand into it, he began making a series of quick motions to different points on the circle. Glowing letters appeared through the fabric of his shirt's forearm, as he typed out a quick message. I am here, he wrote. Where are you?

He had just enough time to set his arm down, reach for his whiskey, and take a sip. Then, he felt the vague psychic push that told him there was a response. Pulling his wrist back up, making another gesture, words once again appeared on his arm.

right behind you

Turning around, Kayden finally got his first real look at who he had been secretly messaging, these past few months. Scarlet, as she was known on the message boards, had an appearance that seemed to be every bit as loud and demanding of attention as her posts. Her headfur was a painstakingly dyed sunset gradient, and everything from the paint on her nails to the million and one little baubles studded into her jacket were matching shades of orange and purple. The jacket itself, and her pants, were both made of a substance made to resemble old-world leather. Kayden knew from talking to her that it was actually made of far more valuable... weave-stuff. Weave-something. The substance they liked in the Warrens because it was decently proof against knife attacks and could survive falling off a motorcycle.

Not that Scarlet seemed to be overly worried about knife attacks, considering she had her jacket wide open, and had nothing on underneath but a thin sports bra. Despite himself, Kayden felt a bit of heat rise to his cheeks. He had prepared himself mentally for the more dangerous, anarchic side of this neighborhood. He had honestly forgotten how... casual the Warrens could be. He tried to keep his expression level, but if the deepening smirk on Scarlet's face was any indication, he had failed to completely hide where his eyes had wandered.

“Good evening, see-oh," the fox chirped, once she was close enough to be heard over the sound of music, hollering, and competitive fighting games.

“How's it going?" Kayden responded, turning around on his stool to meet her gaze. “Nice to see you outside the Network."

“Same." Slipping into the seat next to the mountain lion, Scarlet made a motion with her hand to get the barkeeper's attention. The barkeeper then immediately got to work making what Kayden assumed to be Scarlet's usual drink. In the meantime, Scarlet leaned on her elbow and looked Kayden over. “So... the elusive Mister Mann. I'll be honest, I expected you to be fatter."

“I'll take that as a compliment," Kayden replied. “I expected you to be a half-dozen organ harvesting thugs in a white van."

Scarlet let out a harsh, toothy laugh. “Well, the night's still young. I can call up another five people to make your wish come true."

Kayden laughed, trying his level best to pretend like he did not consider her words to be a credible threat. “So, what's the occasion? Up until you called me down here, it seemed like you were happy to stick to the chat-rooms."

“Glad you asked. Oh, one second..." Scarlet took the glass from the barkeeper, with a grin. “Oh, that's lovely, Byte, thank you."

“Not a problem, Miss Scarlet." Byte's expression was suddenly much smaller, as if receiving a compliment from someone like Scarlet was enough to genuinely put them on the back foot. “Is there anything else I can do for you guys?"

“Actually, yes." Scarlet made a motion to Kayden, letting him know she'd only be a moment, before turning back to Byte and saying “You're going on break, now."

“I am?" Byte's eyes widened. Then, their smile came back, nearly incandescent. “I-I mean, of course! I'll talk to my boss and see about getting someone to cover. We going to, uh..." Byte pointed a little finger up towards the ceiling.

“Yup. Meet us there, will you?" Scarlet watched as Byte bounced off to the other side of the bar, smiling warmly and muttering to herself. “Ah, such a little cutie butt..." With a sigh, she turned back to Kayden. “Right, so... what were we talking about?"

“Why I'm here," Kayden answered.

“Right, right, right... Sorry. To business." Scarlet sighed, seemingly preparing herself to act professional (in spite of her exposed midsection). “What would you say... if I told you I had a job lined up, for you?"

Kayden's eyes narrowed, as he pulled his glass up to his face. “I'd... tell you I already have a job."

“You do," Scarlet agreed. “At least, you do for now. You told me that Corporate might be moving their offices further away from the center, soon."

“I'm not concerned about that. All it's gonna mean is a longer commute."

“If they decide to take you with them."

“Why wouldn't they?" Kayden scoffed at the idea. Then, his expression tightened. “Wait... you don't know something, do you?"

“I know a lot of things, see-oh," Scarlet replied, “but the whims of the Owners? I don't think even they know that with any kind of confidence. And, considering your future paycheck is dependent on some furs you never met valuing your input, I was just thinking that you'd be best served... keeping your options open."

Kayden took a larger than normal pull of his drink, his eyes still locked on the fox. Grimacing at the burn, he shook his head. “I can't be having this conversation," he said. “I shouldn't even be in this part of town. If my boss found out I was drinking in the Warrens..."

“Oh, sweetie." Scarlet put a hand on Kayden's on top of the bar and smiled sweetly. “I'm so sorry to tell you this, but your boss already knows."

“What the fuck are you talking about?" Kayden scowled. Then, he felt the fabric of his shirt sleeve sliding up his arm. “H-hey, what are you doing?"

“Nice chrome," Scarlet remarked. “You said Arcadia swapped out your arms and legs, right? There's no way they did all that for you, and left out the trackers."

With a huff, the mountain lion pulled his hand back, pulling the sleeve back where it was supposed to be. “I think you've heard one too many horror stories about corps. Arcadia's not tracking me, when I'm off duty."

“So there is a tracker in there, somewhere."

“Of course there's a tracker. I work security. There's also a heartbeat monitor and an audio sensor tuned to send an alert to Central when it detects the sound of gunfire. You know, stuff they put in in case some merc team decides to grease me while I'm on patrol. But I'm not on patrol now, so..." Kayden's words died in his throat, as he watched the fox in front of him lean against the bar and put her smug, pointed snout in her hand. He growled. “Don't you look at me, like that."

“I'm sorry," Scarlet said, disingenuously. “It's just that I think you're being fucking adorable, right now. Every time I talk to one of you see-oh types, it's like listening to a virgin bragging about their last make-out session." Sitting up, she put a hand inside her jacket, rummaging around in a pocket until she produced a frankly ancient looking key-card. “Tell you what..." she placed it on the bar between them, before pointing to the back wall of the bar. “...take the elevators at the back of this place up to the twelfth floor and use this key to open the first door you see."

Kayden stared down at the card, confused. “What's in there?"

Scarlet shrugged. “Just my way of changing the subject. I mean, here I am ragging on your job after you drove all the way down here to see me. I'm... being an absolute asshole, right now." With that, she downed the rest of her drink in one dramatic swig, set the glass down on the bar, and got to her feet. “Take your time, Mister Mann. I'll be up in a few minutes."

Soon, Kayden found himself alone. Or, at least, as alone as one could be, sitting ten yards away from an impromptu fighting game tournament. He stared down at the card on the counter, jaw set. On the one hand, his gut was telling him something was up. The way Scarlet's tone changed, just a bit, when he mentioned trackers and audio sensors... He knew, from the little hints she dropped during their talks online, that Scarlet was something less than an honest person. She might have been a merc, but Kayden had never been able to get proof of that. If she was, taking the invitation in front of him was an immensely stupid idea. He would be walking directly into a trap.

On the other hand, he could not help thinking back to exactly what they had been talking about, all this time. In between discussions of the NT Redhats, vague complaints about their respective coworkers and a frankly distressing amount of sexually charged banter, there was a consistent and unmistakable air of... restrained hunger. She would not deign to say anything directly, not in a forum she did not have full control of. She had the Warren's distrust for any corner of the world that still had corp influence. Even so, the fox dropped hints in the same way a plane drops bombs. Kayden could never be sure whether she wanted to fuck him or mug him, but either way her subtly unsubtle purring inevitably made him think of dark alleys or seedy hotels.

Tonight seemed to be more on the “seedy hotel" end of the spectrum. Whether that was a good sign or not, he was not even remotely qualified to answer. Even so, the card in front of him was just enough of an encouragement.

Just enough.

He took it.

* * *

The elevator ride up was uncomfortable. The old beast was one of those contraptions that pulled people up and down with cables, and though such things were well-engineered, this one was showing its age in a way that was obvious with every shake and lurch. While the Warren shared out the responsibility for the building's interior decorating, it seemed that certain things were just outside of the budget of the average slum resident.

The doors opened up into what were, at one point, a bank of venerable “presidential suites." Using the keycard on the door immediately in front of the elevator funneled him in to an expansive and ornate sitting room. Here, the marble and carpets were kept more or less intact, though time had certainly taken a hint of the majesty out of the furnishings. Not helping matters was the fact that the room was only about half-lit, giving everything a gloomy air. Rooms of this type had large displays on the walls to compensate for the fact that windows would show them nothing but a concrete wall, but instead of a looping feed of a natural landscape, most of these were off. Half of them looked as though they could not be turned back on. Only one panel was lit up, displaying a computer monitor with lines of code being punched in.

As the door opened, something on the couch turned to look at Kayden. The bartender mouse from before stared up at him, their hands idly fiddling with a keyboard in their lap. “Oh," they said. “Hello there. Do you mind shutting the door?"

Kayden raised an eyebrow, but did as he was asked. As the door clicked shut behind him, he felt a sudden pressure, in the back of his mind. His cybernetics and his comm-bead both went off at the same time, warning him that they had lost contact with the Network. Dumbly, he looked back at the door, then to the mouse.

Byte smiled, apologetically. “These rooms are designed for privacy. They're air-gapped, so your stuff won't be able to talk to the Network. They can still talk to each other, though, and there are places you can plug into to get back online."

“Uh... I see." Kayden made a gesture with his fingers, to ward away the notification. Putting his hands in his pockets, he looked down at Byte. “So... are you...?" He hesitated. Byte tilted their head, questioningly. Kayden indicated the room around them and explained. “Scarlet's shown me photos of this room, told me about the kind of, um... 'business' you guys do in these kinds of places."

Byte's brow furrowed. Then, suddenly, their face burst out into a blush. “Oh! Oh, goodness, no. No. At least, I don't think..." The mouse looked off to one side, unconfidently, then shook their head. “No. Miss Scarlet wouldn't allow me to do stuff like that. At least, not without her around."

Kayden felt simultaneously relieved and disappointed. Without really meaning to, he found himself looking over Byte with an appraising eye. Everything from the mouse's fashion choice to the way they kept their fur to their body language seemed to be an attempt to obfuscate whether Kayden was looking at a boy or a girl. Laying on the couch, their grey legs on full display, with nothing but a large hoodie and a thin pair of short shorts keeping Kayden from the necessary clues... he shook his head.

“Okay?" He exhaled, looking around. “So, if that's not what I'm here for..."

Byte bit their lip, seemingly well aware of the fact that they had just been appraised. Then, they chuckled. “Miss Scarlet will be around in a minute. She just had to say hi to a few of her friends."

“Cool. Cool..." Something closer to true silence pervaded the room, than anything Kayden had ever experienced. With how thick the walls were, muffling the noise of the city below, and without the constant hum of Network-connected devices rattling against the content filters in his implants, he felt the absence of those sensory and extrasensory assaults. It was discomfiting. Too quiet. Much too quiet. He felt like he had to say something, just to fill the dead air. Absently, he pointed to the window display. “What are you working on?"

The question seemed to snap Byte out of their thoughts. They looked from Kayden, to the screen, back to Kayden, their expression strangely furtive. “Oh! Oh, this? Nothing big. Just a little script that I've been writing in between shifts. Engineering stuff. You know, stuff like that." They smiled, uneasily, before adding in “Do you know code, see-oh?"

Kayden's eyebrow quirked, but nonetheless he shrugged. “Nah. Any script more complicated than running my coffee machine in the morning is basically hieroglyphics to me."

“R-really?" Byte's tone was not outright distrustful, but it was rather just the faintest bit probing. “I thought corpsec types got training in that kind of stuff."

Kayden scoffed, coming around to the front of the couch and plopping down next to the mouse. “Man, everyone thinks my job is cooler than it actually is. Maybe somebody upstairs has got the cool anti-script-slinger training, but me? I'm a scarecrow with a gun. A shitty gun, at that." With a sigh, he looked up at the screen. trying in vain to find something recognizable in the block of text arrayed in front of him. “So, this program... what's it supposed to do?"

Instead of getting an answer, there was a hand on his thigh. He found himself falling back against the armrest, as a small and warm body pressed against his. Bewildered, he stared down, into the wide eyes of the little mouse that stared up at him.

“Y..." Byte's confidence seemed to only exist in their body. Once they were actually expected to say something, that confidence disappeared quickly. Eventually, however, they managed to say “...you shouldn't sell yourself short, see-oh. I bet you look real handsome, with a gun on you."

Kayden chuckled, uneasily. “Y-you think so, huh?"

Byte did not respond, immediately. Instead, they crawled up the mountain lion's body, straddling his hips and settling into his quickly warming crotch. Byte's lips parted, and they leaned in close.

At that moment, the door opened, and a familiar voice broke out in laughter. “Fucking hell, Byte. I leave you alone with a guy for five minutes, and you're already on top of them."

“M-M-Miss Scarlet!" Byte scrambled to pull themselves off of Kayden, brushing themselves off and abortively attempting to seem like the fox had walked into an innocent blunder. “W-welcome back!"

Scarlet had her hands on her hips, but try as she might she was unable to muster up the illusion of offense. Instead, she walked to the back of the couch and put her hand in the mouse's headfur. “Sorry about this, Mister Mann. My employee here has had certain privileges revoked, recently, in order to help them focus. Unfortunately, it also tends to make them a bit... antsy."

Byte opened their mouth, perhaps about to voice a complaint at having something so private hinted at, in front of a stranger. They never got a chance to say anything, however; as soon as Scarlet began to run her nails against the mouse's scalp, any protests they had came out as a warbling coo, somewhere between embarrassed and content.

Kayden, keenly aware that he was in the middle of something rather intimate, scratched his cheek awkwardly. “I mean, it's all right," he said. “Byte here was just being a good host. Nothing I can't handle."

“Well, good." Scarlet released the mouse's head, and walked to the front of the couch. “Now, then... since we're all here, I think it's time we got down to business. Byte, sweetie, did you finish that project I set for you?"

“Oh! Y-yes, Miss." Byte leapt to their feet, grabbing the keyboard from the couch and stepping aside to give Scarlet their seat. “Just putting the finishing touches on it now, in fact."

Scarlet took a moment to place herself, carefully, into her seat, before she fixed Byte with a predatory grin. “So, you're saying you're not done with it, then."

Byte's ears flattened. “I... I was distracted, Miss." There was an accusation in the fox's sardonic stare that made Byte shuffle on their feet. “Th-the critical bits are up and running. I should be able to get us through the demo without any problems."

“Good," Scarlet replied. “I had the utmost confidence in you."

Kayden sat up straighter, suspecting that business was about to happen. “What's all this about?" he asked. “What are we demoing, right now?"

“I'm glad you asked!" Scarlet leaned back, folding one of her long legs atop her knee and throwing her arm behind the backrest. “Do me a favor, Mann. Roll up your sleeve a moment."

“Why?" Kayden gripped his wrist, already reaching for a button despite the vague sense of unease that he felt.

“I want to show you something," Scarlet explained. Then, with a deeper smirk, she added. “Plus, Byte here has a bit of a tech obsession." After a pause, she smirked, putting a finger into the collar of her jacket. “Would you feel more comfy if I showed some fur, in exchange?"

Kayden shook his head. “It's fine. Compared to you two, I was overdressed, anyway." Popping the button on his shirt cuff, he rolled the fabric up to his forearm.

Byte's eyes widened. “Wow!" They leaned in, eagerly. “Is that the Arcadia eleven-twenty-six?"

“Uh..." Kayden pulled off his glove, revealing a chrome hand with clearly jointed digits. “...I guess? They told me about the serial numbers, but it's been a while since the surgery."

“Yeah, yeah." Without even a moment's thought about whether they had permission, Byte thrust a hand forward and lifted Kayden's forearm, turning it over. “See here? On the wrist? They wrote the number right here, in Romans. They do that for all their new platforms."

“Huh. No shit." Kayden squinted, barely able to make out the marks that the mouse was enthusiastically pointing to. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I see it."

“Oh, this is so cool," Byte gasped. Gripping the mountain lion's arm with both hands, they turned and stretched the limb, seemingly testing its points of articulation. Their eyes sparkled with unrestrained, childish glee. “I saw all the demonstrations, of course, but a live-stream really doesn't do it justice. Especially since Arcadia's too cagey to provide live telemetry data. I swear, sometimes I just wanna cut my head-fur, dress up like a see-oh and see if I can't get within room range of..."

“Byte?" Scarlet interrupted. “Sweetie?"

“What's up?" Byte asked. Then, after a moment's eye contact, their expression fell. “O-oh... right. Right, sorry."

Scarlet shrugged. “What do you think? Can you get into it?"

Kayden's brow furrowed. “Into what?"

“Uh..." Byte looked behind them, at the large screen. A few lines of text manifested at the bottom. They pressed a few keys on their keyboard. A new message appeared. Byte smiled, faintly. “I'm already in."

“In what?" Kayden repeated.

Suddenly, the room brightened. The giant screen was taken over by windows and charts and a constantly scrolling list of coordinates and shorthand. In the center of the cacophony of data was an image of a male fur, of indiscriminate features, arms spread in a T-pose. The limbs of the person were green, while the rest was a dark gray, and from various points on those limbs pointers led to displays of data in a language so technical it might as well have been alien.

Scarlet waved a hand at the screen. “Take a good, long look, Mister Mann. This screen right here is how your employers see you. Somewhere in the hub of your security center, somebody's looking at a dozen of these screens at any one time."

“I already knew that," Kayden replied. “Like, I told you: I got people keeping an eye on me when I'm on the job."

“Yeah, about that. Byte, sweetie, would you be so kind as to run the logs on our see-oh's trackers?"

Byte made half a noise of acknowledgment, though their expression was significantly more distracted than before. Staring up at the mountains of data before them, it was clear that they would jump on any chance to dig deeper into it, but with how much was there, it was difficult for them to figure out where to start. Running the trackers was as good a place as any, so once the question hit their ears, they were already halfway through the necessary commands.

Kayden watched another screen pop up, another scrolling feed of coordinates. His brow knitted. “What am I looking at?"

“The code is a saved record of the position of your limbs," Byte explained, quietly. “It measures the angle from every point of articulation. Shoulder socket, elbows, wrist, knees... it takes all that data and saves it as a text string. The numbers next to those strings are the time that changes in your body's state were recorded. It's in a 24-hour base, so..."

“Bullshit," Kayden interjected. “Those numbers aren't right. The last entry was not even ten minutes ago."

Scarlet chuckled. “I told you, Mann. You think Arcadia ever turns off the trackers? They've been watching you ever since you staggered out of their operating rooms."

Kayden scoffed. “Bull-fucking-shit. As if you're going to get me to believe that by showing me a bunch of garbage numbers."

Scarlet shrugged. “Well, if what you're looking for is proof you can understand... Byte, is the program ready?"

“Uh-huh." Byte's fingers stormed against their keyboard, causing windows on the screen to close and new ones to open. “By feeding the positional data into a modeling program, I can animate a replica to mimic the actions you took, for any period. When was your last shift?"

Kayden scowled. “Two days ago. Two PM to midnight."

“Okay," Byte's mouth fell open just a little bit, their eyes tightening in concentration. “Let's... try... here. Eight twenty-three."

A window opened on screen. In it, a crude and untextured 3D mannequin stood on a gridded gray floor. It began to walk, in an easy and unhurried manner. One hand lay resting on its hip, as if palming a gun in its holster. Moving forward a bit, it turned a corner, raising its other hand's wrist to its face as if speaking to somebody on a comm-bead. Then, the window closed.

“Okay, and..." Byte began to type, again. “Let's try... about twenty minutes ago."

The window opened again. Here, the mannequin was suspended in air, legs perched on an invisible stool and elbows resting on an invisible bar. It checked its comm-bead, bringing a finger up to type into an invisible holographic wheel.

Kayden folded his arms. “That's... not right. That can't be right."

“Hey, Byte," Scarlet whispered, with a wolfish grin. “Look up a time for me. Last night, at about..." She lifted her wrist to her face, checking the holographic display that came up. “Seven fourteen PM."

“Yes, Miss."

Kayden's eyes widened, his fur bristling. “Wait. That was when..."

The display came back up. This time the mannequin was laying back on an invisible couch. One hand was pointed up to its face, the mannequin staring at the back of its hand. The other was between its legs, fingers curled around nothing as it made a rapid up-and-down motion.

Scarlet leaned back in her seat. “That looks about right," she said. “I thought you were being a little flirty, in my messages."

Kayden folded his arms, trying and failing to restrain his horror. “Fuck. That's... I... fuck!"

“You understand what I've been telling you now, Mister Mann?" Scarlet threw her hands behind her head, her eyes glued to the screen. “Arcadia didn't deck you out in a full set of chrome out of the kindness of their hearts. They've got a line into your own body, and they've got no intention of hanging up."

Kayden shook his head. “Is that why I'm... here? In this room?"

“Uh-huh." Byte sat down on the floor, cross-legged, hunching over their keyboard as they resumed typing commands. “As long as you're not able to connect to the wider Network, Arcadia doesn't see anything we're doing."

“They do know where you went," Scarlet added, “but the penthouses are a known quantity to most corpo-types. As far as they're concerned, you're just here to get some center-strange. Or to take some crazy drugs. Oh, you'll probably have to deal with a 'random drug test' when you get back."

The room was silent, except for the clicking of keys. Eventually, Kayden asked “Can we... get that off the screen, please?" He pointed to the mannequin, who at this point was starting to fidget in its invisible seat.

“Oh, right. Sorry." Byte pressed a few keys, and the mannequin was gone.

Kayden sighed. “So... where's this going? You hoping that showing me how shit Corporate's being, behind my back, is gonna get me to quit, or something?"

“Quit?" Scarlet parroted, with an exchange of glances. “No. You don't wanna quit. Not yet, anyway." Then, she turned to talk to the back of Byte's head. “Are you in his core systems, yet?"

Byte shook their head. “Not the core core stuff. It's gonna take a minute to hit the firmware. I did find the killswitch, though. Did you want me to demo that?"

“K..." Kayden leaned forward. “Killswitch?!"

“Go for it," Scarlet replied.

Kayden leapt to his feet. “Woah, woah, wait. What are you...?" He moved forward half a step, before something fundamental changed. His leg slowed down, landing on a bit of the floor far from where he had expected it, and the rest of his body lurched forward. He staggered a moment, struggling to maintain his balance. His arms, held out in front of him, trembled under a sudden, palpable weight. “What...?" He turned his wrist, the action slow and unresponsive. “...what's happening? What did you do?"

“Changed your credentials," Byte explained. “There's multiple limiters in place, to keep you from accessing the full strength of your cybernetics. It looks like Arcadia removed some of them, so that you could run and fight when you needed to, but if I change the token that tells the system you're an employee with security training, it automatically limits you to the lowest power settings."

Kayden did not respond. During the whole of the explanation, he flexed his arms and bent at the knees. Try as he might, he could not get them to move as fast as his mind told him they should.

“Around here," Scarlet said, “we call it the 'Severance Package.' Folks'll quit their jobs, only to find out a few days later that their chrome's power got cut off. Everyday tasks get that little bit harder, when you're no longer getting the machine's help lugging all that metal and wiring around. It's a way for the Owners to keep their employees in their pocket. You wanna go work for someone else? Arcadia'll be happy to give you back the use of your limbs... provided you can stump up the creds for a monthly fee." Once again, she spoke to the mouse “You can give him his credentials back."

Kayden's limbs roared back to life, with a simultaneous mechanical whir. His arm shot out to one side so hard it nearly threw him a step in its direction. He groaned, shaking his hands at the wrists. He looked to Scarlet, with a dread that almost bordered on panic. “This is wrong," he protested. “They didn't... they didn't tell me about any of this, before..."

“...before they put you under?" Scarlet finished. “No. Of course they didn't. They probably buried it in the fine print of one of the two dozen release forms they had you sign."

“Fuck." Kayden fell back onto the couch, leaning back, face in his hands. “So, if I stay, Arcadia's gonna follow me everywhere I go, and if I leave, they're still gonna follow me, and I'll also have to pay them rent?"

“That's about the long and short of it." The fox sidled over, sitting so the two of them touched, and threw her arm around Kayden's shoulder. “There is a third option, however."

“And what's that?"

“You can come work for me."

Kayden lowered his hands, looking into the fox's eyes.

Scarlet responded by tilting her head towards the screen. “My cute little friend over there changed a few characters on your ID token to show you what unemployment's like. We can change them back, whenever we want. Not only that, but we can probably get the limiters removed, entirely. Let you experience what your chrome can really do."

The lion's brow knitted. “And the trackers?"

“Gone. With just a little bit of work, we can make you so anonymous that Arcadia'll never be able to find you, again. You'll be free, clear, and able to put those snazzy new arms of yours to work with anyone you want."

Kayden looked back up at the screen, at the reams of data being recorded about him with every twitch and shift of his limbs. Then, he looked back at Scarlet. “What... do you need me to do?"

“For now?" Scarlet gave him a little peck on the cheek, before rising to her feet. “I need two things from you. The first is for you to promise that you'll hold off on giving Arcadia your resignation letter for a few days. You'll need to pretend like it's just a normal day at the office, until we've got our ducks in a row."

He nodded. “And the second thing?"

Scarlet grinned. “Byte over here is going to need access to your firmware."

Byte turned, at that, pulling a retractable wire from the back of their keyboard. A look of unrestrained eagerness spread across their face, intense almost to the point of predatory.

Kayden swallowed, uneasily.