FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The fluorescent bulb flickered three times before it hummed loudly to life, illuminating much of the room below it.

Luke stepped forward, looking around. The ceiling was low, but the room itself seemed wide, lined with old wooden furniture. "You live here?" he asked.

Behind him, Cybe shut the door, and slid two heavy bolts shut around it. Once sealed, they gave a slight hydraulic hiss. "Usually" he replied. Luke had followed the wolf, on his insistence, across several city blocks from his friend's apartment. They had crossed a busy intersection, making their way past a small disused industrial estate, until they reached an old abandoned coach station. There, the android had guided the fox down a set of metallic steps into what had appeared to be a disused bunker."

Staring around the room, the boy assessed the location. A number of wardrobes sat flush against one wall, rotten and disused. Above, a heavy pipe ran from one wall to another. In a corner, a thin and scrawny old rubber pot plant leaned haphazardly against the wall. Stepping into the middle of the room, Luke found himself beside a doorway hung with a sparkling bead curtain, through which the night's moonlight cascaded from high windows in thin, long rectangles.

Glancing through the curtain, Luke noted a small futon resting in one corner, supporting a TempaFoam mattress. The fox glanced back at Cybe. "You have a bed?"

The wolf gave a playful smile. "You thought that maybe mechs slept in a recharging pod?"

A grin formed on the fox's lips. It was the first that he had worn for several hours, since the pair had left Rowan's apartment with his mind freshly reeling from his discoveries. The uncertainty of his own self hung still over the boy's shoulders like a heavy cloud, but yet the android's grin was enough to quell it just a little.

The wolf stepped closer, his footfalls echoing through the encased walls of the bunker. "Would you like something for a late dinner?" he asked. "I'm afraid we only have a few boxes of microchips, but they go well with milk." He turned his head, smirking at his joke. And then added, "Beep."

At that, Luke couldn't help but laugh loudly. "Did you just say beep?"

"Did I?" asked the wolf, playfully. "That must mean my batteries are low."

The fox folded his arms over his chest, his laughter growing harder. "You didn't even beep!" he roared, "You just said the word 'beep', you doofus!"

He stumbled forward a few steps, collapsing against the wolf's arms. Cybe held him, lightly supporting the fox's shoulders with his strong arm.

"You used to love jokes like that" commented Cybe.

Luke's smile faded somewhat. He stepped back, turning his head to look down at the floor. "I don't remember any of that" he mumbled. "As far as I know, I've only known you for a week."

The wolf nodded, keeping his arm gently around his friend's shoulder. "We have known each other for almost six months" he said, "and worked together extensively. Rowan supplied your augmentations. We have made many successful jobs together."

Finding his way into a small living room area, Luke looked around. Two small steps lead down, creating a sunken area of the room in which sat an old dusty sofa and a large retro-style television set that encompassed part of the wall. The fox turned back to Cybe, his eyes wide. "Have I been here before?" he asked, uncertainty.

The android nodded. "You used to stay here with me quite often" he said. "And to answer your earlier question, the bed is yours. Although," he said, smoothly moving down the steps to stand beside Luke, "it may be safer if you stay here tonight too."

For the last few hours, Luke had tried not to allow the doubts that he had felt welling up within him overtake him. As he looked around the wolf's home, they began to swell, lapping up through him in deep dark electronic waves. He pursed his lips. Plucking a thought from the many that swam over him, he asked "I remember writing poems. A small collection, but I remember writing them about a year or so ago. I think I kept them in a cupboard in my bedroom. Are they real?"

Cybe took a few steps towards the middle of the room. In this area, the light from the fluorescence appeared dimmer than usual, supplemented with a thin stream of fairy lights that hung scattered across the ceiling. The fox thought that surely if the fluorescents were turned off, they remaining illuminations would look like stars. "They could be" he said. "It's entirely possible. I don't know. Rowan has said that it's entirely possible that parts of your memories might begin to reinstate themselves over time, but..."

The final word hung in the air, uncertainty.

Trying to shake the thoughts from his mind, the fox began to look once more around the room. With the light illuminating it, he could easily make out the furniture as old antique wooden items. They were dusty, and definitely valuable given the scarcity of the material in the recent decades.

"Would you like me to turn on some music?" asked the wolf.

Gently, the fox shook his head. A light orb of guilt caught in his throat. "I'm sorry" he said. "I'm just feeling a bit..."

"I understand" replied the android, without a moment's hesitation. "We are not as dissimilar as you had previously thought."

A soft smile crossed Luke's lips. The android's observation was very true - he looked at his friend, and considered their situation. "Neither of us know for certain about our pasts" he said, "do we?"

Somewhere high above, a loud humming sound echoed through the night, signalling one of the many trains that rumbled their way through the darkness of the city. It faded into silence. As it did, Luke found himself reaching out to touch the android. His fingers met the soft fur of the wolf's upper chest. Softly, he stepped closer. The android, he thought, had no memory of his past either - nothing since it had awakened in the factory. Was Cybe's intelligence, his charming human-like personality, in actuality an advanced computer program? Or had the distinctive personality come from a living being, a biological person like himself that had traded - or been forced to trade - his body for a technological replacement?

He slid against the android's body and Cybe wrapped an arm around the fox, supporting the back of his head. He rested his cheek against the wolf. Luke felt as if he were two people, had lived two lives, only to have one of those lives sealed away somewhere that he could never unlock. He looked up at the android. "You're warm" he said, quietly.

Cybe canted his head lightly to one side. "I apologise" he said. "I may had been overclocking without realising it. I'll turn up my internal coolant to avoid..."

The fox laughed again. "No" he said, "don't do that." He leaned up a little and kissed the wolf.

Without hesitation, the wolf returned the kiss, sliding his warm lips gently against Luke's. The fox shifted, pressing closer against Cybe's attentions.

Together the two embraced, holding one another securely, as if to protect one another from the world around them. They kissed, heavier now, their lips holding together as tightly as their bodies, secure and comforting. He came back for me, thought Luke, feeling the wolf's strong arms slide tenderly around his hips.

They parted their kiss, looking into one another's eyes. Reflected in the wolf's gaze, Luke caught sight of the glimmering electronic aurora that surrounded Cybe's cybernetic pupils. He sunk against his companion, kissing light brushes against the wolf's neck.

Together the two sunk down, easing into the ample sofa, their bodies entwining. Pausing for just a moment, the wolf leaned down over his companion. Luke felt his knees grow weak as he guided himself down onto the ample sofa. He gently rubbed at Cybe's hard, muscular shoulders, noticing that his friend's body now felt cool to the touch. Leaning his strong neck to one side, Cybe guided his grip around Luke's waistband. He kissed the nape of the boy's neck, and the fox whimpered in swelling pleasure.

"Please" whispered the fox through trembling lips, "I want you."

Carefully, yet with a keen confidence, the wolf shifted the fabric of the fox's shirt upwards, giving space across Luke's abdomen for him to apply pleasing and fur-bristing kisses. With that, the wolf began to tug down at both of their trousers, eagerly pulling them away from both of their bodies. Luke let his head fall back, his breath quickening almost instinctively at the wolf's attentions. He came back for me, thought the fox over and over. He bit his lip, a soft pant breaking from his muzzle as Cybe spread his thighs for him. Keenly, the fox wrapped his legs around his companion, encircling him.

Luke's back heaved against the cool sofa, his thighs spread around the larger man's hips. Cybe drove into him eagerly with a soft determination. A ripple of tenseness seemed to pass through the fox, his teeth clenching down tightly, his fingertips digging against the wolf's broad shoulders. The wolf's broad shoulders arched, as he asked "Like this?"

"So good" panted the fox. Eagerly Luke pressed up, locking his lips securely against the wolf. He squeezed his hands around his companion, feeling the android's thickness filling him so completely, so utterly. He felt his own arousal, solid and heavy, brushing against the downy fur of the wolf's chest, the sensation rubbing against him sending sharply exquisite. Breaking their kiss for a moment, Luke's voice came as soft moans filtered through through heavy breaths "Harder" he exhaled, "make me feel you."

Almost in perfect response, Cybe began to quicken his fervent, determined thrusting, quickly growing in speed. Luke whined out loud, ecstatically, cries of pleasure breaking from his lips as the wolf began pounding him deeply and with hard, rigorous enthusiasm. The fox's feet, locked around his companion's tight buttocks, shook in the night air. "How does that feel?" asked the wolf.

Luke strained to catch a breath as Cybe ploughed into him again, truly pleasuring his tight entrance with a confident and reckless ferocity. He tried to speak to answer the question, but found that the words eluded him. The boy's hands strained, trying to clasp onto something -- the sofa, his hips, anything -- but the wolf held Luke's wrists firmly above the fox's head. The sensation of the restraining only heightened Luke's excitement, and he had no doubt at all that the wolf knew it. His head rolled back, crying out with each deep thrust that drilled into him.

He couldn't think, could barely even keep his eyes open. The sensations filled him, poured over him. Cybe's shaft drove him deeper and deeper into his own mind-space, and although the fox was fully aware of his own hardness grinding wetly against the wolf's abs, Luke couldn't even concentrate on the wild sensation. They were two beasts in the middle of the forests of the night.

The fox's fingers clenched around his companion's wrist, desperate, his entire body tensing. Cybe drove into him lovingly, deep and hard, so hard, but all that the fox could think was that it felt truly phenomenal -- better than he had ever anticipated. Wild, unfettered, rampant. he wanted it. He let my mouth open, trying to beg for more, but the words wouldn't come. Instead, the wolf came into him, flooding into him thick and hard, and his eyes blurred. Luke clenched them shut, just as his toes went into spasms of pleasure, fingers meeting against the thick fur of the wolf's arm.

For what seemed like an infinite aeon, the two held clasped together, endless with nothing but their dreams.

Gradually, Luke grew aware of the beating of his own heart and the panting of his breath. Slowly he opened his eyes, his mind reasserting itself. His body felt hot, tingling and bristling; his companion's fur through his fingers warm and soft. High above, the starlight through the city's eternal night cast a myriad of spectral colours around the pair, neon illuminations that hung in drumming expectation.

"I'm sorry" said the fox, drawing his fingertips gently across Cybe's lower torso. "I've made a mess of you."

The wolf smiled. He slid down to rest beside the fox, staring into the boy's bleary eyes. "I'll get a towel" he said. "In a moment. Please enjoy the moment."

Luke didn't need to be told twice. He let his eyes close again, resting against the body of his friend. He cupped his hands over the wolf's shoulders, hugging him close. In that time, he couldn't think of his doubts or his worries; his anxieties of his past were silenced, hushed by the attentions and gentle affection of the wolf that had come back for him.

There the two lay for a while, content and deeply satisfied.

* * *

As the fox rolled onto his stomach, the loose fabric of the bedcovers pooling around his waist, he found himself unable to sleep.

His mind wondered, thinking about the long night that had lead him to where he now was. He found it so hard to believe that only a few hours ago he had been visiting a CyberaTech store, eager to learn more of his night's date with the wolf that now lay slumbering beside him. So much had changed in that time - not simply changed, but metamorphosed, shifted into something entirely new and unique.

The sun would rise soon, he realised, and it would bring with it a different age. His perspective on the world and his view on himself had been altered, perhaps irreparably. A few hours ago, he had believed that he knew how his life played out; he was confident in his knowledge of himself and his place in the world. Now, however, he was not so certain. His life until this point had been a simple and reliable cycle of his work life.

He thought about his work at the municipal cleaning; in only a few hours he would be resuming another weekly cycle, continuing his schedule as if nothing had ever happened. How simple things had seemed only a week ago, before the wolf that slumbered beside him had wandered into the depot's changing rooms and changed his life forever.

Luke stared at the wolf. He seemed so still in his sleep. No inhalation moved the android's chest, and although the man's eyes were shut it was almost impossible for the fox to determine that his companion was even asleep at all and not simply immobile.

He's a runner, Luke thought. A criminal; a data thief, a hacker who breaks into places and steals things. Steals whatever he is being paid to steal.

The two had barely discussed the subject, but the knowledge of it hung over Luke's awareness like a cloud. It had happened during a job, he thought; the incident that had erased and rewritten his memories. Altered his personality, depositing him into a new life that was not truly his own. No, Luke realised, his life wasn't the one he had thought he was. He was a hacker; he had, until recently, been a runner, just like Cybe. Until something had gone wrong, and everything had changed.

He reached out and touched the android's shoulder. Lightly, he shook.

For a moment, Luke felt a slight tinge of guilt at disturbing his companion's sleep. The very idea that an android could sleep was still unusual to the fox; the only thing that hinted at the wolf's true nature of his rest was the thin data cable that nestled nearly plugged into the back of the wolf's neck, allowing for a slow and steady recharge of the mechanical components that powered Cybe's internal augmented anatomy.

Cybe's eyes opened, slowly. "What is it?" he said.

If the android dreamed, he did not seem to show it. For a moment, Luke wondered what it might dream about. He remembered a book that he had once read. "Dreaming of electric sheep?" he asked.

The wolf actually rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure if I'm programmed to find that pun to be trite" he said, "but I'm fairly sure that even a D-grade AI that manages traffic lights would think it's not funny."

Luke grinned, brightly. He stroked a hand over the wolf's cheek. "Were you, though?" he asked. "Dreaming?"

Cybe shuffled up a bit, pulling himself into a seated position. Hazy blue light cascaded through the window above, catching on the dust in the bedroom's air. The effect of the sparkling rays of lambent illumination seemed to paint the wolf in an almost ethereal hue. The bedsheets slid from his chest, curling softly around his lap. "Yes" he said. "But don't worry. It's always the same dream, so you were not interrupting."

"The same dream?" asked Luke.

The wolf nodded. "Each time that I plug myself in and go to sleep, every night, it is the same dream that I have."

Luke rolled his head against the pillow, softly. "What would happen" he said, "if your internal batteries drained completely?"

The wolf held out his hand. "There are backups built in," he explained, "to protect my body's core systems; everything connected to my brain, such as my visual receptors and communication systems. However, the servos that power my movement would be unable to run, so my arms and legs would stop functioning."

"I see" he said.

"You didn't wake me just to ask about that" pointed out the android.

Luke shook his head. "What was the job?" he asked.

Cybe turned, his legs moving, knees bending as he adjusted until he faced the fox. "The one where your memory was rewritten, you mean?" he asked.

Nodding, Luke touched his fingers to the wolf's hand. "We were doing it together, weren't we?" he said. "Whatever job it was, we were together. You, me and Rowan. And maybe other runners. I'm right, aren't I?"

He paused for a moment, before Cybe nodded.

"And we failed" said Luke, each word feeling as if it were a new point on a map, a new path in his journey to finding out who he had been. "We screwed up, and the job went wrong. I was... I don't know, captured or hurt or something, and we got seperated. That's when my memory was rewritten. And that's why you said that you came back for me. That's right, isn't it?"

The wolf wrapped his fingers around Luke's, holding the boy's hands in his own. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" he asked. "I can tell you, but only if you are certain that you want to know."

The fox didn't have to think twice. "Tell me" he said. "Tell me who did this to me. Who were we stealing data from?"

Cybe closed his eyes for a moment. Gently, he slid one hand back behind the back of his neck to unfasten his charging cable. It slid back, with a thin hydraulic hiss, into a small compartment by the bed. "The job was to steal some data from CyberaTech" he said, "and with your help, we can finish the job; and, quite possibly, do a little more."