FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Theo snuck through the darken alley, stopping at the corner. "Cass?" he whispered. A wire mesh rendering of the back of the building appeared in his sight. A large garbage container with something scurrying inside by the sounds of a heartbeat and claws scratching. Something too small to be someone.

He went around the corner and hugged the wall. The city of Katherina Del Dero might not have much in the way of technology, but that didn't mean he could get careless. Even within a community, not all Independents believed in the same level of technology, and a lack of electronics didn't mean a lack of security.

He reached the door, metal with a mechanical lock. He placed his artificial hand on it. "Remind me again, how much waste of time it was to keep my lock picking skill in practice."

"This isn't exactly our usual field of operation," Cass said, "as best as I can sense, the other side of the door is without anyone, but it has some level of insulation, so remain cautious. And yes, it's fortunate for us that you know how to pick locks."

"Can you give me a look at the lock?" Theo took his lock picking tools out from within his forearm. The wire mesh of the lock appeared. Not the most complicated lock he'd seen, but this person did take the security of his store seriously. Theo smiled as Cass started the chronometer.

Thirty-eight point two seconds later, he opened the door a crack and slipped his hand in.

"The hallway is empty," Cass said.

Theo entered and quietly closed the door behind him. The hallway was a wire mesh, with four doors highlighted. He placed his hand against the first one, and a small room with boxes formed on the other side; storage. The opposite one was large with equipment on worktables, tools, and two hovers in the center. A maintenance bay. The next two were offices, and the one he needed was determined by the electronic signature Cass registered on the opposing wall. A safe.

Theo bypassed the lock on the door before Cass had the chronometer running and entered the dark room. Closing the door, he stood and switched the lights on, and switched them off with a curse. A black panther stood on the other side of the room.

'Alone?' he finger coded. How had Cass not sensed him?

The scene replayed itself in his sight, pausing on the panther, visible within a framed window. Window? Was that why Cass hadn't sensed him, there was another room and he...

Theo groaned and stood, switching the lights back on. He faced his reflection and ran a hand through his now black fur. "Who has a mirror in their office?"

"Someone who likes making sure she's presentable before heading out to see customers?" Cass offered.

Theo looked at his black face. "I will never get used to this." It had taken two weeks of remaining hidden on this island for enough black fur to grow to turn him into a black panther. He'd shaved before leaving the hovel he'd been staying in, giving himself an extreme buzz cut.

"This is rather extreme for us."

Theo took the mirror off the wall, exposing the safe. "This one's yours." He placed his hand on it. The display on the safe lit up as symbols flashed. It went dark, and the door clicked. Theo twisted the handle and pulled it open. Inside, a display held eighteen ignition tabs. Each was identified by writing Theo couldn't decipher.

The downside of low technology Independents was that each created their language and didn't have a database to correlate them. As much as Theo was one of them, since the corporations would define the colonies as Independents, he couldn't wait to get off these islands to a more technologically advanced location.

"Which one?" he asked.

"Unless you require a specific model," Cass replied, "And I'll point out there is no computer for me to access and tell you which models are available here, then any tab will do."

"I hope the hovers here can do long range." Theo grabbed the first tab in the holder.

"A hover is a hover, its range is only limited by its capability to interface with the network."

"Which these can't," Theo replied, closing the safe. "Sort of the point." He turned off the light as he exited the office.

"Yes, but I happen to have a map of the earth, and I can do the navigating for it. Unlike that first one, it is designed to be piloted, not just ridden. It makes my job so much easier."

Theo entered the display room with its eighteen hovers. "Which one?"

"Looking," Cass replied. "Go unlock the roll-door while I find it, it has a mechanical lock."

The lock was more complex, its size allowed more tumblers, and while adjustable, his tools barely reached them all.

"Have it," Cass said as the lock finally clicked.

"Any alarms on the door?"

"Nothing electronic."

Which meant something less sophisticated.

"Insert the tab in the hover, It's going to let me run it through its startup sequence while you find the security measures."

Theo went to the highlighted hover, inserted the tab and went back to the door to study it. "What's the communication system like on the island?"

"Electrical, each building is connected to a central junction point."

That was how the owner would be alerted. "Any idea where the building's communication system is connected to the island's network?"

"No, but it might be easier to find how the door's connected to the building."

"It's metal, which means scanning it for wires is a waste of time. If it doesn't have a sensor, then the simplest system is a circuit that's broken when the door opens. No sensors means it needs to be electrical, and electricity means magnetism. Cass, show me the magnetic fields around the door."

There were more than he'd expected. The door itself was slightly magnetized, but that seemed to be a reaction to the intense field on the side of the door. From that connection point, he traced the powered wired in the wall back to a panel in the second office.

"Don't go much further," Cass told him. "Without a constant network, my range is limited."

"I have the control panel, it's a simple switch. My concern is that if I deactivate the alarm, the owner's going to be informed."

"Even if they are, we'll be long gone before they can do anything about it, and there's no internal camera. You do have to appreciate their dislikes of constant electronic surveillance."

"Which tells me they have something else in place, maybe the alarm goes to the local protectors."

"I don't know where the closest office is, we should do everything as close to one another."

"Tell me when the hover's ready."

A minute later. "It's ready. I'm maneuvering it in front of the door. When you shut off the alarm, open the door and we'll leave."

Theo flicked the switch and ran for the roll door. Once it was up, he entered the hover as a communication board buzzed back in one of the offices. The sound cut off as he closed the access.

"Here we go," Cass said, pleased. "Now it's too late for anyone to find out. Next stop the middle of nowhere Atlantic Ocean.

* * * * *

Uncle flicked the feed, separating the corrupted data from it and tried to make sense of what he saw. There was far too much corrupted data for it to be accidental. He flicked another feed. And whoever was causing it was smart enough to corrupt thousands of feeds, not only the ones where Theo might show up.

Still, they hadn't been able to cover everything.

"Tucker, where are you?"

"In orbit, Uncle; geosynchronous over North America, I'm not moving until you give me somewhere to go."

"South Atlantic Ocean, I got a ping off one of our belt before it went silent. There are hundreds of Independent islands in that region with a variety of technological levels. For the belt to be silent it means it one of those groups who enforce a low tech and block any network signal. I'm accessing the other corporations to see if anyone ever got a proper census done of those regions, but it doesn't look promising."

"Heading there," Tucker answered. "What range can I force the belt to acknowledge me?"

"You'll have to be under a kilometer."

"Okay, we'll do a fly by the islands. They can lodge whatever complaints about disrupting their low tech world they want, I'll be happy to explain it to them after I've found Theo."

"How about we let the legal department deal with that? It's what they're there for."

"Not as fun," Tucker replied and Uncle smiled.

"Give me an update once you have it." He ended the transmission and split his attention, continuing to search through all the feeds, while also analyzing the corrupted data for any markers that would tell him who is behind it and bringing up Sebastien's cell.

The kangaroo hadn't moved since he'd last checked on him. All the readings indicated depression. The man had given up someone he loved for this, which meant it was important. Or at least Sebastien had believed it was important. Eric wasn't happy Uncle had kept him from punishing the kangaroo. He'd threatened to have him erased. But in this, Uncle was right, and Terry agreed, Sebastien was more useful alive and unarmed.

Sebastien was either a turned citizen, or the most expertly created cover identity Uncle had ever seen. He had a birth record with a fertility clinic, a family in Philadelphia, with siblings spread around the corporation. Uncle considered the kangaroo might have replaced the original Sebastien. The genetic work would be difficult and dangerous. Cloning might be involved, but that meant whoever had done it already had agents within the corporate territory.

Uncle sent himself looking for indications of where the DNA might have been acquired, of where Sebastien might have been replaced, of flaws in the identity, of when Sebastien might have been turned. One of those had to be the one, and he would find it.

"Uncle, I found the belt," Tucker said, "As well as the hover."

Uncle brought up the time. Eight hours since he'd told Tucker to move. Six days since Theo's disappearance. "Where?"

"The locals call the island Morousah. It's not on any records I can access."

Uncle sent himself down a search for the name.

"Primitive as fuck, enforced to, I had to get back in the air to contact you. Isn't enforced primitiveness as illegal as enforcing advanced tech?"

"We'd have to prove the locals didn't all agree to it when it was first set in place. We could be looking at something that took place three centuries ago. Before the accords, even. The only records for a Morousah I found was an exploration vessel that went missing during the cataclysm. There were at the south pole in the last communication I rebuilt, but this could be them. Did the belt tell you anything?"

"Cass hacked it, erased as much of its systems as he could. I have a list of the clothing Theo wore, but that's not going to be useful."

"The hover?"

"Theo gutted its communication and navigation."

"Did any of the locals see anything?"

"They saw the hover sort of land, Theo get out and disappear in the forest. How did Cass even managed to fly this thing without seeing anything?"

"Hovers have short-range sensors in case of emergency. He'd have to be within twenty meters of something to see it, but that would let him hug the land."

"Except no one reported a hover outside their lines, one within twenty meters of the ground would attract attention."

"He knew where he started from, Cass is advanced enough he might have an up-to-date map of the globe, if not that, at least where he wants to go. It might have been part of the message Sebastien passed along. Since he didn't head east as records indicated, he might have stayed over the water." He looked at the corruption of the satellite net from when Theo vanished. He was still trying to untangle it, but it definitely matched every other corruption getting in his way.

"So he can be anywhere." Tucker sounded angry. Uncle accessed Tucker's life-signs; definitely angry.

He looked through all the information he had while also accessing who was on the transport with Tucker. "Tucker, I'd suggest fucking the copilot, this isn't going to be fast and you need to calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down, Uncle. Theo just left. I need to find him and get him to explain what's going on."

"And Theo is trained to avoid being found. Tucker, driving yourself insane will not help. You should have an entire unit with you, why aren't they there?"

"This is family, Uncle. You know I'm not going to involve others."

Uncle sighed. "That is exactly why we have a military, to assist in matters like this."

"I'm perfectly capable of dealing with this on my own."

"Then relax until I have more information for you."

He divided his attention among everything he needed to accomplish. Messages came from off-planet, there were no indication of hidden messages anywhere he looked, even Titan station, where he knew messages had originated from. Someone had access to technology they had no business having access to.

He felt like blowing a circuit, somewhere. He really wished he could fall back onto sex like the rest of his family for stress relief. Instead he threw himself into the information, looking for that one thread that would lead somewhere.

A call on the general network. A stolen hover from a rental agency on Katherina Del Dero. The agency only had hovers for semi-local travel. To the surrounding islands, but the last sighting had the hover flying over the water, in a direction without any islands. The city protectors were asking for assistance tracking and retrieving the hover.

Of course, this was when the local sensor network happened to be down. It all looked normal, with the proper maintenance requests put in place weeks before, but now that he knew what to look for, he could see the signature fragments of whoever was helping Theo. Someone extremely talented with access to systems Uncle should be able to find. No one could have such advanced information systems and keep them hidden. At the very least, the power needed for them would register.

The sensor grid wasn't the only way to locate an errand hover. The misdirection the first time had kept him from doing this, but this had just happened. He accessed every shuttle and hovers in the atmosphere. Found those in the region, saw that their sensors were vanishing from the network and sent himself to track the origin point of those attacks while retrieved as much of the sensor data still available as he could.

The result was fuzzy, but superimposing all the sensor data he found a hover in the middle of the ocean.

"Gotcha. Tucker, I've located Theo. Sending you the coordinates."

"Finally!"

Finally?

Uncle pulled up the date. Fifteen days since Theo had vanished. He'd been so focused on his search he'd lost track of everything else going on. He reintegrated himself with the rest, caught up on everything he'd done through the corporation, the legal disputes, the corporate meetings. Sebastian trying to explain to Beatrice that he did love her, again. Theo's parents franticly demanding information on what was happening with the search for him. Millions of other decisions he took part in.

Then set it all aside to focus on Theo, and found that in his moment of inattention, someone else had access the hover's sensor feed. Not Theo's protector. Someone far, far worse.

"Tucker, you need to hurry. Vanguard has a lock on Theo too."