FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Box after box, Leo went through and dug up any reusable junk. Wires, batteries, ancient software disks. Though that was just the technology stuff. Then came the more random bits of useless memorabilia like books, VHS tapes, and novelty shirts. “Wow, is that a floppy disk?” Missy said suddenly. Leo turned back to see her shaking the flimsy plastic about. “I haven’t seen one of these in years!”

“Put that down,” Leo said.

“Do you even have a floppy drive? It must’ve been like, a century since I’ve seen one.”

“You’re gonna break it.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure you definitely need—” she flipped it over and looked at the label “—TurboTax 2002.”

Leo shrugged. “You never know what could be useful.” He nodded to the door. “Shouldn’t you be picking out a movie for us to watch?” He turned back to the piles of junk and continued sifting. “Better be something good.”

“It is, don’t worry.” She gasped and let the disk drop to the ground. “Wow!” She dug into a box and pulled out an action figure of a robot. “Didn’t think you’d keep stuff like this. I think I remember this toy.”

“It was in the stuff my parents packed. I just never bothered tossing it out.” How long ago was that now?

“You can’t toss this out.” Missy waved the thing in front of him. “This is a... a relic of the past!” she said with a smile.

“Or junk. Where would I even put this?” What was that, a Transformer?

“Do you remember when we’d play with action figures?”

“No.” Leo closed the lid on another container.

“Cars?”

“No.”

“Climbing trees?” Missy said, exasperated.

“N—” Leo pursed his lips. “I remember you falling from a lot of trees. Not so much climbing them.”

“You did a lot of falling too, you know. I can’t believe you don’t remember the stuff we did together.”

Leo shrugged. “Must’ve not have been that good.” He returned to his sorting. Unlabelled CD? Might as well keep that.

“Or maybe you got knocked over the head!” She inched up to him and stared at his head. Fortunately she didn’t put her hands on him. “Any bumps?”

“I think I’d remember that.” He pulled out a book that Missy quickly snatched up. “Hey!”

“I just wanna take a look, OK? You said it’s all junk anyways.” Her eyes instantly lit up as she went through it. “Is this a yearbook? I’ve heard so much about these!” Leo rounded Missy and looked at what she was gawking at. That was a yearbook alright. High school. “Dude, where are you? I wanna see what you looked like.” Leo considered snatching it back from her, but that would probably only fuel her eccentricities and make her more curious.

“I don’t remember,” Leo lied. He went back to the last of the boxes.

“You sure you weren’t hit over the head? You don’t remember a thing.”

“I’ve got much more important things now. I’ve got a job. I’ve got a house. All those things were just stepping stones.”

Missy hummed. “Yeah, I’m sure...” She continued flipping through the book. Honestly, Leo’s curiosities had also begun stirring. It had been several years since he even thought about high school. Not that it was miserable, but he supposed he had exaggerated expectations from every bit of media he had ever seen about it. He stared at the book for a while. Maybe he had forgotten some things there too. There was a strange draw to looking at it again, but he refused. That was behind him now. He didn’t need to reminisce.

“L... L... L... Leo! Leo Davis!” She giggled. “I honestly expected you to look a lot dorkier. No glasses?”

Leo shook his head. “No glasses. Unlike some people, I didn’t look at the sun.” Leo briefly wondered what Missy would do if she had poor eyesight. Not like she could just stroll into an optician’s place and ask for a test. She probably wouldn’t look bad in a pair of glasses, though. Hm. “You done gawking?”

“No. I wanna see if there are any other pictures of you.”

“Probably not.”

“If you say so.” She continued flipping. “Was high school fun? Never been.”

“It was alright. Felt like a waste of time, but I got it done.” He closed the lid on the last of the boxes. The little pile of useful things he amassed was set to the side, so all he had to do now is toss out the boxes. Maybe for another day. Lunch was more on his mind now, having skipped breakfast.

“Were you in a club? That’s where you made all your friends, right?”

“I was in the student council, if that counts.”

“That’s not a club, that’s for all the nerds who wanted power over others.”

Leo frowned. “I think you’ve watched too much TV. It was just to get us used to administration positions.”

Missy pulled her head out of the book. “We could start a club. That’d make up for not having one in high school, right?”

“A club with two people is hardly a club.” Leo shook his head. “What would we do anyways?” He walked back to Missy’s side, just in time for a full picture of the school to come into view. Those weren’t bad times at all, no. He could almost smell the pine cones and hear the distant yelling of kids doing all sorts of stupid things. Being an adult was better, but he had to admit there was a charm to having little more care in the world than what letter you got on a piece of paper.

“This place doesn’t look half bad. If I went to high school I’d definitely want to go here.”

“Not sure you’d have the grades for it.”

“I would! If I could hold a pencil, anyways.”

“Could just dip a claw in ink.”

“Gross.” Leo snatched the book right back from Missy. “Aw, c’mon, I wanted to see more!”

“You had your fill for the day.” Leo eyed the box for a moment before tossing the book in the ‘keep’ pile. “I’m done with this for the day anyways. Don’t you have a movie to start?”

Missy flicked her attention between the boxes and Leo. It couldn’t be more painfully apparent how much she wanted to dig. “We’re doing that now?”

“Why not? Unless you had something else planned? I doubt it.” He nudged the plastic bins back into place along the wall and gathered up what little he took from them. “Get it ready, I’m gonna make lunch.”

“Ever heard of pizza?” Missy asked with a tilt of the head.

Leo began to walk out of the room. “The grease is already giving me a heart attack. No, we’re not having pizza. I’d rather not torture a poor teenager to come out all this way either,” he said. Leo retrieved a plastic bag from the kitchen and set his selection of knick knacks inside, then set them aside next to the couch for later storage. What to make for lunch?

“I don’t want another sandwich,” Missy said as she passed the kitchen. “Those things are so hard to grab.” That narrowed it down a small amount. He still had some chicken stock leftover. Soup for lunch it is.

“What’d you pick out?” Leo asked as he started assembling all of the ingredients. Could probably use carrots too, before they go bad. “Not something terribly dumb, I hope.” He stopped and looked to one of the cabinets next to the fridge. Maybe they could have something a little better for a movie. After all, what was a flick without some snacks? She deserved at least that, right? Not really, but slurping down a bowl for a movie didn’t come across as appealing.

“It’s not dumb! I can be sophisticated too, ya know.”

“I’ll believe you if you actually know how to spell sophisticated.” No response. That settles that. “Action? Drama? Romance?”

“Romance? What am I? An overweight woman in her forties?” Leo could see her messing with the TV.

“That’s awfully specific,” he replied as he reached down. Leo made sure she wasn’t looking his way before pulling out a bag of peanut M&M’s. Those were better than plain chocolate. Might as well get some popcorn to go with it.

“No, that’s just how it is. Look, it’ll be a surprise, so you just wait and see, OK? I absolutely promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“What if I am?”

Missy stopped her fiddling. “Then I guess you’re disappointed! Tough!” Yeah, that sounded about right. Tough.

_

“I knew you were hiding something from me,” Missy said as she looked at the bowl of M&M’s Leo set out. They were placed right next to a large bowl of popcorn. “I could smell it too.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen you down at least a Kit-Kat or two, but I could never find them.” She picked up a chocolate treat with her claws. “I can smell them, though.”

“All I have is the M&M’s, take it or leave it.”

“You’re holding out on me!” Missy said with a grin.

“Disappointed? Tough,” Leo replied.

“Disappointed? Do you know how funny it is to imagine you wolfing down ten bars of chocolate?” She tittered. “Very.”

Leo grabbed some of the chocolate for himself. “That would probably give you diabetes and then kill you a few minutes later.”

“It’s good to know you’re human.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leo asked, munching down on one of the treats.

“Nothing, nothing.” Missy shook her head and carefully plucked out another M&M. Leo figured the only reason she didn’t try and snag the whole bowl was due to her large hands. Good thinking on his part to pick out a smaller one. “I think I’d like a Kit-Kat more.”

Leo shrugged. “Got none.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a bad liar?”

“People only tell that to liars.”

“So you’re saying you ate them all?” Missy took another M&M and leaned toward Leo. “That would be a sight to behold.”

Leo shook his head “Is that a USB in the television?”

“Well yeah, how else was I supposed to get the movie on there?”

“I thought you were going to use one of those free streaming things.”

Missy cocked her head and clutched the remote to her chest. “This is free. No worries.” Leo narrowed his eyes. “Honest.”

“Really hope you didn’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“You really sound like a villain sometimes, you know?”

“I’d like to know which of the two of us is a villain, honestly.” He popped another chocolate. “So get it started before I regret ever having bought this thing.”

“Right! Right.” Missy hit play and set the remote down. Her excitement was tempered but still present as she leaned forward and clasped her hands together, eyes wide. That was the kind of look a predator would give before devouring some helpless prey, and with her, it probably wasn’t far off. Leo turned his attention back to the screen. He furrowed his brow once he saw what he could only assume was Japanese text fill the screen before being hit by a monstrous roar. “Classic!” Missy said, giddiness overflowing. Before long, an absurd title sequence played out in which it almost seemed like the bizarre alien lettering was fighting with itself. Then generic white English lettering was laid atop the mess. Godzilla-something-something-something or other. He probably should’ve seen that coming. Missy turned to him. “Classic, right?”

“Sure. Arguably.” Leo gave a hesitant nod. Watching men in poorly ventilated rubber suits punching each other wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun afternoon, but he supposed there could’ve been far worse choices Missy could have taken. Not that he could actually think of anything worse.

“You’ve seen Godzilla, haven’t you?”

“I might’ve seen one on DVD ages ago,” Leo said with a bemused shrug. “The... one in New York or something.”

“That doesn’t count!” Missy snapped. “Don’t ever bring that one up again.”

“Alright.” Not wanting to probe on the absurd reaction, Leo returned his attention to the television where droll human characters kicked off the plot. “I thought this was about a lizard,” Leo said.

“You need a human connection before you can start to see the monster, OK? It’s not as cool if he just starts punching buildings.”

Leo opted to shut up and watch the ridiculous plot play out. Not that he was all that caught up on it. Subtitles certainly weren’t his forte and he found himself slightly lagging behind on what they were saying. Eventually that human stuff dropped and the titular monster made its appearance. That wasn’t a bad effect, he figured. Clearly someone in an ill-fitting lizard outfit, but he supposed it had its charm. It even had an animatronic mouth that moved, giving it at least some believability, as silly as it was. Missy was completely enamored with every second of it, though Leo noted that occasionally she would catch herself and relax.

“There’s two of them?” Leo asked as another rubbery menace made its way onto the silver screen. “Isn’t there enough space taken up by one mutant lizard already?”

“G-man needs a rival to pummel. That’s how it goes.”

“I don’t remember there being another one in—”

“That one doesn’t count, I told you!”

“Alright...” She hadn’t even downed as many M&M’s as he expected. “At least eat while you watch. I set those out for you too. The popcorn is getting cold too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Missy plucked out more candy and dug out some popcorn, loudly smacking her lips as she downed them. That was about as good as he’d get, Leo supposed. “Isn’t this cool? The effects still hold up.” She looked back at him, clearly gauging his reaction. Not as though there was much depth to be found here. The greener one punched the smaller, pinkish one and that was apparently a bad thing, though he could’ve sworn the titular character was supposed to be rooted for, at least somewhat. “Eh? Eh?”

“You do know these are men in suits, right?”

Missy’s expression dropped. “You’re a man in a suit sometimes, does that make you any less cool?”

Leo was almost baffled by her response. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

Missy turned her attention back to the television screen. She was getting a little too into the battle, occasionally clawing at the air when one of them would strike the other. For better or worse, she was completely hypnotized by it. The thought was odd, but Leo found some slight jealousy in her enthusiasm. While there was slight amusement in the idea of two giant monsters giving themselves bruises, he probably couldn’t even work up the energy to actually invest himself so deeply into it. This was almost like seeing a fan at a sport event getting rowdy over which colored team pushed the ball in whatever arbitrary way, which he didn’t understand the excitement for either. He silently munched away at his chocolate, trying to extract the same amount of enjoyment Missy was neck-deep in.

“Radiation blast!” The screen lit up with a blue beam, which only enticed Missy further. She still flicked her attention back to Leo every now and again. He wasn’t sure if he should feign some sort of interest so as to placate her or just sit there and hope reptile bile pulled her attention away. At the very least he was getting into it a bit more, though no real thanks to monster punch ups. The human characters, while somewhat shallow, still had some reasonable goals he could root for in his own way. What better a hero than one who still goes to work when monstrous armageddon is lurking right around the corner? It was also quite a neat juxtaposition when they used differing sets to imply a grander set of scale. For all its silliness, there was an extreme craftsmanship to the whole production.

Before long, there were even more monsters joining the punch up. A horned rat thing, a butterfly, a huge three headed dragon thing. Admittedly there was an amusing factor to the movie one-upping itself like that. “I thought the Godzilla was a good guy,” Leo said.

Missy started explaining without glancing away from the screen, “Not this one. He’s a very angry blob of souls and has to fight these three guardians and—”

Leo held up a hand. “Alright, I think I get the picture.” Not even a little bit. Leo couldn’t help but smile at her burst of an explanation. It was good to have her energy directed at something that wasn’t anything that belonged to him.

After many more scenes of monster brutality and the murder of innocents, the movie climaxed with something about a submarine and an explosive device, finally destroying the lizard. An awfully gruesome end that thoroughly surprised him. Cue credits. Instantly, Missy snapped to him, eyes still wide. “So? Was it good or what?” Leo fought the urge to reply with ‘or what’. “Classic, right?” She tilted her head. “Better than the American one.”

Leo nodded. “I guess I can agree on that point.”

“You have to. It’s fact.” She scooted over to Leo. “So which one was your favorite?”

“One what?”

“You know, monster! The stars of the show!”

The man looked back to the screen and shrugged. “I don’t know. What about the three headed one that sounded like it was being strangled?” Something like a Chinese dragon or other. Looked a little goofy with its wings. “That one was kind of cool. Shooting... lightning?”

“Good choice,” Missy said with a nod and a tap of the chin. “Did you like the movie?” The honesty in her expression was surprising.

“I guess. I liked the sets—”

“I know, right?” Missy leaned in closer. “Did you know if they screw up a shot they have to build the whole thing over again? Isn’t that crazy?!”

“Huh.” Leo looked back to the screen. “That’s pretty impressive.”

Missy pulled back slightly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of detail to go into them.”

“You don’t think it’s stupid or silly or a waste of time?”

“No.”

“...You wanna watch another movie then?” Leo immediately pulled out his phone to check the time. It was only 12? Felt a lot later than that. Maybe he should put a clock up in the living room. He looked back to Missy, who had crossed her arms and was looking intently at him. Was there something else he had to do on the schedule? He placed a hand on his chin in wonder. There was still the matter of the rain gutters he could clean out. “Hmm?” She tapped her fingers on her arms.

“You didn’t pick out another movie, did you?”

“We can always check and see what catches your eye. Right?” She uncrossed her arms. “Right?”

If there was nothing else he could be doing then... He supposed it would be fine. Still, a nagging voice at the back of the head told him he was wasting his time. Leo pursed his lips. “Alright, fine.”

Missy tugged on his pants. “C’mon then. I have the laptop set up in the bedroom.”

“You can move it, you know. Just bring it out here.”

“The internet connection is the best in there.” Somehow, Leo doubted that, but he had never actually bothered to run any tests like that. Leo decided just to go with her charade and followed her into his bedroom. Missy made sure to pull out the USB from the TV before leaving. Indeed, the laptop was set up in the middle of the bed. Missy immediately pounced on the mattress and settled in front of the computer. She patted on his side of the bed. His side of the bed? Ugh, that’s what it was now, huh? He sat down and looked to the screen. “Look, there’s a whole list of everything you could ever want.”

Leo immediately picked up on a keyword ‘Torrent’. “Missy, this is illegal,” he said, pointing to the screen.

“Nuh-uh! It’s legally grey. I looked it up.”

“Did you really? I don’t think the ISP would be too happy about it either. Let’s just use one of those free streaming things.”

“Oh yeah, pfft, like they’re really gonna trade your cash for integrity.” Missy patted his leg. “It’s fine. Mr. ISP man isn’t going to knock on your door and kick you in the dick. They haven’t ever bothered my last roommates.”

“Alright, fine, but if I get a letter you’re not downloading a thing ever again, got it?”

“Sure, sure.” Missy nodded. “You won’t get a better selection anywhere else!” She shifted the computer to face him. “Anything from Airplane to... some movie that starts with a Z.”

“You should have narrowed it down. Now it’s hard to think of a movie I’d want to watch.”

“You have to make everything a challenge, huh?”

“It’s my specialty.” Leo watched Missy carefully scroll down with the laptop’s touch pad. At least she was being careful with it, but eventually he shooed her hand away and started scrolling for her. “Just pick out something before I get bored, OK?”

“The Dark Crys— No, no that’s just muppets. Uhh... What about another Godzilla, huh?”

“No, I’ve had enough lizard in my diet today, thanks.”

“Alright, keep scrolling. We’ll find something.” Leo quickly lost interest in the screen, instead turning his attention to the hallway and wondering all the better things he could be doing right now. Like cleaning the toilet, for one. “How’s about Star Wars?”

“You mean Star Trek?”

“No, I meant Star Wars. You know, the not boring one, where stuff actually happens in it and people don’t talk for ten hours.”

“I’m not getting into that.” Leo shook his head.

“Good, because I’ll probably fall asleep if you do.”

After scrolling, and scrolling, and more scrolling, and more movies Leo hadn’t ever heard of, Missy finally said, “Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh? What do you mean uh-oh?” Leo snapped back to the laptop screen. “What?”

“It’s... it’s not scrolling.” Indeed, it wasn’t, regardless of what Leo tried.

“Alright, maybe the page locked up.” He clicked on the taskbar below. Nothing. He clicked on the little X to close out the window. Nothing. He sighed and began clicking all over the screen in frustration. Then, as if to answer his question, the computer switched to a blue screen with an obnoxious frowny face. Fucking Windows. “Goddamnit.”

“Sorry, I didn’t think—” Leo loudly clasped his hand shut. Idiot, shouldn’t have agreed to this. Trying to keep his cool, Leo forcibly restarted the thing and started it up in safe mode. He wished he had bothered to read up on computer safety properly. His antivirus appeared to be working, or at least from what he could tell after it took a minute to bring its menu up. He huffed and opened up the task bar to no avail. Could’ve been a virus. It probably was a virus. Or the thing was just old and Missy messing with it finally put it over the edge, which was still his fault either way. For the most part.

“I probably needed to replace this thing anyways,” Leo said. That didn’t ease him one bit. He shut the thing and pushed it away.

“...You’re not angry then?”

“I’m pissed, but not at you.”

“Phew.” Missy shut her mouth and looked around the room. “Do you still wanna watch another movie? We could use one of those free things,” she said, rubbing her arm. Leo was about to deny her. Seemed absolutely ridiculous now, but frankly his computer kicking the bucket killed any enthusiasm for housework.

Leo looked to the television screen. “Alright fine, just one more. Get the remote.”

“You got it, boss!”