FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"You there! Fox!"

Aurelias flinched at the gruff voice, glancing up from his laptop. There was no way Kyota's goons could have found him yet.

"If you're not gonna buy nothin', get outta here!" A wolf in security's clothing stared down at the grungy-furred fox, a snarl across his muzzle.

_Seriously?_Aurelias shut his laptop, putting it to sleep as he stood, and gazed right into the gray wolf's eyes. If he weren't already on the run, he'd have shown the wolf who was the boss, but with a twenty-four hour -- closer to twenty-three, now -- deadline on freeing Caleb from Kyota Industries, he couldn't afford a side-trip to a holding cell. The fox broke eye contact, shrugged, and walked away.

Short on spells and cash, Aurelias thought about where he could buckle down and get his funds transferred somewhere he'd be able to spend them without giving himself away.

Then he had the perfect idea.

He wound his way through the dingy mall, past dreary and disheveled furs hiding from the slums of the Undercity. They'd come to the shitty little bastion of civilization to pretend they weren't society's refuse, but Aurelias had no such illusions. He knew exactly what furs like that security guard thought of him, but he didn't care. He'd make his own way through life, hacking and stealing as he pleased to get by. It just proved he was far cleverer than the lot of them.

Not cleverer than Caleb, however. The thought made Aurelias' ears fall flat. The ebony wolf had definitely outsmarted Aurelias on a number of occasions, but had gotten himself caught by Kyota's goons. It gave the young fox pause. If Caleb couldn't escape, what made him think he could win?

That line of thinking was interrupted by his destination. Aurelias surreptitiously checked over his shoulder to find out if the guard had followed him. Satisfied he was alone, he pushed open the washroom door. Inside, a spotted hyena busied himself by scrubbing some metallic object in the sink, and another fur's feet stuck out under the stalls. Thankfully, the second stall was empty. Aurelias locked himself in, pulled his pants down to his ankles, sat himself down on the toilet, and got back to work.

With no outlet nearby to keep his laptop charged, he figured he had about two hours of battery after his wall stint earlier. He hoped it would be enough.

The fox had to be quiet with his typing if he wanted to stay safe. His laptop had rubberized keys, but his claws made clicking noises every time they touched the metal frame. Each tap sounded like a gun going off to the fox's paranoid senses, but it couldn't be helped. Maybe anybody walking in would be distracted by whatever the hell that hyena was washing. At least, until he left.

The first thing he needed to do was set up two new accounts. One would be the final resting place of his money, and the other would be the middleman. He couldn't throw all his money into a new account immediately; that'd be too easy to follow. But he also didn't have all the time in the world to set up a chain of staging accounts. He wanted to make it just difficult enough to buy him enough time to purchase what he required and make his escape.

Once they were good to go a half hour later, he tossed his credit chit into his laptop and overwrote the banking information so he could access his new account using it. The only thing he had left to do was hit start on his script that would move half of his money from his old account, through his staging area, to his new one. From there, Aurelias guessed he would maybe have another hour at most, maybe half, before Kyota's company caught on and tracked him down. So he'd have to make his shopping spree quick.

The fox hit the enter key, wishing he had more time to clean the dirt caked on his fur, but it was too late. Confirmation of the first move popped up on his screen and he kept his fingers crossed. The second move completed five minutes after, and he was in business to the tune of forty thousand dollars. He slammed his laptop closed and booked it out of the bathroom.

"At least wash your paws, geez!" the hyena yelled after him.

"Fuck off!" Aurelias shouted back as the door shut behind him. He was mildly curious as to what the spotted male was so intent on cleaning for over forty minutes, but he had some spending to do.

A growly stomach and parched throat made his first stop a grocery cart. He'd lift the small things, except paying for them would keep his profile lower than if he got caught. So instead he snagged more water, enough nutrient paste for a couple days in case he failed and lived to tell the tale, and treated himself to some cookies. The first test of his credit chit, and some twelve hundred dollars plus change later it seemed to work fine. None of Kyota's thugs jumped him, nor did security, but he knew it would only be a matter of time.

Next on his list were more discs. The runic binary blaster in his computer did all the magic, so Aurelias only had to purchase some ordinary optical mini-discs. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or not to see the salesfox from before replaced, but the bored buck didn't give him any trouble at all. Although the stack of twenty-five discs weren't cheap, he figured he'd be dead if he wasn't appropriately armed, and those discs were his weapons.

Other purchases included a flashlight, batteries, an emergency power pack for his laptop, rope, and a small toolset. When said and done, he had spent nearly all of the money in his new account in almost an hour. He left himself enough for a cab ride to the Kyota Industries headquarters, assuming that's where they held Caleb -- another piece of information he was going to have to gather. Slightly over twenty hours remained.

Inside the mall, the despondent furs depressed him; outside, the ever-static ambience of the Undercity got Aurelias down. Miles of asphalt and steel boxed in the world, leaving no more than thirty or forty yards of space above at any given point. On the other paw, that meant there wasn't a lot of open area for him to be spotted from a distance, which was mildly comforting to the fox. In the meantime, however, he needed to put some distance from the place he had left his digital fingerprints for all to see.

He didn't have to walk far before he figured he was lost enough in the maze of buildings. Abandoned but still locked, the current office he had cracked open with a bit of magic was perfect for performing his work. Gray half-walls marked out cubicles filled with dusty desks, creaky chairs, and shadows cast from the pervasive ambient light through dirty windows. Despite the condition of the building, the outlets still drew power, and Aurelias could charge his laptop.

The question was what could he do next? He was down to nineteen hours and a bit to perform his rescue, and there was little doubt Kyota's brutes would be prepared for him if he attacked the spot head on -- either he'd be there to give himself up, or to liberate Caleb. Not to mention he didn't even know where the ebony wolf was being held.

Doing this on his own was daunting, but maybe he didn't need to go solo. The bright-furred fox flipped open his computer and went to his old stomping grounds: the hacking forum he and Caleb frequented. He typed up a plea for help, titled, "WarDec on Kyota Ind."

"Kyota Industries is giving us coders and hackers a bad name with their shitty magic discs. They've also started taking out hackers who know too much, like Caleb! I'm next on their hit list, but they haven't caught me yet. Start fucking with their systems RIGHT NOW so we can get Caleb out. Fuckers shouldn't mess with us!"

Aurelias didn't know if he had enough sway to make a War Declaration on a company as large as Kyota Industries and get other hackers to follow through, but he could hope. He had no plan B. While he waited for responses, he began to burn more spells, and while he waited for that, he went to the kitchenette to ascertain if the building had any running water.

Must be nice to have enough money to leave all this behind and not worry, he thought as he poked around. There were plenty of paper towels along with disposable plates and cutlery left, and the plumbing still worked. A few minutes later, a naked fox stood in a puddle of water on the tile floor with a pile of muddy towels nearby. It wasn't perfect, but he felt better. At least he could actually tell what color his coat was.

Back at his computer, he switched out the newly created spell and threw another blank disc in to burn, then busted open his cookies. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten something like that. They weren't exactly practical, and they were expensive, but he savored the chocolate chips on his tongue as he perused the forums for his post.

Aurelias had been expecting a few replies calling him stupid, useless, annoying, dumb, or any number of other charming descriptions of his intelligence and personality, or a number of completely unrelated image memes about feral cats doing asinine yet adorable things, but to his surprise he found none. Instead, three replies awaited:

"WTF? They took Caleb? Fuckers have it coming!"

"Stick it to them, man! We got your back Aurelias!"

"Kyota won't know what hit him when we're done."

The fox's tail began to wag. Hacker solidarity, eh Caleb?

He just had to wait for more help to roll in. His -- friends? Colleagues? Peers? He wasn't sure what to call them, but they would need more time to dig up the information he needed. In the meantime, the dingy couch near the kitchen was awfully tempting. Between the warehouse, the chase, and the mall, he was exhausted. A little nap would be needed to keep his energy up for the eventual battle.

When he woke up, Aurelias didn't know how long he had been out. As soon as the fox's head hit the cushion, he was dead to the world. With no way to even guess the time without a clock of some sort, the fox stretched and headed back to his laptop. It couldn't have been a short nap given how stiff his back felt.

"Oh shit!" Aurelias slapped his paw against his forehead. He'd been asleep for almost ten hours. Slightly over seven hours remained until Kyota's deadline.

The fox frantically clicked around on his laptop, navigating to the forums and his posts. Thankfully, other posts alongside his own outlined who was doing what. Some had signed up to DOS Kyota Industries' sites, but a few of the more experienced hackers who interacted with Caleb on a regular basis put up proper information, like blueprints of the headquarters, security codes for overriding doors, names and addresses of hired guards. Magical hacking was Aurelias' specialty, and he couldn't begin to measure up to what some of these furs dug up about the company using digital techniques.

"CALEB TRAPPED IN KYOTA IND." The post title read as if someone was rubbing his fur against the grain, but the glimmer of hope that came with the information was too good to pass up. Inside was a picture of the ebony wolf in a small cell. Caleb had his arms crossed against his chest as he leaned back on the wall, like he was waiting for something to happen. Scanning the rest of the text, it confirmed Aurelias' suspicions: Caleb was indeed at Kyota Industries HQ.

Realizing he had only burned two new spells, he threw in another disc before responding to his thread. It was time to get this party started. Every hacker needed to throw every trick they had to disable security, distract the guards, and seed enough chaos for Aurelias to get in undetected.

Four spells later, the orange-furred fox knew he didn't have much more time to waste. The attacks would be starting shortly, and he'd memorized the blueprints and security codes as best he could. He'd have to trust in his own abilities, and that of some furs motivated by revenge or shits and giggles.

The cab he ordered came within minutes, hovering a few feet outside of the abandoned office building. When was the last time he had taken a vehicle of any sort? Not since he left his parents' place, at least. Yellow and sleek, the taxi promised a fast ride. Inside, the bear cabby nodded once when he gave his destination.

"Heard there was a commotion over there," the burly driver said, keeping his eyes on the space in front of the car as it zoomed between the towers and skyways. "You work there?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Ah, contractor, eh? Used to do that myself for a while, but less dangerous driving you security schmucks around than being one."

Aurelias wasn't going to disabuse the bear of his notions. There wasn't much point when playing along made things easier. It wouldn't be a long trip anyhow, and he could keep nodding and smiling for a few more minutes. Next to the six hours he had left, a few more minutes wouldn't kill him. That he expected Kyota to try, not some random cab driver.

When they approached the tall headquarters, Aurelias had the cabby put him down outside the security fence. Tossing the driver his credit chit and telling him keep the change, the fox threw himself out of the car and ran around the corner of the barrier, away from any guards that might be watching. Alarms sounded in the distance. As the bear had said: the fight had begun.

The fence itself was a mesh of light beams twice as tall as the fox, with spaces between the ephemeral wires no wider than his index finger. Ozone permeated the air nearby and a small thrum vibrated his sensitive ears signaling the fence would fry him if he attempted to go through it. He threw open his laptop, checking the forums to see if anyone could cause the power to cut out.

A minute later the hum stopped and the luminescent barrier disappeared. Ask and you shall receive, apparently. He dove inside the compound, skittering behind parked cars in the lot.

Had he tried to get the cab to drop him off inside, electrified turrets would have shorted out the vehicle's electronics and caused it to crash. Without an employee parking pass, no one could fly near the lot. If he had more time, Aurelias would have forged an ID, but that was definitely out of the question, even if he didn't get his nap. And that didn't even take into account security drones, which seemed to be missing in action, probably another thing taken care of by the furs from the forums.

Sneaking in like this was lower profile, anyhow. Slipping from car to car, keeping a perked ear out for security personnel, the bright-furred fox made his way to a side-door. If he remembered the blueprints correctly, the door would lead to a stairwell which went up the entirety of the building. Fire regulations kept furs from designing anything too convoluted.

Thirty feet before the door, he ran out of parked cars. He put his back to the final vehicle and slid down to the ground, hiding from any guards nearby, then summoned his magical console with a wave of his paw. Close enough to unlock it. Searching through the scrolling azure runes, he found the door and tweaked a parameter. He couldn't hear the click from this distance, but he was positive he got the right one.

Before he could dash for the door, however, the sounds of footsteps nearby interrupted his work. Finding someone in the universe's code was incredibly difficult, but as proven by the lock, finding objects wasn't so hard. A distraction to draw off the guard was required, and did Aurelias ever have one. The fox slammed a digit on the enter key of his translucent keyboard, and about twenty yards away a vehicle flipped into the air with a loud bang, landing near the grandiose double-doors which marked the front entrance to Kyota Industries.

As the guard ran towards Aurelias' diversion, the fox sprinted for the side-door. Praying he unlocked the correct entry, he sighed with relief when it gave no resistance and stepped inside.

He caught his breath and looked around. The stairwell could only be described as gray. Concrete steps, concrete walls, concrete ceilings. The single source of color he found were the flashing amber lights indicating an emergency in progress.

He snapped open his laptop again, but the concrete walls seemed to be blocking wireless signals. Probably full of steel rebar. A natural Faraday cage. He'd have to rely on his memory.

The fox began the arduous climb up the stairs. Elevators were so quick and ubiquitous that even in a crisis most furs would never think to take the stairwells to escape these days, so Aurelias was blissfully alone. If he visited the headquarters on a normal day, he might've made it to the top few floors, where the entrance from the Metropolis was situated. He was pretty certain, however, Kyota kept his "dungeon" about halfway up the building, on the fortieth floor. Thirty-nine flights of stairs in one go was a bit more than he was used to; his apartment was at most thirty or so flights of stairs up and down if he walked them, and usually he took the elevator in the Dyson building.

The hallway made his fur crawl. The Undercity was far more interesting to look at than this bleak trek, with its skyways, different buildings, and flying cars. The echoing alarms also gave him a headache, but he kept going over the blueprints in his mind to keep himself occupied during the monotonous journey.

As he passed a giant '26' stenciled on the wall above a gray metal door, the building shook under his paws, throwing him against the railing. He grabbed the metal as hard as he could, his head spinning and bile threatening its way out of his throat as he stared down the abyss between flights of stairs. The amber lights below winked out in rapid succession, leaving the stairwell dark.

In response, a stilted female voice interrupted the sirens:

"Warning. Backup generators two and three have overloaded. Floors forty and sixty are currently on fire. Suppression systems are offline. Employees are required to evacuate and avoid these floors. Backup generators one and four are under severe load. Power has been rerouted from non-essential systems. Primary power remains offline."

Holy shit! What the hell did they do to this building? Aurelias felt his way back to the wall before grabbing his flashlight. Once he could see again, he continued up.

When he had finally made it to the fortieth floor, the door wouldn't budge. The status panel beside the entrance had the word 'lockdown' flashing in vibrant scarlet letters. "Computer," Aurelias said, his voice bouncing in the vast vertical vestibule, "Security override: omega five eta mu seven alpha."

The female voice from before responded, "Security override confirmed. Approximately thirty five percent of the floor is currently inhospitable to employees. Kyota Industries is not liable for injuries occurred when bypassing safety protocols."

The fox rolled his eyes and kicked open the door. "Yeah, pretty sure Kyota Industries won't be liable for any of my injuries, thanks."

Black clouds of smoke came roiling out into the stairwell, choking the fox and forcing him to the floor. Kyota's architects were either stupid or geniuses to put a backup generator on the same floor as where they kept prisoners. If the prisoners escaped, they could cripple a good chunk of the building if the main power was down. On the other paw, Kyota could just blow up the generator to deal with any prisoners escaping. Aurelias wasn't sure which scenario happened here.

He kept close to the floor, crawling to avoid smoke inhalation. He didn't get very far before he caught another figure inching towards him from a room to his left from the corner of his eye. Illuminating the fur with his flashlight, he yelped when he identified a cougar in a black uniform pulling a gun on him.

Aurelias grabbed the first disc he found in his pocket, touching the braille as he threw it to identify the spell. Aw, crap. "Activate Ignis Fragor." Another explosion rocked the building, and fiery force launched the fox against the wall, knocking the wind from him. Wheezing and spluttering, he rolled back to the center of the hallway and winced as the charred side of his body touched the floor.

Local enforcement are off-limits, security personnel are fair game, he reassured himself as he gathered his wits and kept moving further into the burning floor. He was nearly to Caleb's prison.

He arrived at the entrance to the cell block, and not a moment too soon. Flames began to creep down the hallways ahead, and it would only be a couple minutes before the entire floor was engulfed. The door, however, was locked.

Sighing and grimacing at the wasted time, he brought up his magical console. Before the small fox could find the door, though, it popped open and a heavy paw grabbed him, dragging him inside. He screamed, pain breaking his mind as his burns scraped the doorway.

"Shh, it'll be okay," the deep voice resonated through Aurelias' chest as the heavy paw had turned into a muscular arm wrapped gently around him, gingerly avoiding his injuries. "You did good, foxy."

"Caleb?"

"In the fur."

"How'd you--"

"When the generator exploded, the power fluctuated. Long enough for me to hack the door and get out." The ebony wolf gave him a lopsided grin.

Aurelias pulled away from Caleb, shaking. "This whole floor is about to fry! Why're you still here? That generator exploded minutes ago!"

"We'll be fine. I know a few protection techniques, and as long as we stay in this room, the fire can't reach us. I had some things to do."

"Like what? Isn't getting out enough?"

Caleb frowned. "No. Kyota's fucked me around too much. I intend on dismantling his entire damned empire while he's rotting in a cell."

Stretching and flexing his thick muscles, Caleb went over to a computer terminal he clearly had been using before the younger fox showed up. Aurelias watched as the wolf's paws worked the keyboard, moving quickly and audibly slamming each key, jaw clenched. Then it dawned on him.

"You let yourself get captured."

Caleb kept typing. Aurelias kept talking.

"You wanted to take Kyota down, so you betrayed him so he'd capture you. Which means..." Aurelias trailed off, noticing a twitch in the wolf's eye. "You motherfucker! You _used_me! You knew I'd come help you out, or get our forum buddies. Hacker fucking solidarity."

Caleb stopped and turned to the little fox. The muscular wolf's shoulders fell and he slumped forward, tail hanging between his legs. "If it makes you feel better, foxy, I hate myself for doing that to you. Though to be honest, I didn't expect you to actually come find me. I thought you'd skip town."

Aurelias cried. "Fuck. I always thought I was so badass, hacking and throwing about magic, but I'm frightened as fuck. I was nearly burned to a crisp, I nearly blew myself up, I was nearly shot, I was nearly thrown off a stairwell, I was nearly captured on a number of occasions, and I am pretty much homeless. And for what? Some stupid fucking romantic notion that you actually might like me? And now I'm trapped in a room with you, asshole, surrounded by furs and fire out to kill me. Twenty-one years old, and I still feel like a god damned child."

"Hey, hey, you made it here on your own, and you didn't get yourself killed. That's pretty impressive. No mere kid could've made it. We're both getting out of this, okay? And if you want to walk away after that, then I won't blame you. But know what, foxy? I do actually like you." Caleb stood over Aurelias with a paw outstretched, his black fur shining in the light of the computer monitor. "C'mon. Kyota fucked you over too, so let's say we blow up this popsicle stand and get out of here."

Aurelias wiped the tears from his fur, eyeing Caleb warily. After a moment, he took the paw and let the wolf hoist him up into a gentle hug. "I think it's 'blow this popsicle stand,' actually."

"Nope. Wasn't joking. We're going to destroy this company right now. And hey, we both might learn a few things from each other in the process." Caleb smiled and licked the fox on the muzzle.

"Fine, I won't walk away, not immediately, but you at least owe me your ass, considering I just saved it."

"Deal."