FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Huxley stood above the abyss. Only an inch of dynaglass between him and the writhing darkness below. He kept his nerves cool, as always. There was no tremor in his hooves, no stammer in his teeth. The ram cleared his throat, grabbed at his tie and tugged it, as if it wasn't already as tight as it could comfortably go and then some.

This is the cost of excellence, he reminded himself. Sometimes the job gets dirty.

He wished they'd sprung for three inches of glass. Or maybe a nice solid slab of metal. But at least if everything went well, he would never have to see this again. May whatever gods his engineers held, take pity on them.

As the black-wooled sheep turned around, his trademark Reassuring Smirk was already on his muzzle. He did not address what he'd seen in the pit.

"Well the numbers speak for themselves, don't they? A terajoule per hour already, and we've only just started. What kind of EROI are we looking at, Lewis?"

The lead engineer, a bespectacled rabbit, glanced down at a clipboard despite it not having any answers, "Well as you know, er, as you can see, this doesn't operate in the same way as any of our traditional power sources. Functionally speaking it's a lot closer to photovoltaic."

The comparison seemed ludicrous on the face of it. An uncomfortable silence trickled through the room while the ram wrangled words into something more civilized in his head, "I see. So if that's the case, where is the uh... Collector? If this is the producer?"

"That was the next stop on the tour, if you'll follow me sir."

The whole congregation broke up into trios as they ascended on one of the personnel elevators up to the next chamber.

***

His armband buzzed. Tenes lifted his head lazily from where he'd been poking at the bed's settings, trying to get it to just the right kind of softness and support. The holographic display flickered on over top of his arm, showing a message from the local station.

Finally. Were they going to compensate him for the customs officers fucking up his forms and stranding his whole crew and cargo here for a night? A very unscheduled night, that he'd had to explain to his supervisor?

The badger's eyebrow quirked at the messy text. He almost deleted the message as outright spam, but... It was verified as being from the local station. Quassia System Space Relay, right there in the headers.

You have been invited to use our new local app, {Pilot_Program_2fc142a_Title}!

... That was it. No mention of compensation, or "free", or "complementary", or any of the other words that might indicate this was something worth his time. But, it was a secure message after all, maybe they just needed to update their mailserv.

Not like he had anything better to do. All his crew was settled down for the night and here he was just rolling around in bed.

The app installed in a flash and displayed the same broken title string with just a plain black circle for its icon. This was either very cutting edge, or very jank.

Please submit a bioscan.

Okay. Not like the station didn't already have him on file. He lifted his arm away from him and a beam erupted out of all sides of the silver bracelet to crawl across him, scraping surface-level data about him into the app. The beam shifted colors more than usual, oscillating from blue to pink and back again. Something deep in his snout itched, forcing him to hold back with a twitching lip until finally the scan was done and he could blast it out into his sleeve. Weird, he wasn't allergic to anything here. Hopefully he wasn't getting sick.

Processing...

Processing complete. Confirm new profile details:

Name: Tenes Ulysses

Species: Taxidea taxus berlandieri stellaris (Badger)

Age: 43

Sex: M, Gender: M

Seemed right so far. Though "gender" was an odd one to get from a bioscan.

Sexual Preference: Masculine

Attitude/Position: Versatile Switch

Notable Kinks: Exhibitionism, Hyper—

"WHOA there, whoa!" Before he'd even realized what was happening, it was just plainly listing out some very personal details that he was absolutely certain he'd never associated with his real name. He slapped at the hardlight display in bewildered reflex, as if that would do anything, only managing to hit Confirm.

Please wait for gear delivery.

Tenes sat in awkward silence, his screen simply showing those last words. "What the fuck was that," he murmured to himself, half-convinced that he'd just hallucinated it. Just a horny intrusive thought of the kind brought on by a whole month without shore leave.

His room's chute rattled with an incoming cylinder, plopped into place by the magrail delivery system that he'd usually use to order more bedding or snacks or things like that.

This had better not be a surcharge on the room.

***

The black sheep's silhouette cut a stark edge, a rock in a river of radiant pink light gushing all around the collection chamber, dousing the observation deck in eddies of fluorescence. Above him was heaven, as if there could be any stronger whiplash from what they witnessed just one floor down. The crystal drew his eyes, warmed them from the inside out. If only... A hand reached, hovering hooftips barely off the frigid dynaglass that kept him out.

In the center, hovering as if raised on a pedestal, was a crystal about the size of an upright animal, gently rotating without apparent reason. The vibrant light and ten other energetic wavelengths were scooped up by most of a metal sphere around it, the interior patterned with iridescent micro-fractalline panes that squished it all down into raw electricity. Then it got piped up and out through thick rubber-clad bundles of cabling to be regulated into useful current.

Lewis quickly foisted all of his documents and clipboards onto the nearest engineer, a jackal who struggled to keep the bundle from scattering all over the floor. The rabbit bounded up to his boss with a paw up to shade his eyes, "Ah—sir—you can't—", trying to stammer out an interruption to the ram's rapture but failing to break the spell.

His tall ears quirked as he tried to approach the situation diplomatically. A protocol breach like this would ordinarily have one escorted out of the room, but one didn't simply tell the COO what he could and couldn't do.

The rabbit sighed and elbowed the sheep's kidneys, making him violently jump and gasp and jerk his hand back. It didn't hurt that much, the shock of being brought back to reality was the more prominent pain.

"Sir, you were given the primer on how this all works, right? The psychological effects? Dynaglass isn't able to—"

Huxley whirled around, his wide-pupilled eyes unfocused and frantic, "What? I, uh... No, I'm afraid I wasn't..."

A big fluffy paw met its owner's face. "Of course. I'm going to have to have a talk with Davies. Unless you'd like to, sir."

A vacant wave, distracted eye-shifting glances as Huxley shook his head. "No, no, uh... No it's quite fine. No need to worry."

Lewis knew the feeling rattling around in Huxley's brain, as all the engineers on this project had gotten a faceful of pink at one point or another. The euphoria lingered, only fading after some time. It took some effort not to chuckle at just how out of his element the poor upper-crust ram was, especially after how queasy he'd looked downstairs. Though of course, you had to have a strong stomach to work in xenobioengineering.

Well, at least the exposure will chill him out a little, Lewis thought. A furtive glance downstairs confirmed that the older man had been starting to bone up; perhaps a bit too chilled out. A typical effect of the crystal's euphoria, though the rabbit declined to be the bearer of that news.

"In short, don't look directly at it, sir. We've been unable to break the effect with anything less than digital visual scramblers, though as you can imagine that makes operations difficult."

"Yes. Of course. The operational hazards we deal with in our line of work," he blathered tonelessly. Huxley wanted to look back, it was obvious to everyone, but thankfully he held his composure and fully turned his back on it with another futile tie-adjustment that squished the wool at his neck.

"Sorry, Silves," Lewis muttered to the jackal trying to make sense of the cluttered mess that his arms had become, both of their paws working to un-foist the whole pile back to Lewis' care.

Huxley cleared his throat. "Tell me about the energy collection. And the plan for expansion?"

***

Okay. This was some kind of hookup app. Sponsored by Quassia Station... Somehow. It was common to have local public services, but not local... public services.

Though, it was invite-only apparently. A pilot program, as it was happy to remind him on every screen where its title was supposed to be. So maybe they were just trying it out.

The much more unusual part of it being a hookup app though, was that it was apparently completely anonymous. The gear he'd been delivered looked like a jockstrap and a flared cylinder made of some kind of flexible black resin. It took an instructional diagram for him to figure out that the "jockstrap" was supposed to be worn backwards... And then it all clicked.

Portal tech was not new, though it had struggled to find many applications that weren't sheer novelty. The energy required to create one scaled up exponentially with the size of the aperture and the distance between the ends. Rip drives were already pretty economical, so there was no way a portal would ever be used on something at the scale of a whole ship.

But here... Well in hindsight it seemed like sort of an obvious use case, once you got over the issue of putting your sensitive bits into a spatiotemporal glory hole. It was anonymous because you never even saw who you were fucking.

And to that end, the app itself was rather strangely structured. He'd been expecting something close to a dating app, but this was more like a game. "Random Partner" and "Matchmaking" were the biggest buttons on the screen, and both cost... stamina. His stamina bar was full and gently throbbing to attract his attention.

Tenes looked down at another bar that was very full and throbbing and begging for attention. Whatever reservations he might have about this level of casual hookup, some part of him was certainly interested.

Tapping "Matchmaking," the badger was immediately inundated with dropdowns and sliders, each more lurid than the last.

'I want...' read the header, with a selection of sex acts beneath it. They're... Multi-select... Can I really just pick all of them?

His stamina bar got highlighted more and more with each one he picked. So, no. Though the scaling seemed peculiar, since "to fuck" and "to get sucked" were the same cost; not how he would have weighted them, personally.

He fiddled with them for a few seconds, but ultimately just went with the easiest combo for a switch like him: to get fucked, and to get sucked. Much as he enjoyed being under a tail, a dextrous tongue sounded perfect right about now.

Preferred species? That zebra I saw this morning comes to mind... But I probably can't be choosy on such a restricted app. I'll just check a bunch of them. And be sure to add 'fox' and 'otter' to cast the widest net I can.

Knot? The badger squirmed for a moment before checking the box. Plenty of species had knots.

Preferred cock size? The slider had started at ten inches, which was just about the size of his most comfortable toy. It didn't even look like that was the actual default, but had been chosen for him. Just how had that bioscan gotten so much information about him? Tenes' pawpad slid up on the slider, watching as a silhouette of a dick slowly swelled from "lucky", to "porn star", to "there is no way that is fitting in me", to a monster large enough to be coming out his maw.

Surely it wasn't serious. Just there for the fun of it? Was there some kind of roleplay element to this? Wouldn't be surprising, perhaps, when it was so impersonal to start with. His cock begged for him to find out just how far it would go, but he was already too far in the sketchy end of the pool to be pushing it further. Back down to ten... No, eleven inches.

... Fine, thirteen.

Tenes had to admit, the idea of ordering up a partner like you would a pizza, was... strangely appealing. Maybe when it was more popular, he could get really specific with it. Tailor it to just the right dimensions, whatever species got him going the most that day...

The badger gulped, and tapped the "Go" button.

***

"—it's most optimal in a pyramidal configuration, so the larger it grows, the further up we can move the crystal, which also allows us to separate the production floor into multiple contained areas."

Safely away from heaven and hell, the sheep nodded over multiple holographic diagrams of ever-larger facilities and projected energy outputs. It was staggering, frankly, both in terms of scale and the seemingly infinite scaling on return so long as they kept fuelling it. Energy economy tended to be quite a linear business: one expensive tokamak in, one gigawatt out. This, though, could spread and grow however much they needed.

"—eventually, enough of the 'buds' can be fused together into a new crystal, which through a yet-unknown entanglement effect shares output evenly with all the others relative to its volume—"

Most of it went over his head, but that was to be expected. He likened it in his own head to a sourdough starter, which they could share with other stations eventually. A sourdough starter which would just keep growing...

"And, how do we control its growth?"

Lewis faltered and gathered his spilled words for a new tack entirely, but Silves noticed his boss' derailment and took over, "It doesn't grow without fuel, and we have systems developed to throttle that however we like. If we're not ready for a new crystal, we don't give it a surplus. We can even keep some buds in lockdown to get a head start on a new one too." Silves pawed at the holotable's controls to flip them over to more relevant distribution schematics.

Huxley felt as if he was still chasing clouds out of his head, but still it seemed too easy somehow. There had to be some factor unaccounted for. You just couldn't have fast, cheap, and right all at once.

He had been dreading to address it, trying to step around that abyss as tactfully as possible, but it seemed like he was going to have to revisit the topic of the pit. Only for a little. Just for due diligence.

"Are there any side effects?"

***

Only ten seconds later, the badger's arm buzzed with "Match found!"

"Fuck—" He scrambled to strap on the jock... Ass... Strap... Thing? The fuckhole. It was really just a collection of straps and a little belt, but getting them all on so they weren't flipped around was surprisingly intricate.

The patch of resin under his tail grew warmer and the fleshlight in his paw followed suit, tickles of energy gathering at their centers. Tenes gulped in vague terror, even while his tail flicked in excitement. He'd thought he'd have a good while to get out his anticipatory jitters, but it was so fast. The vague species filters must have helped.

If he'd had any words, the badger might have described what happened next as cartoonish: the fleshlight's surface bowed outwards as a snout, whiskers, lips and teeth pressed out of it, stretching the cylinder taller, the new features surrounded by the faintest pink line of the portal's edge. Tongue curled around fangs; it looked like an otter's wide muzzle, with broad nose and prominent whiskers.

He blinked down at it, holding the muzzle-fleshlight awkwardly with both paws near his groin. What was he waiting for?

His cock twitched, a dollop of pre building atop nine inches of badgershaft. The maw in his hands lapped at the air, working its lips in a beseeching manner that was clearly gimme cock, hungry. Even just looking at that cute partial-face made him throb; otters were practically the perfect dicksucking machines with those strong tongues, ridged maws, velvet and pliable throats... And most of all, other than the fangs their teeth were quite small and flat. He couldn't have asked for a better match.

He felt almost as if he should greet the otter? There was a person on the other side after all... But, no. No, this was casual. Totally anonymous. Probably couldn't even hear him if he tried.

Just... Just go for it. You're being ridiculous. You wanted sex, you're getting it!

Finally, his brain caught up to the bizarre state his life was in and his paws unfroze. With a slow sigh of release, ineffectual at actually dispelling his nerves, he lowered the resin tube towards his cock. As if the otter on the other side knew what was happening that tongue came out even further, eager to greet its matchmade companion properly.

At last their heated flesh met and Tenes couldn't resist a deep groan; it had been a while since he'd had any action. Even before the last shore leave; he'd been so damned busy that time. Otter-tongue curled, lapped, stretched that black resin open around the jaw, then turned to appreciate him more fully. Tenes' hips pushed on autopilot, the length of his shaft slipping into that maw like a sausage into a bun, squeezing and sucking and slurping along his aching badgerhood, working him up further and further so easily, so readily, so eagerly.

It was still very strange to be holding his partner like this, having to think about keeping the tube close enough to work, but clearly they weren't fully at his whims; the otter could exert a surprising amount of force through the small device, even press more of that muzzle through the portal to really bob and suck on his achingly hard shaft.

Strange though it may be, the dominant edges in Tenes were getting quite excited. A living creature trapped in a cylinder, held in his paws and used to pleasure himself. Just a toy for him to thrust into. If the anonymity had caused him any doubts, they were quickly dissolving in the frothing tide of lust. Whoever was on the other end was so excited, nearly ecstatic to be sucking a cock that the sheer love of the game was infectious, eating away at his shame. You had to be an oral aficionado if you were gonna stick your muzzle into a glory hole, he supposed.

Though, wasn't there something else supposed to be happening? The dim thought sputtered in his very occupied brain until something made itself known. Very known.

Tenes' eyes went wide as he felt a nudge up under his tailhole. The broad, flat head of an equine shaft was pressing at him, and it felt pretty fucking big. His cock throbbed a heavy line of pre all over the otter's muzzle, prompting an eager tongue to slurp it up.

He wasn't sure how to position himself now. Perhaps mimicking more normal sex, would work? He crawled up onto the bed on all fours, wrangling the wriggling fleshlight to a comfortable position between his legs, groaning at the dual assault of tongue all along the base of his cock while the third participant was making his entrance.

"Hrrk—" the cock at his rear pushed and well-worn habits flexed, spread, eased the equine in as Tenes angled his ass in the air. Fuck, he couldn't even see what species the guy was from here, and the stupid app was still stuck showing "Match found" without another word. It truly felt like he'd just been left to whoever wanted to come by and fuck a badger tonight.

A heavy throb from below, appreciated by otter tongue and maw. Yeah, okay, this is pretty fucking hot. Toyed with and toying with, both at the same time.

The equine thrust and he couldn't help but "Yerp!" out to the room, a shocking amount of force made its way through the rear portal to shove under his tail, driving his whole hips forward with inches of horsecock and thrusting his cock into the ottermaw by proxy.

Tenes snatched at the bedsheets to hold onto anything at all, one paw keeping the fleshlight precariously in place as the equine slid back and shoved again, ethereally rocking his body on the bed with disconnected force. The burning edges of gods that's a stretch quickly faded into euphoric warmth, shocks of love assaulting his brain as his prostate was nudged and bumped and sometimes full-on rammed by the broad-headed shaft intruding into him. He rolled with the punches as best as he could while the rhythm built, the middle of a sandwich between two horny ghosts.

The otter beneath was nothing but appreciative for the extra action, caressing his inches with ever-eager tongue and squeezing maw, the fellow mustelid's throat clenching for the badger's pounding shaft and spurting precum. Caught between two incredibly skilled partners, Tenes could do little but hold on for the ride, trying his best to match the stud's fuckpace while keeping the otterlight clamped to his crotch, desperate to build, to surge, to blow into this otter while this... this zebra, he decided, had his fucking way with him. Sparks grew into stars in his vision with each progressively harder plunge into his guts, leaning fully onto his chest and neck now to two-handedly shove himself into the otter in turn.

Far too soon he felt the shuddering throbs, the tightening of his balls as he approached his peak, breathlessly trying to warn the otter who couldn't hear him. Both of his paws clutched at the fleshlight in ecstasy and mortal need. The zebracock slammed into him, stretched him out, he could practically feel every tiny twitch of that head flaring against his prostate. Tenes yowled as he burst into the otter's throat, several heavy shots delivered to whatever stomach lay on the other end, holding the muzzle flush against his groin for another dozen pulses of futile post-orgasmic shocks.

He didn't have anywhere near the brainpower required to read the "-45 stamina" message that popped briefly onto his screen. Nor could he gather it, because the zebra wasn't done. Spurred on by his blissful clenching the zebra flared, thickened just a little bit more to give him another aching stretch, redoubled his efforts slamming into the badger's hole.

Tenes gasped and mumbled, trying incoherently to moan out "wait" at the same time as "more". Heat bloomed in his guts, the zebra was painting his insides with warm precum, easily tipping the balance in favor of "more". He rolled onto his back, completely forgetting to support the otter-fleshlight now swaying freely on his still-hard cock, hiking his legs and holding the bed as the zebra took him hard, bouncing his hips up into the air with the force of that cock filling him, hammering him.

Fantasy took shape in the haze of his vision, he could practically see the stripes at the base of the bed, the ghost of a zebra tugging his legs up as he leaned in, reaching even deeper with those thirteen skillful inches, angling to reach every button in him that could possibly be reached and massaging every bit along the way with that pleasing medial ring. Tenes sank into his lust, finally all reservation lost to the unceasing drum of the rut. Atavistic snarls and churrs and growls burst from him as he threw his hips back against the zebra's cock, fangs bared and eyes wide but unseeing. He needed it, and he knew the zebra needed him too.

Finally he could feel the end approaching, his ankles tingled with phantom sensation as he imagined his suitor's grip tightening around his ankles, spreading his legs wide. That painfully delicious flare inside him pulsed even wider as the cock rammed to its base and viciously twitched, bursting with warmth to fill his void, striped electricity painted onto his nerves making Tenes flick his head back and forth and dig his claws into the sheets, dagger of heat honing on his shaft and balls. Another peak hit him like a heart attack and he whipped a paw around the forgotten otter still on his cock, thrusting out only another two shots of seed from the depths of his balls before he was once more firing blanks. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a back-to-back orgasm like that.

Another -45 stamina. If Tenes had seen the measly 10 remaining he'd have been surprised there was even that much left; his will had left his body, every limb limp against the sheets polka-dotted with claw holes.

***

Huxley Dilette snorted at the final page of the report in his hand, a stack of papers folded around a heat-fused corner. The report was fantastic. Glowing, even. Quassia System was on the verge of a mining rush with the discovery of new deoxylum deposits in the system, and the system's relay had been redlining its reactors to keep up with demand. Who had swooped in to save the day but the illustrious Mr. Dilette, COO of Cocorp? After only a month they had enough shards to deploy a new crystal, and from there the growth could only accelerate. They were poised to take the market by storm.

So why was he upset? Why did some little part of him address the whole with a wagging finger and a disapproving glare?

His muzzle curled in disgust and he tossed the report over his shoulder, crossing his arms to stare out his bay window, down at the planet that so relied on Cocorp. No— on him. Who else could steer the ship so well, pump out the petawatts to keep the lights on, who else revolutionized the markets decade after decade, leaving all their competitors in the dust? Huxley Dilette did.

Standing, of course, on the shoulders of all the brilliant minds beneath him. It was a team effort and always would be. No "I" in "team", and all that.

So then why, why, why did this one tug at his heart? Why did talking about it make every press conference just that little bit sour? Was it because the people didn't know how it worked? As if they could even complain! They hardly did when their energy came from burning ancient corpses, such lapsarian ages when they cracked open planets at a time to play at the game of civilization. He was giving them even more than they asked for, Cocorp kept their lights on, their plates full, their depravity sated, their bodies washed of all the filth matted into their fur—

Huxley caught a glimpse of a monster, a twisted ghoulish snarl coming at him from the blue marble of Lotera Prime, sending him skittering back, crashing his horns against one of his bookcases to shower knick-knacks everywhere.

He grimaced as he realized it had been his reflection.

***

"Visual contact with Quassia Station," chattered his pilot. The thin grey bauble floating out in the void grew steadily larger on the viewscreen.

Tenes shifted in the captain's chair, angling his anticipatory boner less conspicuously. "Very good. Bring us in, I'll be in my quarters."

Even now, the badger could hardly believe he'd managed to score a regular contract at Quassia. They'd be bouncing back to Quassia Station every few days shuttling all the deoxylum flowing out of the system, and getting some sweet rush pay as the cherry on top.

Well, it was the cherry for the rest of the crew. For Tenes, who had spent almost every night since his threesome with absolutely nobody jacking himself stupid to the thought of doing it again, the whole sundae was smothered in a mountain of whipped cream.

Still not in netlink range. Tenes tapped at his holoscreen where {Pilot_Program_2fc142a_Title} sat, despondently repeating "failed to connect, retry?" in a cycle as desperate as checking one's voicemail over and over.

He'd even kept the portal gear, currently stashed in the most discreet pocket of his suitcase he could find. He hadn't received any instructions to return it, so he figured they were just complementary.

The process through security check-in and decontamination was a blur, his mind's entire axis revolving around that sneaky pocket in his suitcase. His erection persistently pulsed, only aggravated by rampantly pornographic thoughts. Like the guards finding an unusually firm bulge around his groin, getting 'frisked'. Like wearing the pilot-program gear through security... and it activating without his input. Desperately keeping composed while getting assaulted from both sides by far-too-eager faceless friends.

Once they'd reached the main promenade the fog of lust faded for a moment, the starkly different atmosphere rousing him out of his self-induced fugue.

A "Congratulations Cocorp" banner swayed between two pillars, dozens of business-casual animals milling around with bubbly drinks in paw. As it happened, he was near the refreshment table, burdened with way too many punch bowls and guarded on either end by some frankly oversized ice sculptures.

One form emerged from the many as a jackal came towards him, waving a paw and giving a friendly-sounding, "Hey there." He must have noticed Tenes' gawking.

Oh boy. Tenes wasn't ready for a conversation considering the mushy state his brain was in, especially not with someone so far outside his social circle. But it seemed unavoidable.

"Hey," Tenes kept it simple in return.

The approaching jackal smirked. "Ogling our alcohol eh?"

"Oh, uh—" His ears folded back as he gestured vaguely at the frozen swans.

The canid chuckled with a toothy grin and an amused tail-wag, "Nahhh I'm just messing with you. In fact if you want one, I'm pretty sure I could sneak you a cup! The more the merrier."

Tenes glanced down at the ID badge pinned to the jackal's lapel.

Silves Inculto: XBE Lv 2

He didn't recognize the job title code, but the badge explained itself: he was in some kind of high-security position.

"Well, that'd be great. What's the occasion?" Scanning over the crowd, he noticed a black sheep in a particularly expensive looking suit standing roughly beneath the banner. Probably some C-suite who'd already tossed a few back judging by the sway of his horns, his unsteady hooves, and his unbridled giggling at the exasperation of a rabbit nearby.

"We've got some new experimental tech powering the station, it's been a big success. You didn't hear it from me though. Not that you won't hear about it in the newsfeeds tomorrow anyway," Silves shrugged.

"Oh, yeah? Seems like this place is changing a lot lately..." Tenes mused.

"You don't know the half of it," Silves smirked again, with an edge to it that Tenes wasn't sure he liked.

The jackal's ears perked, and he tilted his head at the badger to lean in, glossy black snout approaching for a sniff. His mirth widened, a glimmer in those trickster eyes and a twitch to his tail as he murmured, "On second thought, I think you do."

Tenes took a hesitant step back away from that prying snout. Unable to resist ducking his muzzle down to sniff at himself, he found just the usual tang of decontamination, his own musk hadn't even had the chance to reassert itself yet. But somehow Silves could see how single-mindedly he was here to fuck; those were the eyes of a man used to tallying his conquests.

...This was possibly the worst of all times to start stiffening up again down there.

Another part of him fought back. That was a massive and frankly ridiculous leap of logic. He was just horny and paranoid, so of course he'd interpret it that way. There were a hundred possible explanations for this sequence of events. More information needed.

"What... What do you mean?" he tried to play off his anxiety, poorly.

Taking a step forward onto the ground that the badger had given, Silves just pushed a cup of strong-smelling liquid into his left paw, then took advantage of the proximity to slide his claws up along the back of the badger's paw. Tenes couldn't help but shiver, a crackle of unexpected intimacy bolting along his spine and making his tail flick. The jackal's paw slid further up along his wrist, tapping a claw on his real target; the silver holoband hanging heavy with Tenes' renewed obsession.

Tenes froze, and the jackal's deep-green eyes darted across him, taking in every detail of that inarguable body language. Even though the badger was a good eight inches taller, it was clear who dictated the pace between them.

"Enjoy your evening. If you're feeling up to it, look me up." Another very meaningful clawtap on the badger's golden shackle. "I'm sure we could have some very interesting conversation."

Before Tenes could rouse his brain to make any kind of reply the jackal turned with a flourish of his black-backed tail, padding away to rejoin the crowd of strangers again.

Tenes' holoband buzzed, and his arm snapped up as if he'd been called to attention. The pilot app was the first thing he saw of course, since he'd just left it running even while the device was locked. Connection established. A throb from below.

He glanced up almost hoping to see a coy expression sent back at him, but failed to pick out Silves' tall ears from the crowd. Briefly the badger thought about trying to chase him down, but it would be silly to make a scene at a party he wasn't even invited to. Especially while holding a cup of their own booze.

Silves Inculto, he tapped out into a note before he forgot. Though somehow it felt like a futile exercise. He doubted the jackal would have public details on Cocorp's site, and the station didn't have a contact database. Plus he probably didn't even live here. So what did he mean by "look me up"?

He switched back to the pilot program app. His horny-paranoid brain was still fighting with his logical brain; the coincidence between how much he'd been obsessing over this app and how... forward Silves had been with his holoband felt like the jackal's invitation had something to do with the pilot program. But that was silly... Wasn't it? It was a purposefully anonymous app.

A flicker of movement on the screen barely escaped his perception. It looked like there had been a popup, maybe the pilot program had been asking him to install an update? But the popup disappeared. If it was important it would show up again, he supposed.

Huh. Did my stamina bar max out at 110 before?

***

The star of the evening had retired to his suite, a spacious room far up along the station's spire.

In some ways the view rivalled his own office. Just close enough to the mossy-colored second planet in the system, floating in a lagrangian point near its ruddy moon.

The COO's maroon blazer had come off first. Then his argyle tie, then the deep purple cotton shirt. From the waist up his midnight wool was on full display, proudly immune to graying unlike so many other species. He did have to keep it close-trimmed for the three-piece suit to fit well, which made a bit of an apparent shave line at the neck, but a little bit of mussing up with his hooftips blended it well enough. Even if he did look a bit like a llama now with how the curls accentuated his neck.

The excess he'd shielded himself in was wearing off, and the ragged pink coals of his pain were glowing again. He couldn't rest yet, not with the buzzing in his head. He knew where he needed to go. To finally look upon his deeds and accept his sins in the name of progress.

Just throwing the blazer back on was enough; it was honestly not a bad look. He blinked at himself in the chromed-up elevator walls as he descended again, distorted reflection a good-enough glimpse. He faintly wished he could get away with letting loose like this more often.

Not a single animal remained in the Euphoria Drive control center tonight. They'd be paged if any of their metrics so much as hiccuped. He tapped his holobrace at the entrance to the production observation deck.

The ram's pilgrimage paused, seeing a figure out at the windows already. It was that jackal. What was his name. Silver? His head felt so loud, so bright, and he was very much not expecting company here.

Jackal ears craned, verdant irises catching the faint light from the pit as he turned, tail flicking while he regarded the sheep.

"Mr. Dilette. Didn't expect to see you here."

A few hoofsteps closer, but the ram hesitated. He couldn't quite cross that last expanse, couldn't yet peek over the threshold even as the clamor only grew.

"I... I could say the same. This seems... A lurid place for contemplation." Sooty pot calling the kettle black, of course, Huxley admonished himself.

'Silver' hummed, eyes flicking down at the writhing mass they'd cultivated together. "I suppose so. But in a way it's kind of fascinating, isn't it? Though you could say, this kind of breakthrough is exactly why I got into the field, so I don't think about it the way most would."

"Fascinating... Is perhaps the most accurate word for it, yes..." Something about the jackal's attitude towards all of this was... Inviting, almost. He viewed it in a way not fully detached, like Lewis or any of the others. He was willing to admit that there was something more here to chew on.

"To think we could soon be powering everything like this. I'd almost call it poetic."

The ram's brow twitched up. "How so?"

The jackal's gaze returned to the ram, nearly making him squirm. The pressure in his head grew under those eyes, making it hard to catch his murmured words, "That despite everything, the secret to your ascension as a civilization was hidden in your basest instincts all along. In simply embracing them. Full circle."

Huxley blinked, eyes darting around as he tried to catch a glimpse of a phantom light at the edges of his vision, pink and fleeting, yet blaring all the same. His pants felt unfittingly tight, his words coming in halting bursts.

"Yes... So... It would seem... Our ascension..."

His hooves weredragged forward. Was he even the one moving them?

Below, below, through the gleam of glass and the everpresent gloom, the figures writhed. A sea of anthropoids of all kinds rendered in silken black, so indistinct and ephemeral that one could only barely catch the curve of a horn, the plume of a tailfeather, the mane of a lion, before the wave crashed back into the ocean and emerged again as something new. They tangled with each other in endless fraternization, a debaucherous turbine he could barely stand to look at. Their eternal engine.

Huxley couldn't tear his eyes away. In perverse reflection, in senseless grasping, he reached out towards hell. Cracks spread in his mind, a heat built in his core, in his groin, his ears resounded with the buzzing, the grinding, the rutting melding together in a song that he had not the throat to join.

"Silver... I have a job for you." His words came out shockingly well considering that his tongue was hanging out of his muzzle.

"Of course sir." The jackal folded his arms behind his back, watching the metamorphosis unfold with a passively pleased gaze.

Staggering backwards, the ram tried to regain some kind of composure. His self, his persona he'd built for decades, struggled against the burgeoning light. A sofa became his target, curiously casual furniture for such a distasteful view.

The maroon jacket was once again tossed, this time onto the floor. He nearly threw himself back onto the sofa, and then his pants button came open. Silves' next task jutted long and hard up and out of its cottony confines, deep pink against the man's shadowed curls.

"I... I can't use the system. The app. It wouldn't be right. I'd... Conflict of interest, of course, no... Side effects... we can't... nobody can know," the ram rambled, everything in his head coming together in a tenuously rational web. The crystal, the light so close overhead, he couldn't see it but he knew it was calling him, lust burning him from the inside out.

Silves nodded, taking slow, expectant steps towards his boss, "Of course, sir."

"So... So I'm trusting you Silver. You're... Such a trusted member of the team, we... Uhhgh... Special assignment... Initiative..." The pulsing prominence between his legs shattered any further attempts at a coherent idea, feral need overwhelming him, thick caprine tongue hanging out to the side as his hips merely thrust up, punctuating his sentence with a dripping exclamation point.

The jackal carefully knelt between Huxley's splayed legs, looking up at one of the most powerful men in the galaxy.

"Don't worry, sir. I completely understand. Just let me take care of everything." That mischievous muzzle split with a grin, then wrapped around Huxley's long, leaking shaft.