FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Why?" Tucker growled, looking at the hovers on the landing pads. "Why the fuck would he do this?"

"I don't know," Uncle replied. "I've gone over every interaction I've had with him, and there were no indications he was planning anything."

"He fooled you?" Tucker turned, heading for the tower.

"I don't believe so, even the most control person gives off clues as to their intentions. I have access to more processing power than anyone in the Solar system. I am saying this was not something he planned on doing until recently."

"Any idea how recent?"

"Tucker, how are--"

"Answer the fucking question, Uncle." People hurried to get out of his way.

"He had lunch with his parents, both are back to work and exhibit no change in their behavior."

"You think he'd have told them?"

"No, but I believe they would have picked up on something being different if Theo had made his plans at that point. It would affect their behavior."

"By the same reasoning, they aren't in on it. Neither of them are great actors."

"Agreed. Tucker, please slow down, people are beginning to notice."

"Do you think I--"

"Tucker, you're home, not on the battlefield."

"If you think I'm just going to laugh this off and go fuck some guy, you--"

"You know very well how I dislike you playing the clown, it's not you, but I agreed to let you do it, because it keeps you from going off the deep end. You are heading toward that right now. The people around you are becoming alarmed."

Tucker stopped and closed his eyes. Tried to compartmentalize the pain away, but it was so raw, so close. He'd trusted Theo. "Was Terry right? Did he fool me?" He tried to recall their interactions, but all he had to work with was his regular memory. He couldn't function with his combat memory constantly active; it didn't differentiate between the now and back then, He'd constantly relive old fights looking for hints of incoming threats.

He was home, he shouldn't be in battle mode.

"Fuck, why?" his voice cracked. His eyes stung.

"I don't believe he played you, or any of us. As I said, he showed no indications of working us. And Theo's method of getting close to someone is seduction. If his intent was to manipulate us, you'd have gotten your wish and fucked him already."

Tucker snorted. How often could he claim that a guy telling him no was a good thing in the long run? "Any luck locating him?" He was calmer, not happy, but not bordering on engaging battle mode anymore.

"No, there was a... glitch in the system, which didn't register until the hover landing in New Vegas tripped the security sensor. Somehow the registry of the hover Theo took jumped to that hover."

"A glitch? Cass' doing?" He forced a smile at the people he crossed path with, heading to the private elevator.

"No, I'm familiar with how he works, and I have sentries looking for him within the system. He hasn't been within it since calling the hover."

"Which got glitched," Tucker said suspiciously.

"Yes."

"Okay, since you know which hover he took, have you found him using the satellite system?"

"There are complications."

"Uncle?"

"Call them glitches." Uncle did not sound happy, and that put Tucker on edge. Glitches didn't happen, not unless someone caused them, but Uncle was the system, he'd know. "Our surveillance network is undergoing maintenance, this area was shut down, with the backup satellite not getting the instructions to come online."

"Someone got into our security net and you didn't notice?" Only one group was this dedicated. Had Vanguard somehow gotten to Theo?

"No, the maintenance has been scheduled for two months."

"Fine, what did SolGov's spy network see?"

"I'm working on getting in there."

"What do you mean, working on it?" Tucker entered the elevator and rested his head against the wall.

"SolGov upgraded their security, something surprisingly effective this time. I'll get through, but it'll take longer than usual."

Tucker cursed. "Any indication Theo received a message?"

"I've gone over his communications. Only the normal conversations with you and the few people he's gotten to know. I'm analyzing everything for encryptions the regular checks might have missed, but it all looks normal."

"So whatever happened took place in the seven hours after he had lunch. Where was he?"

"Within the corporate tower. Which means you need to look into that part."

"It'd be faster if you did it."

"Yes, but Elliot had all those measures installed with the tower's system to keep me from going "Evil Overlord" on all of you."

"Like those will do anything to slow you down."

"True, but I'd like to respect his wishes, and it will give you something to do rather than pace a circle in the floor. I also want to give those SolGov new security measures my full attention. The quicker I get through them, the faster I can locate Theo's hover."

"Alright, I'll trace Theo's movement within the tower after his lunch and see what happened, but you realize what it means if someone contacted him inside the tower."

"Yes, it means our own security measures have been breached. Once we've dealt with this, I'll do an audit on it."

"Are you sure you want me to handle this? Trevor's the investigator."

"But you're the one who needs to keep occupied right now. Bring him in if you need his help, just keep point on it. Stay busy, don't let yourself spiral down."

"Alright, I'm getting on this right now."

"And I'll get on SolGov, shout if you need my assistance." Uncle ended the transmission.

Tucker exited the elevator on the hundredth eighty-eighth floor and used his family override to access the corridor's sensor. At the restaurant he rewound the feed until Theo exited and followed him. He brought up information on everyone Theo encountered, employees and families of employees, visiting citizens, and on Halibury contractor here to discuss a shared project.

Theo shared an express public elevator with eight people going to the lobby, then he walked outside. Tucker didn't bother leaving the tower. Sensor feed outside were spotty once people walked beyond a kilometer from the tower. He accessed the overview map of the islands and tracked Theo as he walked around. He took a hover to the next island over, and spent a few hours walking and possibly having sex, by the delays between registering at different points within the park trails.

He returned to the tower for dinner time, and Tucker followed him to the fifty-third floor, not to a restaurant, but to an out of the way sauna. Theo was the only one there, and Tucker sped up the replay until someone joined Theo.

Tucker smiled; Sebastien was easy to recognize when naked. That huge cock of his made for a good calling card. Theo noticed him and appreciated the sight as much as Tucker always did. It was good to know that family trait was shared. He winced in sympathy as Theo took Sebastien's cock for the first time. It didn't matter how many times Sebastien fucked Tucker, each time it was quite the experience.

Tucker jerked off to the show and enjoyed the afterglow as Sebastien finished fucking Theo, then left him to in the hot tub to finish melting. Five minutes after Sebastien left, Theo got out of the tub and headed to shower.

Tucker straightened.

He wasn't an investigator like his brother, but he could tell the difference between a casual walk and one with intent. Theo walk with definite intent. He checked the time. Twenty minutes from this moment, Theo stepped into a hover and vanished.

He rewound the scene to just after Sebastien left and he crouched next to Theo, watching his face. Relaxed in the afterglow and then, eyes open and alert. Tucker paused the feed. Rewound it until a minute before.

"Give me access to the communication log for Theodore Paso."

"Access Denied. As per the privacy act of 2398, no communication logs can be access by the public. Please provide proper identification and access authorization."

"This is Colonel Tucker Orr, and don't you fucking dare ask me for my authorization again."

"Identification recognized."

Theo's incoming and outgoing call appeared as a list with timestamps. Because of how Cass interacted with Theo, Uncle had devised algorithms to mark calls is being on Theo's behalf and those Cass placed for himself, there were more since the party; Cassius Gold was becoming less of a recluse, at least through communications. But neither Theo nor Cass received calls before exiting the tub, or the entire time in it.

Then how had it happened? Call logs could be hidden, but Uncle would have noticed that and mentioned it. The other option was to have the message camouflaged within another signal.

"Give me a full signal overlay based on my location, adjust to the time stamp I'm currently examining."

"Access Denied. System signals are proprietary to Orr Corporation. Please provide proper identification and access authorization."

Tucker sighed. "This is Colonel Tucker Orr, and don't you fucking dare ask me for my authorization again."

"Identification recognized."

His vision filled with information to the point he couldn't see the replay. Closing his eyes didn't help. He touched the closest strand, identified the provenance and destination, temperature sensor for the room, adjusting to compensate for the rising temperature caused by the heat of the hot tub. He confirmed there had been no anomalous signals within it and dismissed it. He moved on to the next one, a passive signal waiting for a command to change the lights intensity. Also no anomalous signals, dismissed.

He went through each signal strand until he had nothing left. With them dismissed, he let the record play. When a new signal appeared, he identified it, checked it against previous signals those systems exchanged, confirmed it matched and dismissed it. He was still left with nothing.

He crouched by the hot tub, watching the moment Theo's eyes opened. The alertness in them was disproportionate to how tired he'd looked. Tucker didn't believe that had been an act, He'd been fucked by Sebastien, that was an exhausting experience when all he did was lie there to be fucked. Theo had sat on it and did a good part of the work until Sebastien started humping. In a hot tub? That would have taken a lot out of him. So stimulant. Cass hadn't confirmed it was something he could do, but scans of Theo's artificial arm had shown a chemical synthesizer in it.

Maybe he was going about it wrong.

Theo wouldn't have received the message, Cass would. Possibly it had come in the middle of being fucked and Cass had waited until Theo was done to tell him, at which point he'd needed stimulants to get going.

He rewound to Sebastian's arrival. Anything before that, and Cass didn't have a reason to wait before telling Theo. Watching the kangaroo standing over Theo, the surprised expression on the tiger, the amusement on Sebastien's face, Tucker got hard. He was stroking himself when he realized he'd missed a signal. He cursed, rewound, identified it, confirmed nothing out of the ordinary about it and dismissed it.

His hand was back on his still hard cock when he cursed and paused the replay. He couldn't let himself be distracted. He instructed his implant to shut down his sex drive, then waiting for the chemicals to spread through his system. Another advantage of the military upgrade to his implant.

He restarted the replay; he was able to ignore the sex and look for any out-of-place signal. Which was how he saw the short flash of blue between Sebastien and Theo as the tiger orgasmed. He paused and brought the signal up. Person to person. No detail. It only showed up because the light's passive sensors picked up the signal spill.

Sebastien had his ear to Theo's ear, a small smile on his lips. He let the record proceed. Sebastien putting Theo back in the water, pulling out, standing and leaving. This time, Tucker noticed the detail he'd missed in his own afterglow. Sebastian was still hard. He hadn't cum. Tucker hadn't known the kangaroo not to keep fucking until his own orgasm.

Fuck, he hoped he was wrong.

He rewound to the moment the exchange, pulled the blue flash out, search through the sensors in the room for any extra details, packaged them, added the time stamp, the location, Sebastien as the originator, but didn't add any details as to his own investigation.

He opened a window and tapped on Trevor's virtual shoulder.

"Tuck," his brother appeared, made of branches, with leaves for hair, green turning yellow. Behind him water as far as he could see, with creatures swimming toward his brother. A beam of light flashed over Trevor's shoulder, taking out the closest creature.

"Are you busy?"

"Not really, Longpine, Bonesword and me met up for a quick game." Trevor moved, remaining centered in the screen while the scene altered. He swam up and threw a vial at a vicious looking insect. It shattered and covered it in a webbing. A being saw around Trevor to cut it up. "Sorry, looks like we stepped into a guild's territory. What's up?"

"I have a file I need you to trace." Tucker handed it to his brother, who took it.

"What are you doing looking at Seb's communications?" A quick swim brought Trevor inside a grotto. "What's this about?"

"I'll tell you after you give me your report."

"Tuck, what's going on?"

"After, Trevor, I don't want to prejudice your investigation."

"I will find out what this is about, you realize that, right?"

"I've no doubt, but then you can't blame me." He ended the call.

He looked at the frozen replay of Theo, in the moment of afterglow, couldn't come up with anything else to investigate and brought his libido back to normal. He'd go fuck guys while he waited for Trevor's report.

* * * * *

The kangaroo's smile faltered as he entered the room. "Hey guys, Tucker said he wanted to talk."

Tucker had wanted to do this alone, but Trevor had withheld his report until after Tucker agreed he could participate, Tom noticed the two of them talking and barged in, he told Tony, who told Tyson, and now it was the five of them against one very well hung kangaroo.

The downside, this wasn't going to turn into sex; the upside, Terry was busy on the other side of the continent. As much as he didn't like Theo, when he found out what Trevor had pulled, there would be little left of the kangaroo.

"Have a seat," Tucker said.

Sebastien eyed the chair in the middle of the room, and the five tigers. "What's going on?"

"You're going to want to sit," Trevor said, his tone harsh. "You have some explaining to do."

"Okay, I'm not sure what's going on," the kangaroo said, turning for the door, "but clearly, you guys need to work off some frustration."

"You're not going anywhere, Seb," Tucker stated.

The door didn't open for the kangaroo.

He turned to face the tigers. "Look, whatever you think is going on, you can't just lock me in here."

"Actually, I can," Tucker said. "Military statute 8-3-4 give me the power to conduct an interrogation on anyone where suspicion of actions against the corporation is supported by evidence."

"You're an engineer, Tucker."

"Colonel in the Orr military," Tucker stated.

The kangaroo snorted. "You, in the military? Come on. Fucking your way through the enlisted doesn't give you any kind of rank."

Tucker let the smile come; the nasty one. The one he usually reserved for the battlefield, when he maneuvered an opponent into a trap. Sebastien's amusement vanished, and he took a step back, hitting the door.

"Once we're done talking," Tucker said, "You're welcome to lodge a complaint against me. I will be more than happy to provide my credentials in a court of law."

"If there's anything left of you," Thomas said.

Tucker shot his brother an angry look and Thomas shrank away.

"Please sit," Tucker ordered.

With a roll of the eyes, Sebastien sat. "You guys are family, but don't think this means I'm not going to bring up charges, because I am not giving my consent to whatever this is."

"Then feel free not to answer our questions," Trevor said, "since we're not a court of law, we can't force you."

"Then ask your questions," the kangaroo said, annoyed.

Tucker brought a still of Theo on Sebastien's cock in the hot tub. "Care to explain?"

"I fucked a guy," the kangaroo said dismissively.

"Our brother," Tyson said.

Sebastien looked at the still, then the tigers. "I didn't know there was a seventh of you."

"Somehow I doubt that," Tucker said, changing the still to the moment of Theo's orgasm, with the communication flash between the two. "What's that?"

The kangaroo shrugged. "I don't know. Some sensor artifact?"

"It's a communication file," Trevor said. "Caught through passive sensor. It's rough, but I was able to reconstruct enough information to run a trace on it. From you to--"

"Whoa, that's invasion of my privacy."

"Are you admitting to transmitting the file?" Trevor asked.

"No, that's just some artifact. I'm objecting to you using that to trample over my rights."

"I'm a cyber investigator, unlike with Tuck, that's a known fact. I'm investigating a crime, the circumstantial evidence has been run through a judicial program, and I was given approval to continue investigating. The brief is public, feel free to access it."

"This is starting to feel like corporate abuse," Sebastien grumbled.

"We're nowhere near any abuse yet," Tony said.

Tucker sighed. "You three are only here as a courtesy, you don't have any authority, so please shut up."

"None of you have--" Sebastien raised his hand in defeat at Tucker's glare.

"I traced the file back through a dozen encrypted transmission around earth and the moon; someone did not want this traced at all. From the moon it traces back to Mars, and from there, surprise surprise, it goes back to Titan station."

"And then?" Sebastien asked, rolling his eyes.

"Nowhere. It just appeared in their system, like far too many such transmission in recent years."

"So some joker plants a message on Titan, through a series of coincidence I'm in the vicinity when it shows up here and I'm guilty of what, exactly?"

The door opened, cutting off Tucker's response. He turned to glare at the intruder, but the look on his father's face shut him up.

"Oh, someone's dead," Tyson said.

"Dad?" Tucker asked cautiously, "What are you doing here?"

Someone behind his father cleared her throat, and he stepped aside. Beatrice stepped into the room. She gave the tigers a warm smiled that turned glacial as her gaze fell on the kangaroo.

"I was enjoying coffee with my mother," Eric said, "when Terry called her to say that somehow Sebastien was involved in Theo's disappearance. Is there a reason I had to find out from her, and not you?"

"I wanted to ask him questions before you disemboweled him," Tucker answered honestly. How had Terry heard? He looked his brothers over and Thomas looked away.

"Sebastien," Beatrice said warmly, going to him. "Stay seated," she added as the kangaroo hurried to stand, finally looking afraid. She straddled his lap once he was seated. "What is it about you and my missing grandson?"

"I don't know what--"

She had a finger on his lips and leaned to his ear. "Please don't lie to me, Sebastien," She whispered. "We've been together for far too long, you know you can't fool me."

He swallowed hard. "Bea, please. You don't know what--"

The kiss was gentle. "Love, did you use me to get close to my family?"

The kangaroo shook his head. "That wasn't what--" he snapped his mouth shut.

She rested her forehead against his. "Do you work for Vanguard?"

"No! I'd never! Bea, you know me, I love--"

A finger on his lips. "Don't say it. Right now it would feel too much like your trying to manipulate me."

"I wouldn't Bea, you have to--"

Another gentle kiss. "Sebastien, I believe you, you don't work for Vanguard. So the question is who do you work for?"

"The Independents," Trevor said. "They're the ones who've been dumping transmissions into Titan."

"Are you an independent?" She asked the kangaroo.

"No, I'm an Orr citizen, Bea. You met my mom, my brother and sister. Look, this isn't what you think."

"Then what is it, Sebastien?" she asked. "If this isn't the kidnapping it looks like, what exactly have you gotten my grandson involved in?"

Sebastien bit his lip, tried to look Beatrice in the eyes, looked away. "I don't know. I don't know what the message was. I was just instructed to deliver it."

He looked at her and she searched his face before kissing him again. "I believe you," she said as she stood, turned her back to him and headed for the door.

"Grandma?" Tucker asked, seeing the tear fall down her cheek.

"Do what you want with him."

"Bea!" Sebastian called plaintively. "Please, I didn't know."

She didn't slow as she left.

Eric looked from the closed door to the crying kangaroo. "I don't know if you realized what you just threw away."

"I didn't know," Sebastien repeated. "I was just the messenger."

"Unfortunately for you," Eric said, "in this family, we don't take kindly to messengers who don't know where their priorities lie."

"Dad," Tucker said as his father stepped to the kangaroo. "Dad, you can't hurt him."

"I'm an Orr, son. I can do whatever the fuck I want."