FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Prologue

My name is Lucius, and I was a member of expedition 14 out into the great desert. These expeditions have been largely kept secret, so as to avoid inconvenient questions and unwanted attention. Our goal was the same as all of those who had gone before us, to find out anything we could that might aid us against the machines, sightings of which have increased over the past few years, which should understandably be cause for significant concern. We were only three days out from our insertion point and had already lost two of the six in our party in a series of attacks by some of the the smaller class 2s, when the sand started to kick up and forced us to seek refuge in an old cave. We had thought it was just another empty cave in the cliffs until we got close and saw the metal inside, but there was no place else to go so we had no choice but to risk it.

We didn't understand what we had found at first. The whole place was built out like some kind of industrial complex, completely hidden behind the high stone rock face of the cliff outside. After making sure the whole place was silent we made our way further inside. It didn't take us long to find the bodies lying in what must have been the main control room. The door had been forced open and there were two bodies we found, one laying over a partially destroyed computer console, and another propped up partially against a wall in the back corner of the room. Both appeared rather strange to us at the time, though not much was left beyond their bones and the orange body suits and helmets they wore. We couldn't guess what sort of creatures they had been as their bodies were distorted in a way none of us had ever seen before. How they could have made it this far into the desert in the first place was anyone's guess. We didn't realize of course by then just how long they had been laying there, longer than any living memory.

Soon after we explored the rest of the facility to make sure it was clear and found the rest of the bodies, locked away in tubes underground. These were much better preserved and the detail of their strange forms confirmed our unspoken suspicion that these might be a new discovery, maybe even the ones who built the great abandoned cities we had discovered from the time before, and who might have held some secret knowledge that could be the key to surviving the machines. Sadly for us they wouldn't be telling us their secrets now. They must have all died when the facility lost power, but there was no telling how long ago that had been, or what might have caused it, as so far as we could tell everything looked to be in working order aside from the broken down inside door and smashed console in the control room where the first bodies had been found.

We debated a long while about what was to be done. The significance of the find was beyond anything the previous expeditions had come across, of the ones who had managed to make it back at least. It was far too dangerous to attempt restoring power to the entire facility of course, but the find was just too valuable not to investigate since we couldn't take much with us, and with the shifting sands of the desert without the aid of electronic equipment we might not be able to find our way back. After considerable discussion it was decided that the broken console could be isolated and repaired enough for use, and that we could use one of our portable batteries to power it alone without hooking it back in to the rest of the system. It took me several hours to get it working, and time passed even more slowly due to my excitement and nervous anticipation at what we might learn.

When I finally did get the console to activate it was of disappointingly little help. It seemed quite crippled in its functionality without the aid of the rest of the facility's resources, limiting its data only to recently viewed records cached by most recent access. At first I couldn't make sense of any of it, there were a long series of recordings but they were all out of order, and seemed to depict scenes of multiple different times and places haphazardly with no clear commonality between them. It was only after I started taking notes as I watched a few of the earliest clips of video that I was able to piece together at least a part of the story, that incredible story I had never dreamed would be discovered, the story of us. I knew then even in those early moments I had to save what I could, and so I started making an extra copy of my notes in secret, struggling to take down every detail as I watched as many as I could of the clips of recorded video, leading to the unmistakable conclusion I have herein compiled from those scattered notes. Whatever you may think about me, know that this is a true account of what I saw on that console screen, and what must have really happened on those first days.

I.

On the First Day

The light was dim in those bleak rooms where the first of us were born. Through recordings taken from what I could only guess were surveillance cameras mounted on the walls I could see each of several rooms, all the same, each with only a single large vat of turbulent liquid within which a body could be seen steadily forming. It took hardly any time at all from what I gathered, though the time may have been compressed in the beginning as the video showed no numeric counting of the hours. The first vat to unlock and split open revealed the form of a wolf, choking and sputtering as he was poured in a heap onto the metal grating of the floor, through which the thick liquid he had been suspended in slowly drained. He had clearly never walked before but took to it straight away as I watched him open his gleaming green eyes for the first time and stand and test his new legs, exploring his surroundings with what seemed a confident curiosity. The only other object in view of the camera within the room was a sort of dispenser against the far wall from which a sort of collar then emerged. It quickly drew his attention, and without explanation he took the collar in his paw and put it on around his neck. According to the small metal tag which I could barely make out, his name was Tal.

In similar fashion the vat of each room in turn expelled a newly formed fur, depositing them unceremoniously onto the hard metal grating of the floor. One by one each arose to take their collars and, with some trepidation, step forth out of the rooms in which each of them had awoken for the first time. The next to emerge was a fox whose nametag read Jin, and who seemed rather small by comparison to the much larger wolf, who I thought would have been quite tall and muscular even among other wolves. The sound of the second vat opening drew the wolf's attention from his room, which he quickly exited in search of the source of the sound. The fox coughed briefly and wiped his eyes with a sticky paw only to find the wolf standing before him, still nude and dripping, his paw extended to help the lithe fox to stand for the first time. "Thanks" coughed the fox as he stood and wobbled to his footpaws before retrieving and putting on his collar. I gasped audibly and was somewhat taken aback as he spoke his first word, having only moments ago seen him grown from nothing and released from his liquid container. This of course was not to be the last of my surprises in my long viewing of the recordings. "Come on," Tal said as he led the way out of the room. Tal looked down the hall at the line of unusually large circular doorways along one side of the corridor, each leading to one of the vat rooms. Jin stretched his arms and wandered down the length of the hallway to exit through a larger door which opened as he approached. Tal however stayed, checking on each of the other rooms as if waiting for the next fur to emerge.

It seemed strange to me the way he stood there, as if he must have known what was going on and perhaps what was to come, though from my view through the camera I could see no way that would have been possible. He didn't have long to wait as soon another two vats opened at nearly the same time, releasing a large well-built roan stallion in one room, and a slender coughing raccoon in another. The raccoon whose nametag I later noted read Sef, seemed to have an especially difficult time starting to breathe, and Tal spent extra time ensuring he was alright. With some effort, he managed to stand and make his way from the room once he had collected and worn his collar. The equine however refused the help of Tal who arrived some moments later, and made his way to the hallway exit on his own as his large hooves stomped along the metal floor, his large collar showing the name of Ker.

While Tal remained behind helping the rest of the furs newly released from their vats, Jin and the others born earliest entered into the next room, which fortunately had also been equipped with cameras as was nearly every other room in the facility as I was to find out. This room was not unlike a long hallway, but featured a sort of conveyer belt system starting the moment a fur stepped in through the door from the hallway, with a long row of devices along its path to either side. Jin seemed startled as his footpaw stepped onto the conveyer, causing it to immediately begin moving beneath him which almost made him lose his still shaky balance. He managed to catch himself on one of the guard rails positioned on either side of the conveyer, which moved along with it to ensure the furs had little choice but to let it carry them forward. The first of the devices the conveyer reached was a set of arms extending down from the ceiling with multiple long fingers emitting jets of water, which began spraying the startled fox from all angles as he passed between them, causing him to squirm and hop about as the conveyer pulled him along. Soaps and oils of various colors were soon added by subsequent nozzles as the conveyer continued to move through another series of sprayers, the soaking fox seeming to do all he could not to be drowned. Once his fur was again thoroughly rinsed with water, the conveyer belt passed between a pair of large air blowers which frazzled Jin's wet fur as it dried him.

The raccoon was next to arrive, and was just stepping in through the door as Jin found himself at the next device along the conveyer's path, another set of arms, this time smaller and more strange looking with a variety of unusual looking attachments. As Jin approached some of the mechanical arms reached down in preparation from the ceiling above, while others rose up from the floor on either side. In a flash some of the arms had grabbed hold of the surprised fox by the wrists and ankles and pulled them wide apart, leaving his struggling body fully exposed as additional arms closed in with their prodding attachments, poking and rubbing along every part of him. I noticed one of the arms seem to run a sort of scanner over his collar and quickly withdraw, followed by a sharp change in the fox's position, the two-fingered robotic arms gripping his wrists pulling them down and forward as another closed around his tail and lifted it up, forcing him to bend forward at the waist. I gasped and squirmed in my seat as I watched what happened next. Another pair of arms closed in on the restrained fox, one from in front and another from behind, each with long thick protruding attachments which seemed to be leaking some sort of fluid. Jin's eyes went wide as the tip one of the attachments pressed his lips apart and slowly sank into his mouth, just as he must have felt the other start to apply pressure under his raised tail. I watched the display uneasily, as did the raccoon who by now had a clear view of what was happening, having passed through the dryer and brushed the frazzled fur from his eyes. It was too late for him to object however, as another set of arms emerged and grabbed ahold of him in the same way, giving his body the same poking and prodding the fox had received. Sef seemed much less tolerant of this treatment, though by now obviously he obviously had an all too clear picture of where it was leading.

I could barely hear Jin's whimpers over the sounds of the noisy apparatus, but it wasn't hard to guess how he was feeling as his body now had begun to rock between the hard thrusting arms, alternating between in front and behind as they drove their attachments faster and deeper into the writhing fox. Strangely his response didn't seem to be entirely resistant, as I could now see clearly that his throbbing length had fully extended from the sheath between his legs and was now bobbing in the air along with the increasing thrusts of the robotic arms. It wasn't much longer before his body tensed and began to spasm, soaking the surface of the conveyer beneath him with cum as he was forced to orgasm by the intensely stimulating machines. Some part of the device must have recognized this, because the arms immediately slowed and soon withdrew completely, allowing the fox to stand and releasing their grip on his body. Jin was nearing the end of the conveyer as Ker entered, his tall strong stature setting him apart from the two smaller furs who had come before. The water sprayers hardly seemed to affect him as the large equine was drawn along the conveyer, seeming quite stoic and if anything almost bored by the process while paying little attention to the raccoon some distance ahead who by now was bent over with his tail raised high and a pair of robotic appendages preparing to penetrate him. Jin didn't even look back at the scene, instead stepping off from the end of the conveyer when he reached it and taking what looked like a pink colored kilt from a dispenser nearby, which lifted up and offered one to him as he approached. I thought this a rather strange article of clothing at the time, as the wearing of kilts in the present day was limited almost exclusively to equines, and up to that time I had believed that to be only due to the difficulty they would have had fitting their typically immense endowment into more normal types of clothing. Unlike those however, this one seemed excessively short and of very light pleated material, possibly even slightly sheer, though the camera though which I watched was not high enough resolution to tell. Still Jin showed no objection to it, and slipped into the single small piece of clothing before making his way through another large circular metal door nearby, which opened to him as he approached.

By the time Jin had his kilt on and was leaving the conveyer room three more furs had been released from their vats. A lion, equally large as Tal seemed to somewhat grudgingly stand and pick up his collar with the name of Gar on the tag, making a quick exit the room as Tal looked on from a safe distance. Next coyote no bigger than Jin, whose name was Rux according to his collar, nearly bounced up from the floor even before all of the fluid he had been suspended in washed away, seemingly full of energy as if he had just awoken from a refreshing nap, much to Tal's surprise. Lan, a beautiful white rabbit was the slowest of this group to get up. I was concerned at first that he might not have survived, but Tal nudged him and helped him to stand before helping to fit him with his collar and ushering the timid bunny from the room. At last there was only one vat left full, and Tal waited in the room with seemingly limitless patience until after quite some time it finally opened, pouring out a small curled up otter whose collar tag was engraved with the name Max. Tal helped him up as well, and after letting him put on his collar, went with him down the hallway and through the exit to the conveyer room.

Along with the birth of each fur, I watched as each one passed through the conveyer devices, piecing the timing together from the camera recordings of each of the different rooms. Sef had gone much like Jin before him, though his dislike for the procedure seemed weaker, and from what I could tell the machine had to get working considerably harder on him before it made him climax. Ker it seemed was the first to be treated differently when he reached the stage where the robotic arm scanned his collar. Instead of bending him over and lifting his tail as had been the process with the previous two furs, his arms were pulled behind his back by the wrists and a large transparent tube-like attachment with a contoured base clearly meant to fit the shape of his body approached between his legs. Just as before he barely seemed to notice at first when the device pressed against his body, fully enclosing his equine sheath. As it started to churn against him however he began to respond to its attention, his powerful body rocking against the robotic arms as the tube pumped up and down over his growing length. Gar was already approaching behind him, being given much the same treatment with a somewhat smaller tube pumping between his legs when suddenly Ker tossed his head back and moaned over the sounds of the noisy room as he climaxed. The stallion's cum spurted out the end of the tube and coated the floor of the conveyer in front of him for quite some time before the tube finally withdrew along with the arms restraining him. Interestingly, the kilt offered to Ker by the dispenser when he arrived at the end of the conveyer was blue in color, though not significantly longer even though it must have been a larger size to fit around his hips. It did nothing to cover his still leaking length as he put it on and slowly made his way out of the room, following along the furs who had gone before.

The remainder of the processing was rather uneventful, though I was inclined to uncomfortably sit through it all to be sure not to miss anything. Of note Rux, Lan, and Max all endured what I had termed the "pink treatment", having been bent over with their tails lifted and given pink kilts at the end of the conveyer. Rux seemed almost not to mind, and if anything appeared eager to let the machines do their work on him, while Lan and Max were both quite reluctant. Max struggling the most by far, though it was clearly no use, while Lan climaxed almost immediately on being penetrated. The small white bunny had become quite aroused again by the time the machine recognized this and fully released him, causing him to have a rather difficult time with his short kilt which did nothing to hide his state as he exited the room. Tal was the last to undergo the process even having been the first to be born, as for some reason I did not yet understand, he had stayed back to help each of the others before moving along to the next room himself. He seemed among the least bothered by it, standing confidently as the moving floor carried him forward. Even when his wrists and ankles were grabbed and pulled apart he seemed relaxed until his collar was scanned and his body was moved into position for what was to come next. I watched in surprise however as his tail was grabbed and his body bent forward, which was not the result I had expected based on his physique and demeanor. There was no resisting the robotic arms however and soon he was being roughly pounded in front and behind by a pair of long thick attachments, which elicited the same response from his body as they had from each of the other furs who came before him.

I found myself unable to look away as the wolf submitted to the machines, though I knew little of wolves then and did not yet grasp the full significance of what I was witnessing. I did know enough of them to guess however where this may have led in the uncounted years that followed. Tal seemed anything but reluctant however, as he rocked his body as much as the restraining arms allowed to take the rapidly thrusting appendage deeper under his tail with each thrust. He had nearly reached the end of the conveyer when he finally reached his climax, coating its surface between his legs with his cum as his body spasmed for a long time, even after the robotic arms had withdrawn. He nearly collapsed as he stepped off the end of the conveyer, no longer supported by its railing, but managed to keep himself standing as he plodded over to take the pink skirt which was being offered to him by the nearby dispenser.

Once the each fur in turn was processed and at dressed scantily in their short kilt and collar, they had each moved on from the conveyer room through a doorway into what looked to be a large cylindrical waiting room, with sofa-like seating around its edge along the concave wall. There were two additional doorways from this room, one to either side from where the furs had entered, though at first none of them seemed interested in exploring any further. I watched as each new fur arrived and chose a place to sit or lay down where they rested in silence for quite some time, as if waiting. It seemed curious at the time that the smaller furs huddled together while those larger and more muscular in the blue kilts, sat apart from the rest, keeping to themselves. Only Tal seemed different somehow, and instead took to pacing impatiently as the other furs lazed about.

II.

Open Doors

"I don't think anyone is coming" Tal said to no one in particular as he stood at the front of the room and took a look around at everyone. "Did we do something wrong?" Lan asked nervously, folding his long white bunny ears down and hugging his knees to his chest. "I don't think so," Tal answered back, though seeming to consider the possibility as he looked about the room, "but something is wrong, someone should be here, you all remember don't you?" The other furs each seemed to acknowledge Tal's sentiment, though only Rux spoke up in reply. "Well let's sort it out yeah?" said the coyote as he bounded to his footpaws, looking back and forth between the two additional large round doors. The other furs started to stir and follow his example as Rux approached the large round metal door to the left, but he found it did not open for him, and there was no telling what might be on the other side. Tal seeing this, approached the opposite door of identical appearance and found that it slid easily open as he approached it, showing the way down a long hallway toward another door at the far end. Rux wagged his coyote tail as he took notice and ran excitedly across the room and through the open door, bounding down the long hallway to discover where it led. As he made his way down the hall, followed not far behind by the others, he suddenly jumped to the side of the hall as he was startled by a door to his right which suddenly slid open, revealing an outdoor courtyard with a stone path leading through an overgrown tangle of grass and vines. The coyote gasped in awe and took a deep breath of the outdoor scent, seeming quite pleased letting it draw him to follow out the door under the blue sky above.

The view of the hallway camera showed little of the outdoor courtyard through the open door, but it was apparent this was only a small area enclosed by the building on all sides. One after another the group of furs followed out into the courtyard, taking great interest in the plantlife, and the sky above as seen from between the unadorned form of the tall gray building surrounding them. "Wow, isn't this great?" Rux asked, almost rhetorically as no fur answered back, all seeming to be quite caught up in the experience of being outdoors for the first time. The group disbursed through the small outdoor area and it was some time before they started to venture back inside, no doubt curious to see what else they might find. One at a time the furs returned to the hallway, Tal and Rux being first, followed by Jin and Sef who I'd noticed had taken to staying close to one another since the previous room. The four furs made their way down the remainder of the hall to the far door, which also opened for them, leading the way into yet another large room. At the beginning of the recording from the new room I could tell it was some sort of cafeteria or feeding area, with flat metallic unadorned walls, and what appeared to be an old style of food dispenser and a small set of oblong shiny metallic tables set low to the floor, where it seemed those eating were expected to be seated. Rux again bounded forward, hopping up on one of the tables and looking it over as he for the first time saw his reflection. "What is all this?" Sef asked as he more cautiously followed, taking note of the few objects adorning the otherwise drab room. "I'm not sure" Tal answered, following with Jin as they looked around more thoroughly.

Sef approached the food dispenser followed by Rux, who seemed ever curious of what new and interesting thing might be discovered. The raccoon pawed at what must have seemed to him a rather odd looking contraption, for which I could hardly blame him as such things were, so far as I knew, a strange old design which had mostly been phased out many years ago. This one looked quite new and well maintained however, leading me to guess its origin might be far older than I had thought. It was shaped like a large rectangular box, partly built into the wall behind which would have been where the majority of the workings of the machine were located. It was operated by a screen which Sef soon found, placed at slightly above the height of his muzzle, upon which would be displayed the images of various food items the machine would readily produce. At first he seemed not to know what to make of it, but as Jin and Tal approached, he poked at it and made a selection, bringing the whirring machine to life which caused them all to jump back away from it in surprise. Rux smiled and approached the dispenser again, giving the screen a few pokes himself, though there was no immediately obvious affect aside from the changing images on the screen. By now a few of the other furs were filtering in and looking around the room a bit themselves, though most immediately focused on the dispenser where the others were gathered.

Ker and Max were late to arrive, having each stayed longer than the others outside under the sun, where Ker I expected at least being an equine would likely have felt that he belonged. I had known relatively few horses in my time but they were all the same in that at least, and I felt while witnessing this that it must have been something deeply ingrained in them beyond anything I would ever understand. "We should stay together" Ker had said at long last in what I felt to be a deep and comforting sounding voice, extending his huge hand as he approached Max who had barely had taken a step outside and was still standing beside the doorway. Max timidly nodded, and gave the horse his paw to follow along with him back inside and into the cafeteria where the dispenser had already begun producing food. The first appearance of food items from the large round opening below the screen of the dispenser, was met with some surprise by those watching and listening to it grind away. Rux was the first to pick it up, a sort of bread or pie of some sort I could not identify, entirely singular in its greenish brown color and roundish shape. The inquisitive coyote sniffed at it, but found it not to his liking as he wrinkled his nose and held it away from him toward the others. Sef took it from his paws and sniffed at it curiously, apparently finding the scent more to his liking as he soon began to nibble at it, while another of the round shaped food items appeared from the dispenser before them. This one appeared darker and more purple, but was of similar size and shape and apparently more pleasing scent to Rux, who picked it up and took to eating it immediately, consuming nearly half of it in a single bite.

As the others gathered around and poked at the screen, food items were taken and passed around until some fur would be found who seemed to like it, at which point they would begin to eat and make room for the others around the screen. Unsurprisingly several of the seemingly randomly selected items were discarded next to the dispenser and left uneaten, as were those the device continued to dispense from the excessive button presses long after each of the furs had had enough to eat. Strangely, after they had eaten, the entire group all seemed to become inexplicably groggy, with several laying down on the floor without even venturing back to the comfort of the sofas of the waiting room they had passed through before. It occurred to me then that the food was most likely laced with sedatives and possibly other things I might imagine, though for what purpose I could not have guessed at the time as the whole situation thus far had explained little of the reason behind this strange series of events. "Maybe we should go back and wait?" suggested Lan, who seemed more than a little embarrassed to again be showing a state of arousal beneath his pink kilt from where he sat near one of the tables. "Shouldn't someone be here?" asked Jin in reply, as he sat up from where he had been lying next to Sef who seemed to be falling asleep. "I don't remember" answered Tal, shaking his head, "does anyone remember?" Gar growled and folded his arms across his chest "We were supposed to wait in the room" he said, with readily apparent displeasure. "Nobody there though, nobody here at all looks like, let's keep on and see what we find" Rux answered back as he stretched out his arms with a yawn and bounded back up to his footpaws. "We'll keep going" said Ker matter-of-factly as he stood up, dragging Max who was still snuggled against his large body along with him. Rux didn't need to be told twice, and soon made his way to the one other door on the far side of the room, which opened for him as he approached and offered entrance into another smaller room.

From the view of the camera placed in the next room I could tell this was some sort of sleeping area, also equipped with showers and body length fur dryers near the door, offering no form of privacy whatsoever as was of course most often the case in present day settings as well. I noted no toilets or other facilities, which I found mildly curious, but only as a side note as there was still much more to record. This room was again cylindrical in shape, and in the center of the floor was a large pile of crumpled blankets and pillows, which took up most of the floor space of the moderately sized room. I guessed from its size it could easily have accommodated twice as many furs if not more, though at present it seemed completely unoccupied. There were also present in this room, a number of strangely shaped benches or tables spread evenly in a ring the rest of the way around the room from the showers near the door. They were each well-padded, and seemed to have certain positions where a paw should fit on either side, though the purpose of this I had not yet guessed. As Rux bounded into the room he paused for a moment, looking up in awe for some reason at the ceiling which was unfortunately not visible to me in the recording from the wall mounted camera. He next moved on to investigating the bedding, soon followed by the rest of the group who made their way inside and began to look around. Lan for once seemed quite pleased, taking a few cushions and piling them together before flopping down on top of them with a sigh. Apparently most of the group were still quite tired and having been quite recently washed, most simply found a comfortable spot and laid down. "Shouldn't we be figuring this out?" Max asked of Ker who was already arranging some pillows for himself. "Too tired now" the stallion replied, and picked up the much smaller otter to his surprise and laid down with him amidst the pillows and blankets.

"We will figure this out tomorrow," Tal said to himself, as he too looked up at the ceiling from where he had sat down near the door. He looked back down and around the room, seeing everyone else except for Rux curling up to sleep. I caught a bit of a smile from him as he saw Jin curling himself up around Sef who was already fast asleep, the fox's tail curling over them both as a sort of fluffy blanket. "Come over here" Tal called to Rux who was curiously poking at one of the benches. The eager coyote sighed and padded over, standing a little too close in front of Tal's nose. "Go to sleep" Tal said with another shake of his head as he leaned back away from the front of the coyote's kilt. "Oh fine" Rux said with a little smirk and climbed on top of Tal as he lay down on his back beneath him. Tal didn't seem to object and soon all were sleeping, the tired furs having found a pleasant ending to their first day.

III.

Closed Doors

In the morning Gar was the first to wake, whether due to his feline nocturnality or simple restlessness I couldn't say, but he seemed uninterested in sleeping any longer. It wasn't long before he found something that did pique his interest however, as he looked around the room and took notice of Lan laying where he had collapsed earlier face down on top of a pile of cushions, his white rabbit tail brightly twitching above his short pink kilt. It appeared he must be dreaming from the way he wriggled in place which only seemed to entice Gar more as he crept silently closer and slowly used a paw to lift the rabbit's kilt from behind. By then I had noticed the lion's state of arousal, his own kilt clearly bulging in the front and soon lifted out of the way by his paw as he knelt down behind the now exposed bunny and positioned himself between his spread legs. Lan's eyes shot open and he woke with a start, crying out so loudly he woke nearly everyone else up as he was roughly mounted by the large lion. Many eyes went wide with surprise as they turned to discover the source of the cry, Gar wasting no time starting a quick pace of hard thrusting as he proudly pinned the helpless rabbit to the cushions. Lan was in no position to object, yet his dream must not have been too far off from reality as his startled cry soon turned to escalating moans which soon culminated in a messy climax as his pulsing length soaked the cushions beneath him. Gar was far from done with him however as several of the furs continued looking on in surprise at the unexpected turn of events.

Tal apparently was a rather heavy sleeper but was soon awakened by Rux, who it seemed had been enjoying the display quite substantially judging by the state of his arousal which he pressed up against Tal's muzzle in order to wake him. As Tal opened his blurry eyes, he must have felt something warm press between his lips as he blinked in surprise, soon finding it filled his muzzle completely. It wouldn't have taken him long to figure it out though as the only thing visible to him would have been the body of the coyote, who was now sitting on his chest and pressing his canine length into the wolf's muzzle. Tal did nothing to resist however, and seemed not even the least bit surprised as his muzzle was used. He simply continued laying back passively and allowing the coyote to have his way with him while his own kilt also slowly began to lift. Jin it seemed was in a similarly needful state, and after attempting to wake the still sleeping raccoon coiled around him, he instead stood up and approached Lan to get a much closer look. The bunny was almost frantic it seemed as Gar gripped his hips and slammed forward with each thrust, growling dominantly as he pleasured himself with the rabbit's body. Jin only smiled at the sight, and treated Lan to a situation much like the processing from the day before, approaching him from the front and lifting his own his pink kilt out of the way to press his growing vulpine length into the rabbit's panting mouth.

I wondered for a moment as I watched if this was what really happened, or if I had simply stumbled upon some pornographic archive, or if this might have been some sort of trick or joke. I quickly remembered however where I was and how I had come by these recordings, and resolved to continue, hoping that somehow some critical information might at some point be revealed to me. Fortunately it wasn't much longer before the lion had finished, as with a proud roar he climaxed, along with the thrusting fox who had taken position at the bunny's mouth. Lan must have reached orgasm at least once more as well I guessed, judging by how soaked the bedding was under him before the lion withdrew and caused it to become even more so. Jin ruffled the bunny's ears and pulled back, giving a wink to Sef who by then was finally awake and looking on wide eyed at the scene in front of him, his own kilt clearly bulging. All this time Ker and Max had been simply watching together, the oddly mismatched pair quietly whispering back and forth things the recording hadn't picked up, but eventually they got up together and made their way to one of the showers. The rest of the group soon followed except for Tal and Rux, who had switched places and were continuing their oral exploration among the cushions. Those who went to the showers stripped off their kilts and set them aside before activating the water and using the provided controls as if they already knew them quite well in order to wash themselves. I found this to be another oddity after the chaos at the food dispenser the day before, but I shrugged it off as something simply to note which may have an explanation offered at a later time.

After a short while longer, Rux discovered that Tal's climax was a bit too much for him, and pulled his muzzle away gasping for breath as the wolf's length pulsed and soaked the coyote's fur, which obviously necessitated a shower for the both of them. The lasciviousness of the group was quite overwhelming I thought as I watched the group of furs shower together, rubbing suggestively against each other under the sprays of water. Ker and Max who had started their showers first also finished first, and after a quick pause at the dryer, replaced their immodest kilts and withdrew into the cafeteria room to seek something to eat. I watched as this time Max took a careful look at the screen of the food dispenser, seeming to learn try more deliberately to comprehend its meaning as he carefully selected different buttons, though the camera angle obscured their functions from me. The device started whirring away soon after and again produced one of the now familiar round food items, this time along with a sort of separate globe of what looked to be liquid though there was no cup or other container to hold it. Instead it seemed held together by its own gelatinous surface tension, deforming slightly in Max's paw as he held it to his muzzle and carefully pulled some of it into his mouth. He then showed Ker how to make the dispenser provide something he might like, and soon they were both seated on the floor enjoying what for them would have been breakfast, as the other furs soon having finished their showers also made their way in to seek something to eat. Max left his food at the table where he sat as the other furs came in, and helped to provide more instructions, though obviously becoming somewhat shy as he spoke to Gar after what he had witnessed not long before. Breakfast was otherwise largely uneventful, though everyone seemed much happier to have at least some understanding of how to make the food dispenser provide them with something agreeable, and far fewer food items were added to those littered about the floor at the end of the meal.

Once breakfast was coming to an end Ker took his leave and went to stand outside a while, and Rux, after a quick bite to eat, moved back to the sleeping area and began investigating the curious benches he had discovered the night before. Jin and Sef also wandered off together back down the hall toward the waiting room as they discussed the morning's earlier events, and Tal soon followed after them, also curious it seemed of if there had been any new developments. "That was umm.. really something" Lan said as he timidly sat down next to Gar around one of the low tables. Gar said nothing, but looked over the bunny again as he ate his food, giving him a soft growl which caused his lapine ears to fold back. "Are you ok?" Max asked, somewhat nervously at the rabbit's comment. "Umm.. yeah I umm.. well.. yeah" he replied with a timid nod, finishing his food and moving away from Gar who sat silently and watched him. "Maybe we should see what the others are up to," suggested Max, standing up and leaving what was left of his food as he made his way to the door out to the hallway. Lan and Gar followed soon after, and before long everyone had left the room and was on their way elsewhere.

In the meantime Rux who had gone alone in the sleeping area had decided to continue investigating one of the strange benches. He poked and prodded and climbed all over it, trying to sort out what its use might be. As he straddled it to scratch his ear there was an audible click as his footpaws found some sort of switch, and caused the whole bench to begin folding and whirring to life. Rux yelped in surprise and pushed his paws forward to catch himself, finding positions already moved into place for them as he was tilted forward by the bench. Before he realized what was going on he felt something pressing under his tail and turned to look back to see a familiar looking attachment extending up from the bench, leaking fluid as it applied pressure and began sinking in under his tail. His sheath too became engulfed by the bench, somehow opening between his legs and extending up against him to bury his no doubt growing length inside of it. Rux began to pant and rock against the bench as the appendage under his tail began thrusting, and a humming sound told of something else happening inside which also was no doubt helping to stimulate him in some way. This took no longer than the processing the day before, and soon Rux's moans made it clear he was reaching his climax, at which point the bench unfolded and returned back to its previous state, withdrawing the attachment from under the coyote's tail and allowing him to stand once again. Rux collapsed on the cushions nearby, still panting for a while as he regained his composure, but he gave the room another long look as he got back up, taking note of the differences of each bench and smiling, before bounding out from the room in search of the others.

"So.. how was it?" Sef asked Jin as they slowly walked together down the hallway toward the waiting room. "Hehe, it was good" Jin answered with a smile, bumping his hip against Sef as they walked. "Really good?" Sef asked, flicking his tail and smiling back a little. "Reeeally good" Jin answered again in a teasing voice, leaning in and giving the raccoon's shoulder a nuzzle. "Well, maybe later you could show me if you.. whoa," the raccoon paused in the middle of his suggestion as they reached the end of the hall and stepped into the waiting room. "That wasn't open yesterday was it?" Sef asked, looking across the waiting room at a now open door at the far side. From the waiting room camera I noticed the door had opened sometime during the night on its own. It had hardly been noticeable from the angle, but it was quite evident that the door which had refused to budge the day before was now standing open with no one even close by to trigger it. "What's wrong?" Tal asked, who had been following some ways behind as he made his way into the waiting room. No answer was needed, as by the time Tal entered the room he saw the far door open, with another long hallway leading down in the opposite direction. "Let's go see" Sef said, stepping forward to explore the newly opened door, but Jin grabbed his tail and tugged back at him "Wait umm, maybe we should wait for everyone to get here first," the fox said, looking up to Tal for help. "Go get them" Tal said, kneeling down and looking down the new hallway with concern. Jin and Sef nodded together and hurried off to collect the others, leaving Tal alone to ponder this development.

By the time Jin and Sef reached the courtyard Max had already found Ker there, again standing outside under the sun. They were just standing together, having not said a word, and so Jin apparently saw no harm in interrupting as he called out to them. "Come on you two, the other door's open!" Max looked up to Ker who nodded and they both went back inside where they were soon met by Gar and Lan, who had been walking down the hall and overheard Jin shouting. Just as Jin seemed about to go and search for Rux, the door at the far end of the hall to the cafeteria slid open and he appeared, bounding up to the group cheerfully. "Hey guys, you gotta try this, its.." "Not now" Jin interrupted, pressing a paw to Rux's nose, "we have to see what this door leads to." "What door?" Rux asked puzzled, but he followed along all the same as the group made their way together to join Tal in the waiting room. Tal hadn't moved by the time everyone arrived, but stood back up as they entered, looking to make sure everyone was present before he made his way to the open door. It appeared to be a similar hallway but on reaching the midway door like the one which led to the courtyard, Tal discovered that this one wouldn't open. Leaving it behind he continued on to the far end of the hall where the only other door opened readily, leading into another large room.

This room was quite different from the others. The floor was black and glossy, the walls were squared off and angular toward the ceiling, and there was a curious long curved desk with several strangely shaped chairs beside it in the middle of the room. All along the desk were computer consoles similar to the one I had partially repaired and was watching from arranged along it, though none seemed to be active. There were also two more doors, one at the back of the room leading further into the building, and one at the front. The latter one was larger and more heavily set, and from the available cameras I had guessed it would have been the front door leading to the outside of the building. I also noticed several isolated rooms off to the far side of the main room from where the group of furs had entered from the hallway. Each was quite small and had only glass for a wall and door, being enclosed for some more private purpose with a few chairs and separate computer terminal in each one. Max was the first to approach the desk, though Sef followed close behind and everyone else slowly spread out around the rest of the room, looking things over. Tal found that both of the additional doors would not open, but found himself quite intrigued by framed pictures which were hanging along each of the non-glass walls, though unfortunately I was unable to make them out due to the camera angle and distance. "What do you think that is?" Jin asked as he too looked over some of the pictures. "I'm not sure" Tal answered, looking over to Max and Sef who were prodding one of the computer terminals, "but let's see if we can find out." Tal turned and approached the pair of furs at the console, looking over what they were doing, though it seemed they had yet to make any progress. "It won't come on" Max said, perhaps having tried the same interaction he had used with the food dispenser. "This one is different" Sef said, kneeling down on the floor and looking up under the desk. "Try to figure it out" said Tal, turning away and looking into one of the glass walled rooms.

"Why is this room open?" Gar asked, apparently uneasy at being in the newly opened room. "Can you remember this?" Ker asked him, stepping up to one of the pictures and folding his arms as he looked it over. "This is all wrong" Gar scowled, turning back and leaving the room in a huff. "He is right" Tal interjected as the lion departed, "there should be someone here, we aren't supposed to be here alone." "But we're not alone yeah? I'm here, you're here, it'll be fine right?" Rux said with a bit of a smile as he tried to sit in one of the odd chairs, unable to figure out where to put his tail. "Still, something is wrong and we need to figure it out," said Tal as he approached and tried poking one of the darkened terminals himself. "It plugs under here" called Sef as he slid open a panel and crawled underneath and inside of the desk. "Be careful!" Max called after him, poking his head under the desk to see where the raccoon had gone. After a few moments and some rummaging sounds, Sef called back "it's all plugged, there must not be any power." Max stood up and looked around a bit to consider the problem. "Then how do the doors work, and why are the lights on?" Max asked, climbing up on the desk and apparently poking up at the ceiling beyond the view of the camera. Jin giggled at him and snuck up to slide a paw up under his kilt. "You're too short" he teased, as the otter gasped and lowered his paws to his kilt. "Could someone umm?" Max asked, looking down from the desk and over to the stallion hopefully. "We can try" Ker said, approaching the desk and testing it with his hooves to ensure it would hold his weight.

Once Ker was on top of the desk he had to bend down to keep from hitting his head, but Max talked him through removing the tiles from the ceiling which he dropped to the floor, allowing him to see up into the space above the lights. "It's all wires" he called down to the otter who was peering up at him curiously. "Give me a boost" Max said, as he reached his paws up to Ker to get a better look. Ker easily picked him up and lifted him into the ceiling, causing him to gasp in wonder. "Wow look at that, what is all of this?" Max asked, though Ker quite obviously did not know the answer. "I wanna see!" Rux called out, but Ker ignored him and tried to lower Max back down. "Hang on" Max said as he was withdrawn from the ceiling. "Put me over there" he said, pointing to another spot on the ceiling near one of the lights. Ker set Max down and stepped over one of the consoles to remove more of the ceiling tiles, dropping them out of the way, and then lifted Max again, letting him get to the part of the ceiling he wanted. A few moments later the adjacent light went out, and everyone looked over with concern, though the room was still fairly well lit from the other lights around the room. "What are you doing?" Lan called up with concern as he huddled close to Jin for comfort. "Its ok!" Max called, as more rummaging sounds came from the ceiling. "Let me just.. there!" Max exclaimed as suddenly the terminal next to Ker lit up, causing Rux to clap his paws in approval and begin poking at it excitedly. "Hey, careful!" Sef called, swatting at Rux's paws to try and see what was going on. Ker lowered Max back down, allowing him to see as well when they both climbed down off of the desk together.

"What do you think this means?" Max asked, pointing at a corner of the screen. "I'm not sure, maybe if we try that one" Sef said, pointing at the screen as well. "What does it say?" Tal asked as he stepped closer, trying to see between the two furs. "This.. might take a while" Sef answered before turning back to Max and pointing out something else of interest on the screen. Tal sighed and sat down on the hard floor to wait, avoiding the strange and uncomfortable looking chairs. "Hey, I wanna show you something ok? It'll be fun you'll see," Rux said as he bounded up to Lan and Jin, who were still standing together idly watching the excitement around the console. "I like fun" Jin smiled at the coyote, taking Lan's paw and dragging him along as Rux led the way back down the hall. I noted Lan had a somewhat uncertain look on his face, but he followed along never the less, not resisting the vulpine as he soon disappeared from the room along with him.

IV.

Alone Together

Rux, Jin, and Lan had made their way through the waiting room where Gar sat alone sulking and all the way back down the hall, through the cafeteria and into the sleeping room where Rux began showing off his discovery. "So you just sit like this ok? Then put your paw like that, and just move your leg over here and.. there!" Rux hopped back and smiled as he finished helping Jin onto one of the benches, rubbing up against Lan as he prepared to watch the show. "What's happening?" Jin whimpered as the bench whirred to life and began transforming around him. This one it seemed had turned the fox onto his back, with his legs raised and spread, and his head tilted back to look upside down back toward Rux with a worried expression. "You'll see" Rux giggled as he pulled Lan closer along with him to watch what was happening. Just as before a long thick attachment soon emerged and began pressing under the fox's tail. Jin whimpered again and rocked his hips, having little room to move as the bench began applying pressure and sinking the attachment into his barely prepared body. It didn't seem to take him long to acclimate however as his kilt soon lifted up over his belly by his arousal, exposing his growing length while the bench slowly increased its pace. "Looks like our bunny could use a little help too," Rux smiled as he looked down at Lan's slowly raising kilt, and used his paw to pull it up and out of the way entirely. Lan folded his ears down clearly embarrassed but Rux held him in place and slowly guided him forward until the tip of his shaft was pressing against the panting fox's muzzle. Jin wasted no time taking the lapine length into his mouth and starting to suck hungrily at it, causing Lan to gasp and tremble at the stimulation. "And while you're enjoying him bunny, I'll enjoy you" Rux smiled wide as he moved behind the trembling rabbit, lifting his own kilt out of the way and taking him by the hips.

Lan moaned loudly as he was penetrated for the second time that day, this time though with the added stimulation of the fox's muzzle building his arousal much faster than before. As I expected by now it wasn't long before the bunny arched his back and cried out with his orgasm, his cum leaking from the sides of the eagerly waiting fox's muzzle. Rux wasn't ready to stop however, and pushed the submissive bunny down into the bedding with his length still buried under his tail as he pounded into him from behind. As he used the rabbit's body Rux watched Jin continue taking his own pounding from the bench which now hand ramped up to a considerable speed and was causing the lustful fox to moan loudly with each breath. "Like it?" Rux asked toward Jin with a small moan of his own as he gripped the rabbit's hips tightly in his paws, leaning in over his back to thrust harder. "Yes.. yes.. aah!" Jin cried out as he was finally pushed over the edge, his vulpine length pulsing and spraying over his own chest and muzzle from the angle at which he was laying. That was enough for Rux as well as he thrust forward hard, tying with Lan with a sharp gasp from both of them, and releasing his cum inside the exhausted rabbit. The bench slowly released Jin who collapsed onto the floor next to the other two furs, now tied together by the coyote's knot as all three panted and curled up together to recover.

Meanwhile in what I had termed the console room, the pair of furs hard at work deciphering the computer had made little progress, seeming to question every decision endlessly as they worked through a series of prompts and menus in search of anything that might appear useful, while the others watched in silence for quite some time. "Are we doing the right thing?" Tal eventually asked as Ker grew tired of standing and took a seat next to him on the floor. "What do you mean?" Ker asked in response as they both looked up at the desk and partially destroyed ceiling. "We weren't supposed to be alone here, I think everyone realizes that, but what happens now is up to us," Tal said with a sigh and shake of his head. "Got to do something" Ker answered with a slight shrug. "It seems we don't have a lot of choices" Tal said, perking his ears slightly as Max and Sef exclaimed something successful yet again, though he no longer felt it necessary to ask after so many similar outbursts had yielded nothing especially significant. "Still I can't help but wonder" Tal said, stretching his arms and shifting about on the uncomfortable floor. "I can remember being here, waking up, putting on the collar and waiting in the room, but it feels different somehow, like parts are missing." "I like the sun" Ker said, leaning back and placing his arms behind him to prop himself up with his legs extended in front of him, his tail flicking lightly to one side. "I think we all liked it" Tal said seeming to think back to his first time in the sun the day before. "It does seem somehow wrong in here doesn't it?" Tal asked with concern, drawing a paw across the smooth surface of the floor. "They don't mind" Ker said, nodding toward Max and Sef who were still poking busily at the console. "I don't think they've thought about it much yet, but they will if we don't get out of here soon", Tal said softly so as not to disturb the ongoing work.

"Are you sure about this?" Sef asked, looking rather unsure himself. "Look, it says right here, we turn it on here, and then go there and turn it off again and it's done" Max said, pointing to different parts of the screen. "And you're sure?" Sef asked again insistently. "Well no, but what else can it do?" Max answered, folding his paws indignantly and stepping back from the console. "Ok fine, we're going to try something!" Sef announced, drawing the attention of Tal and Ker. Without any further explanation Sef poked a button on the console and a loud alarm began to sound throughout the building, which surprised me quite a bit at first, forcing me to pause the video to make sure it was only happening in the recording. After lowering the volume I continued watching, and saw several looks of panic from the furs in each of the different rooms, those not present quickly rushing to the new room where the console had been activated. "What did you do?" shouted Gar angrily as he stormed in from the hallway, holding his paws over his ears. "Come on!" Max shouted and hurried past him back down the hall. To everyone's surprise the door in the middle of the hallway was now open and Max quickly rushed inside and silenced the alarm with a quick tap to a large red flashing screen on the wall.

The camera from within the room revealed it to be a medical facility of some sort, providing a pair of beds and several cabinets presumably filled with supplies. There was also an additional door in the back of the room marked with some kind of warning not fully visible to the camera, but that I imagined would most likely be a storage area of some sort. "What did you do?" Gar repeated still angry and rubbing his ears as he followed Max into the medical room along with the others. "I told the computer it was an emergency, and it opened the door" Max explained, seeming quite proud of himself. "Well I helped too!" Sef said, pushing past Gar and looking around the newly opened room. "We shouldn't be doing this" Gar insisted, stepping back out to the hallway and letting the other furs in. "We can't just sit and do nothing" Tal said as he patted Sef and Max on the head, moving then to the next door which surprisingly opened without additional difficulty. This door provided access to a short corridor which ended in a rather large room, which seemed rather poorly lit. The room wasn't very large and seemed for the most part not that unusual in and of itself except for a strange seam which ran along the center of the shallowly sloping floor, leading to a drain along the far wall. Tal was soon followed by Max and Ker as he stepped inside, inching forward slowly in the relative darkness, seeming to give their eyes time to adjust. Within the room were various furniture-like devices somewhat similar to those in the sleeping room, however each of these was fitted with restraints of one form or another, and along each side wall was a long cage, each with padlocked doors.

I shuddered as I viewed this part of the recording, and the furs displayed in it seemed hesitant to venture further inside as well, though they did so, keeping close together as one by one they made their way through the narrow corridor and into the dark room. It was Max who noticed at first, giving a short cry and quickly turning away, pressing himself up against Ker who looked back toward what the otter had seen, and at which he then stared down at with disgust. Tal looked too, and had to reassure everyone as the rest of the group made their way in further, telling them to stay calm and not to worry at what they were seeing, though it seemed from his body language he could hardly take that advice himself. Within the two cages lay several piles of bones, each skeleton still wearing a collar.

"Go on back out if you don't want to look" said Tal, still sounding a bit shaky as he turned back toward the group noting their concerned whimpers. "Why? Why did this happen?" Asked Rux who approached one of the cages and knelt down for a closer look as some of the others began to back out of the dark room. Gar who had also stayed, paced back and forth between the cages, growling softly to himself but saying nothing. "Maybe there really was an emergency," suggested Max as he ventured to slowly turn back from Ker's chest. Tal shook his head, apparently unable to make sense of the scene before him, as was I as I watched, having been quite shocked myself. "Did the console say anything about this?" Tal asked, turning back to Max after another brief look around the room which yielded no more useful information. "I.. will have to look," Max said hesitantly, "we just sort of found it, its all pretty complicated." "Go on then" Tal said, noting Max's discomfort and kindly giving him something else to divert his attention. Ker went with him and the others outside returned to the room with the console, staying together after what they had seen.

"Maybe they did something wrong" Gar said, grabbing the bars of one of the cage doors and rattling it against the lock. "They couldn't get in here by themselves yeah? The door wouldn't open" Rux said as he started investigating one of the restraining devices. Tal looked back toward the entrance and shook his head as he replied. "Someone put them in those cages, but they must be gone now. We set off an alarm and still no one is here." "They might come back" Gar suggested as he turned to leave, seeming to have grown tired of the subject. "Been a long time though" Rux said, examining one of the bodies which had clearly been some form of canine fur. I agreed with his observation, it must have taken quite some time for those bodies to have decomposed to that degree, especially in this environment, and in that time they had been completely undisturbed from what I could tell. Some of the remains even showed signs that they had lain down together, now having been locked in a skeletal embrace for what must have been a very long time. "We won't figure it out in here" Tal said finally, offering a paw to Rux and leading him back out to join the rest of the group around the console.

In that time Sef and Max had gotten back to work, having apparently discovered more available functions, though many seemed to them to not make any sense from what murmured conversation the recording of these events had picked up. Lan and Jin meanwhile had ventured back to the sleeping area to gather up some of the cushions, and had returned with them to help make everyone more comfortable as they watched and waited. "What are you gonna make it do next" Rux asked when he arrived, seeming not the least disturbed by recent events. "We want it to tell us what this place is for" Sef said in reply without looking up from the screen, "but it doesn't want to say, it just keeps going on about options and packages and.. hmm, how about this one?" Max shook his head. "That just goes through the same thing as before, it just has different choices, see?" Max pointed at the screen as well, as the pair tried to sort their way through the various menus. Rux yawned and laid down with one of the cushions. "Maybe it is about time to get some rest" Tal said, yawning as well in turn. "A little longer" Sef said, his attention still focused on the console. Tal shrugged and slowly wandered back toward the hallway door. "But no more emergencies" Gar added as he turned to follow, scowling at the backs of the two furs at the console as they neglected to look up and acknowledge him. One by one the rest of the furs turned to leave, letting Sef and Max alone together to continue investigating the one working computer console.

V.

A Bump In The Night

After a brief wordless dinner everyone except for Sef and Max had returned to the sleeping area to lay down, and the recording told of little else until sometime late in the night when the sound of thunder could be heard, though how far away was impossible to tell from the indoor cameras recordings. It must have been enough to wake up Tal however, if he had even managed to get to sleep in the first place, because he got up soon after and made his way out to the courtyard, looking up in the darkness toward the night sky. A short while later after another roll of thunder Rux gasped and sat straight up as if startled, looking around the room of otherwise sleeping furs for what had awoken him. At the next rumbling of thunder he tilted his head and stood up, wandering around the room carefully stepping over his sleeping companions and listening. Eventually the sound led him out to the cafeteria, and then down the hallway where he discovered Tal, standing alone in the courtyard. "Umm, hey" Rux said timidly, folding his arms and hunching down as he recoiled slightly at another clap of thunder which was heard along with a flash of bright light. "Its ok" said Tal, turning to look and extending a paw to Rux who slowly approached further out into the courtyard from the door. The camera could barely see the two of them as they moved out near to the center of the small courtyard and looked up at the sky, rubbing up against one another. "Rain?" Asked Rux as he pressed himself up against Tal nervously. "I don't know," Tal said as he placed his paws on the smaller coyote's shoulders, "but the stars are still there, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky" he said, raising a paw to point upward at what must have been a gap in the clouds. Rux snuggled against him and Tal looked down toward the coyote as the sky flashed again followed by the rumble of thunder soon after.

How they even knew about rain, or speech or anything for that matter was still somewhat of a mystery to me, and though the things I had witnessed so far made some suggestions, I had yet to piece them all together. I continued to watch as the pair of canines embraced under the open sky, feeling somewhat sorry for them in their uncertain circumstances. I had to remind myself however why I was here, and what I was observing these recordings for, and how many of my own friends I had lost to help us get this far. Still it was hard to keep all that in mind as the two furs muzzles pressed together and their paws began to move across one another's bodies, evidently having found something to distract themselves from the storm. As the lighting flashed again Rux found himself on his back, his legs and arms wrapped around the large wolf who pinned him down against the grass beside the stone path while lustfully grinding his body against him. The camera angle and distance revealed few details, but it was quite obvious when Tal lifted Rux's legs further and gave a hard thrust forward between them which caused the coyote to yip sharply between claps of thunder. Their muzzles met again and Rux's back arched as he rolled his hips to meet Tal's thrusts, the two bodies melding together in the dim light, illuminated only briefly by the short frequent flashes of lightning.

It was about that time Sef and Max walked by, finally having given up on the console for the night and seeming quite surprised by what they encountered on their way off to bed. The pair of canines paid no attention them as they passionately continued their coupling, and Sef and Max simply stared, seemingly in disbelief. Sef wasn't content to stand and watch for long however, and turning to Max with a sly smile, slowly knelt down in front of him and slipped his muzzle beneath the otter's kilt. I could see Max gasp clearly in the much better lighting of the hallway, and soon he was rocking his hips as the raccoon slowly lifted the short pink kilt out of his way and began openly working the otter's length with his muzzle. Before long it was clear Sef had more in mind as he slowly pulled back from the softly moaning otter and turned around on all fours, looking back at Max over his shoulder while pulling his kilt up and lifting his tail suggestively. Max needed no further invitation and swiftly mounted the exposed raccoon, who rocked back against him lustfully.

The four continued like that uninterrupted until finally it was Tal who tossed his head back and howled as he thrust hard forward into Rux, tying with him as he reached his climax and evidently pushing the coyote over the edge himself, as the fur of his chest and belly became wet and sticky between them. Sef and Max paused a moment and looked over in surprise, having never heard quite a sound before I imagined. The moment soon passed though, and it seemed to drive them both harder and faster, soon leading them both to climax together as well. Tal and Rux embraced and pressed their muzzles together again for a long while as they lay panting together in the grass, but Sef and Max got up and soon made their way to bed, where they curled up together with Ker and seemed almost immediately to fall fast asleep.

By the time it was morning and the sunlight began to brighten the sky Tal and Rux were still laying together in the grass of the courtyard, and slowly the other furs were just starting to come awake. Gar again was one of the first to rise, seeming as before to look about the room in search of who he might wish to use to satisfy his lust. Jin and Lan had curled up together the night before and were still wrapped up in each other's arms when Gar slunk over to their sleeping bodies. Smoothly he sank down against the bedding and moved his large feline body up behind Jin, who was peacefully unaware of his presence as he held the bunny close against his chest. With a powerful thrust from the lion Jin sharply cried out, opening his eyes wide as he was awoken by the sudden penetration of the feline's barbed shaft. Lan woke up too, only to find himself trapped under two bodies as Gar pulled himself on top of them both, pinning Lan to the bedding under the fox who was now being mounted. "Why don't you have some fun with him" Gar growled, clearly not giving Jin much choice as he pulled the bunny's legs apart and shifted the fox's body between them and into position. Jin whimpered with each thrust and seemed unable to help becoming aroused as his shaft slowly emerged, positioned under the bunny's white tail where the tip began to press into his trapped body.

By now the other furs in the room were waking up, though none had anything to say about the lustful display as they quietly made their way toward the showers. As Ker got up Max quickly noticed the large equine was in a state of quite obvious arousal as well, as his kilt lifted up to reveal his already hard shaft. Just as Sef had done for him the day before, Max offered himself to Ker by kneeling at his hooves and pressing his muzzle up against his impressive length. Ker paused and looked down, watching passively as the otter began to use his muzzle and paws to stroke up and down over his length. Sef happily joined in and soon four paws and two muzzles were working their way up and down the stallion's shaft, causing him to rock his hips as the pleasure increased for him by double.

It was about that time that Tal and Rux walked in, having woken up with the sunlight and both needing a shower after their late night interlude. They largely ignored the scene, removing their kilts and stepping into the shower together in an attempt to get clean, while peering now and then at each other and out at what was going on around the room. Jin had now become fully aroused and was forcibly thrusting into the bunny as his hips were pushed downward by the thrusts of the lion behind him. Lan did nothing to object however, and moaned shamelessly as his body was used while looking up at the two furs above him. Gar's pace rapidly quickened as he forced the fox down harder, bending down to clench his teeth around Jin's shoulder as he increased the pace and soon drew a sharp cry from Lan as the fox's knot sank into him. "Careful" Tal called with concern from the shower as he heard the bunny's cry, apparently worried by the lion's roughness. "You're next" Gar snarled, removing his jaw from Jin's shoulder and looking up toward the showers while making long hard thrusts into the fox for the wolf to clearly see. "Can I be after him?" Rux called in a teasing tone with a little smile. Tal looked over at him under the shower and saw that he was fully aroused and stroking himself at the sight under the spray of water. Tal shook his head and did his best to ignore the banter, turning his attention back to the business of getting his fur clean.

It did take Tal a while unfortunately to thoroughly groom himself, and soon had to make room for Sef and Max as well, who had managed to both get themselves completely soaked by finally bringing Ker to orgasm as they both knelt in front of him. Ker also joined them in the shower, but having finished a rather brief washing, Rux got out of his way and hurried off toward the cafeteria room to get some food. "Forgetting something?" Tal called after the energetic coyote, bending down to pick up his discarded pink kilt. "Nope!" the naked coyote called back with a wink as he gave his hips a wiggle before bounding through the door. Tal shrugged and shook his head as he put the kilt back down, looking over at his own pink kilt where he had placed it on the floor next to the shower. After a brief moment of consideration he departed to the cafeteria as well, leaving his kilt behind. Lan during all of this was moaning almost constantly and had obviously climaxed at least once, and was evidently just starting to again when Gar let out a passionate roar and flooded the fox beneath him with his cum. That was all it took for Jin as well, his knot already buried in the moaning bunny as the fox's exuberant cries of pleasure were added to the cacophony, his body was rocking back and forth between the other two cumming males. Gar was able to withdraw after this, leaving Jin and Lan tied together on the bedding as he removed his kilt for a brief shower, replacing it after he was done. As the lion redressed himself he took notice of the discarded pink kilts and picked them up, carrying them along into the cafeteria with him.

When Gar entered the room he noted Rux and Tal missing their kilts and made a point of demanding they continue to be worn. "This is not what we're supposed to do" he said sternly, looking out around the room to remind everyone else. "Been doin' lotsa stuff we're not supposed to though" Rux said in response, scratching his ear with a paw dismissively as he turned and stepped back from the dispenser to wait for his second helping of food. "We have bigger things to worry about" Tal added, saying no more on the subject as he settled down to eat, neither fur replacing their pink kilt. Breakfast was otherwise strangely quiet compared to what I had expected. There seemed to me to be a lot to discuss between the strange events of the day before, but each fur had become lost in their own thoughts, or they were too focused on eating to consider much of a discussion. It had not occurred to me at the time that conversations during meals were a social convention that perhaps had been omitted from their acquired culture, whatever the source of that might have been. As it turned out, this was to become more important than I realized as the story continued to unfold.

VI.

Stairs

Once they had eaten as much as they cared to, Sef and Max returned to the console with Tal and Rux following along, though Ker stayed back and decided to spend some time under the sun in the courtyard once again. Just as the day before Gar returned to the waiting room, sprawling himself out on one of the sofas, and seeming to wait unexpectantly for an arrival which had little hope of ever showing up. Once they had finally managed to separate, Jin and Lan washed themselves and had breakfast together, Jin taking the example from Rux and Tal and leaving his pink kilt behind, though Lan appeared too shy to do so. The pair then proceeded to wander down the hall to catch up with the others, lazily making their way as they enjoyed each other's company. "Do you think we'll ever figure this out?" the now nude fox asked as they walked. "Umm, I guess I don't know," Lan struggled to answer, "Do you?" "I bet we will, Sef seems really smart, and that computer must have all kinds of stuff in it, maybe we'll even get outside today," Jin suggested with some enthusiasm. "Outside?" Lan repeated trepidatiously as he glanced back and forth between the bare walls of the hallway. "Well yeah," Jin said tilting his head, "there must be a way in and out of this place, all this stuff had to get here somehow." "I'm not sure" answered the bunny as he looked down at his footpaws, apparently apprehensive of the concept. As they entered the waiting room, Gar lifted his head and looked over them, licking his lips but saying nothing. Jin and Lan seemed to blush and quicken their pace as they hurried across the room to the next hallway which led past the medical room to the room with the consoles. "Did you like that earlier?" Jin asked as he looked down at Lan's bulging kilt. "Umm.. I.. yes" Lan said, folding his ears down and placing his paws in front of himself shyly. "Maybe later we'll try that without him" Jin teased with a smile and a grope to the rabbit's rear. Lan didn't answer directly, but lightly rubbed up against the fox and slipped a paw down to rub along his exposed sheath.

When they arrived at the console room, Jin withdrew his paws and hurried up to Sef and Max, peeking over their shoulders at the console screen. "Find anything new?" he asked, seeming unable to decipher the screen for himself. "Almost, but.. just wait a minute" Sef said, reaching back to push the curious fox away. "They keep sayin' that" Rux said with a sigh as he turned over onto his back on one of the cushions from the sleeping area, his legs spread unashamedly wide apart. "No, really this time" Sef said as he turned to give the coyote a dirty look. "Just let them work" said Tal, who seemed the most patient of the group, as he stood looking over some of the pictures on the walls while he waited. "Ok, now this one, now that one, and there" Sef said as he poked away at the screen. "Don't push that or it will start over" Max said, pushing Sef's paw away. "It will not, see, its different here, this one goes to that, so if we do this.." Tal shook his head and walked over to the console amidst the arguing. "What are you doing with it anyway?" he asked Sef and Max, who paused to look up at him. "Well we gave up on trying to figure this place out," Max said pointing at the screen, "it's too complicated and just doesn't make any sense, so we decided to just try and make it do stuff like yesterday." Tal squinted at the screen, seemingly unable to make any sense of it. "Just let me try it" Sef said, returning to the problem at paw. "We'll have to start over if you do that" Max said, shaking his head. "Only if it doesn't work," Sef said with a sigh, "come on, its fine to start over if we try it." "Ok fine" Max said, pushing himself back from the desk with his paws.

"And.. there" Sef said as he worked the console with a few more touches. Suddenly the door to the hallway closed and the lights went out, leaving the room in total darkness. "Uh oh" Sef said after a brief pause, letting me know that the video was still working. I felt fortunate that the camera must have been on a separate circuit, but still hoped this would not be how the recordings came to an end as I listened to the black screen. "Turn it back on" came Tal's voice, though I could no longer tell where anyone was. "It was supposed to on its own," Sef whimpered with the sound of paws tapping at the console. "Well, fix it," Tall answered, seeming to grow somewhat agitated. "Time for hide and seek?" quipped Rux, who seemed all too entertained by the unfortunate turn of events. "The power is gone, everything is.. hey get off" came Sef's voice as a scrambling sound was heard followed by a soft cry. From somewhere in the darkness Lan whimpered helplessly. "Are you ok?.. Ow" Jin asked as a crash was heard, the fox apparently stumbling over something in the dark as he looked for the timid bunny.

Suddenly the lights all came back on, except for the one which had been rerouted the day before, and the soft sound of music started playing in the background. The remainder of the consoles seemed to activate as well, including the ones in the isolated side rooms which were now bright with color. I could now see Lan curled up in a corner with Jin having fallen over one of the nearby chairs, slowly picking himself back up. Tal and Max had barely moved, though it seemed Rux had found Sef, and now had him stripped of his kilt and bent over the desk as he prepared to mount him. "Is everyone alright?" Tal asked as he looked around the now lit room before hurrying over to the hallway door which was still closed. "I should be able to get it open now I.. aah" Sef cried out as he started to explain when Rux suddenly thrust his canine length in under the raccoon's tail. "I'll get it" Max said, poking at the console once again in an attempt to re-open the door. A moment later the door slid open in front of Tal which he stepped through into the hallway, calling back "Don't try anything else!" as he departed. Max stepped back from the console and sighed, taking a break from his work and sitting down on one of the cushions strewn about the floor to look up and watch the rutting pair while waiting for Tal to get back. Jin had dragged himself back up from the floor and checked on Lan, helping him to stand up to make sure he was alright before turning back with a smirk to see what was happening over at the desk. "Mm, ready for more long-ears?" Jin smiled as he looked back down at the bulging front of the bunny's kilt once again. "I.. umm" Lan folded his ears down and crossed his paws over the front of his kilt, but this seemed only to encourage Jin who placed his own paws on the bunny's kilt, giving him a wide smile as he slowly pulled it down his legs. "I don't think you really need to keep wearing this" Jin murred as he let the short pink kilt drop to the floor, completely exposing the bunny's arousal. Jin slowly turned the shy bunny around to face the wall, pushing his legs apart with his own before thrusting his growing length into the bunny's exposed rear.

Tal returned soon after along with Ker, and Gar who was none too pleased by the recent loss of power. "What did you do now?" the lion hissed at Max who was the only other fur in the room not presently occupied. "They were just getting the doors open" Tal explained, following Gar into the room and stepping up to the front door expectantly. Unfortunately when he arrived the door remained closed, and did not respond in the least as he ran his paws over it. "Why won't it open?" Tal asked, turning back to Max, who got up and moved back up to the console screen, ignoring Rux who was energetically thrusting into Sef right next to him. "It.. should work, I don't know" Max said, poking at the console once again. "Let me try and find out" he added, focusing his attention on the screen. Gar growled and after a brief look around the room at the moaning pairs of furs, walked up behind Tal, placing his paws on the wolf's bare hips as he rubbed up against him. "I did say you were next" he rumbled, turning the wolf around from the large metal door and tossing him down onto all fours. Tal gasped in surprise, catching himself with his paws and letting out a soft growl of his own, but Gar pressed down on top of him and I watched as Tal's tail slowly started to raise. Gar welcomed the invitation, and lifting his kilt, soon started grinding his growing length up under the wolf's fluffy lifted tail, causing Tal to let out a deep moan and press back against the lion's hips, his own sheath already starting to expose his canine shaft.

Ker sighed and approached Max at the console, looking over it with him and softly exchanging a few words, though about what I couldn't be sure as the camera barely picked up the sound of their voices over the sounds of passion from all around the room. These two must be quite fond of one another I thought, having watched them together on more than one occasion now, and not entirely to simply satisfy their lustful desires. Ker's kilt was however clearly raising on its own due to his arousal caused by the scene around him. Max's own kilt also began to bulge with his much smaller otter length, but he committedly continued working, attempting to discover the reason why the door wouldn't open. Ker turned and looked over as Lan let out a sharp cry and began to climax, Jin having thrust forward and tied with him again, picking up a more rapid pace as the bunny squirted his cum against the wall. Ker then blinked in surprise as Rux bumped him from behind, causing the stallion to turn and look down at the coyote. Rux was continuing to thrust steadily, making Sef moan under him, but he was also looking up at Ker with a smile and lifting his tail suggestively. Ker looked back down at Max, but he was clearly engrossed in his efforts, and so looking back at Rux again he nodded. Stepping up behind the nude coyote and lifting his kilt, Ker pressed the tip of his huge shaft up against his exposed rear and slowly began pushing forward, as the coyote's much smaller body rocked back and forth with his continued thrusts.

Tal was panting heavily now and rocking his powerful hips back against those of the hard thrusting lion, who it seemed was greatly enjoying the wolf's submissive position and roughly pounding into him. The feline's claws dug into the flesh of the wolf's thighs through the thick gray fur, using his grip to increase the power of his thrusts as he pulled the wolf's body back to meet his. Tal was in no position to object however, and seemed far too lost in the experience as his own shaft bobbed fully erect beneath his body, his full knot indicating he was already nearing his limits. Rux was the next to climax however, as his body between the stallion and raccoon was rocked hard forward and back by their combined motion, and though less than half of the stallion's massive length was buried under his tail, the force was enough to cause him to tie with the moaning raccoon, causing Sef to soon after reach his orgasm as well, clenching the Coyote's pulsing knot within him.

I shook my head as I continued to watch the explicit display. Such scenes were not at all unheard of in modern times under similar circumstances, however it seemed to me most furs these days had at least slightly more control over their impulses than these, allowing for not every situation to devolve into a wanton orgy. Still I supposed there was little enough harm, and of greater importance these recordings might have helped somewhat to hint at the reasoning why such desires were so paramount in our modern day society. More than that though, I also felt it was important to record more than what information might prove useful, but who these furs were and the story of what they went through, as without them, we would surely not be here. I looked on and continued to observe as the others soon finished, Ker overflowing Rux's body and soaking the fur under his tail and down along his inner thighs as he withdrew, while Jin climaxed hard, pressing Lan's body against the wall with the two tied together. Gar and Tal went on the longest, their fervor beyond description until finally, with a combined mix of growls they both climaxed together, Tal's shaft soaking the floor beneath them as finally their pace slowed and Gar withdrew, leaving a sticky mess under the wolf's tail. Max looked up at Ker as he slowly stepped back from the two still tied together furs on the desk, seeming to blush as he watched the stallion's shaft fall back under his kilt. "Maybe next time" the otter said softly, before turning back to the screen of the console.

"What about this one?" Ker asked as he walked up to the other door far to the rear of the room, his large hooves clopping against the glossy floor as he made his way there. Somewhat to his surprise the door opened when he approached it, revealing a set of stairs that led up to a second floor of the building. "Up here" he said, drawing attention to the newly discovered stairs leading upwards. Tal and Gar slowly managed to get up and approached to peer up curiously, seeming uncertain where such a path might lead them. "Well?" Tal said as he turned back to look at the others. Max who had been working at the console being the only other fur who wasn't awkwardly tied and unable to move, excitedly left the desk and came hurrying over next to Ker to look up the long flight of steps. Gar growled softly and Ker nodded down to the otter, as Max took the first step up towards the second floor.

From a camera at the top of the steps I saw the small group of furs first appear, moving more timidly with each step than they had on previous days, before they had discovered the skeletal remains locked away behind the medical room. The stairs led to another long hallway on the second floor, with multiple doors to both sides, and a T junction some ways down which split the hall in two directions, offering more doors as the hall continued. Max approached the first door on the left but it did not open for him, which seemed curious at first. As with those of some of the ruins from the time before I had observed however, this door had a sort of rounded inset handle which Max extended his paw to and turned. As he did so he was able to pull the door open and look inside. I was unable to find a camera recording for the inside of that room, but he shortly closed the door again, apparently having found nothing of interest inside. The next door placed adjacent to it was opened and closed again with much the same response, however since it opened in the opposite direction, that which pulled the outer facing of the door toward the camera, I was able to glimpse for a brief moment a marking which had been made on its surface. It was a simple outline of a shape, like the shape of a body but with only a rounded head, two legs and arms, and no tail. The lack of ears, muzzle, or notable paws was the first hint I had seen thus far that these recordings were leading somewhere, which might in the end provide the sort of information we so desperately needed. This was because the approximate shape of the body drawn on the door, was a likeness of those bodies in the helmets and orange suits we had discovered, entombed in the structure where I sat.

Max tried the next door in like fashion on the opposite side of the hallway, and this one led into quite a large room which thankfully had been equipped with a camera. The room was oddly partitioned, with many of the strange chairs and computer terminals arranged in patterns throughout the room, separated by small cloth covered walls. It must have looked like a maze walking through it, and the four furs slowly entered and made their way around from one desk to the next, picking up and putting down various objects of differing shapes and sizes which seemed to me to have no readily apparent use. "What could all this be?" asked Gar, who's usual irritation was replaced by an avid curiosity. "Papers, terminals, something important?" Max suggested, picking up a folder from one of the desks and starting to look through it. Ker opened a large cabinet at the end of one of the rows of desks and pulled out a long row of hanging files, each one filled with many papers. How I wished I could have discovered that place. The writings of those files must have contained such secrets as are likely never to be seen again, in that place where furs were created from nothing before my eyes at the start of the recordings. Where such things could be possible who knew what else might be uncovered. Max seemed to be quite interested in the papers as well, going from one desk to another and gathering some of them up while discarding others, and even poking around at some of the terminals which still showed signs of being active, though he seemed not to have any luck with any of those.

"Let's keep going" Tal suggested, putting down an oddly shaped set of colored spheres attached together by slender white pins in some complex arrangement I did not comprehend. Max continued gathering papers along the way, but the four picked up moving again and soon traversed the entire room and prepared to exit to the hall once again. Just as they were about to leave it seemed something caught Tal's eye, making him pause and look back towards the far wall. He tilted his head to one side and then the other and turned to approach it, climbing up on one of the desks when he arrived there. I could hardly tell from the recording what it was, but I did see a small beam of light which was apparently what got his attention. Tal pawed at the wall and it seemed to ripple, spilling more of the orange light into the room. He tried again, harder this time and with some trying was able to rip of the covering away from the wall, letting it crash in a crumpled pile onto the desk. Behind it had simply been a window, and Tal looked now out at the setting sun for what must have been the first time. The others immediately followed, pulling down the shades from the rest of the long window, which ran the length of the wall and opened up a view of the outside world which must have seemed to them to stretch on forever. In the dim light I could see the semblance of other tall buildings, shops, and even houses perhaps, though covered in sand and some partly collapsed, which filled me with conflicting emotions. On the one paw this meant it might not be that far from here. It was surely somewhere here in the great desert these furs had lived, and maybe someday we could discover where. At the same time however, the great desert was unfathomably large, and had been becoming more dangerous with every passing year. If they had looked out upon trees and rivers there might have been more of a chance, but as it stood we could only hope we might be looking in remotely the right region, and to continue to do so would doubtlessly come at great cost.

"Come on, it's time to eat" Gar said, beginning to grow impatient, or possibly uncomfortable with the view. Tal nodded and the four left the room, making their way back down the stairs where they discovered the others were nowhere to be found. Two more pink kilts however lay discarded and were strewn about the room, Sef and Lan now also having gone nude except for their collars. They caught up with the others in the cafeteria where they were just finishing their dinner, which again seemed to make everyone quite drowsy, unlike the food they were provided with in the mornings. "We'll have a lot to sort through in the morning," Tal murmured to himself once he finished with his food, giving a long yawn as he headed to the sleeping area to lay down. Gar didn't seem at all pleased with the idea, but stole several looks at the papers Max had gathered during dinner, and kept an eye on him as he went to sleep afterward. Max himself seemed the most reluctant to eat or sleep, though he did manage a few bites while shuffling through the papers and comparing one to another, before finally yielding to sleepiness and finding a place to curl up and sleep. Ker however did not sleep right away. He had said nothing while viewing the long stretch of horizon from the upstairs windows, but he seemed to become lost in it and hardly ate anything, even long after everyone else had gone to bed. Eventually he took a short walk out to the courtyard again, into the fresh air where he could look up at the darkening sky a while before finally making his way back in and at last laying down to sleep.

VII.

A Knock At The Door

Early the next morning several of the sleeping furs seemed to wake up all at once, though I could not identify any reason why. Rux, Tal, and Gar all sat up sleepily, looking around at each other as if listening. On the recording I could hear a faint but constant whine I thought I recognized. I adjusted the volume higher but could not make it out over the ambient hum of the low quality recording, and settled for waiting to see if further viewing might reveal more. As it turned out the sound seemed to wake the other furs soon after, and they all got up and walked out into the cafeteria in search of the source of the sound, which seemed to be growing steadily louder. When they had made their way to the console room, Max had a sudden realization, seeming to remember the day before and exclaimed "The window!" as he hurried up the stairs, leading the way for everyone else. Viewing the camera from the large room with the uncovered window I saw nothing out of place at first. Although those who had not seen the window on the previous day were shocked for a moment as they entered, the group soon rushed up to the window and seemed to point out at something beyond the camera's field of view. As the whining sound grew ever louder, I started to be able to make out other noises, rhythmic and mechanical in a way I did not recognize. Still the group seemed quite excited, and soon hurried down the stairs, anticipating apparently the arrival of something from outside.

Almost as soon as they made it back to the console room there was a loud clang, as something seemed to beat against the front door. Rux bounded up to the door and banged back at it with his paws, and the others also moved close by expectantly. A horrible grinding sound was heard, making those in the video wince, and soon a shower of sparks burst forth from the door, causing everyone to jump back away in surprise. The sparks moved from one side to the other, and with nervous anticipation I watched until the door finally collapsed and fell inward with a another loud clang as it fell inward against the floor. What I saw then chilled me to the core, and I recoiled from the recording, having to stop watching and allow myself some time to calm down, and seal myself against what I was seeing. Even now as I write I find it hard to put down the words I need to describe it, but it must be done.

Standing there in the broken doorway was one of the horrifying machine monstrosities. More than the full height of the door, its terrible yellow scaled insect-like body stretched back along the ground in the semblance of a class 1, the smaller sort encountered on rare occasions on our many expeditions. There was something different about this one though. I noticed it when it stepped forward into the room, folding its solar collectors up onto its back and grinding its hideous girth through the doorway little by little with each set of its many legs. This machine it seemed must have been new, an early specimen from the time before. Since then they had grown considerably by consuming all that they could to expanded themselves, and had begun to scavenge their replacement parts and replenish themselves from any scrap of mechanical technology they could get their metallic talons on. It didn't shamble and drag itself along as the few others I had the misfortune to witness, but lightly stepped with careful precise movements as it scraped its way entirely through the door toward the group of awestruck furs. It lifted its terrible head and looked over them with its one red eye, perhaps considering what it might do.

"Umm, hello?" offered Rux, who as ever seemed eager to investigate something new and curious. The machine of course did not answer, but did take a small step forward and extend one of its giant pincer claws toward the small coyote. Rux extended a paw to touch it but in a flash the machine had reached out and grabbed him, lifting him up squirming off of his footpaws to bring him close to its head for more careful inspection. One of the machine's smaller arms reached up to him and jabbed some sort of needle deep into one of the coyote's flailing legs, causing him to yelp and struggle harder, though the huge claw was far too strong. Gar growled at the machine and ran up to it, leaping up at the claw holding Rux, but in an instant the other large claw lashed out, batting him away and knocking him against the side wall with a sharp painful cry. The others were too stunned to react at first, but Jin and Sef who were the closest to where the lion lay soon helped Gar to stand, though he did so appearing to be in great pain. The machine then turned its attention down to the rest of the group who had now stepped back away and were keeping their distance from it. "You let him go" demanded Max, who hid behind Ker keeping well out of the machine's reach. The machine made no further movement, seeming to process the situation while standing as still as a statue, though no fur dared to get close to it again. Rux was gasping and coughing at this point, the tight grip of the machine's claw leaving him little room to breathe. "Don't worry, we'll get you out" called Tal, who was looking around the room for some way to free his friend.

Then it happened, just as quickly and easily as the machine had swatted Gar aside, with a quick sickening clank of its claw it crushed the body of Rux and dropped him to the floor. It happened so fast the others had no time to react, as the machine immediately began to advance, its many legs skittering and slipping against the surface of the shiny floor only narrowly giving them a chance to get away. With several cries of fright furs ran in all directions, some down the hallway back past the medical room, and some up the stairs to the second floor. Luckily the machine was not able to catch any more of them before being forced to contend with the more narrow corridors leading between rooms, which could scarcely accommodate its hulking body.

Sef, Jin and Lan ran frantically down the hall, helping Gar along as best they could though he seemed in no condition to run. Fortunately it did not take them long to see the machine was unable to pursue them quickly, though they continued to flee from it, making their way all the way back to the sleeping area before setting Gar down and collapsing, panting with fright. "What.. what was that?" Lan asked trembling, having curled up into a ball among the bedding. "I don't know, but it was bad" Sef answered, looking over Gar with concern. "What's it going to do?" Lan asked, looking from one fur to another, though it was clear none of them had any answers. "It's going to kill us" coughed Gar, wincing as he held a paw across his side. "We have to stop it then" Jin said, though sounding none too sure of himself. "We will" answered Sef, who started digging through the pile of papers Max had collected the day before. "Just.. umm, just wait, I'll think of something" he added with a long worried sigh.

Tal, Ker, and Max hurried back up the stairs to the second floor. Having been the closest to the back of the room it was the only real choice they had before the machine would have reached them. Once they had reached the top of the steps Tal looked back, and called to the others running further down the hall to wait. The machine it seemed was not following them, and either had yet to decide what to do, or had decided to follow the other group of furs who had escaped down the long hallway on the first floor. "It isn't coming?" Ker asked, as he too peered back down the stairs. "I don't think so" Tal said, turning away to face the wall and leaning his head against it. "Do you have any idea what that thing is?" Tal asked, turning to Max after a long while of silence. "No," Max said with a helpless shake of his head, "this stuff, all it talks about is furs, and some stuff about customers and sales and packages, there isn't anything about any giant bug." "It isn't a bug" Tal said spitefully, pressing his paws against the wall in front of him. "Well not a bug exactly" Max answered, starting to calm down a little and think through the situation, "just.. a machine, like the things when we first.. on the first day. But machines aren't supposed to do this." Tal only growled with frustration in response. "If it goes the other way, then we could get out" Ker suggested, looking again down the stairs to the sunlight reflecting against the floor, coming in through the gap where the front door had been. "We can't just leave the others to die" Tal said, turning to look up at Ker with another growl. "Can't stop it either" replied the stallion with a hopeless shrug "We might get away out there, but you saw what it did," he added. "I don't want to end up like that" Max shuddered, sitting down on the floor against the wall. "We're not leaving," Tal said emphatically, "get up." After a swift kick from Tal, Max was soon standing again, the wolf leading the way down the long hall toward one of the other rooms. "But what are we going to do?" Max whimpered as he followed quickly along. Tal showed his teeth and growled again as he replied, "We are going to kill it."

VIII.

Instinct

As the two groups scattered in opposite directions, the camera from the console room had shown that the machine wasted no time turning to follow the group who had stayed on the first floor. Whether this was because its progress would have been more hindered by the stairs or for some other reason I did not know. It did seem to find navigating even the wide hallways challenging however, as its legs were unable to adequately traverse forward in its hunched and folded state, forcing it to creep slowly with many tiny steps of its footless metallic legs, its metal body grinding and tearing at the walls as it scraped its way along. This afforded the terrified furs on the first floor only a slight reprieve I estimated, as its progress was steady and there was clearly no way out except through the path the machine was now completely blocking.

Meanwhile I watched and wondered what the others might find upstairs as they began hurriedly ransacking the abandoned rooms on the floor above. While it was true that in my time I had lived to tell the tale of more than one encounter with the mechanical horrors such as the one present in the recording, it had never been at nearly so close a distance, or with one as fully formed and completely functional as this. In its state of apparently perfect repair, I imagined the thing could have torn through every fur in the room moments after bursting in through the door, however it had seemed to hesitate for some reason I did not yet understand. The needle provided some slight clue, but as to its purpose I could not yet guess as I watched transfixed, even calling my collogues over to watch these parts of the recording along with me, though there was little enough time to spare with what all needed to be gathered and recorded from our inexplicable find.

As Tal, Max, and Ker searched, they unfortunately found very little which they felt could be of use. I knew of course of a few things which had been used to great effect in our own efforts in these expeditions when confronted with the machines, my survival having depended on them on more than one occasion, but I felt it quite unlikely any such things were likely to be happened upon by chance in such an environment. It quite unfortunately seemed my supposition was soon proven correct, as the trio searched room to room finding only more desks and piles of paper, along with a few flimsy oddly constructed objects which to me seemed of no use. The one helpful thing found was discovered by Max in a drawer of one of the desks, a fairly large case containing what appeared to be a sort of mechanical toolkit, though the types of tools it contained I mostly did not recognize as he opened it and began to go through them.

"There is nothing here" Tal lamented, slamming his paws down against one of the desks and kicking a pile of papers scattered about the floor all around him. Max looked up from where he was sitting on the floor examining the tool kit he had found and shook his head. "I don't think any of this is going to work" he said, closing the toolkit and standing back up. "What could stop it anyway?" Ker asked, placing a large hand on Max's shoulder. Max tilted his head and thought for a moment. "Well.. we can't hurt it, I mean, I don't think, it looks too strong and it moves too fast. Maybe if we could get inside of it somehow, it might work like the other computers and maybe I could turn it off." "It doesn't plug in" Ker said looking up at the ceiling, "I don't think it works like the lights." "The lights!" repeated Max as he too looked up at the ceiling. "Do you think we can get downstairs?" he asked excitedly. Tal looked down despondently and shook his head. "Maybe, but we're not safe down there" he answered, turning and looking down at Max as he stepped closer. "Trust me" Max said as he started toward the door in a hurry, "Let's go."

"It's getting closer!" Jin called, keeping lookout from the end of the hallway inside the cafeteria. The machine by now was through the first hall and had quickly surveyed the waiting room before moving on and beginning to squeeze its metallic bulk through the doorway into the second hallway. Lan held his face in his paws and whimpered, while Sef paced back and forth almost frantically. "Something, there must be something" he kept saying, as he turned and walked back and forth. "We don't have anything" choked Gar with a gruesome cough, after which he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his paw. "What do we have?" Sef asked himself, pausing and looking around the room. "Blankets, pillows, water!" Sef hurried over to the shower, looking over its controls closely. "Come help me!" Sef called, turning to the bedding and starting to drag blankets toward the showers. "What are you doing?" Lan said, looking up from where he had curled up next to Gar on the floor. "I don't think that thing can see," Sef said as he started turning on the showers. "Not see like we can anyway, its eye is different and I don't think it knows what we really look like. If we turn the water up all the way it can get really hot, so if we get all this stuff wet and block all the drains, maybe it won't be able to see us." Lan seemed confused, but Jin hurried in and started helping to gather the blankets and pillows, stacking them under the water of the showers while being careful not to burn himself on the now steaming hot water. Gar had laid back and closed his eyes, but Lan got up and helped as best he could as well and soon the shower area was covered in bedding and starting to flood as the water no longer quickly found its way down the drain. "I hope this works," Sef said to himself as he continued to pile the bedding higher.

Tal tiptoed down the stairs in front of Max, leaving Ker and his noisy hooves at the top of the stairs until they made sure the coast was clear. Sure enough there was no sign of the machine by the time they reached the console room, and Max quickly had Tal give him a boost from the large desk up into the ceiling. "What are we doing?" Ker asked as he followed them down and looked through the hallway to see the machine slowly but steadily making its way down the second hall past the cylindrical waiting room. "This place is full of wires," Max explained as he rummaged about up in the ceiling with one of the tools taken from the toolkit. "We moved one around to get that console working before, and now they're all on, we got the power to work for everything down here once we restarted it all." "How does that help?" Tal asked as he looked up after the otter who had climbed up entirely into the ceiling. "Well it must need power to work too right? Even if it's inside somewhere. But what happens if we give it too much power? Maybe it.. I don't know, maybe we can break it somehow." "How long?" Ker asked, looking down the long hall after the abominable machine. "I'll hurry" Max called back as more rummaging sounds were heard from up above in the ceiling.

"It's coming!" Jin called as he peeked around the corner through the door to the cafeteria and saw one of the machine's large metal claws thrust into the room and hook around the inside of the doorway, followed by a hideous screeching of metal as the machine dragged itself forward, managing partway entry into the cafeteria only a short distance away. "I hope this works," Sef repeated as he helped Lan to drag the unconscious lion against the wall behind the showers, where the bedding was piled high in front of them. Jin hurried over as well and helped to pull a wet steaming blanket over the four of them as they hid out of sight as best they could, and they listened trembling with fear as the horrendous sounds of the machine grew ever closer.

Max meanwhile had dropped several long cables down from above the ceiling, each one plugged into another back to back, so that the total length would extend for a considerable distance once uncoiled. Most of the consoles in the room were dark now, as were three more of the lights, leaving only one still lit near the hallway door to see by aside from the light pouring in from outside. "Will it reach?" Tal asked as he tried to estimate the length of the large bundle of wire. "Just a little more" Max answered back from within the ceiling, loosing another loop of wire which plopped down onto the desk below. "There!" he said, reaching a paw down to Tal. The wolf took Max's paw and carefully helped him down from the ceiling, climbing down with him from the desk to the floor and starting to gather up the bundle of wire. "Is it on?" Tal asked as he looked over the frayed end of the cabling skeptically. "Just a minute" Max said hurriedly, as he turned to one of the still working consoles and began pressing buttons. "We don't have a minute" Tal snapped back as he watched the machine disappear completely into the cafeteria room. "Almost... there" Said Max, turning to point at the fallen door. "Touch the end it to that door, but stay back" Max warned, getting up to watch. Tal held his arm extended and kept the end of the thick bundle of wire away from himself as he moved toward the door, stepping over the broken body of Rux as he knelt down. Tal tried not to look at the lifeless form of the coyote, his fondness of the playful creature clear on his face as he performed the bitter task, slowly pushing the end of the wire into contact with the heavy metal door which had been ripped down by the machine. Suddenly there was an arc of electricity and a shower of sparks as the electronic locking mechanism burst apart and started to smoke. "Ok.." Max said nervously "You have to touch it with the end, but keep it away from yourself, you really don't want to touch it" he said in a serious tone, as Tal held the end of the cable carefully in one paw while picking up loops of it near the end and coiling them over his other arm. "Let's go," Tal called as Ker grabbed a large bundle of the cable and followed along, dragging the heavy length of it along the floor behind them as they ran as fast as they could down the hall.

The view from the camera in the sleeping room showed all too clearly the murderous form of the machine, as it began the arduous task of dragging itself through the narrow door in from the adjacent cafeteria. Its claws and legs clanged against the metal door frame and the maddening constant whine of its detestable undulating mechanical body became ever more overpowering as it dragged itself slowly closer, an experience of which I was immeasurably glad I had not been made to endure except vicariously through the recordings I was watching on the screen. The furs who had hidden themselves beneath the soaked and steaming hot blankets could no longer be seen, but I watched intently the spot where they had hid themselves, hoping with all the will I could manage that though these furs had no doubt lived long ago and had long since met their ends, that I would not be made to bear witness to them at the claws of this mechanical horror in the following moments. The machine had pulled its body nearly half way into the room before pausing to survey its surroundings. I found its degree of caution to be unusually strange based on my own experience with the machines, and that which I had heard about them from others who had far more experience than I. Still it seemed hesitant for reasons I did not comprehend, and as luck would have it, between the heat and the steam and the piles of bedding, it did not seem immediately to recognize the whereabouts of the furs who had concealed themselves beneath the blankets under the shower.

It was then that Tal emerged from the end of the hall along with Max, struggling to drag the heavy cable the last of the way with the bulk of its weight now dragging along the floor behind him reaching all the way back to the console room. Ker had stayed some distance behind and was pulling and feeding the cable forward from the far end of the hallway inside of the waiting room, while Tal and Max pulled from the end together, hurrying as fast as they could and finally arriving just in time before the machine could fully draw its massive bulk through the narrow doorway into the sleeping area. Without delay Tal pulled as much of the cable together as he could manage and rushed toward the machine, the deadly end of the frayed wiring held out in front of him toward it as he approached. I gasped as without warning, the machine kicked at him with one of its rearmost legs, knocking him to the floor without touching the end of the cable. The machine then seemed to transfigure itself, writhing folding as it turned about, parts of the front of its body somehow migrating to the rear, including its terrible one eyed head and enormous grabbing claws. Tal crouched and leapt over one of the huge arms with the cable outstretched toward the mechanical creature's head, but a smaller arm lashed out and with a sharp bladed talon, slashed across the wolf's face. Tal dropped the cable and fell between the machine's outstretched claws, where it immediately grabbed him and lifted him up with one, quickly jabbing a long needle into his leg with another of its smaller appendages.

Max had been standing by speechless, frozen in terror at the abject hopelessness of the monstrous mechanical thing before them. Just as before he saw another of his friends grabbed up in one of those huge claws, and I recalled clearly his fearful words at the thought of ending up that way himself. But Max wouldn't stand there helplessly any longer, and with a shout he ran forward, grabbing the fallen cable in both paws and dragging it toward the murderous machine. Its other huge claw grabbed hold of him in an instant, and Max cried out as he was tightly restrained by its crushing grip, the head turning to inspect him as another needle was lifted by a small secondary arm and prepared for him. Max did not let go of the cable however, and before the needle could find its mark he drove the frayed end down against the metal wrist bearing the huge mechanical claw in which he was held. The machine's response was unimaginably horrible. It screamed, if such an awful metallic sound sound could be called a scream, and tossed its head as if it were a living thing in pain. Its legs thrashed and its claws released, dropping the two furs as arcs of electricity flashed like bolts of lightning up and down across its body, the electrical cable staying wedged between the joints of the thing's arm as it flailed. The lights in the room dimmed and flickered and the guttural metallic gurgling nearly vocal sounds slowed and choked, and eventually stopped as at last the huge bulk of the machine came crashing to the floor and ceased to move.

IX.

Consequences

Ker rushed into the room from the hallway having not seen what had happened, but now coming into view of the scene as the hulking carcass of the machine lay silent and unmoving, wedged in the doorway between the cafeteria and the sleeping area. "Is anyone there?" Ker called, seeing no one at first as he frantically looked about the calamitous scene. "Here!" came Jin's voice from inside the sleeping area, clearly glad to hear another fur's voice. "We're ok, but Gar is hurt, is it safe?" Jin asked as he pulled the blanket away and looked at what he could see of the machine. Ker obviously wasn't sure either, and he cautiously approached the silent machine, pulling the cable back away from it for safety as he got closer. When he drew near he saw Max, laying on his back unmoving beneath the heavy claw of the fallen machine. He also discovered Tal some distance away, still conscious and moaning in pain with a long gash across the right side of his face and his left arm crushed under the machine's body. "It's safe" Ker called back softly, clearly disheartened by the sight. "Come out here and help me!" he shouted a bit louder as he reached down to try and lift the heavy mechanical claw from Max's body. Quickly Jin turned off the showers and hurried out with, Lan and Sef further behind struggling to carefully drag the unconscious body of Gar over and around the body of the collapsed machine. "Oh no," Jin said as he saw the two furs laying under parts of the fallen machine, immediately jumping to help Ker who was still trying to lift the heavy claw off of Max. The small fox it seemed wasn't much help, but as Ker managed to lift the large metal claw only slightly Jin was able to pull the otter's body free of it, allowing Ker to safely drop the claw with a loud thud to the floor. "Take him!" Ker nearly shouted as he turned to Tal. Jin reached under Max's arms and lifted him up, walking backwards as he started dragging him toward the hallway and eventually to the medical room. Lan and Sef followed close behind him, sharing the load of the heavy lion as they all did the best they could to make the long trip down the ruined halls.

Ker pressed his shoulder against the side of the bulky machine and pushed, but it was clear the machine wouldn't budge, and with Tal's arm crushed against the floor there was no way to get him out. After attempt after attempt Ker finally gave up and collapsed down onto the floor next to Tal, panting in exhaustion. Tal moaned and turned his head to the side, looking up at the exhausted stallion and trying to speak. Not much came out, but Ker heard him and placed a large hand on Tal's chest while shaking his head. "Don't talk" he said, trying to somehow comfort the wolf. "You did it, the machine stopped.. just don't move and we'll get you out." Tal laid his head back and closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh and nodding as Ker waited by his side.

It took quite some time for Gar and Max to be dragged through the scraped and battered halls and into the medical room, each of the furs carrying them struggling with the weight while also trying to avoid the debris from the large chunks of wall and ceiling that had been ripped off by the passing of the machine and scattered about the floor. Eventually however they managed to make their way, gasping and stumbling as they worked the two injured furs up onto the medical beds located to one side of the small room. "What.. do we do now?" panted Sef as he bent forward with his paws on his knees to catch his breath. "We need something to help them, check over there" Jin said, motioning to the cabinets set near a sink on the opposite side of the room. Sef and Lan hurried over, opening each cabinet and digging out various items wrapped in brightly colored packaging, the purpose of which I could not guess. Jin busied himself with the beds themselves, which were of a type I had never seen before, though their general nature had been easy to guess when I first saw the room on one of the recordings. Each narrow white bed had at its foot a small control screen, both of which were thankfully still lit to spite the power failure which had befallen the rest of the building. The activation of these, possibly in conjunction with the sensing of a patient present, triggered the lowering of something that looked frighteningly like the horrible red robotic eye which had been affixed to the head of the now collapsed machine that had done all this damage. This eye however was green and oblong in shape rather than circular, and seemed to project a thin beam of light which passed back and forth over first Gar, then Max before the stalk it was suspended from retracted, pulling the eye back up to the ceiling above the field of view of the camera though which I was viewing the recording.

"Do you remember this? What do we do with these?" Sef asked, looking to Jin holding up a green package in one paw and a blue one in the other. Jin looked back and forth between the two screens, which had changed to reflect whatever the robotic eye had seen, though the resolution of the camera did not allow me to see the results for myself. "I think.. bring me that green one, and two red ones and.." Jin paused, looking back at the screen of Max's bed again "I'll figure it out, go on back," he said as he continued to study the screen. Sef retrieved the desired packages and placed them at the foot of Max's bed, and then along with Lan hurried back down the hallway to Ker who hadn't moved from Tal's side, his immense strength having been of little use to free him.

When Sef and Lan arrived back and took a closer look, Ker was shaking his head in anguish. "I should have done it," he said as he stared down at the incapacitated wolf. "He's losing too much blood" Sef said, looking down at where Tal's arm had been caught under the crushing weight of the machine's body. I could see he was right, blood was starting to seep out from beneath it and pool around the wolf as he lay helpless on the floor. He was still breathing I could tell, but I guessed that he would not last long as he was. "There is a toolkit, by the console" Ker said, looking up with a possible glimmer of hope to Sef. "Stay" Lan said as Sef stood and turned to leave, the bunny turning away and quickly disappearing around the corner to run as quickly as he could to retrieve the set of tools. Sef sat down and took Tal's paw in his, watching the wolf's shallow breathing along with Ker until Lan returned.

Meanwhile with surprising proficiency Jin had torn open the colored packages, revealing thick injection tubes of a sort similar to those I carried with me among my own supplies in case of emergencies, as was standard practice on any expedition. Jin reviewed the directions on the packaging closely and felt about the bodies of the two furs, making a series of injections around the areas of their injuries, which must have been indicated by the mechanical eye's earlier scan. Jin then set aside the syringes and returned to the cabinet, withdrawing a white box from which he pulled out a long thin bar with a small curved handle and a coiling cord which remained attached back to the box. Carrying the instrument, Jin returned to the beds where he placed the box on the floor, after which he pressed the end of metal bar to the spots where he had made the injections, squeezing the handle which caused the end of the metal bar to glow with a strange white light. This part of the procedure I did not recognize, though Jin it seemed took to it quite naturally, just as I had seen Max and Sef previously do with the food dispenser and computer consoles. I took a few notes on this for later review, however there was much more to be recorded as soon it seemed an alarm of some sort began from the bed where Max had been laid, its small control screen turning a bright red along with emitting a high pitched whine that no doubt indicated some critically important warning. Jin turned to look, immediately running to the cabinet and retrieving a yellow package which he quickly ripped apart, revealing another syringe. This he wasted no time plunging into Max's chest, though the otter still did not respond in any way to the violent act. After withdrawing the needle, Jin again lifted the metal rod, pressing it to the same spot on the otter's chest and squeezing the handle so the end of the rod glowed brighter still, indicating some acceleration of process that I still did not understand. Fortunately, this process seemed to work, and soon the alarm had subsided and the control screen dimmed once again to the soft white it had been before, and Jin leaned back against the medical room wall with a sigh.

Lan rushed down the hall with all the lapine speed he could muster, seeming desperate to help his friends in the only way it seemed he could, though he had been able to speak very little of it. He soon reached the console room, and hurriedly packed the tools Max had left out into their case before closing it tightly and hugging it to his chest as he began to run back in the opposite direction down the hall. He tripped only once on his return trip, over a piece of debris from the twisted and now grotesquely disfigured doorways between the waiting room and the second hall. He did not fall however, managing to keep his balance as he stumbled forward and continued at full speed to run all the way back to the cafeteria. Once he arrived, Lan quickly dropped the toolkit at Sef's footpaws, turning away and gasping for breath after such a strenuous burst of energy. "Will it help?" Ker asked, looking over Sef's shoulder as he emptied the entire contents of the toolkit onto the floor unlike Max who had immediately selected the tool he had needed for the task at paw. "I.. I don't know I just.. don't know" Sef said, looking back and forth across the scattered tools and trembling. "Calm down," Ker said in his deep voice, placing a paw on Sef's head reassuringly. "Which one is it?" Ker asked as he reached out his other large open hand. "Umm.. this one" Sef finally said, reaching down to pick up one of the tools and offering it to Ker.

Ker took the tool, a sort of bulky asymmetric three pronged triangular fork, with a short handle perpendicular to the prongs. From the handle extended what appeared to be two canisters which I imagined must somehow connect to the shorter prong, which was positioned equidistant between the other two and slightly below them. Ker looked over the strange tool with a puzzled expression, but held it up to the casing of the machine's body and squeezed its handle, causing it to activate. At first little happened beyond a small puff of what looked like blue smoke from the tip of the center prong, but this was soon followed by a bright flash and a popping sound, which quickly stabilized to a bluish white light and constant hiss which grew louder as the tips of the prongs met the metallic carcass of the fallen machine. The prongs widened as the light danced between the longer two, and I could see sparks now and then fall from the machine's body to the floor, however little progress seemed to be made and when after a few moments Ker withdrew the tool, it seemed the surface of the metal scales had barely been scratched. "This will take too long" Ker said, letting the light go out on the tool and placing it back down onto the floor. "It's just too big" Sef said, shaking his head helplessly, having watched the failed attempt. "Can you make it move again?" Ker asked, looking up at the hanging head of the vanquished machine. "I.. I don't know, if I had more time" Sef said, looking up at the intimidating form of what had so nearly slaughtered them all only precious minutes ago. "What else can we try?" Ker asked in desperation as he stood up and again looked down over the form of Tal's body now surrounded by a growing pool of his own blood. "Ok.. we can't move this thing, it's too big and too heavy, and we can't cut it up, and we can't dig up the floor," Sef made sure with a stomp of his footpaw indicating that it must have been quite solid. "Maybe we can bring some of the medicine to him?" Ker asked, grasping for answers. "He's bleeding too much" Sef said shaking his head again, "and we can't get to his arm. "I don't want to do it" Sef said, looking down at the wolf again. "What is it?" Ker asked, clearly eager for any possibility of saving Tal. Sef walked over to the tools, looking over them and then back up at the machine. "I hate it, even though it's dead I hate it" he said before turning away and wiping his paw across his eyes. He then took a deep breath, bent down to pick up the tool Ker had been using and squeezed the handle to activate it, and then pressed it to Tal's left shoulder, severing his trapped arm.

X.

Aftermath

Upon being freed Tal was quickly picked up and rushed to the medical room, where Jin was momentarily shocked by his wholly missing limb. He got to treating the wolf as best he could right away none the less, but without another bed the best that could be done was for Lan and Ker to gather those cushions which had been previously taken to the console room for him to lay on, as these fortunately had been spared the water that had soaked through the rest of the bedding under the showers. Tal it seemed to spite his arm and loss of blood, was still in much less immediate danger than either Max or Gar, whom Jin continued to treat using the metal rod periodically. Jin attached a large white packet to a needle going into the wolf's arm, and made him to swallow several large oblong blue and white capsules, which I imagined must have been to help with the pain as he was, at least to some extent, still conscious and moving around feverishly. Ker stayed by his side to quiet him and had instructed Sef and Lan to see what more could be learned about the fallen machine, having no further use for them in the medical room, and likely wishing to give them both something upon which to focus their attention for a time.

Late into the night they continued their watch, though the darkness was quite severe due to the complete loss of overhead lighting. Sef and Lan it seemed had not kept up their investigation for long, and after another brief look at the machine they had retired to the waiting room, falling asleep together on the curved sofa. At one point during the night Gar seemed to stir, and Jin spoke softly to him, explaining what had happened, and that he should rest well in knowing that the threat of the machine was no more. Sometime near dawn, as the hall seemed to grow slightly brighter from the light spilling in from the gaping hole where the front door had been, Max opened his eyes and started calling out. "I.. where am I?" Max coughed, cringing and tossing his head back against the headrest of the bed after trying to move. Jin who it seemed may have briefly dozed off, stood up from where he had been sitting with his back to the side wall, hurrying over to Max and checking the control panel of the bed. "Don't move" he said, placing his paws on Max's shoulders "you shouldn't be awake." Max shook his head and lifted a paw to Jin's arm. "Where.. is..?" he said in a choking voice, pleading with his expression as he struggled to form the words. "he's here, just there beside you" Jin said, pointing down to the makeshift bed of cushions on the floor where Tal lay. Max nodded and closed his eyes, tilting his head back with a wheezing cough. "Tell him.. I'm sorry. I couldn't think of another way" he said, his voice trailing off toward the end as his paw released Jin's arm and fell to his side. A short time later the alarm sounded again and Jin repeated the procedure he had employed before while Ker looked on and held Max's paw, but it seemed of no use this time, and after a long period of holding the metal rod to the otter's chest Jin finally pulled it away, and with a touch to the control panel at the foot of the bed the alarm stopped, and Max was gone.

In the morning Jin was the one to tell Sef and Lan what had happened during the night. Sef seemed to take it the hardest, which I felt I understood as the pair had worked so closely together when sorting out the consoles before the arrival of the machine, though Ker also refused to speak for the remainder of the day after what had happened. None had eaten the night before or thought to do so that morning, and no attempt was made to restore power until what must have been well past noon, and even then the attempt was somewhat halfhearted as Sef seemed reluctant to return to the work he had done together with Max during the days prior. Ker considerately took it upon himself to remove the bodies of Rux and Max from public view, choosing to lay them in the room behind the medical room which contained the skeletons in the cages, perhaps feeling they would best be left at peace among other furs who had lived their lives in that place in the time before. By the end of the day Gar was awake again and was able to take dinner once Sef managed to restore the power to much of the building, though he neglected to restore those lights and consoles which had been disconnected to facilitate the long cable, which still lay abandoned to the side of the hallway leading down to the cafeteria. Jin seemed to think that Gar would be alright now, though this was a claim I could scarcely believe as even the most modern of medical technology I was mildly familiar with did not have the healing capacity to repair such injuries in such little time. I reflected on this a while, and came to the conclusion that although in many ways the styles and designs of the various implements and structural fixtures seemed to me to be archaic, the degree of advancement of the technology which they represented must have been far beyond what I knew to be possible in the world of today. My assessment of the vats which had birthed these furs in the first place was also in agreement with this theory.

As it had on previous days, the consumption of food late in the day quickly led the furs to sleep, with Tal having been moved to the second medical bed while Gar remained in the first as Jin suggested, just to be safe. The second night it seemed was hard on Tal, and he woke often and thrashed and turned about on the bed, and though no alarm went off, Jin still seemed quite concerned. Jin gave him no more pills, or any injections however, although he did replace the white bag with a needle into his remaining arm and also cleaned and placed a bandage over a large portion of the wolf's face when it had started bleeding again from his struggles. "What.. I need.. out, its not" Tal murmured incoherently as Jin struggled to apply the bandage to his face, seeming to do so very poorly even with the help of Ker who had also slept in the room and been awakened by the commotion. He calmed down somewhat after a few minutes, but Ker kept hold of him just in case as his chest heaved from exertion. "Why.. can't I see the stars?" he asked, seemingly still not thinking clearly. "We're inside" Jin explained, "it will be alright now, you just have to rest." "I know what I need" Tal said, trying to lift his paw to scratch at the bandage on his muzzle, "I need the stars." Jin and Ker looked at each other, neither one seeming to grasp the wolf's meaning, but they stood by him all the same and for several hours he went on in slurred muffled phrases about the stars and the black of the night, and how much he needed to go to them. Eventually his strength seemed to give out and he fell again into a deep sleep, granting Jin and Ker some reprieve as they both settled back down on the floor nearby for some much needed rest.

XI.

Division

Early in the morning on the next day, Gar got out of bed for the first time since the attack. He was the first to rise, and peered over at Tal whose maimed body he had not yet looked upon laying in the next bed. Gar shook his head and stepped over Jin and Ker to walk out down the hall and to the console room, where the gaping opening in the wall was letting the early morning light stream in. The lion stepped up to the edge of the broken doorway, but did not set a footpaw outside as he looked out over the open landscape of sand and ruins. He did not linger long and soon turned back, making his way back into the waiting room, most probably meaning to resume sitting in his usual spot as had become his habit. Instead what he found when he got there were Sef and Lan, who were again sleeping together on the sofas rather than returning to the old sleeping area. He half circled them, pacing predatorily back and forth as he watched them sleep, their nude forms tangled together on the curved sofa against the cylindrical wall. Slowly he closed in, and without disturbing the pair's sleep began to carefully reposition them so that their bodies were turned opposite of one another with the raccoon laying on top with his sheath rubbing against Lan's sleeping face. Gar then climbed up onto the wide sofa, positioning himself behind Sef and carefully lifting his kilt along with the raccoon's fluffy tail, before suddenly giving a hard thrust which caused Sef to wake up startled and cry out, followed by Lan who found himself pinned to the sofa, flailing about helplessly at first until realizing what was going on. Jin and Ker came running out shortly after, apparently afraid that some further calamity may have occurred, but as they saw the scene before them they both let out a haggard sigh of relief, and both seemed to relax visibly at what must have been at least a somewhat comforting sight of something non-horrific, and if anything more normal to the standards they had been living by.

Gar picked up a long hard steady pace as he gripped the much smaller raccoon's hips tightly in his paws and buried his feline length under his ringed tail. He had seemed to work up his lust substantially over the lack of attention the last few days from what I could tell, and the two furs under him also responded in kind, though whether willingly or not I was not entirely sure. Sef's shaft was soon growing from his sheath and pressing into the bunny's mouth, while he found himself in a similar situation as Gar held his hips and bent over his back, forcing the raccoon's muzzle down between the ever responsive bunny's legs. Sef soon submitted and opened his mouth, suckling on Lan's needy length as the bunny did the same for him, while Gar thrust hard against the two small furs, forcing their bodies to rock along with his as he passionately mounted the raccoon's naked form.

At some point Ker realized he was staring, and that Jin who was standing next to him was looking up at him with a very suggestive vulpine smile. Ker was still wearing his kilt, but it was clear the scene was having an effect on him, as the shortness of it did nothing to hide the equine's massive length as it quickly enlarged below the line of its hem. Jin's own shaft was already fully extended from his sheath as well, and without a word he wasted no time kneeling down before the stallion and offering his open muzzle while his tail swished with anxious anticipation behind him. Ker made no indication of objection, and soon Jin had his muzzle wrapped around the tip of Ker's impressive shaft, taking it surprisingly deep into his throat though nowhere near its entire length. By this time Lan had picked up to steady moaning, his eyes closed tightly with pleasure as his hips rocked seemingly on their own to the feel of the raccoon's muzzle steadily sliding up and down around his sensitive flesh. Suddenly the bunny's eyes went wide and his moaning grew louder while his hips bucked frantically, causing Sef's eyes to bulge as well for a moment before he clearly couldn't take anymore. Overwhelmed, Sef tossed his head back with a gasp as Lan's cum leaked from his muzzle and continued to spurt from his bobbing shaft over both their grinding bodies. Lan got little time to relax however as Sef's length was still being forcibly thrust into his mouth from above, though he hardly seemed to mind as he squirmed and suckled it while Gar continued using the raccoon for his own pleasure.

Just as Ker it seemed was really starting to get into the experience, Jin pulled back from him, and with another swish of his tail, turned around onto all fours and spread his legs wide while lowering his head to the floor across his folded paws and curling his tail aside. Ker hesitated at first, but could not resist for long it seemed, as he soon knelt down behind the fox and guided his enormous length under Jin's lifted tail before slowly starting to press into him. Jin yelped and tossed his head side to side, which even made Gar turn to look but the fox soon let out a lascivious moan that let everyone know he was ok, and slowly gyrated his hips as his body stretched to accommodate the stallion's girth. After a few short thrusts Jin began to rock his hips as well, grinding himself backwards and moving his knees back inch by inch as he took more and more of the huge equine length inside of him. After working about half of the stallion's length into his much smaller body Jin paused and adjusted his position, splaying his legs wider apart and letting his chest press all the way to the floor as he reached back with both paws to spread himself wide for Ker. "Give it to me" Jin half whispered, and lifted his tail high out of the way. Ker didn't have to be told twice as he took hold of the fox's hips, laying his huge hands over the fox's paws and beginning to pound into him with long hard thrusts, causing Jin to cry out passionately with each stroke. Sef looked over wide eyed and trembled, his own pleasure seeming to build exceedingly from the sight as he let out a sudden moan, with Lan clearly struggling to swallow as the raccoon climaxed into his waiting mouth. Gar was nowhere near finished however, and continued to steadily thrust with long powerful strokes into the raccoon, whose gaze was transfixed on the moaning fox.

At the same time Lan it seemed was recovering quite quickly, his shaft again extending from its sheath and rubbing along the raccoon's already soaked fur, and before the Gar was finished Sef also had clearly recovered and was again rocking his hips back to meet the lion's thrusts, while taking the rabbit's length again into his muzzle just as Lan did for him. Sef's eyes remained focused on Jin however, who seemed to have lost total control of himself, and was pawing and grinding his body against the floor with a constant stream of yips and moans as the large muscular stallion steadily increased his pace, until amazingly managing to bury his entire length inside the lustful fox. Ker groaned as he reached forward and pulled the fox back hard against his hips, as for the first time he felt his entire length filling the body of another fur, even causing the fox's stomach to bulge slightly. This proved entirely too much for Jin as he tossed his head back and started to convulse heavily, his whole body tensing and thrashing as his cum soaked the floor beneath him. Ker seemed to enjoy this incredibly, and rapidly increased his pace until he too began to moan and tense, his heavy orbs pulsing as he finally reached his climax, which was more than Jin's body could handle and caused his rear and thighs to soon become completely soaked as the stallion withdrew. Gar, though the first to start was also the last to finish, biting down on Sef's shoulder and causing him to whimper as the lion finally reached his own orgasm and finally pulled back, leaving the raccoon and bunny to continue on their own which they did without further disturbance.

Jin took quite a long while to drag himself up from the floor, with the underside of his tail all the way down the backs of his legs completely soaked and sticky, along with a large portion of the floor where he had been. Once he did manage to get to his footpaws, he slowly made his way back to the medical room to check on Tal, who was by now quite awake and even showing slight signs of arousal himself, after no doubt hearing much of what had happened nearby in the waiting room. Jin seemed not to notice, or pretended not to as he checked the control panel and removed the needle and white bag before offering to get Tal something to eat. Tal refused at first, opting to try for himself though the task seemed more difficult than he had realized, and he almost fell when trying to rise from his bed except for Jin helping to catch him. Tal sighed heavily at this and consented to allow Jin to fetch something to eat for him while he lay back down rubbing gently at his shoulder where his other arm had been. It seemed to be healing well for what that was worth, even without any additional treatment which made me again question the contents of the medicines Tal had been given, and wonder what secrets the technology I was observing could reveal if such a place as this could be rediscovered.

Jin quickly returned with something for Tal, letting the others know he was awake, and once Sef and Lan had finished they caught up with the other furs who gathered around the medical room as Tal finished eating, to discuss what was to be done. "We'll have to leave" Tal said, showing a rather grim determination even in his current state, pulling the bandage from his face as he did so and uncovering a long jagged scar. "There is nowhere out there to go," Gar answered back, "there is nothing but sand and junk out there." "There might be more of those things" Tal went on, "we barely stopped one, and I don't think just wait here for another one." "Where would we go?" Ker asked, clearly unsure of Tal's proposal. "That thing, that machine must have come from somewhere," said the wolf as he rose to his footpaws, again testing his legs. "If someone sent it.. maybe we can stop them?" Sef asked, seeming to grasp the concept. "It's a machine" Tal repeated, "Someone made it, and someone sent here." "I don't want to see another one" Lan said, curling up against the wall and hugging his knees to his chest. "They could try again if we don't" Sef answered, shrugging and shaking his head, "We don't have much of a choice." "We have a choice" Gar growled, "We can stay and wait, like we were supposed to." "I can't make you do this," Tal said sternly, "but it needs to be done, so I'm going, as soon as I can." "I'll go" Sef immediately spoke up, looking up to the wolf hopefully. Tal then looked to Ker who simply nodded his reply, but neither Lan nor Jin would meet Tal's gaze as he looked them over. "We'll need a few hours to get ready," Tal said finally, "we need some way to carry food, and maybe we can find out something about that machine that can tell us where it came from." Sef looked over Tal a moment as if considering and then hurried off back to the cafeteria to investigate the machine, taking Ker with him while Tal remained behind with the others. "You'll hear another one coming before it gets here" Tal said once Sef and Ker had gone. "There won't be another one" Gar said with a growl, seeming offended by the suggestion. "Maybe not," said Tal, "but someone should keep watch through the night in case." With that he too left, and went to help however he could with preparing to leave.

When Tal arrived in the cafeteria Ker was nowhere to be seen, but Sef had his arm halfway inside of one of the many openings on the machine's body, with his muzzle scrunched up as he felt around inside of it with his paw. "Just a little more" he said to himself, causing Tal to tilt his head curiously as he watched. A few moments later one of the smaller arms fell from the machine's body and clattered onto the floor. Tal jumped back in surprise, but then approached it again once he was certain there was no danger. "I think this is about the right size" Sef said as he jumped down from the machine's body and picked up the arm from the floor. Now seeing one of the small sharp taloned arms detached from the machine, it looked surprisingly light and delicate in comparison to the two much larger arms with their huge claws which had proven difficult for even Ker to lift previously. Sef held it up to Tal and looked it over, causing Tal to give him a more perplexed look. "Oh, it's an arm" Sef said, noticing Tal's expression. Tal scowled, clearly not pleased with Sef's suggestion. "Look that thing, machine, whatever it is, it's alive, well.. was alive, sort of" Sef placed the arm in Tal's paw and climbed back up on top of it near its head as he tried to explain. "Its not like the consoles and the lights inside, it's like.. squishy, the parts inside are different, not like metal at all." Sef picked up one of the tools that he had left on the machine's back and started it whirring as he pressed it to the side of the machine's head. "Is it not a machine?" Tal asked with clear concern as he held the arm up to examine where it had connected to the interior body of the thing. The end of the arm opposite the clawed hand did seem quite strange. I had never personally observed the destruction or deconstruction of one up close, and as such took great interest in how it appeared. There were a number of long tapering segmented cords which dangled from the end of the arm opposite the talons, attached to a sort of rubbery ball of a pale blue color, apparently tying into the mechanics of the arm through its fleshless tube-like bones. The whole end appeared wet and sticky, with some sort of viscous liquid which coated it dripping slowly onto the floor from the dangling cords.

"This is kind of its brain.. I think" Sef said as a large part of the head fell open from the side, allowing him to remove a rough looking many faceted black trapezohedron, to which the machine's eye seemed firmly affixed. "I thought it was alive" Tal said skeptically as he looked the clearly inorganic object over while Sef climbed back down to bring it over for closer inspection. "Well maybe alive, I don't know, I don't remember anything about all of this. I remember about things like the consoles, and even some other things I.. but I don't remember these machines, I umm.. don't think we're supposed to know about them" Sef shrugged, reaching Tal and holding the 'brain' up to him. Tal knelt briefly to set down the arm and took the thing in his paw, turning it over and looking over it closely. I could make out little detail as the dark surface seemed to absorb almost all light, making the edges of the shape hard to identify except when it was turned in the wolf's paw to change its angle to the camera. "I might be able to get it working" Sef said, taking the object back from Tal and picking up two of the tools from the floor in his free paw. Tal nodded and Sef departed back down the hall, leaving Tal to pick up the machine's small severed arm once again and give it another looking over.

About that time Ker appeared from the sleeping area, carrying two bundled up blankets which looked to be at least mostly dry though still a bit damp. "We can use these" he said, carrying them over and setting them down by the food dispenser, laying one out in front of it and then beginning to make selections from its screen. "Are you sure you can do this?" Ker asked, looking over Tal with concern at his injuries. "There isn't any choice" he replied, "if the others won't go then we'll have to do it ourselves." "I mean you" Ker said with care as Tal's expression turned sour. "This doesn't change anything" he said, looking down at the arm again before turning and walking off down the hall without another word.

While the others made their preparations, Lan seemed to become increasingly concerned about what was to happen. He had walked out of the medical room once Tal had departed, and spent some time at one of the computer consoles which, though I had not observed him using one before, he seemed to understand well enough to operate. A short while later Gar arrived in the console room as well and looked around, taking stock of the destruction that had been caused. He picked up one of the discarded pink kilts and carried it over to Lan who was still working the console, and sat down on the desk next to him, dropping it in his lap. "You should keep this on" he said, as more of a command than a suggestion. Lan did not seemed eager to agree and stood up to slip it back on, which seemed to help with his shyness around the lion somewhat. "What are you looking at?" Gar asked, looking over at the screen though not seeming to make any sense of it. "Just.. looking" Lan said, folding his ears down. "It might be better if you didn't" Gar said, placing his paw over Lan's. The much smaller rabbit looked up at him and seemed to blush, quickly turning to look away and squirming about in the odd chair in which he sat. "I.. sorry but, what are we going to do?" Lan asked, keeping his gazed turned down toward the floor. "Do you think that thing has the answers?" Gar asked him, slowly withdrawing his paw. "Maybe?" said Lan questioningly as he turned back to the screen and pointed at it. "See here it says about 'ask for help' but then it just says 'consultation ready' and 'room 5', but that's all it does." As Lan spoke he poked at the console with his paw, apparently showing Gar what he meant, finally sitting back and folding his arms with a sigh as he reached the end of the series of commands. Gar seemed equally puzzled and shook his head. "We won't find any help in there" he said, "come on." And with that the two got up and left the console, returning to the waiting room where they sat down together again.

Jin had remained alone in the medical room, and was sitting down on one of the now empty beds holding his head in his paws when Tal walked back in carrying the machine's arm. Jin looked up at him, blinking in surprise as Tal set the wickedly clawed metallic limb across his lap. "I need this" said Tal, climbing up onto the other bed and laying down. "You.. what?" Jin said confused, taking the object and turning it in his paws as he looked it over. "Sef thinks it should work" Tal insisted, turning his head to look up to where Jin sat. "I.. don't even know what this is" Jin said, standing and taking it over to set it down near the sink before opening one of the side cabinets and withdrawing from it a sort of device I did not recognize. It appeared to be a small white sphere about half the size of Jin's paw, attached to a short handle along with a small screen at the opposite end. Jin turned the device so that the sphere hung downward and slowly moved it along the length of the arm while looking closely at the screen, now and then moving back over sections of the arm the sphere had previously passed, seeming to be somehow evaluating it using the strange device. Tal waited patiently, not saying any more until Jin seemed satisfied, placing the device back in the cabinet and carrying the arm back over to him. "How did he know what this was?" Jin asked, appearing quite concerned as he looked at the arm and then at Tal's shoulder where his missing arm had been. "He just knew" Tal said, "he said he couldn't remember." Jin sighed, shaking his head as he placed the arm next to Tal on the bed. "It.. might work, but it won't be the same" Jin said uncomfortably, seeming still quite hesitant about the idea. Tal nodded and took a deep breath, laying his head back and closing his eyes to prepare himself. Jin sighed again and shook his head, moving briefly to the cabinet for another small sharp pointed tool before returning to Tal and beginning to work.

XII.

Parting Ways

It was quite some time before all the preparations were finally made, Ker packing as many food items and liquid globes as he could easily manage into the two blankets, folding and rolling them up so that he could easily carry them both, while Sef worked at the 'brain' of the machine. The raccoon, fairly ingeniously I thought, had disassembled part of one of the consoles in order to attain a display screen, which he then attached using various tools from the toolkit to the protruding eye by a short length of wiring. He had then also taken a longer length of wire and wrapped it about the two objects, binding them together so that they might be carried as one, with the once again glowing red eye affixed beneath the console screen and feeding its imagery through to it. It was this clue that reminded me of one of the earlier recordings I had viewed a part of and been quite puzzled by. Once I had the time I sorted back through the recordings to find what I had previously seen, and was greatly relieved to find the strange recording I had previously skipped over had been taken from a mobile perspective through a strange red spectrum camera which seemed to reveal far more than just visible light. The sound however was quite clear to me now, it was a metallic distorted version of Sef using a whirring tool to secure the camera to the screen.

Tal had meanwhile lain as still as he could while Jin worked to slowly cut into his shoulder, allowing him to one by one, feed the tapered segmented wires deep into his flesh. Jin followed this by the placement of small bandages at the points of incision, and the offering to Tal of more pills, which he refused as he waited for the task to be completed. Astonishingly before Jin was even half way through I saw the arm begin to move. First at the wrist which started a slow turn one way and then the other, but soon progressing to opening and closing the two blade-like pincers which it had for fingers, and then up to the elbow which allowed Tal to lift the hand up and look it over, seeming to quite easily manipulate what seemed to me little more than a simple discarded metal part. Jin stepped back when he was finally finished and shook his head, seeming to almost wish he had not undertaken his task. He looked back at his work almost fearfully as Tal sat up, reaching his paw out to touch the arm which now dangled unnaturally from his left shoulder. "I.. don't know how it works," Jin said with great uncertainty, placing the tool he had been using in the sink and turning to look back at Tal again, who it seemed was quickly growing accustom to controlling the arm from the elbow down. He seemed unable to control the shoulder joint however, and the arm hung longer than his natural one, almost down to his knee if he let it fully extend, though already he seemed to favor folding it up with the wrist up to the shoulder, avoiding any potential for the sharp pointed claw-like fingers to inadvertently injure him.

Though it was quite late in the day when all the furs met at last at the collapsed front door, Tal seemed resolved to depart immediately, though he tried no more to convince the others to come with him. "I'll make a better arm for you" Jin said, looking up at Tal sorrowfully, "when you get back." "We'll be back," Tal nodded and stroked Jin's ears thanking him. "We're going to follow its tracks, if you run into trouble you should come after us" Tal said, turning to Gar who still seemed to resent the others desire to leave. "We will be fine" he said, suppressing a growl and turning away. "Take care," Sef said with a little smile he seemed to struggle with, picking up the toolkit and the machine brain and eye attached to the console screen, before stepping out the opening where the door had been into the sun. Ker soon followed, only offering a kind nod before turning to venture out into the real outside world for the first time as well. Tal was the last to leave, taking a last long look around the disheveled room and those who he was leaving behind, but at last after touching each of their shoulders with his paw, he too departed for the unknown path through the sand.

For the first few hours of their journey no one spoke, and quite unfortunately Sef never turned the camera to look back and give me a look at the outside of the building they had come from. Still, I expected the trail must have been easy enough to follow, the hulking machine likely to have been the only thing to have passed by any time in the recent past, and there had been no disturbances in the weather I had observed which would have covered its tracks. Though I could see fairly little from the recording that I could make out, from what I could tell it seemed the path was relatively straight, and led down a corridor of sunken dilapidated buildings which had perhaps at one time been a street. The deep drifts of sand showed no further sign of that from what I could tell however, and I had already guessed previously that based on what I had seen from the view at the second story window, this was in fact the great desert, a place I by now was quite familiar with, though only a small fraction of it had yet to be explored. Somewhere in the middle of that immense and desolate wasteland this must have at one time been a city of considerable size, though quite long ago judging by its state in these recordings, which were themselves seemingly made untold years ago. I could not have guessed if anything of that city or the building where I had seen these furs born had survived in any state to the present day, or if we might ever find it even if it had, but seeing these recordings did give me the hope that there was some chance, which was more than I would have ever imagined before.

After some while Sef seemed to grow bored of the silence and started up an idle conversation. "Why do you still wear that?" he asked, apparently referring to Ker's kilt, as he was the only one of the three wearing anything aside from their collars. "Always have" Ker said, with what looked like a shrug as Sef turned the camera toward him while they talked. "I'm pretty sure you won't need it out here" Sef said, seeming to take on a slightly teasing tone, though it was hard to tell through the distortion. "Why'd you take it off?" Ker asked, though not really seeming all that curious. "It feels better this way," Sef answered cheerfully. "Besides, I get to see more if you don't" he added, reaching out a paw and flipping up the front of Ker's kilt as he walked. "No time to stop now" Tal said in a rather serious tone, apparently getting the hint where the conversation was leading. "Well it is starting to get dark" Sef said with a sigh, turning the camera toward Tal. The wolf shook his head, plodding steadily through the thick loose sand. "We don't know how far we have to go" he said, keeping his focus ahead and occasionally looking down at the tracks they were following. Sef sighed again, pointing the camera up at one of the nearby crumbling buildings as he looked around. "What do you think all this was before?" he asked as the camera panned across a building that seemed to have been several stories tall, which had partially collapsed on one corner and was now half buried in a drift of sand. The design seemed fairly common and squarely built of those structures discovered from the time before, even though I could not have guessed its exact age as the state of decay seemed quite severe. "All empty now," Ker said as they walked between the ruined structures. It was true enough I thought, not a thing living could have survived in an area like that for any amount of time, which did not sit well with me as I considered that even with a generous supply of food, this environment would prove quite harsh for any prolonged period of time.

Before much longer the light had vanished almost completely, and even the sensitive view through the camera of the machine's eye started to dim. "We need to rest" Sef said, and finally Tal agreed, the three furs taking shelter in one of the abandoned buildings to sleep. They ate a little food in silence though each seemed quite interested by what must have been a highly decorative space at one time. I estimated that they must have stepped into an upper floor of a building through a large window, with an unknown number of floors below them down to where the original ground level would have been before the sand took them. This floor however was cluttered with what looked through the camera to be the frames of many pieces of furniture, their padded coverings eaten away by time and exposure to the elements. There were also a number of strange plant-like structures which I judged to be decorative in nature, as clearly no such living plant could have survived in this desert without a constant source of water. The walls though were the most interesting, clearly having been arrayed in reflective and colorful patternless designs, which all including myself found rather fascinating, though my own view was limited by the spectrum of the camera. When the three furs had finished eating they looked around for a place to sleep. Sand was everywhere and so they resolved to climb to a higher floor in an attempt to escape it. There was fortunately in the building a large central staircase, along with a row of what looked like elevator doors, though I couldn't be sure. As the three climbed it surprised me that they did not only climb to the next available floor, but kept going until they had taken the stairway all the way to the top. The top floor seemed to me not unlike the others, except that its furniture and decorations were in a much less dilapidated state, some of its rugs and sofas possibly even suitable for sleeping on, but Tal did not want to stop here. He searched around a while, eventually finding a sort of closet with a locked door which he forced open by tearing through the handle with his mechanical claws. Inside he found a ladder, and climbed with some difficulty up to the roof of the building, from which he could look out above all the others nearby structures, and see up once again into the clear night sky. Sef and Ker worked their way up after him, and the three furs laid out one of their blankets to sleep upon together as they gazed up at the starry sky.

"They must be so far" Tal said laying on his back to gaze up at the moon and stars, his one paw resting behind his head and his mechanical arm folded up against his body. "I guess so?" Sef answered back questioningly as he snuggled up against Tal and looked up as well. "Lucky we don't have to go that far" Ker said as he laid himself out on the blanket beside Tal with Sef between them. "I think we do" said Tal, sounding far away like he had on that stormy night in the lightning and the thunder. "The sun hides it all in the day, but it's always out there, that black space between tiny points of light. Someday we'll go there, out in the dark." "I like the sun" Ker said with a yawn, stretching his huge arms and shifting about to get more comfortable. As the three of them drifted off to sleep not a sound could be heard and all through the night the camera showed nothing but an image of near perfect stillness.

XIII.

Left Behind

As Jin watched the departure he sniffed and wiped a paw across his face, looking after the others long after their disappearance from view. Gar as I expected returned to the waiting room once again, though Lan did not go with him this time and instead sat back down in the chair next to the computer console, resuming his investigation to busy himself for a time. "They will come back won't they?" Lan asked after a long while, turning to look out of the broken hole where the door had been. "I don't know" said Jin, finally turning away from looking out and approaching Lan at the console. "Do you have any ideas about this?" Lan asked, turning back to the console and pointing out something on its screen. "How did you get to that?" Jin replied, tilting his head and leaning in closer to the console. Lan seemed to try and explain it to him, pointing at the screen several times to indicate a series of choices, and eventually leading back to what apparently he had found, Jin seeming to grow increasingly interested as he did so. "And then it gets here, see?" Lan said, pointing to the screen again. "Have you tried it?" Jin asked, almost sounding excited. "Yeah, but it gives these weird messages, see? I don't get it."

Jin looked up from the screen, peering around the room and then stepping away from the console, looking along the far wall where the isolated glass walled rooms stood with their brightly colored consoles sitting idle and unused. "Number five?" Jin asked to be sure as he counted down the row of rooms from the front to the back of the wall. "Umm.. yeah" said Lan, noticing what Jin was doing and getting up to join him. The pair moved together to the last of the small rooms in the back corner and the glass door slid open allowing them to step inside. Their conversation could no longer be heard by the camera, but they looked over the console with great curiosity, more so than they had the one on the large desk in the main room. Though the consoles superficially appeared identical, I knew from my own experience with computers that one might be quite different from another in its programming, even if outward appearances were similar. They spent a considerable amount of time in the room, each one pointing at the screen at times as they talked back and forth. Eventually they seemed to reach an impasse and got up together to leave, returning back to the main part of the room. "Do you think there is one here someplace?" Lan asked as he smoothed down the front of his clearly bulging kilt. "Maybe.. where else?" Jin answered, checking the large console desk and brushing some of the ceiling debris from its surface. "Well, even if there is I'm not sure we should," said Lan nervously, "I don't think he will like it." Jin tilted his head confused and walked to the door with the stairs at the back of the room. "Maybe up here?" he suggested, taking a few steps up and looking back at Lan. "You know we aren't supposed to" said the bunny as he squirmed in place. "I don't know anymore" Jin said, stepping back down the stairs seeming impatient, "but we're stuck here and I want to figure this out." Lan nodded and finally began to follow, Jin leading the way up the stairs to the second floor.

When the two arrived at the top of the steps together they began searching, much as the others had done when they had first managed to get the doors open. Jin and Lan however seemed to be looking for something very specific, taking no interest in the papers, or the many strangely shaped objects placed on the large number of small desks separated by low cloth covered walls. Instead they searched more thoroughly under desks and within drawers, though it seemed whatever they were looking for was not present as they continued from one desk to another, and eventually from one room to another. After much searching just when I thought it likely their effort was being wasted, Jin happened upon an object hanging from a hook that had been attached to one of the small cloth walls. The object was small and rectangular, almost as thin as a piece of paper from what I could tell but clearly solid and inflexible. It hung from a long loop of flat cloth cord which had been hung over the hook when Jin found it. Grasping it in his paw, Jin held it up triumphantly and called out to Lan before hurrying back out of the room with it and down the stairs. The pair wasted no time getting back into the glass room, and with the door closed behind them Jin seemed to insert the dangling object part way into a slot beside the screen of the console, continuing to interact with the screen once it was in place, apparently having bypassed whatever impediment they had encountered.

It was a long time before the pair emerged again, both seeming strangely aroused by the experience, causing Lan to fold his ears down showing embarrassment while Jin grinned at him and suggestively rubbed up against the bunny. "Let's get this out of the way" Jin suggested, tugging at the bunny's kilt. "Umm, but he said we shouldn't" Lan nearly whimpered, his legs pressing together as Jin licked his lips. "He doesn't like this?" Jin murred as he slid his paws down along his own nude form and began to stroke his own growing length. Lan didn't answer, but Jin turned the bunny by his shoulders to face him and gently pressed him down to his knees. "Do you like this?" he asked in a lustful tone, pressing the tip of his shaft to the bunny's mouth which opened without resistance, allowing him to begin thrusting. It wasn't long before Jin had worked up to an impressive pace pace and was moaning softly with each breath, his head tilted back as his paws stroked along the white bunny's long ears. Lan, apparently unable to help himself, had a paw working rapidly under his kilt as his head bobbed back and forth, taking the fox's length in his mouth all the way down to the knot. The two must have been so excited by what they had seen in the small room that they both finished relatively quickly, Jin pulling back as he climaxed and soaking Lan's face and chest, while he too leaned back and rocked his hips along with the movement of his paw, lifting his kilt as he reached orgasm with his length held upward to add to the mess that had already been made of his well soaked fur. Lan collapsed down at the floor on his back when he was finished, and Jin stood over him smiling, lazily rubbing himself as he enjoyed the sight. "I think you need a shower" teased Jin with a playful swish of his tail. Jin nodded and slowly stood back up, smoothing his kilt down with his paws as much as the short length would allow, and following the fox back toward the sleeping room.

As the two passed through the waiting room Gar eyed them with scrutiny, emitting only a soft growl as they quickly hurried by. "He kind of thinks this is our fault" said Lan, looking back over his shoulder as they reached the hall beyond the waiting room. "It kind of is" Jen smiled, leaning in to lick the bunny's nose. "Not this" Lan whimpered, turning his face away, "the umm, thing, the machine, being left here alone, everything." Jin seemed to consider this for a moment as they walked, looking over the partly destroyed hallway and the debris littered about the previously pristine floor. "I don't know" he said at last as they passed by the door to the small courtyard. "It could be, but no one was here even at first, and I don't know how they could have known before even coming to check on us." "Maybe" Lan nodded, looking down at his footpaws with a sigh. "It will be ok" Jin said, bumping his shoulder against Lan's, "once they're ready things will be different, and there won't be a whole lot he can say about it either." Lan held his paw over his mouth and giggled softly. "Won't he be surprised?" the bunny said, seeming quite pleased at the idea. "I'm sure they all will, once they get back" Jin answered as the two entered the cafeteria and began tenuously making their way over to the machine's body, which was still lodged in the doorway between the cafeteria and the sleeping area.

Jin and Lan showered together without much more being said between them, and subsequently ate dinner along with Gar, soon again finding the need to sleep. They opted to return to the wide sofas of the waiting room again, though this time they withdrew some of the blankets and cushions from the sleeping area, and used a few of the drier ones to help make their bedding more comfortable. The night time passed without further incident, although early in the morning before the sun came up, the sounds of distant thunder returned, and the wind spread sand across the floor of the console room, warning of a possibly less than temperate day ahead.

XIV.

Ghosts in the Ruins

I could barely identify the sunrise the next day through the camera that had been the glaring red eye of the monstrous machine, but the movement and voices alerted me that it must have been growing light outside. Tal it seemed for all his injuries and grim determination had lost none of his lustfulness, as some of the first sounds I heard I easily identified as his soft moans of passion, the three furs apparently having started their day in much the same way that they had each morning that had afforded them the opportunity since the first day they had emerged from the vats of liquid in which they had grown. Though I could not observe the display, the knowledge that it was taking place at all under such circumstances suggested to me that even in the face of tremendous uncertainty, insatiable sexual desire was such a driving need of their existence that it had to be sated even under the most trying of circumstances.

Once the three had apparently finished, signaled by their pants and heavy moans eventually tapering off, the camera was picked up and moved to a more convenient position where I was able to observe the three furs eating a small amount and packing their meager supplies up, before withdrawing from the empty and partially collapsed building and returning to the trail. On reemerging into the outside however, it appeared the day ahead would not be so easy. "Where's the trail?" Ker asked as he stepped back out onto the sand and looked around. Though I could hardly tell, the shift in the sands from wind in the night I had observed from the camera inside the console room must have passed this way as well, most likely covering any tracks the machine had made as it traveled from wherever it had come. Tal searched around the area, even climbing back up several floors inside the still building in which they had slept and looking out over the sand, but he made no mention of seeing any sign of the trail, making me wonder if they would have to turn back. "There could be another way," Sef suggested as he walked over to meet the wolf when he reached the bottom most floor of the building he had been looking out from. "What do you mean?" Tal asked, apparently quite interested by his tone. "Well this thing had to find us somehow" Sef said holding up the camera, "If I can figure out how, or see where it went, maybe we can figure it out that way." "How long will that take" Ker asked, walking over to Sef as well. "Not sure" Sef said, turning the camera about and looking at the surrounding area. "I'll need a few things though," Sef said after a moment of consideration, "tools, wires, any sort of parts I could maybe use, if you think we should." Tal and Ker agreed, and the three furs returned to where they had slept, setting down their supplies and beginning to investigate the nearby buildings, though fortunately Sef kept the camera with him as he looked, apparently using it for reference as he looked around for things he might need.

I was quite interested by what the three furs might find as they thoroughly investigated the old ruins. Many of the buildings nearby seemed smaller generally than those they had passed earlier in their journey, but they were also much less damaged overall, many seeming to be in a partially buried yet almost entirely undisturbed state. The only fur I could observe however was Sef as the three spread out, each one searching a different set of nearby buildings for the parts Sef had suggested. The sensitive camera unfortunately was of very little help as it passed over objects within the buildings which Sef with some effort sometimes partially dug out of the sand before deciding whether they were worth collecting. More than a few things managed to catch his interest, and between the three of them they soon had amassed a fairly large pile of miscellaneous odds and ends, mostly metallic looking with short thin cables ending in multipronged plugs dragging behind them. Sef eventually stopped searching and instead sat down with the toolkit he had brought, beginning to disassemble some of the objects, discarding their outer casings and laying out their inner electronic parts on a relatively sand fee part of the floor of the building in which they had slept. It was a somewhat unsettling thing to watch as the things belonging to those who must have once lived in this place, which they must have used and depended on, were now reduced to a stripped pile of spare parts to be cannibalized. This went on for several hours, the only sound being the clanking of metal parts and the humming and buzzing of tools, though at times I imagined other sounds of similar sorts, echoing in the distance as if in answer from far away.

My suspicions were confirmed when once as I thought I had heard another sound quite clearly, Sef paused and perked his ears to listen as well, his tools growing silent and letting me hear the rumble and clanking of some unknown metallic motion from somewhere farther off. "Did you hear that?" Tal called as he returned to the pile, carrying a large tubular casing, his robotic arm helping to bare some of the weight as he walked awkwardly back with it. "Yeah" Sef said, turning back to ripping the circuitry out of the device in his paws. "This isn't safe anymore, we need to get going" Tal said, dropping the object he was carrying next to the pile. "It isn't ready" Sef said, looking over the collection of disassembled parts he had amassed. "Keep working then" Tal said with a nod of his head in a direction that must have been toward the source of the strange sounds, "I'll go and look." With that he headed off, meeting up with Ker who was on his way back as well. The stallion turned and went with Tal along down another row of buildings, then around the corner and out of sight.

Sef worked feverishly, stripping objects for parts, setting each one in a smaller pile and then going through pile by pile, disassembling the parts further and beginning to combine them together, starting from an intricate square plate upon which was a pattern the camera's colored display was unfortunately unable to reproduce in much detail. The plate was apparently quite important however, as one by one small parts of varying sorts were added to it, along with bits of wiring and small blocks and coils I had no knowledge of, all seeming somewhat haphazardly to fit together into whatever it was the raccoon was making. At last when he seemed finished, walking around his creation and looking at it from different angles to make sure he was pleased with it, he then lifted up the camera and the screen went dark. It was only for a moment, but I could tell the device was in a different position when it had been reactivated, and judging by the position of the sun several more hours must have passed in the meantime. Tal and Ker were back now as well, and were talking about what they had seen, though the conversation ended soon after as Sef spoke up about the device being ready. The picture seemed if anything to have lost quality now, but had a more colorful view, illuminating different gradients of green and blue as well as red and yellow as the forms of each of the furs passed in front of it. Strangely I could see Tal's machine arm, but not Ker's kilt if he was still wearing it. The world beyond too seemed hard to see, being mostly drawn on the screen only in outline or as a light static indicating where there was an object nearby.

This did not seem to be much of an improvement to me, however some useful information must have been gained in the intervening hours as the three soon set out again, their supplies once again packed up and prepared. The remainder of the discarded parts were left behind as they once again resumed the path that seemed to follow the direction they had gone the day before, leading further down the wide gap between rows of sand covered buildings and eventually out into the seemingly endless desert beyond. "What do you think it was?" Sef asked as they walked, having apparently witnessed something in the stored memory of the machine of which I was unfortunately unaware, as the recording of any previous activities of the machine was sadly missing from those listed among those recordings I had available to me. "We'll find out" Ker said, surprisingly seeming quite disturbed as he continued plodding along. "It didn't look right, not.. like us" Sef said, seeming transfixed on the subject. "No use worrying about it now" Tal said gruffly "we just.." But then he was cut off as a horrendous screeching sound erupted, causing Sef to drop the camera which turned facing upward to show all three of the furs covering their ears with their paws as best they could, Tal unfortunately unable to do so effectively. It subsided before long, but was followed by a series of metallic crashes and clangs which went on for a considerable amount of time, long enough that Sef recovered the camera and the three resumed their course before the ominous commotion finally came to an abrupt end. None of the three of them said a word about it, which I thought exceedingly curious, but took to mean that apparently they had discovered more about what could have made those sounds during the time the recording had been stopped. The journey continued on however, if anything at a somewhat brisker pace, and soon the three were facing the open desert, the buildings having faded away. All that could be seen forward along the horizon now were the endless dunes, spotted here and there by piles of windswept stone.

XV.

Better Off

Gar woke earliest in the morning, as was his way, and looked over the two sleeping furs on the sofa beside him, his arousal already clearly getting the better of him as his kilt began to bulge. He stood up from where he lay though, and slowly crept down the long hallway toward the console room, his ears perked as he listened to the howl of the wind blowing in from outside through the hole which had been the front door. He held his paw up to his face as he stepped into the room, looking over it with squinted eyes into the blustering wind blowing in through the early morning light. He kicked at the sand which had piled up along the wall and turned away, returning back down the hall and past the medical room, returning again to the large waiting room in which the other two furs still slept. He watched over them for a long while, pacing back and forth across the front of the room between the two doors to the hallways leading in opposite directions. It seemed he was considering something, though what exactly I could not guess unless it were how to use the pair of furs he seemed to be eying hungrily. It must have been more than that though I thought, the strong lion having hardly delayed to act on his desires at all on previous mornings. When at last he seemed to make up his mind, he approached the two sleeping furs and woke them, wordlessly placing Jin down onto the floor in front of him as he himself sat on the edge of the curved sofa and pulled Lan into his lap, facing away from him and toward the kneeling fox. The still groggy bunny squirmed sleepily and stretched his arms, but Gar kept a tight hold on him, and soon lifted his kilt to thrust his already fully aroused length up under the bunny's tail. Lan yelped and opened his eyes wide, suddenly quite awake as Gar began to bounce the bunny's body in his lap, quickly causing his arousal to build right in front of the fox's muzzle as he licked his lips in anticipation. Jin soon added his tongue to the rabbit's pleasure, licking along his bulging sheath as his body rocked in the lion's lap, causing a series of short gasps as his excitement quickly built.

I had become a bit desensitized to this I realized as I casually watched the three furs writhing together with pleasure. How many times so far had I viewed a similar scene in these recordings, and how much critical information was being lost by these furs who spent so much of their time devoted to this rather than facing the many difficulties and mysteries which their short lives had thus far entailed. I then considered the modern world however, and that, though most of us lead quite easy and uneventful lives by comparison, we too devote such an inordinate amount of time and energy to such similar pursuits that I felt somewhat guilty for having such thoughts. My own mate would be waiting for me at home once all this was over, and such a lustful union would no doubt would be one of the first things I did upon being reunited with her, especially after what an expedition this had been, though after what we had discovered I doubted very much that it would be my last. And so we had not changed at all so much, I considered as I sighed and continued to watch, this was simply how we were, though I had never thought long on the subject in the past. Little did I know then, that the reasons for this were far more simple and sickening than I could have ever imagined.

As I continued to watch, Lan was quickly pushed toward orgasm, his eyes closed tightly and his back arched as the lion held him by the hips and pounded the bunny's smaller body down against himself. When he finally climaxed he cried out in pleasure and completely soaked the fox's face, and tongue which was still lapping steadily along the bunny's sensitive flesh as the lion slowly released him and allowed him a brief rest. "Your turn" the lion growled lustfully as he helped Lan down to the floor and took Jin by the arm, pulling him up to take the bunny's place in his lap over his still throbbing feline length. Jin needed little encouragement as his naked form moved into position, immediately sinking down to meet the lion's hips with a moan as his own eager shaft began emerging from his full bulging sheath. Jin lasted considerably longer as Lan knelt between his legs expectantly, returning the same treatment with his tongue to the fox, lapping up and down the vulpine's knotted shaft. Eventually this treatment became too much for Jin as well, his panting moans growing rapid and frantic as finally he too reached orgasm, coating the bunny's face and chest with a sticky mess as he knelt before him, obviously enjoying himself judging by his own quickly recovering arousal. Gar had the two switch places twice more, showing incredible stamina as he used the two smaller furs' bodies, before finally showing signs of tiring and after Jin's next climax and placing both of the well soaked furs on the floor. With the two of them kneeling at his footpaws as he rose from the sofa and stroked his feline shaft in his paw, letting the two of them press their muzzles together at its tip when finally he roared in ecstasy, splattering the two of them with his own huge amount of cum which further soaked their fur. Once the lion had finally finished he sat back down, seeming quite satisfied as with a wave of his paw he told directed other two furs to go to the shower and get themselves cleaned up. "And be dressed when you come back" he added to Jin, who was still completely nude as he turned to wander off and get clean. "And be ready for more when you get back" the lion half growled more softly, lounging back against the sofa and rubbing a paw slowly over his sheath under his kilt.

"That was.. really something," Lan murmured as he made his way over the wreckage of the machine and slipped off his short pink kilt before beginning to paw at the controls of the shower. "Yeah, maybe this isn't so bad" Jin said with a playful giggle as he followed, and soon had the steam rising from the next shower over from the white bunny. "Do you think things are better.. like this?" Lan asked nervously, seeming somewhat unsure how to ask his question. "Better than being out there" Jin answered with a nod, taking some of the soapy looking liquid from an attachment on the wall and starting to massage it into his fur. "And that thing we did yesterday, well, I really think that's the answer," Jin added, clearly enjoying the thought as he murred to himself. "Do you think it will take much longer?" Lan asked, likewise washing himself under the hot steaming water. "Well we can't exactly go and check" Jin said, washing his ears. "I guess we just have to wait and see, unless maybe that console might tell us something." Lan shook his head, seeming to grow slightly nervous. "I don't think he would like it if we went to look" he said softly, the bunny finishing his brief washing and shaking himself off as he picked up his short pink kilt and put it back on. "We'll figure something out" Jin said confidently, as he too turned off the water and started to make his way out of the room. "Wait, you need one of these" Lan said, looking around the floor of the disheveled room for one of the discarded kilts. "I don't think he'll really mind" Jin said, flashing the underside of his tail as he lifted it and wiggled his hips suggestively back at the bunny. Lan shook his head and followed, clambering over the broken form of the collapsed robot as he tried to keep up.

When the pair of furs returned to Gar they most likely expected to eat breakfast, however Gar it seemed had something else in mind as he laid out one of the blankets near the spot on the sofa where he most usually sat, and instructed the two smaller furs to approach him and kneel down before him while he waited. Lan and Jin looked back and forth at each other for a moment, apparently finding this as odd as I did as I watched, but they soon obeyed, taking their places side by side on their knees on the blanket, looking up at the lion expectantly. "You forgot something" growled Gar as he looked up and down Jin's still naked form. Jin bit his lip and looked over at Lan, who was giving him a rather uncomfortable look back as Gar sat up and pulled Jin up by the collar until he was very close to his face. "I'll have to teach you to do as you're told" Gar said, releasing the collar and turning Jin around before pushing him face first down onto the blanket with his rear end upturned as he lay next to Lan. He then stood and yanked up Jin's tail sharply, but instead of mounting him as Jin seemed to expect, he brought his free paw down and spanked Jin hard on the rear, causing a startled yelp from the surprised fox. Lan folded his ears down and trembled but did not move, while Jin cried out painfully at each slap from the lion's paw, which continued to fall in rapid succession as Jin lay helplessly at the lion's footpaws. I did not keep count, but after quite some time Gar slowed and eventually stopped his paw swinging, and moved over to Lan as Jin still lay panting and looking up at him with a whimper. All three of the furs I had noticed through all of this, had again become quite aroused, which I found curious as Gar leaned down by the bunny's ear and instructed him to turn around. Lan gulped but obeyed without question as he slowly turned himself around on all fours, looking back over his shoulder at the lion worriedly. "Good boy" Gar said as he sank to his knees, lifting his kilt out of the way to reveal his arousal and thrusting hard forward as he mounted the bunny.

Lan came to a moaning climax two more times while Jin looked on without moving from his position, though the fox was clearly still highly aroused by the situation and unable to do anything about it for fear of what Gar might do. Instead he simply watched as the powerful lion continued a constant pace of hard thrusting, which eventually ended in his own climax as he leaned in and bit down on Lan's shoulder, growling dominantly. After a brief recovery Gar stood up and instructed Lan to retrieve them something to eat from the food dispenser, along with something for Jin to wear. Jin however was subjected to another round of slaps to his upturned rear, after which he was made to hold his position until Lan returned, even keeping his head down to the floor, with his rear upturned and his tail lifted when Lan gave him one of the oblong food items from the dispenser. The nervous fox whimpered softly as he nibbled at it, his tail shaking slightly as Gar looked on with a smile while consuming his own breakfast. Whether the two really were better off now seemed to be somewhat more debatable I thought, as Gar finished with his food and took the extra pink kilt Lan had brought back from the sleeping area. "Now are you ready to put this on?" Gar asked enticingly, holding the short kilt up and dangling it from his claws. "Yes please," Jin said with a trembling voice, keeping his body quite still. "Put it on then" said Gar as he dropped the lewd article of clothing over the fox's muzzle, "but don't get up." Jin nodded and squirmed about comically, wiggling his footpaws into the kilt and slowly working it up his legs and over his hips, leaving him still perfectly exposed in his present position. "Now what else do you want?" purred the feline as his paw moved between the fox's legs, pushing them open wider and slowly tracing down the length of his throbbing shaft. "Please" Jin whimpered, slowly rocking his hips at the lion's touch. Gar smiled and got into position. "Much better," he said with another purr as he lifted his own kilt and mounted the waiting fox.

XVI.

The Road to Nowhere

Through the modified eye of the destroyed machine the view changed very little as the next few hours passed. I often could not tell if anything at all was occurring, except by the sounds of breathing as the three furs panted in the desert heat while they trudged ever forward, backtracking along the path taken by the machine from wherever it had come. "Are you sure this is the way?" Tal asked, walking in front of the camera up onto the crest of a nearby dune and placing his paw to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the sun as he peered out over the endless desert. "I.. think so" Sef replied nervously, the raccoon shaking the device in his paws, causing the view to rock violently back and forth for a time. "We don't want to be out here by nightfall" Tal said, stepping down from the dune and over to Sef. "We won't.. I mean, we shouldn't. The machine didn't take very long to get to us, and it didn't look like it could move very fast. I think we'll get there soon." Sef turned the camera around as he spoke, showing that the last of the buildings had faded from view, leaving the three furs completely surrounded by nothing but rocks and sand. "We should be able to see it by now then" Tal grumbled, and with a sigh began walking once more. "We'll get there" said Ker reassuringly as he adjusted the bundle he was carrying and continued on along the trail.

Things were looking rather bleak as the trail continued to lead seemingly nowhere, the desert sand I knew well rising up on all sides and rolling off into the distance like an open sea of brown and gold, its rippling dunes frozen as if in a picture as the present lack of wind having left them to their stand in pristine stillness. Eventually as the light seemed to begin to fade from the sky, I was able to see something rise up in the distance ahead. It was hard to make out at first, the strange color spectrum of the camera once again turning to bright shades of colors not at all reflective of the natural world. It seemed though that this coloration was not a random error, but another spectrum of visualization which conveyed information a normal eye could not see. The shape ahead rising up looked like a set of hovering blocks, linked together by squared bits of piping, which from their look could not have supported the sizable structure as it rose up from the ground quite a great distance I estimated, though the camera was still quite far off from it. It was the hazy static outline that eventually tipped me off as to the nature of the thing I saw once the camera had been carried somewhat nearer. The outline told of a shape far larger and foreboding than the simple blocks. It was a stone cliff, rising high up from the sandy dunes below and stretching out for miles along the horizon, telling of something eerily familiar and altogether unsettling. The cliff I finally realized, was the very cliff my expedition had taken refuge in, and the shapes seen through the rock face on the recording of the machine eye were the very industrial caverns we had discovered, and in which I now sat.

This realization had me notify my colleagues again, who verified my observations based on their own separate exploration of the greater part of the facility and its various tunneled halls and metal reinforced caverns. Each passing step drew the three furs closer, and I shuddered at what I knew they must find, taking a look again at the strange skeletal remains that lay about me. I was helpless to do anything but watch however, as the cliff loomed ever closer and the three were drawn directly toward the entrance which stood open to them as it had to us. "Is that it?" Tal asked as they approached the yawning cavernous doorway leading into the side of the sheer cliff. Sef must have nodded, as he said nothing in response, but Tal turned and continued onward, taking those last few steps toward the entrance to the cave, peering inside into the relative darkness out of the fading light of the desert sun. "Should we go in?" Ker asked, looking too in through the doorway as well at the metallic interior, which I noticed now was more than large enough to have housed the defeated machine. "We came all this way" answered Tal, and with that he stepped inside, the others following along close behind.

Though the camera's view was very poor it was easy to recognize the place as they first entered. The landing was a large grated floor, which at that time had been largely kept clean with the sand intruding only a short way into the large room. The interior lighting I noted must have been turned on, as the camera sometimes tilted upwards to show luminous multicolored spheres which I imagined most have been indications of simple glowing lights to a normal eye. Just as when we had entered, there seemed nothing significant about the place, though the active state of the lights indicated to me as I suspected that at this time the facility must have been in use. As I was considering this a loud reverberating sound coursed through the cavern and the lighting suddenly went dark. Sef quickly wheeled around with the camera, pointing it toward the large metal door as it swiftly dropped behind them, sealing the three furs in the room.

XVII.

Generations

After Gar had finished with the fox and was once again luxuriating on the curved sofa with the two smaller males in their pink kilts kneeling on the blanket before him, some strange sounds began to be heard from somewhere deeper inside the building. At first it sounded like a sloshing, as if water was being poured out and running down the drain. Gar perked his ears and sat up, and the two smaller males followed his example, looking around the cylindrical room with puzzled expressions. "Let's check the showers" Gar said, padding off through the hallway and climbing over the remains of the machine to attempt to track down the source of the strange noises. The three furs returned soon after however, apparently having found nothing of interest, though the sound occurred a few more times while others also began, some of which were strange and mechanical, and drew panicked looks from the three furs who searched all around, including a brief look outside the front door, though from what I could gather the sound was most prominent near the waiting room. Behind Gar's back I noticed Jin and Lan once or twice exchange a look which puzzled me, but I didn't catch its meaning until the first time a voice was heard. The voice made all three of the furs gasp and gather closely together, listening with the utmost intensity as the sound was soon heard again. The soft sound was a high pitched cry as if in pain, but the three furs stood motionless only listening to the sound as it seemed to escalate and grow louder, the length and frequency of the cries increasing until suddenly they stopped, replaced by nothing except the mechanical noises and a sound of running water which continued in the background.

Then the door at the back of the room opened suddenly, turning all three pairs of eyes to look as a figure slowly stepped forth, its short fur soft and shimmering as it stepped through the round doorway which immediately closed once again and locked itself. I must admit that I must have been just as astonished as the three furs were at the sight, even though two of them I now realized would have known exactly what to expect. There in the room now stood the lithe and alluring form of a tawny smiling feline, a lioness. She tilted her head to the side and pushed her hip out in the same direction, sliding a paw down her chest and resting it against her thigh with her elbow cocked out and a confident smile on her face as she stared down the three males, who were staring up wide eyed at her from the center of the room. Besides the collar about her neck she wore only three short wide strips of pink cloth, two hanging down from a cord around her upper chest to drape down half way over her ample breasts, while the third was hung from a cord about her waist, and provided a barely modest loincloth significantly shorter than the kilts of the males. Exuding intoxicating confidence the female relaxed her arm and slid the paw down from her thigh, letting the shifting weight carry her forward as she took one slow alluring step after another, swaying her hips expertly as she walked directly up to Gar. Wordlessly she lifted a paw as she approached, stopping with her nose inches from his and caressing down along his fluffy mane with a gentle touch that moved over his ear and down around his neck to trace finally along the center of his chest down to the waistband of his kilt. She then looked down and back up his body and gave him a quick wink, and with that slowly turned her back to him and wandered over to the nearby sofa where he had been sitting, reclining back against the soft cushions to wait, just as he had done on his first day.

"Umm.. surprise?" Jin said nervously, looking up at the stunned lion. Gar blinked and shook his head before turning down to glare at the smaller fox. "You.. you did this?" Gar asked in disbelief, looking back and forth between the fox and bunny, both of which were now smiling up at him nervously. "How?" he asked, still in shock as he looked back and forth between the two of them. "Umm, I'll show you" the fox said, turning toward the hallway leading toward the console room. "Have I missed something?" the lioness said, lifting her head and looking up expectantly at the conversing males. "Umm.. later" Gar said to Jin, turning instead to approach the lounging lioness. It was then that the door opened again, this time revealing a roan mare, her tiny strips of cloth barely noticeable except for their bright color against her impressive frame. Her feminine figure overly accentuated her size, her wide shapely hips and oversized breasts barely allowing her sensitive bits to remain covered as she too took her first steps into the room and found her way to a seat on one of the sofas, tucking her legs up next to herself and looking over those already present appreciatively.

The new arrival had given Gar pause, but he soon managed to resume his course, approaching the feline female and taking a seat at her side. They began speaking quietly together, in voices so soft the camera could not make them out, but I could tell they were getting on well as they soon became entangled, their two bodies rubbing against one another as each of their paws roamed across the other's form. "I guess he isn't mad," Lan said to Jin softly with a little giggle as he looked over the pair of lions. Jin nodded and the two smaller males went together over to the recently emerged mare, greeting her politely and offering her a gentle snuggle, to which she offered no objection as the two males delightfully enjoyed curling up together with her.

The females continued emerging from the door one by one as their processing completed, each one wearing the same brief articles of clothing as she took a seat and was welcomed in turn by Lan and Jin. Gar was far too busy getting to know the new lioness and was too distracted to acknowledge any of the following arrivals, though I had no doubt he would take the time to later. There were six in all, clearly deliberately matched to the species of each of the males who still lived. The last to emerge as I might have expected was a brilliantly white female wolf, who strode through the door with such an air about her that I myself could do nothing but stare for a long while. Her eyes were a deep engaging blue, and though she only nodded and smiled as Lan and Jin greeted her, the way she carried herself seemed as if her footpaws never touched the floor. Had I realized then who she was I might have called to my colleagues to help verify my story, but as it was I just stared, and watched as she stood rather than sitting, taking note of the damage to the structure with a look of concern on her face that felt painful even to me as I looked at her recorded image through the display. Then unprompted, she shook her head gracefully and lifted her paws to remove what little cloth there was covering her perfect white body, and made her way to explore the damaged hallways. Catching a glint of sunlight from the reflective sand strewn floor of the console room, she followed it to along to the opening in the wall that had been the front door, where she walked to take her first step outside and look up at the open sky.

XVIII.

End of the Road

A harsh grating voice crackled through an old speaker from somewhere in the darkened cavernous room, which I had switched to viewing from one of its interior cameras to get a much better view than through the mechanical eye Sef was still carrying. From the position of the camera high on the wall I could see that the room was not entirely dark, but had simply had the light cut off from outside when the large outer door had slammed shut. Now only a few high hung flood lights illuminated the large space, leaving the three furs blinking in as their eyes adjusted to the relative darkness. They tried looking up all around to see where the voice had come from, but seemed to have no luck as they crowded together in the center of the room with looks of great uncertainty. "Ah told ya ther' dumb," the voice said in nauseating accent. "Ah'm gonna suck th' air outta thar an' we'll be rid a this lot an only haf ta worry 'bout those uns back at the breedin' house." "Fine, I'll be up there in a moment, just don't fuck this up" came another voice, which sounded much more precise and controlled. "Ya I won't, an fuck you too" the first voice replied, followed by a harsh hissing sound which began softly at first but quickly grew louder until it drowned out the sounds of breathing from the three trapped furs.

"What do we do?" Sef asked, frantically turning about and looking around the room with his camera. Ker ran back to the huge outer door and tried to force it open, but was unable to make any progress, the huge mechanical wheels I had seen on my way in no doubt holding the sliding door firmly in place. Tal looked around as well, but saw nothing of immediate use, turning instead to the inner door which led to the control room. At first he pulled the handle and pounded his clenched paw against it, but found the heavy metal door completely solid and unmovable. Then he tried his mechanical arm, the sharp talons opening and closing threateningly as he used his paw to help lift and position them at the protruding hinges which held the door in place. To my surprise the scavenged machine arm seemed to cut through the metal hinge with ease, however the door did not budge, most likely being bolted in some way from the inside. Tal next cut off the metal door handle, causing his fur to blow back as air came rushing into the room through the broken seal. Ker and Sef seeing this both approached, discarding all they had been carrying and anxiously trying to help, but the only hope seemed to be Tal's arm the sharp bladed claws, which ripped and tore at the surface of the door. Eventually they were able to reach slightly inside through the hole where the door handle had been, grabbing and cutting through the door's inner mechanism. Eventually this effort paid off and the seal on the door broke entirely, allowing it to swing open by its remaining lower hinge, the lock by now completely cut through as Tal carefully pulled his robotic arm free of its internal workings and the three of them breathed long deep breaths of refreshing air as they stepped through the doorway and into the control room.

On entering the room the three furs stopped, startled by the presence of two odd looking furless pink creatures wearing heavy orange body suits. "Holy shit! Get them out of here!" cried a voice from the smaller of the two creatures as it hopped back fearfully against the wall opposite the door. "Sit!" called the other much larger one, which stood up from the very console I was now watching the image through, waving its arms over its head. The three furs immediately sat down in place, the expressions on their faces seeming to clearly show that they were just as puzzled as I was as to why they had just done so. "See?" the larger creature said turning back to the other, "dumb." "Just get rid of them" the smaller creature responded spitefully in the concise voice I recognized from before, while slowly creeping along the edge of the wall away from the three furs. The larger creature picked up a long, wicked looking tool and approached Tal who sat closest, the wolf getting up onto his knees and growling at the creature's approach. "Ye shut up an' get outta here ya filthy slut" the creature said cruelly, giving Tal a push backward with the end of the tool. "Bet yer even wet under the tail right now ain't ya? That's a little something they add ta make sure yer ready any time someone wants ta have ther way with ya. Becha want me ta bend ya over an shove my fat cock up yer bitch ass right now. Well it ain't gonna happen, 'cause I aint one of them sick fucks who get off on screwin' a dog, not specially one's not even a female bitch, now get on outta here."

Tal growled and bared his teeth, but seemed unable to resist as he was pushed back by the end of the tool inch by inch, Ker and Sef moving out of his way as they then were each pushed back as well toward the door they had just broken through. "Ya see that thing he's got fer an arm? I told ya not ta make em so damn smart" the creature continued, tapping Tal's shoulder with his tool as he pushed the three furs back into the previous room. "I told you, I had to make them smart so that they would survive on their own long enough to show us if the plague was still in the air or not, and hacking their protocols to make it happen wasn't an easy matter either, thank you very much." the smaller creature said with ample condescension, "And clearly here they are, so it was obviously was worthwhile, and now it doesn't even matter that your drone didn't make it back, we can start the reanimation process and finally get these horrid suits off." "Yea fine, I been waitin' ta get yer pretty ass outa that thang" the larger creature said with a smirk, turning from the three furs and going back to sitting down at the console. "Not now!" cried the smaller creature frantically in a high pitched screech, "Get rid of them first." The smaller creature looked at the furs again and recoiled, but the larger creature only laughed at it. "Ah don worry 'bout it, ther just gonna sit and wait fur us ta tell em what to do, buncha disgustin' sex toys," the larger creature rambled as it sat at the console and began poking at it with its gloved hands.

Tal slowly started to rise to his footpaws, growling louder as the creature turned its attention away from him. "Stay!" it called, looking up from the screen, causing Tal to freeze in place and lower the volume of his growl. "Why'd ya hav ta do a wolf anyways? Ya even made this'un a bitch and he still don't hardly listen. Ain't good fur nothin' no ways 'cept bein' fucked and whipped 'til thar broken then replaced. Good business fur them breedin' cesspits I guess b'for the plague, but ya didn't have ta make a wolf." Tal's growl increased again slightly, and Ker and Sef both seemed to look up in disbelief at what was happening, unable to move as they waited obediently as commanded. "Reanimation's gettin' started" the creature said, lifting up its hands and twisting the seal on its helmet. "Ya didn' haf ta make em male either ya know, less ya wanted ta keep one er two round like that thar stallion. I bet he'd fuck ya nice an good. Knew a girl had one once, cunt couldn' even cross er legs, heh." The creature smirked again and shook its head as it removed its helmet, bending down and placing it on the floor next to the console and rubbing its uncovered face with a gloved hand. "What are you doing?" called the other creature wide eyed. "Ya said the plague was gone, these'd be dead fur sure by now otherwise. 'Sides, reanimatin' all them, they'd be fucked if we couldn't take off our shit by now." The larger creature leaned back in its chair and turned to face the three furs again as it picked back up the tool and pointed it toward them. "What ya wanna do with em? Becha wanna let that big un least give ya one good fuckin' 'for we put em all down huh? Hah!" The larger creature laughed, turning toward the smaller one as it got back up. Tal was on it before it could blink. The wolf's powerful jaws clamped down around the startled creature's throat. It gurgled and sputtered gruesomely as it collapsed under the wolf's weight against the console, the creature's tool smashing it and causing a shower of sparks to fly as the two bodies almost in slow motion sank down against the chair where Tal finally let go.

The second creature's eyes were wide with fright as it sank back against the corner of the room, watching transfixed as Tal slowly rose to his footpaws, blood dripping from his muzzle as he began circling the creature threateningly and growling. "Stay away!" the creature cried, frantically pawing at the wall as if it could offer some means of escape as it pleaded. "You can't hurt me, you thought that machine we sent after you was bad? It was nothing, just a small industrial type meant for digging and construction and the like. Since then I've managed to hack my way into a military base, do you know what that means? I've got hardcore military grade hardware on its way right now to kill you. I've enacted their extermination protocol, they think they're lost in hostile territory and they're going to search and destroy any source of power and exterminate any humanoid life they find, unless they receive the password, my password. You'll never stop them, they'll repair themselves, upgrade themselves, and even reproduce and make more of themselves from the parts they can find. The only way to keep them from killing you is to leave, me, alone." Tal only growled louder, and took a step closer, turning the other way and circling in the opposite direction. "We were lucky at the time of the 3 day plague, locked in here with this experiment while all the animal life on the planet died. Now the reanimation sequence has been started and soon there are going to be a lot more of us then there are of you, so if you know what's good for you, you'd better get out of here fast." Tal turned his head toward Sef briefly and called to him "Shut it down." Sef nodded and got up from where he sat, quickly running across the room and down the following corridor. "Stop, sit, stay, you can't!" cried the frantic creature, its gloved hand reaching out but Tal lunged at it, pinning the creature against the wall with a snarl as Ker stood up behind him. "Don't hurt it" Ker called, causing Tal to turn his head to the side to look back over his shoulder while lifting the frail creature up against the wall with his paw, its legs flailing off of the floor beneath it. "You.. can't!," the creature whimpered out, grasping at Tal's paw in panic, "I made you, you.. wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for me. You're only supposed to be simple, obedient, pets.." "We can't stop more of those machines" Ker said, stepping slowly forward with his huge hands outstretched before him. And then the screen went dark.

Epilogue

I sat trembling at the screen for a long while at the sudden end to the most recent of the recordings, but though I had watched them somewhat out of order in my note taking, of the many I searched through none had any more of the story to tell after that moment. It wasn't difficult to guess however, as the skeleton in the corner and the long and bloody fight against the machines in the years that followed told all too clearly how the story had ended.

Most unfortunately as I continued the arduous task of viewing and recording as much of the console's recorded history as possible, I too heard that damnable screeching sound as it pierced the desert silence and rumbled in the distance. The power drawn by the console had indeed been too much, and a machine was on its way to us. My colleagues had heard it as well and we quickly grabbed what little we could and fired up our distress radio signal, now that it was too late and we had been already discovered. The machine when I saw it, nearly paralyzed me with its spectacular enormity. The thing limped and flopped through the sand, bigger than a house as its charred blackened form rolled and clawed its way forward through the dunes toward the cliff. We powered up the entire facility to make our escape, and fired heat flares to confuse its sensors so that we might manage to slip away unnoticed. As we fled I turned back in time to see it rip through the sheer rock face with a huge scythe-like hook, cleaving through boulders and metal alike as it ripped through toward the power generator lying deep within the hard stone. After a tenuous run while the lifter made the usual set of power pack decoy drops on its way in, we rendezvoused with the extraction team without further incident. As we took off I had a last look back at that forsaken desert, and I couldn't help but wonder what became of those I had so closely watched.

I found that on my return I was left with many questions, and though my official notes were all confiscated and I was sworn to secrecy about what we had found, I kept my private notes hidden. Slowly over months I reviewed and rewrote them, ordering them to create in my mind this contiguous story, which for a long time after the expedition I pondered, at last deciding I had to know more, and seek out the answers that kept me awake on nearly every restless night. My course was to find one of the many wolf packs which might be friendly enough, if it could be called that, to grant an outsider visitation now and again for a brief period of time, if they had something of great value to offer. It took me many more months, during which time my son had been born, whom I named Maximus, after the otter I had watched in that story, though I told my mate nothing of this. When I finally did find a wolf who agreed to grant me an audience with his pack, I compiled what notes I thought prudent and scheduled a meeting, from which, if things went as I hoped and expected, I would not return for a long while. As it turned out I was correct in my estimation, and the story I had to tell did indeed have great value to the wolves, just as many of theirs I discovered, hold great value to me.