FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The dream begins with me, as myself, in a parking garage. I’m watching and waiting for something, and though I cannot place what it is, I simply know it’s important. My clothes are entirely black, which is already odd, as I have something of a uniform; I own multiple sets of the same thing, and so every day I look identical to the day before. One of the articles of clothing I’m wearing is a long, black duster or lightweight trench coat. I genuinely wish I owned something like that. I have a duty belt hidden beneath, with a holstered pistol, some spare magazines and a few other gadgets, and yet I’m well aware of the fact that I’m not an Agent or undercover police officer.

I seem to be a well-prepared criminal. As I lean against a large, concrete support beam, roughly three-feet in diameter, I hear several cars approaching, their engines humming with increasing volume. Turning my head, a series of black cars, all of them luxury models, pull up. They have illegally tinted windows, so black that they beat even conventional limousine tinting. I stand tall and turn, my strong-side pulling away from them as I take a bladed stance. The occupants of the first car, a Lexus, open all of the doors at once and begin to climb out.

The first thing I see are the slender, smooth legs of a human female. She emerges from the back seat on the passenger’s side, and looks around very cautiously. The car behind them is a Cadillac, and the third vehicle I couldn’t see very well, but from the body shape, it appeared to be a Lincoln Town Car. In short order, a dozen black-clad individuals step out. The attractive young woman from the Lexus turns to the others, unzipping her hooded jacket. Made of a soft fabric, it appeared custom-made and expensive. As it falls open, I see that she’s wearing a ruby red tube top beneath it.

The people move around their vehicles, responding to an obvious hand gesture made by the woman, who I will simply call Lexus, to approach. Most of these people look like Eurotrash gangsters, like the guys you’d see running the woman trafficking ring in the movie “Taken”. Some are in dark jogging suits or bland and darkly colored business casual attire, but more than a few have long, stringy black hair, beard stubble and/or goatees, and generic black t-shirts, jeans and trench coats. In many ways, I blend right in.

Two, however, stand out like sore thumbs. One is an anthropomorphic cat girl with a sort of brownish-gray tabby fur. I don’t recognize her from anything. The other was Krystal, from The AdvAnTAGE Project, right down to wearing her sexy black dress and red cardigan! All of them are armed with firearms, mostly holstered on actual belts, but a few just have pistols tucked into their waistbands in classic “Mexican Carry” style. At least one man has an H&H MP5K submachine gun on a one-point sling beneath his right arm.

Krystal, of course, is armed with her Colt Python revolver in a shoulder holster, worn like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, as she does in the series of which she belongs. For some inexplicable reason, I wasn’t surprised to see Krystal. I greeted her by name. I didn’t see Agent Sharpe anywhere. Krystal approached me right away, while the others gathered around Lexus like loyal puppets. Standing across from me, she looked me up and down and then cracked a sly smile. It was more of a smirk, really.

I reached out a hand to her, canted and ready for a “bro hug”, and Krystal didn’t disappoint. She reached out a clawed hand, grabbed onto mine and then pulled me in. However, the hug went from a bro hug to a somewhat more intimate embrace, with both of our arms wrapped around each other. She was very warm and her fur was soft, like a Husky puppy. I was well-aware that it wasn’t an intimate moment, however, as there was a part of me that wouldn’t trust her completely.

“You’re rolling with her now?” I quietly asked as we pulled away.

Unable to speak and not using any kind of communication device, Krystal lifted up her hand and wobbled it from side to side, indicating that she had mixed feelings about Lexus and her crew. She also made sure that they didn’t see her do that. Afterward, Lexus approached me and asked if “everything was ready”, to which I nodded. I then walk toward a large, roll-up door that went to some storage room in the parking garage. I have no idea why it was there. It seemed to be a cover for a hidden door that opened up to reveal a large elevator. It appeared to be a freight elevator, but it only had to buttons on it, one over the other. Pressing the upper button, I stand by the control panel as Lexus and her crew prepared themselves for some kind of meeting.

“Remember, boys, keep your weapons hidden. If they ask to take them, politely refuse. If they insist, we walk away. Don’t flash anything unless you see them draw first. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” They all loyally replied.

The only exception was the cat girl and Krystal, the latter of which stood next to me and continued to eye me for some reason. It wasn’t a look of lust or even suspicion. It was almost as if she was having some debate with herself about my value. It unsettled me and yet at the same time I felt more confident because of it. After a long ride in the elevator, we walked down a long hall and approached a set of ornate, double doors made of dark hardwood. I was forced to check-in at some sort of booth, like you might see in the foyer of a nightclub, placed about ten feet from the doors and on the left side of the hallway.

“They’re here to see ‘the man’.” I said, tilting my head in the direction of Lexus and her crew.

“Yeah, I can see that. Did you pat them down?” The black-clad woman behind the bullet-resistant glass asked.

“Yes. I searched a dozen heavily armed people and confiscated all of their plainly visible firearms.” I facetiously replied, glancing back at the crew.

Some of Lexus’ men snickered and chuckled, while the woman in the booth rolled her eyes.

“You know the rules!” She snapped.

“This is a special occasion. They’re here for a meet, so open the fucking doors or I’m going to blame you for ruining this.” I coolly replied.

Realizing that she was between a rock and a hard place, the woman scoffed and then promptly pressed a large, red button mounted on the desk, near her right hand. I heard an electronic sound and a mechanical clunking, only for the ornately decorated, hardwood double doors to swing open. At that point, you could see that they were being manipulated with those automatic door arms at a supermarket, mounted to the ceiling. The back half of the doors had 1” thick steel plating protecting them.

With the combined hardwood, they’re more than a match for pistols and submachine guns, though any modern combat rifle (AR-15/M4 or AK platforms) or a battle rifle (something akin to an M1 Garand or FN FAL) would likely be able to penetrate it. I lead them down a long hall with drab walls. Artificial lighting gives them a bluish-green hue. We pass almost a dozen security cameras as we make several turns, and soon I open a door and show Lexus and her crew into a large room.

It has warmer light, with wooden paneling and support beams that are elegantly carved. A small, round table serves no purpose except to hold a crystal vase with a dozen red roses in it. More men in black attire stand before a somewhat thin wooden door that almost looks like a wooden recreation of a ship's bulkhead. They keep their hands crossed before their groins, one hand holding the wrist of the other hand. Lexus and her men pass me and crowd around these new guards, deep inside of the large complex on the top floor of whatever this building is. Without an ounce of fear, they ask her and her men to disarm before “seeing him”, to which several of her men chuckle.

“Make us!” A Eurotrash guard exclaims.

“That can be arranged.” One of my fellow guards replies, almost robotic in his voice and mannerisms.

Lexus turns back, her eyes wide and angry. Her long, black hair is pulled into a somewhat messy, age-appropriate bun, with strands dangling loosely and swishing through the air as she moves. I sidestep away from the group and Krystal walks around them, joining me. She turns her head toward me and smiles with a surprising warmth.

“Shut up!” Lexus growls at her man.

“Sorry...” He bows his head.

“Forgive him but he can be rather... Excitable...” She begins, turning toward the two guards.

“No offense given, but those are the rules.” He calmly replies.

“I was told that, under these dire circumstances, that we could meet and I would not be forced to disarm. He gave me his assurances that we could have a meeting and I would be allowed to feel safe. If you could, please inform him of my arrival.” She spoke in a very polite and yet simultaneously demanding tone.

“Of course, ma’am. Please, wait here.”

Turning toward the door, one guard whispered to the other, before opening the rounded wooden door and slipping past it. With a raised brow, I sighed and turned toward Krystal.

“Well! ... That was rather anticlimactic.”

“Heh.” She chuckled.

She stared at me for a moment, and after a brief silence I flashed her a little smile.

“It’s nice to see you again, Krystal.”

“Hmm!” She happily hummed and then nodded her head.

“How long have you been with her, anyway?” I asked, pointing toward Lexus.

Krystal began to pantomime an answer, which I took to mean several months, though I could easily be mistaken. In true “I don't want to seem like an idiot” fashion, I nodded and said, “Oh, okay!” Looking toward a few wingback chairs, upholstered in red fabric with an antiquated, dark red floral pattern, and situated on either side of an end table, I pointed toward them.

“I’m gonna take a load off. Care to join me?”

Nodding her head once, Krystal followed me toward the chairs. For a brief moment, she placed her hand on my left shoulder. I turned my head and glanced at her hand, wondering why she’d do that. It’s at this point that I had a semi-conscious thought. She’s with Agent Sharpe, so what’s going on here? Is this an alternate timeline or is this something nefarious? We took a seat and I poured her a glass of what might’ve been cold tea or a dark colored alcohol from a silver decanter that had a long spout, like a swan’s neck. We began a one-sided dialogue, where I asked her a series of questions, none of them all that important. Most of them were of the, “how are you?”, “are you alright?” variety. Suddenly, a man approached in my peripheral vision.

“Hey, Krystal! Stop flirting! We have work to do!” One of Lexus’ men yelled over to us.

With a silent snarl, she glared at him. She then set her glass aside, rose from her seat and turned to me. She looked at me for a moment with what I would describe as a hint of sadness. It bothered me. I could see an older man with a few more guards standing just behind him. He had short, black hair and a salt and pepper beard and had a face and voice like Sean Bean, straight out of his role in Lord of the Rings. I knew him right away as ‘the man’, and my boss in some sort of criminal or ideological underground. He allowed Lexus and her crew to keep their weapons.

Krystal walked away and joined Lexus and the others in some sort of meeting, which I gathered from background voices that I heard while sitting with Krystal, was likely to form an alliance between my boss and whoever Lexus is. I rose from my seat, looked to the left and to the right, and then poured Krystal’s half-finished glass back into the silver decanter. I was smirking as I did so, and it felt like a subtle act of revenge on employers that I didn’t fully support or enjoy. I then wandered the halls like a typically goon, checking in with staff and having a conversation with a maid about Lexus and her men.

It was clear that no one was keen on having her there, and worried that ‘the man’ might be making a mistake. It was clear that some of the female staff were seriously enamored with him. From the way the maid was speaking, I wondered if she might’ve possibly even been a lover of his or at the very least wished that she was. These staff areas were as drab and soulless as the hallway leading to the meeting area, and were nothing like the ornate and expensive looking living spaces. It actually sucked the enthusiasm right out of me.

Suddenly, I heard a voice over a radio. Emerging from some sort of bunk room, another black-clad guard was trying to attach an earpiece to his radio, like the kind worn by VIP security and the Secret Service. He saw me and stopped, allowing me to hear the message.

“We need all available guards back to the main hall, right away!” A man’s voice frantically demanded.

“Copy that.” The guard replied on the radio, before plugging in the ear piece and stowing the receiver.

“How come I don’t have one of those?” I asked.

“You’re new, that’s why you get to wait in the garage.” The man smirked.

“Want me to go with you?” I asked.

“Do whatever, man.” He replied with obvious disinterest.

I rolled my eyes, frustrated by his dismissiveness. I jogged just behind him as we quickly returned to the same ornate, wooden waiting area. Emerging from the rounded doorway, Lexus and her men emerged, their weapons in-hand. The man was with them, along with his six guards. They also had their weapons drawn, and my boss was wielding a highly polished Desert Eagle Mark VII in .357 Magnum. I could tell the model and caliber from the small diameter bore and some of the features.

“How the hell did they find us?!” The man asked, glaring at Lexus.

“I don’t know! We made sure that no one knew where we were going!” She defensively replied.

“How many are there?” The man turned toward one of his guards.

“At least two dozen.” His guard answered.

“Alright... Pair up and start searching. They’re making their way up here, so be ready for a fight!” The man barked out his orders.

“What about us?” Lexus turned toward him.

“I have a helipad on the roof. They’ll cover our escape.” The man pointed toward us mooks.

Suddenly, the power was cut and the emergency lighting turned on. The battery powered lights were a soft, amber color, but very bright. It also seemed like some of the ornate wall sconces were battery powered, which I found rather amusing.

“Shit... Without power we don’t have cameras.” The man grumbled.

“What do we do?!” Lexus asked, showing her fear and inexperience.

“Pair up our men and have them patrol the halls. We need to make out way to the roof, but we have to assume they know the layout and are waiting for that.” The man explained to her.

With our leaders in agreement, the men started pairing off with each other to search the halls and take up defensive positions. It almost felt like a school project, the way the men were pairing up.

“Do you want to patrol the eastern hall with me?”

“Sure!”

I watched as ‘the man’ and Lexus took their most trusted guards and went back into the meeting room, through the rounded doorway. I knew in my mind that they had another way out, though I never saw where it was or even what that room looked like. The cat woman stared at me and began to approach, but Krystal swiftly approached me, stepping in between the cat woman and me. She flashed a sly smile, then held up her revolver.

“Yeah, sure. I wasn’t doing anything.” I replied.

She chuckled, then motioned for me to follow her. We returned to the drab halls and Krystal led the way. I pointed out to her that I worked there and knew the layout better than she did but she ignored me. She pointed toward a T-junction and raised her revolver, then waited for me to check it. At this point, I drew my sidearm, and I could see that I was carrying my Bersa Thunder 9 Pro with two-tone (matte silver slide with matte black frame, barrel and accents) finish. I flipped off the safety with my left-hand thumb and took up a crumpled Weaver stance as I turned the corner.

I checked the room only to find that it was a lounge of some kind. In this room, the emergency lighting was red, as I suppose it was deemed unnecessary to change those bulbs. The room was empty, and a TV was on, with NetFlix paused on some movie or show that I didn’t recognize.

“Huh... So that’s what’s in here! ... How come they told me it was a secret?!” I thought to myself.

I then realized that Krystal probably knew the complex as well as I did and softly chuckled as I turned back to motion to her that the room was clear. When I looked through the doorway and toward the T-junction, however, she was gone. I ran back into the corridor and looked down the halls.

“Krystal?” I called out. “Krystal! Where are you?!”

Suddenly, I began to hear gunfire and screams. I began to panic. Fearing the worst, I started searching for Krystal, fully intending to lead her back to the elevator and take our chances going back to the parking garage. I had keys to several vehicles in my pocket, and I suddenly knew that, as a low-level goon, I would often act as a driver. Sprinting down the hallway, my long coat flowed behind me. I stopped to check doors, listening to the loud echoes of gunfire interspersed with cries of pain and the sounds of low-grade explosives. I knew that it must be the police or even the government who was attacking the complex. Undaunted, I continued my search.

“Krystal!” I called out, again and again.

I made my way back to the waiting area, only to burst in and find it completely empty. I was going to check the room behind the rounded door, but just as I approached it, gunfire erupted, striking the decorative wooden pillar just in front of me and to my left. I jolt, then duck down and trip over the round table, which topples over. The vase shatters and I dash through the room as a few more bullets flew by me. Scrambling through another door and into a drab hallway, I take cover just beyond the doorway.

Without looking, I reach my hand inside and shoot back at whoever just tried to kill me. I don’t hear any noises. No screaming or the shuffling of feet. I count to ten in my mind and decide to run. This time, when the gunfire erupts, I turn my upper body and shot past my right arm. I could see the person who was shooting at me was an AdvAnimal. I couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, but it had a full-face respirator with a rubber mask that covered the whole head, sort of like the Russian PBF gas mask.

It was clearly designed for a wolf or wolf-like canine, but the rubber was a glossy black. The lenses were blacked-out but when the light hit his face, there was a hint of red. It was crouching down and looked like a dog or wolf anthro version of HUNK from Resident Evil. I had a semi-conscious thought about how cool the AdvAnimal's outfit and gas mask was. I fired continuously until one lucky round struck the AdvAnimal in the shoulder and it fell backward, against the door frame.

It was only then that I could see it was a male, and it groaned in obvious pain. I raced through the complex, took a right and bashed through the doorway, reloading my pistol with shaking hands. Just as I pressed the slide-lock with my left thumb, more gunfire startled me. This time, it looked like goons belonging to Lexus. I had no idea why they were shooting at me, but they were. I dropped to the ground and wound up sitting on the floor, before emptying my Bersa’s standard capacity, 17-round magazine at the mooks.

I struck a few, but most of my rounds hit the walls around them, as the fear was taking over. I had to actually think about my breathing, trying to calm my nerves as I reloaded with my last magazine. Making my way through the large room, which was covered in ornate wood paneling and looked like a sitting room in a posh country club, I found a door to my left, between some bookshelves. Heading through it, I found myself in a game room, and in that game room there were almost a dozen dead bodies.

They belonged to Lexus and some of her men, though I recognized at least one of the guards who served ‘the man’. In fact, as I looked closer, it was the jerk-ass guard who let me listen to his radio before mocking me. I then wondered if this whole thing was some sort of elaborate double-cross. Who could I trust? Worrying for Krystal, the only person I seemed to care about, and wanting to escape this place, I continued calling out her name, even though I knew it would draw attention.

Unsurprisingly, men found me as I wandered through the room, stepping carefully over the bodies. A gunshot ripped into my back, striking a bullet-resistant vest I was wearing. I cried out in pain, turned and fired, but another round struck my chest and a third whizzed by my head. Returning fire, I seemed to scare the shooter off, but as I fell backward over Lexus’ corpse, I dropped my pistol. I lost it in the darkness and after a few seconds of full-blown panic, I decided to just leave it. I got up and ran, only to draw my backup gun from a pocket of my long coat. It was a Beretta 81BB in .32 ACP.

(Most of the firearms in my dreams and stories I either own, have owned or handled in the past; The Bersa is a personal firearm, as is Jack’s 1911, Samara’s SCCY CPX-2 (except mine is purple, not red), and Donnie’s dad’s pistol is directly inspired by my own recently acquired Beretta Cheetah.)

Flipping off the safety, I take out a few loose magazines from a pocket in my overcoat, which I then proceed to remove. Slipping the spare magazines in the rear right pocket of my black jeans, I keep my little Beretta at low-ready and walk down the halls.

“Krystal? Krystal!” I continue to call out in a hushed voice.

Hearing some gunfire coming from another room, I race down the hall, push open the door and see a staircase going to the roof. Standing before it, my boss glares at someone as he stands between the bodies of his guards. He’s about to speak, but before he can get a word out, he’s shot once in the head by the unseen assailant. Pushing open the door, I turn to see who the shooter was, and I’m horrified to see that it’s Krystal! Seeing me, she seems to sigh, as if from sadness, only to then turn her smoking gun toward me. It’s clear from her facial expression that she doesn’t want to shoot me, but she slowly and methodically takes aim at my head, anyway.

“Woah! Okay... Want to put that down?” I ask, raising my hands into the air.

After a short pause, she very slowly and subtly shakes her head ‘no’.

“Look, I’m not mad, okay? I mean, I didn’t even really know the guy! He didn’t even give benefits!”

She briefly chuckles, then presses her thumb onto the hammer. After a moment of hesitation, she cocks it back. I watch as the cylinder spins, lining up a live round with the barrel. She’d already fired four rounds, and she has two left. It’s then that I look down, my eyes scanning her voluptuous figure, only to see something startling. She has a bullet hole in her dress, between her legs. I then have an even more horrifying thought.

Did she shoot at me in the waiting area and miss, or shoot at me to scare me off? When I stuck my hand into the room and fired back, did I shoot that hole into her dress? I gulp and take a step back, inadvertently moving away from the door, my only means of escape.

“Hey, come on... I thought we were friends...” I speak in a soft, melancholy voice.

“Rrrrmmm...” She seemed to whimper as she steadied her pistol with her off-hand.

“Acquaintances?” I ask, trying to be funny.

She cannot help but smirk, even chuckling. She looks away, glancing at the bodies of her victims, and after a moment of thought, she turns her cold, sapphire eyes toward me and glares. Snarling, she bares her teeth, only to abruptly loosen up. It’s as if she was fighting with herself over whether or not to shoot me. Using the barrel of her magnum revolver, she motions for me to leave through the door. As I cautiously make my way back through it, she raises a hand and waves her fingertips at me. Her expression is a strange mix of “good luck” and “I’ll see you later”, and as soon as I step through the doorway, I hear her high heels as she walks away.

“There’s one!” A voice calls out.

Turning to my left, I see a man in a generic black suit with a white dress shirt, wearing mirrored sunglasses. He has two AdvAnimal men standing on either side of him, wielding Vector KRISS submachine guns and dressed in black BDUs with tactical vests and those cool respirators. After murmuring an expletive, I dash down the hall and break into a room, slamming into the door with my right shoulder and breaking the frame near the latch. They unleash a volley of fire just as I fall inside.

Scrambling to my feet, I race through the room and toward another door, only vaguely aware of where I’m going. As I enter the room, I see the blonde-haired man who looks like a stereotypical Man In Black, and he feels familiar. I’m certain that was Agent Sharpe, or at least an Agent very similar in appearance to Daniel Sharpe. His AdvAnimal men charge in and take aim, so I raise my little pistol and fire thirteen rounds as fast as I can, striking one of them in or near the face and making the other one fall prone. The Agent merely steps to the side, taking cover beyond the doorway.

I race through the hall, running as fast as I can, which isn’t all that swift. Reloading my pistol is a struggle, so I stop and take cover by a wooden pillar as I swap magazines and pull back the slide before letting it snap forward. I suddenly remember a way out, a laundry chute. I recall that there’s always a bin beneath it, and that the chute goes only a few floors below, so I decide to take my chances with a broken leg rather than getting killed.

Dashing through the halls, I see a T-junction ahead of me. My heart’s pounding like I’d sprinted a mile, and I feel the sweat pouring over my face. It gets into my eyes, blurring my vision. I try to recall if the chute was to the left or to the right, only to hear a voice yell at me.

“Stop him!”

I see how far I have to go and wonder if I’m going to get shot, before I can escape. Just then, I remember that I need to go left. Dropping down and sliding along the floor, I hear gunfire and feel the wind of the bullets. They strike the wall and blow chunks of dry wall, creating clouds of grayish-white dust. Scrambling toward a solitary door at the end of the hallway, which seems even longer than the last one, I suddenly wake up...

Thoughts: It was an interesting dream, to say the least, though I doubt any of these details will ever be used in the story. Some of them seem contradictory to lore that I've already establish or will soon establish. I’m also not sure why Krystal didn’t want to shoot me. Perhaps she didn’t want to kill her creator and risk me shelving the story? :P