FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The contracts had been long, involved and a bit complicated. Cinnamon still wasn't entirely sure he had understood everything, but the nice fox Rolls had explained everything in simple terms. He was also well on his way to seeing Nutmeg again, which he was a little bit over-excited about. He couldn't wait to see his brother. Of course now he was bored and gnawing nervously on a magazine he'd found in the waiting room, rodent front teeth shredding the paper nibble after nibble.

He'd been given a full medical examination. His blood type had been scanned and he was now waiting for an induction chamber to be ready for him. So he'd been left wearing a drafty surgical gown in a comfortable waiting room for his turn to be turned into a robot to come up. He had just gnawed his way through yet another layer when the door hissed open and a smooth, shiny, orange and silver rubberised head peered in. It was a bird, with a bright yellow beak and bright orange eyes that matched the crystal embedded in their neck.

"OK, Cinnamon? We are ready for you now. We apologise for the delay. If you could kindly come this way, please?" the rat jumped up and hurried after the big bird. He was a weird robot, he had the legs and feet of a lion yet the torso, arms of and head of an orange eagle. The wings folded down his back were entirely mechanical. Folded strips of orange and black rubber with small little engine like nacelles at either end. His flexible, rubbery stomach and chest where silver instead of the more traditional black he had seen on the Vulcanised types so far. "I'm Con, I'll be looking after you during this basic upgrade, if you have any questions ask me them now."

Flicking his short stubby tail the little surmelle scampered alongside the large bird, "Ah... what is going to happen to me? Will it hurt?"

"It won't hurt at all," the bird opened his beak in a friendly smile as he led the way into a small circular room that had another door on the far side, it was very much like an airlock. "It will feel a bit strange, but I will be here with you through every step of the process. Now, pop your gown in the slot for laundry, and we'll go through decontamination. The induction chamber is a clean room."

Cinnamon nodded and removed his gown, blushing a bit at standing around naked, but the bird didn't even look at him. Ducking his head the surmelle squeaked as a peculiar blue light swept up and down the room. It made his fur tingle and stand on end, the 'melle gaping at the little flecks of dust,grime, and fur that were pulled off of his body. Every last scrap drawn away by the light each time it passed over him. It left him feeling clean yet a bit vulnerable. Their technology was so far beyond what he was used to! He'd never felt so clean and tidy and free of shed fur. As he stood in amazement, the inner door swished open revealing the room beyond.

The room contained two pods, half sunk into the floor and attached to a bunch of grey pipes. Various displays were showing a variety of odd text and imagery. It was clean though. The floor was grey linoleum, the walls white tiles, and there was a screened off booth at one end of the room. Con waved a hand at one of the pods and the lid hissed open, but Cinnamon paused to peer into the other one at the person already inside. It was an otter with purple fur, green hair and a sullen expression on his face. He glared up at Cinnamon, causing the little rodent to jump backwards, hurrying over to the pod Con had opened.

"Who is that?" Cinnamon asked in a whisper, "He looked rather grumpy..."

"That is WU-456-987," the gryphon answered, "One of our indentured workers, he's nothing for you to worry about. Just sit down here and we'll do the rest." Cinnamon nodded and clambered into the pod, stepping onto the comfy chair. It had looked like leather but against his bare, furless toes it felt like some sort of soft, mouldable rubber. He could also see that there were ports up and down the side of the chair, as well as down the middle. Squeaking softly the surmelle twisted around to peek up at Con who was looking down at him, "What... ah... it is a bit.... uhm..."

"Sit down, please. It is perfectly safe. We do a couple of hundred of these every few months," he smiled softly. "Oh one more question - rat or weasel, which do you prefer?"

Cinnamon nodded, settling into the soft chair, obeying the big, tall bird man looming above him, "Uhm both because I am both... but I guess ah... weasel?" The bird nodded, then reached down to slide a collar of dull grey rubber about Cinnamon's neck. There was a diamond shaped crystal set in the front that nestled below his adam's apple, snug in the centre of his collar bone. It looked a lot like the crystal Con had embedded in the middle of his collarbone; in fact every Automata he'd ever seen had a crystal in that location, coloured to match their eyes.

The collar itself felt warm against his neck but Cinnamon kept his paws to himself and didn't touch it, he smiled nervously up at the bird and waited with baited breath as the lid of the pod slid closed.

Con looked over the read-outs for Pod-03-02, the surmelle's medical profile was loading and the Access Crystal was in standby mode and properly aligned. The gryphon then walked over to investigate the silent alarm that was displaying on the inside of his VNHD, or Very Necessary Heads-Up Display. The visor was showing him that the otter Whistler had pulled the collar off again which really would not do. Looking in at the purple otter he was greeted by a single finger held up in a derogatory motion.

"WU-456-987, this sort of behavior is very unfitting, please put the Assist-CPU unit back around your throat or I will be forced to sedate you."

The otter mouthed some sort of offensive words but the pods were thankfully soundproof. Con utilised the touchscreen and applied a mild sedative to the otter, it was quick acting and left him effectively paralysed. Conscious, alert, but lacking any control of his motor functions. After that it was a simple matter to open the pod, attach the collar in the correct place and seal the induction chamber back up. The first time he'd done this it had been unnerving, but now the otter's wide eyed stare was much easier to ignore. He may have thought of himself as unwilling but the Vulcan Automata controlling AI for the Sol System had purchased his labour legally from his own government.

Settling into place behind his booth Con plugged his claws into the control system and sent the startup command to both CPU-Assist Access Crystals. Biological data, cyberization status and live medical info displayed across both screens. It wouldn't be long now and two new units would be online and ready for specialisation.

Cinnamon squirmed as the collar around his neck suddenly contracted, it didn't move much but the sudden squeeze startled him. It grew warmer and his skin tingled and then his neck went numb, he couldn't turn his head, all he could do was lay there and stare up at the curved glass of the pod above his head. The tingling sensation grew stronger, the surmelle really wanted to scratch his neck. But before he could give into the urge to do so, the glass above his head came alive with images and text that distracted him.

First there was an image of his body, the screen flickered and zoomed in on his head and neck and text started to scroll across the glass at the same time as a warm, calming voice repeated the words as they scrolled by over his head.

"Cyberization Process has begun, do not be alarmed, the collar is nano-rubber and is bonding with and replacing your neck muscles. Please refrain from touching it at this time, Cyberization Process initialised."

It felt like it kept on going for hours, but it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before the message changed.

"Stage One Complete, accessing Spinal Cord, Nano-Rubber Injection in 3, 2, 1..."

Cinnamon felt a sudden sharp pain right at the back of his neck. It felt like something had stabbed through his spine. But before before the pain could really register, it went numb. Then a very strange, creeping, seeping sensation started to ooze down his spine. It felt like liquid was oozing through him, dripping down the length of his body, leaving him with an odd sensation of pins and needles all the way up his back.

"Stage 2, part 1: Cyberization of Spinal Column complete, subsumation of nervous system now in process. Please remain calm, paralysis is part of the process to avoid accidental injury or damage to your body whilst you are upgraded."

The feeling of liquid dripping down his spine spread. Oozing out as a sense of cold spread through his shoulders, down his arms, across his chest, and over his stomach. It spread across his hips, slipped down his legs, and gently rose toward the surface. Cinnamon felt like he would start leaking from his pores any second, he was convinced he was being flooded with liquid, pumped full, ready to burst. Then, without any warning, he started to lose all feeling. The sensation of his fur faded, the touch of the chair against his skin was lost. He could no longer wriggle his toes or fingers, or open and close his jaws. His nose no longer twitched, his eyes couldn't blink, he was dimly aware of his body but it was just a lump of meat wrapped about his tingling nervous system. It was entirely unresponsive. A leaden, worthless mass that he no longer felt any intimate connection to. He could dimly feel his chest rising. He could feel his heart beating, but it was a distant echo overlaid by a rather numb case of pins and needles, as if he'd slept awkwardly.

"Stage 2, Part 1 completed: Nervous system registers as Cyberized, Stage 2, part 2 initialising. Full Cranial Conversion now ready to proceed: do not be alarmed, external senses are going to go offline except for sight and hearing. Sounds may seem distorted and sight may reduce in clarity, this is caused by disharmony between organic organs and your new vulcanised nervous system. We repeat - please do not be alarmed."

What happened next would have made Cinnamon leap up in surprise, if he had been able to move. The gentle, dripping effect of nanites engulfing his nervous system was not replicated when they came for his brain. It was like suddenly being doused in freezing water, cold sloshed up behind his eyes and filled his skull. His vision wavered and his ears were filled with a distinctive ringing that collapsed into an uncomfortable buzz. His eyes had filled with tears that he couldn't blink away, and the buzzing sound was echoing up and down in intensity, but he could just about make out the words being spoken to him.

"Stage 2, Part 2 completed, life support provided by cardiovascular pulmonary system will be terminated at this stage. It is no longer required to maintain neural functionality. Do not be alarmed, you cannot suffocate and you are perfectly safe."

In fact, Cinnamon noticed his chest had stopped moving half way through that speech. The distant echo of his heartbeat had just stopped, unnoticed during the sensation of his brain being transformed, consumed and replicated by rubber-based nanites. It felt so strange, his body wasn't his any more, it was just a lump of warm meat wrapped about a network of neural pathways and a big computer for a brain.

"Accessing DNA profile, anomaly detected: DNA is a hybridization: Category Surmelle. Rodentia and Mustelidae chromosomes detected. User selected Mustelidae dominant. Basic Automata shape assigned, preparing to initialize full body conversion, in 3, 2, 1...."

-0-

"Accessing DNA profile, Mustelidae chromosomes detected. AI has selected Mustelidae basic automata shape, preparing to initialize full body conversion, in 3, 2, 1...."

Whistler would have been screaming if he could, he'd woken back up from the haze of drugged immobility only to find himself immobilized by other means! His body wouldn't respond, he tried and tried but it was ignoring him. It felt like just a useless lump with him riding around inside! It was terrifying and as he lay there staring up at the curved, screen lit surface of the pod he realised something else was happening. The pale, barely visible reflection of his body and the pod showed that a bunch of tubes had deployed from either side of the chair and buried into his flesh. He hadn't felt a thing, he'd clearly missed something important because try as he might nothing worked. What's more, his chest wasn't moving, and his heart wasn't beating! Trapped behind his eyes he was forced to watch as he died!

"WU-456-987, I see you are awake," the gryphons voice whispered inside his mind, "Welcome back. Please do not be alarmed, you are perfectly safe. The sedatives have been purged from your neural structure as part of the cyberization process. I am afraid the disorientation you are feeling is because the process is occurring."

"Vulcan Rubber-Nanite injectors deployed, connection to tissues confirmed, flooding organic tissue with conversion nanites."

Whistler wanted to scream at the bird, to tell them just what he thought of them, but he couldn't think! At least he wasn't dead, though the diagram of his body on the screen was showing large patches of his body in red. Legs, tail, arms, chest, head, slowly they all were blinking red. It wasn't a reassuring sight, but then suddenly the screen resolved into a real time image of his body. Purple fur, green hair, long muscular swimmer's physique, it was everything an otter's body should be!

"Nanites deployed, full body conversion program initiated,"

After a few minutes Whistler started to notice it was looking wrong. At first it was nothing, just a few patches of grey covering his fur. But then his green hair melted, sloughing away to nothing. That was just the start, though. A ripple spread from his hair and engulfed his entire body, his beautiful purple fur dissolving into a thick grey slurry that started to run and ooze across his body. It didn't drip off, though. It seemed to gather in thick clumps around his muzzle, his knees, and his chest. It was oozing and bubbling away as it started to change his body. His whiskers were gone, his big otter nose was shrinking, his whole head was changing. The shape of his muzzle was becoming shorter, less pronounced. His cute little otter ears were swelling into pointed tips; then the edges of his ear lobes stretched and curved around to close over. Rubberized metallic plating formed a solid ear-shaped unit, some sort of robotic sound wave and sensor package to enhance his hearing. Most alarming of all was his eyes. The grey gloop oozed over both of them, blinding him. His vision wavered, strange lines of static ran up his eyes then his vision cleared. It was bright, clear, perfect; the fuzziness that had plagued him since he woke up was gone. Now however his eyes appeared to be solid purple lenses, gone were his natural eye-balls, replaced with a composite that gleamed like glass or crystal, yet retained pupils for definition. Whistler knew however that they were just for show, data was scrolling over the inside of his eye-balls as they ran through a self diagnostic test as they finished booting.

"Cranial conversion complete, proceeding with exterior limb dimensions. Organ conversion 65%."

Still feeling numb, Whistler lay there, watching. He kept staring as his body was washed away under the sea of oozing grey goop. It was inside him as well, replacing organs and doing goodness knows what. He could see his limbs twitching, growing limp only to suddenly twist and bulk up in strange and unfamiliar ways. Whistler's big powerful swimmers legs were becoming shorter and his feet lost their webbing, his toes now small and weasel like.

He was growing shorter as well. He could see his body sliding down the fabric of the chair, shedding inches of height. His tail was growing thinner as well, the rounded, delightful curves of otter rudder becoming thin and short. All the time the strange grey liquid continued to pool and ooze across the surface of his body, growing thicker as it absorbed excess mass. His torso elongated, there was more mass between naval and shoulders but over-all less height. He was thinner, with slender arms and narrow shoulders. His whole body had a musteline slant to it. He was clearly of the weasel family of some kind, just not a specific one. The crystal embedded at his neck was now glowing a faint purple, and as the light grew stronger the grey goop crawling over and rearranging his body seemed to melt away.

His body was split into two different colours, a flexible white rubber that followed the contours of his muscles and smooth rubberised plates of a dull, shiny grey material that coated the rest of him. The plates were flexible and smooth and added definition and shape to his body's outline and species. He wasn't an otter any-more, he wasn't anything other than a vulcanized automaton. Still frozen in stasis, an unwilling passenger inside what had until a very short time ago been his body.

"Cyberization completed, initiating internal power... energy at 20%, 50%, 75% internal power consistent at 100%, disconnecting from Vulcanizer Pod Power Supply."

Whistler's vision flickered. There was a peculiar twitch throughout all of his muscles, and text flickered across his eyes. It was like his vision had been overlaid by a translucent graph of text. There was a power read-out for his internal batteries, various diagnostics testing his new internal systems, and some sort of upload from the CPU-Assist crystal set into his collar bone. The crystal was shunting basic operating information into his brain! The text scrolled past quickly yet despite its speed he seemed to have time to read it all.

"CPU-Assist Crystal Basic Control Algorithm Upload - Complete"

"Senses suite - online"

"Tactile response system - online"

"Vulcan Automata AI interface - online"

"VA Terra-Operational-Zone AI - linked"

"Basic mind <-> body interaction protocol - online"

"Motor Cortex Online"

"Employee Data - Registered"

"Command Systems integrated"

"Control - transferred to local user WU-456-987."

Then the text was gone and with a start Whistler sat up and bashed his head against the lid of the pod. His unconscious desire to move, to get out of there suddenly found itself with an outlet! He could move! Blessed be, he could move. His body felt weirdly lightweight but he could move again, and as the lid of the pod hinged open he tried to jump out! It turned into a sort of half hearted flop over the rim, out onto the carpet. It felt odd against his body. Every fibre was there, pressing against the smooth rubberised plates of his chest as if it was skin. Yet there was a difference to it, a quality that was distinctly different to what he remembered. It totally distracted him. It took him a good minute to work out it was because he was feeling the fibre of the carpet against his "skin" instead of muffled through waxy, oily fur.

"Careful there, Whistler. Let me help you up," the orange and silver gryphon pulled him up by the arm. He was surprisingly strong and his grip felt natural against his skin. It was so... weird. He took a half-step back, feet sliding over the carpet. He fell over onto his arse as he tried to compensate for his movements with his heavy rudder. His brain still said he should be able to push it against the floor, and use it as a pivot. In reality his new, short swishy weasel tail barely reached his knees. Whistler just sat there staring at it for a few minutes, before he let his eyes trail across the rest of his body. He should have been freaking out, part of him really wanted to but there was also a sense of... rightness? A sense that yes, this was OK, his body was meant to be electric filled rubber.

"Are you ready to try that again?" Con asked, holding out a hand to the former otter. "It can be a bit disorientating, your body memory takes a few hours to adjust entirely."

"No..." Whistler snapped, pushing himself up slowly, "I can do it myself I..." he stumbled forwards, rebounded off the bird and was caught by his identical twin! Leaning back he held the other mustelid at arms length and gaped in confusion as they smiled into his face. Nose to nose, eye to eye, they were the same height, same colour, their ears and noses, tails and limbs everything was identical, "Who..."

"I'm Cinnamon," the other him said with a smile, "The short little fuzzy rat-weasel creature who peered in at you."

Whistler nodded, he remembered. They had barely looked humanoid, more animal than person. With those bandy digitigrade legs and short stubby tail, Whistler thought they might have been a pet or something. But now here they were, an identical copy of himself except his eyes were different, one green, the other amber and the crystal at his throat was also split between the two colours, dumbfounded he reached out and tapped the crystal with one short weasel claw, "uhm... I mean I see they got you too?"

"Ah not really, I volunteered," Cinnamon said with a smile, "I'm off to get a job working alongside my brother."

"You're taking suddenly being a robot very calmly you know," Whistler accused, "So am I, I should be freaking out, why is that!"

"Just a slight behavioural instinct built into the cybridization process," Con answered from where he was standing, content to let the two new basic automata converse. "After all, your new brains think these bodies are natural. It is only your memories of being organic that are getting in the way of smooth operation and acceptance"

Whistler nodded dumbly, rubbing at his muzzle awkwardly before addressing his next question to his body twin, "Oh ah, what about... you know, weren't you some sort of unique and cool weasel-creature with rat teeth? I definitely remember you had buck teeth and no tail, why are you identical to me?"

Cinnamon giggled, smiling wide, "Apparently it's because I was a hybridization of genetic strands. VA don't have surmelle in the database so made me pick which side of my genetic code to make dominant," he gestured at himself, "I picked weasel, though apparently they can re-apply my hybrid nature at specialisation."

"Indeed they can," Con said as he walked over, "They did it to me when I joined, now then we really must move on. Your orientation officers have arrived to take you on to specialisation."

Whistler nodded and allowed himself to be chivvied across the room and out into the corridor. A massive, six foot tall orange fox with black highlights was waiting there next to a smaller fox with an entirely black body. Con pushed him over toward the orange fox who smiled, a wide, wicked looking grin and took the former otters arm.

"Hello WU-456-987, I'm Taluthus or T-S-127-765, the Overseer Unit and Orientation Officer for work crew OC-IS-Beta," he smiled and steered Whistler toward a door which swished open. "In other words, I'm your boss, best friend and fellow inmate, come along let's get you kitted out for work!"

"Oh no," Whistler said with an ingenious smile, "I'm Cinnamon, you want him," he pointed at the real Cinnamon who looked momentarily surprised. He opened his mouth to reply but Taluthus snorted and hit Whistler around the ears.

"Nice try but this isn't some comedy sketch, you're broadcasting your identity to the VA system.

Whistler sighed, "Was worth a try," he grumbled as he stepped through the door the fox pushed him toward. The former otter glanced back and caught a last glimpse of Cinnamon now chatting enthusiastically to the black fox and then the door swished shut and Taluthus gave him a gently nudge to get him going again. The big vulpine was so shiny, smooth and sleek and had a predatory air to him, so Whistler scampered forwards along the corridor.

End Part 3: