FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Activate the Adramelech Protocol."

Aurelias twitched his whiskers once with the declaration as he dove behind the concrete barrier. The optical mini-disc he tossed into the air reflected the artificial light of the Undercity for a moment before exploding in a shower of deep red sparks. Streamers of radiance trailed the cinders, outlining a set of feathery wings above the highway.

Holding his breath, he hoped the code worked. The spell had compiled, but the bright-furred fox didn't get a chance to execute it after fixing the bug that made the magic run amok. He glanced over the barrier and noticed his pursuer busy typing away on a floating, transparent set of keys. Blue runes scrolled past the wolf's muzzle, illuminating his ebony fur with an eerie hue.

The program continued to run, the sparks having almost completed their trace. A humanoid creature took shape in the ribbons of light: part-bird, part-horse, and all brilliant fire. At least, that's what it should look like when complete, but Aurelias realized the wolf was hacking his spell as it was executing, the shape forming far slower than he anticipated.

The fox hadn't counted on him being clever, or capable for that matter. He certainly hadn't shown any of those skills when Aurelias broke into Kyota's security system. Calling up his own translucent keyboard with a wave of an orange paw, the fox got to work himself. He was never really good at making a robust, well-designed, complete program or spell, but he was great on the fly, and he was going to show that wolf who the real hacker here was.

His digits flew over the keys, manipulating the stream of magical shapes in front of him until he picked out the Adramelech protocol. Jade eyes darted back and forth until one side of his muzzle lifted into a lopsided grin, revealing tiny sharp teeth. Aurelias found his spell, and perhaps the wolf wasn't as smart as he thought. Jammed right in the rendering loop was a sleep statement, clearly to slow down the creation of the beast. With a flick of his paw on the delete key, the magic sped up once again, and in short order the monster became whole.

"Got ya, fuzzbrain," Aurelias said to himself. He kept a wary eye on the spell, though, as he figured the black wolf might try slowing it down a second time.

The asphalt shook with the roar and Aurelias couldn't resist taking a gander at his handiwork. Another quick look over the two-foot tall barrier to watch the fiery horse-bird charge the stocky wolf. Tail wagging, the fox ducked back down and waved the console away, making it disappear with a wink of light. The screaming of the security guard was his cue to make his getaway.

He crouched and crab-walked along the road, keeping his ears against his head and out of sight. He needed to round the corner and then he could flat out run. The yelling had stopped though, and so had the monster's roars. Aurelias couldn't think of how the fuzzbrained wolf managed to defeat the Adramelech protocol so quickly, but he tried to shimmy faster.

Moments later a brick wall shot up from below, showering Aurelias with chunks of highway. The fox shouted a curse and hopped over the barrier to the road proper. His monster was just standing there. Glitching out was the best description he came up with as it flickered between two slightly off positions, like a 3D movie frame. In front stood the victorious wolf.

"How?" Aurelias said, hoping to buy some time. If he could get the security guard to monologue, perhaps he'd be able to prep another spell. Paw in his pocket, the fox clawed through his mini-discs, careful to not scratch them, feeling for the braille bumps he printed on them for just such an occasion.

He was a handsome wolf, and if Aurelias didn't think his own life depended on running away, he might've enjoyed chatting the guard up. Blue eyes, broad shoulders, stocky build, but a little short for a soldier. And fur as black as the night sky.

Well, as dark as it would be if he could see the night sky. The Undercity was about fifty stories of old skyscrapers, built decades prior. The Metropolis above, where the rich lived, worked, and played, was nothing but a tale to the fox. Aurelias never had the opportunity to check the city of legend out, and unless he got a job with a transit pass, he probably never would. Filching artifacts and artwork didn't generally come with such lofty benefits.

"Simple, Aurelias. The bug you fixed last night that you posted about? Guess who gave you the code review?"

The fox's ears twitched and flattened as his whiskers wiggled and eyes widened. "Shit, you're Caleb?"

"In the fur." The wolf flourished and bowed low, muzzle nearly brushing the asphalt.

Aurelias had to switch plans. This wolf was the other hacker on the forums he'd been developing his spells with. As a result, all of his optical-discs were useless; Caleb would know every weakness. The sleep statement from earlier was to buy him time to find the right chunk of code, and not an actual attempt to destroy his spell. Despite liking to improvise, though, the fox was a bit nervous about falling back on Sorcery.

Code was safe: it ran the same every time, and sure programs had bugs, but they were the coder's fault, not the magic. Sorcery came from before the discovery of magic being effectively hacking the physical universe. It was extremely personal, and extremely volatile. Unpredictable. And that meant improvising on top of his initial improv.

With no other choice, Aurelias snagged one of his discs and used it to reflect the light from a streetlamp. He jumped off the roadway, concentrating on the beam and landing on a luminescent bridge as it materialized twenty feet below. The touchdown was rough, however, and his knees buckled under the pressure, causing him to roll close to the edge, his tail hanging off his floating structure.

"The hell?"

Aurelias heard the wolf yelling at him from above. Pulling himself up, he barely kept a hold of the bridge in his mind. One misstep, or loss of concentration, and he'd plummet another ten stories to his death.

"I just want that dongle back, Aurelias. With the data intact. No need to risk your pretty little life!" The dark wolf's voice echoed between the buildings.

Aurelias snorted. "Right, and I'm Queen of the Metropolis," he muttered as he pulled out an optical disc. "Activate Nox Pallium."

The wolf swore as the ambient light of the Undercity was cloaked by an unnatural darkness. However, Aurelias realized his misstep when the shade also blotted out his bridge. Holding back his scream and his dinner as he fell towards the slums below, the fox brought up his supernatural keyboard, typed a few characters, and then flicked a floating scrollbar with a single claw. In response, his fall slowed to a leisurely pace, and not twenty feet too soon, either. Once he felt solid ground under his pads - none of this elevated highway crap - he returned the local gravitational constant to normal, careful to bend his knees to absorb the shock of his weight returning.

He didn't have time to hang around, though, as he knew Caleb wouldn't be far behind. Hacking constants wasn't terribly difficult, and in a vertical city like the Metropolis and the Undercity one of the first things you figure out is personal gravity. If you wanted to survive mad chases and escapes, that is. And Aurelias figured Caleb knew exactly that.

The slums weren't the best place for a little fox like himself. Most furs here were physically tough, and Aurelias wasn't sure he had the right algorithms on hand to deal with another fight. Adramelech was his first major foray in anything offensive. Everything else he did was far more practical, which is to say useful for evading the law. Killing the local enforcement almost never ended well, but hired security personnel were fair game, especially since Aurelias was pretty sure Kyota didn't want the cops to get wind of what he was up to.

Keeping to the shadows of the shanties, the fox cursed his bright orange fur. He stood out like a generator-powered neon sign in a brownout. That damnable fur was why he preferred digital heists to analog ones. He could be stealthy in a system, but not so much in an alley. The wall leaned under his paw pads, and he pulled his weight off slightly as he moved forward. The nearby Dyson building had a working set of elevators, and once he arrived he could get off at almost any floor and be back on the skyways and out of the wolf's reach.

A few minutes and about one hundred agonizingly slow feet later his ears perked at the sound of his name. The wolf was around the corner on the phone with his employer, he assumed, giving Kyota the details of who was stealing his data. Aurelias again wished he could've just hacked the damn tiger's network instead of hiding from the wolf with the deep voice that made his head tingle in the worst part of the city, but Kyota kept the important stuff off the grid. He kept still, eavesdropping on the conversation.

"Yeah, he's a crafty son of a bitch. Never had any info on him until now, keeps his online and real life completely separate. All I got is his screen name, and I only guessed 'cause of the spell he used." The wolf paused for a moment. "Bright orange, green eyes, brown on his ears and tail, about five foot two, skinny little guy. Capable at Sorcery, coding, and hacking." Another pause. "Pft, my type? Fuck you. You want your data back? Then sit tight and let me work."

The voice stopped, and the light clicking of dull claws on a keyboard wafted his way. Aurelias figured the wolf was scanning the area, and it'd only be a matter of time until he spotted the fox's magical signature if he stayed put. It never failed to amuse the fox, however, if furs these days would use their natural talents, like sense of smell, he'd have been caught twenty times over. Still, he knew better than to stick around.

Slinking away, keeping his steps light, Aurelias ducked behind another set of shacks. He heard a mother chiding her daughter about staying out late with "those boys" again. The next shack reeked of sex and squalor, and the one after was barely keeping together. The poverty made the bright-furred fox uncomfortable, and he could've just as well been down here with his own parents if he didn't have the skillset he did.

The scent of the wolf weakened, and Aurelias hoped he had finally begun to lose the security guard. It was only another hundred feet or so to the Dyson skyscraper, and then he'd be home free. He sped up his pace.

"Aurelias."

The fox groaned, his voice carrying further than he realized. Again he had underestimated the wolf. The scent was weaker because the security guard had circled around downwind. Clearly he was using all of his faculties, digital and analog. And now the black wolf stood between him and his next destination.

"I wasn't joking when I said you just have to hand me back the dongle. You can walk away from this." Caleb was only a few feet from Aurelias now. No smile on his muzzle though, the wolf looked deadly serious. He was taller than the fox by two or three inches, but he weighed twice as much, if not more.

The fox twitched his whiskers. "Why do that? Why not bring me in?"

As Aurelias brought a paw down to his pocket, the wolf shook his head and tut-tutted the fox. "It'd be a shame to let a talented hacker such as yourself rot in Kyota's dungeon. Hoping we can help each other out on the forums? Coder solidarity? Sucker for a pretty face? Think whatever you like. But I still have a job to do. So give me the dongle."

There seemed to be no way out. Caleb's reputation was totally solid as a hacker; he'd been in the scene years before Aurelias had been. Hell, the wolf had probably been coding when Aurelias was a kit. The fox considered himself clever, nonetheless he realized experience would likely win here. His employer wasn't going to be happy to hear he failed, and it'd only be a matter of time before he'd have to face off with Caleb again. But now that Aurelias knew who he'd be up against, maybe he could use it to his advantage...

"Fine, here." Aurelias dug deep in his pocket and pulled out a small metal cylinder. Tossing it to the wolf, he shrugged. "You win this round."

Caleb snatched the dongle from the air with a deft paw, then scanned it with his phone. "All here, and not copied. Thanks, foxy," he said with a wink.

"Foxy?"

"I mentioned I was a sucker for a pretty face," the stocky wolf stated as he turned and walked away. "Oh, and tell Rygar next time he wants Kyota's stuff, he should just pay my fee. Would've been cheaper in the first place."

Aurelias slumped down beside the shack, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of dirt and crushed concrete on his tail. Caleb had been a step ahead of him almost the entire time. He knew who hired the fox, he knew what the fox was hired for, and he knew the fox's spells. About the only thing that took him by surprise was Aurelias' Sorcery.

The sound of angry voices brought Aurelias out of his reverie, and the fox decided to beat it before any roughnecks happened upon an easy target. Without the wolf on his back, though, it didn't take long for him to arrive at the Dyson building.

After swiping the security card he created himself a few months prior, he slipped into the skyscraper. The area was deserted, and the elevators were in a state of severe disrepair. It had been about twenty years since the building had been used for anything at all, before it was abandoned by Dyson for a nicer headquarters in the Metropolis. But given that only Dyson employees or hackers could get in without breaking the windows and bringing down a slew of security drones, and most of the workers never came to the Undercity, there weren't many furs using the elevators. Aurelias hoped each time he used them they'd survive the trip.

Twenty-seven floors later, the machine creaked to a stop and the fox had to jam the doors open himself to get out. They slammed shut again, missing his fluffy tail by a mere inch. But he was nearly home. This floor had a skywalk that lead to another building, and further skywalks branched out from there. Occasionally he'd have to climb up or down a set of stairs to reach the next one, but about thirty minutes later he made it to his home sweet home: Boardwalk Apartments.

He shook his head, his muzzle twisted in a grimace. In the center of the Undercity, between the slums and the Metropolis, he doubted anyone here even understood what a boardwalk was. He looked up the concept just for the heck of it a while ago. The picturesque world of a wooden path along a beach by the ocean was something he could only dream of. Perhaps one day he'd make enough money to get out of the Undercity. He'd heard that Vancouver was supposed to be nice. Their city was still flat rather than vertical, mostly because of earthquakes. Every fur could see the sky.

"Are you really just getting in now, Darryl?"

The fox winced. He'd hoped his roommate wasn't awake yet, but he underestimated how long he took to get home. It was cresting six in the morning. Not that he could tell. Six in the morning looked identical to six at night in this damn place.

"And you look like a complete wreck! I keep telling you, all these parties are going to screw you up." The monochrome skunk in her grayscale dress adjusted the lavender ribbon between her perky little ears. Aurelias knew she meant well, but she really got on his nerves. It also didn't help that the context switch from using his online handle to his real name was jarring.

"I can take care of myself just fine, Casey. Don't worry, I'll have rent for you." He rolled his emerald eyes after passing her so she couldn't notice. "I wouldn't dream of jeopardizing your image of being a capable adult."

"I'm not saying you're not an adult," she said, huffing. "But you're also not a kid anymore. You need a stable job, one that'll keep you from having to move back in with your parents." The skunk was at the door, on her way out to her own clerical job on floor forty-three. She was only a few floors from being able to say she worked in the Metropolis itself, yet she could barely afford an apartment in the mid-Undercity. Hence why they were roommates, despite hardly knowing each other.

"I have a job, fuck you very much," Aurelias said, snarling. "You're going to be late for your own."

She sighed, and Aurelias heard the door slam behind her. He didn't mean to be such a dick to her, but she was so infuriating sometimes. It was like living with his parents again, with less supervision.

The orange-furred fox snagged a banana and a unit of paste from the kitchen. Fruit and vegetables were expensive here, but he did agree with Casey: the expense was worth it. Nutrient paste tasted awful, despite being cheap. However, throw some fruit in and it almost became palatable.

All he wanted to do was sleep after his quick "breakfast", but he realized that he'd have to report to Rygar his failure. The more he thought about what Caleb said, though, the more pissed off he got at his employer. Best he pieced together from the conversation was that Rygar had tried to hire Caleb, wouldn't pay his price, and found someone cheaper. And then it turned out Caleb was working for Kyota! Rygar must've had that tidbit of knowledge, and it meant that Aurelias had severely undercharged for the service given the danger. Not like he was going to see any of that money, anyway.

His bedroom was a cacophony of colors. Early on in his "career" he'd found a warehouse filled with paints, abandoned in the land-rush in the Metropolis. It took him a few days to pack enough of the cans up to his then-new apartment, but he had a blast throwing the bright colors against his walls. The Undercity was drab, where his sanctuary was exciting. Afterwards, he'd made a pretty penny by selling the remnants of the paint to his neighbors. The income helped him through the first couple of months before his business got off the ground.

Aurelias dialed Rygar's number, and the tiger on the other end picked up before he heard a single ring.

"Do you have it?" The voice was calm, like a predator stalking its prey.

"Kyota's security detail contained a hacker." The fox had to play his cards close to his chest. If he flew off the handle, Rygar might ruin him, or even kill him.

"And? I promised a hefty sum for someone who was capable. Excuses are not acceptable."

"The hacker was Caleb."

The tiger hesitated for the briefest of moments. Enough that Aurelias was certain the name meant something to him. "You said you were good."

"I am good. Caleb is better. He costs more to hire for a reason."

The line went silent for a full five seconds. Aurelias wasn't sure how the tiger would react, and the longer the moment stretched, the less certain he became. His paw began to shake.

"I see. In that case I have no need of your services, and you will not be paid for the unfinished job."

The tiger hung up and Aurelias heaved a large sigh before flopping back on his bed. He needed the money for rent, but at least he escaped his contract without getting screwed royally. Though if news got out that he had failed Rygar, contracts might become harder to come by. Still, Caleb! How the hell was he supposed to know the hacker extraordinaire was there?

His computer chimed at him, and the fox got up to check his mail. Given his contracts were strictly... off the record he didn't expect Rygar to be mailing or IM'ing him. Nothing that could be traced so easily. He clicked through the browser, noticing it was from Caleb. "Gloating, no doubt."

"Hey foxy. I guess I can call you foxy, now I know what you look like. Thanks for the reference, my latest contract is going to be a piece of cake. I had kinda hoped you'd try to keep at it, though. Been a while since a chase was that fun. Oh, and I fixed that bug in Adramelech for you, the right way. Your fix had a buffer overflow. Find the new code attached, free. The one sitting in the forums will stay broken, in case someone else tries to use it against me, but next time I'm going to charge you my going rate for bug fixes."

Aurelias looked over the attachment and gave a low whistle. It was obvious in hindsight what had let Caleb break his program; how he hadn't seen it before was a mystery. As usual, better on the fly than creating robust systems. He had to improve.

"I'm sure he was happy to pay your fee. Between both tigers you must be making a killing. I'll have to ensure you can't ruin my next contract. What is your going rate for bug fixes, anyway?"

He hit send, wondering if the black wolf was still at his own terminal. Seconds later another chime confirmed he was.

"For you foxy, I'll have a special discount, but I don't advertise my fee schedule ahead of time. You'll have to find out when you require my services ;-)"

Aurelias wasn't sure if Caleb was doing business or flirting at this point, and the winking smiley didn't help his confusion. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. He shook his head and shut down his computer instead of replying. He was exhausted from the entire ordeal, and he'd have to find a way to make up the money somehow. For now the fox needed to get some sleep.

He shut his blinds, cutting out the constant ambient light of the Undercity, and dozed off, visions of arcane symbols and a handsome, fuzzbrained black wolf in his dreams.