FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Amara’s sensor suite presented dull snowflakes of static and interference, not that she had any time to pay attention. Her feet were too busy punching craters in martian rock, forcing the hovertrolley she pushed to move far beyond its safety protocols.

A gunshot shattered a stalagmite, a magnetically accelerated shell carrying through the minor obstruction to bury itself deep into the cavern wall.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the feminine android pushed forward. Her internal circuitry had already evaluated survival probabilities and chosen where to step so that she could avoid the next gunshot as it skipped between her legs.

Those percentages were steadily falling, point by point. Her servos were accumulating wear, her artificial muscles were starting to fray on a microscopic level. For a flighting moment she considered hiding, using the individual on the cart as bait to draw out, then kill their attackers.

Subroutines flooded her core with blatant refusal. Her directives would not allow her to place Momma in danger.

So she ran. Even as a bullet sheared off one of the hoverbed’s rails she ran, even as the numbers for survival fell into singular digits.

Her core continued to display the highest odds. Still, she consulted the other options she could have taken and found them lacking. After the bombing they could have hidden with a black market cyberdoc, that had the second highest survival chance. The third was flight back to earth under assumed names and accounts that they had set up.

In fact, she had purchased tickets and been on her way to the doctor when those two options flatlined. Another bombing in the otherwise scenic residential district had nullified their opportunity to go to ground while a third ‘terrorist incident’ occurred at the airport.

All to kill Momma.

All that remained was a single message in her core, a set coordinates set deep below the city, below the septic and filtration systems, down in the mining shafts that honeycombed the red planet. The tunnels without air or light or sound.

What many had taken to call the abyss.

Another bullet streaked from the shadows. Amara’s left arm raised of its own accord as the trajectory flashed across her cybernetic mind in an instant. What would have torn the vacuum seal to pieces and caused her Momma to slowly asphyxiate and depressurize instead reduced her elbow to a nova of glittering fragments.

She caught a glimpse of their pursuers, their black armor glistening in her advanced optics..

Another shot rang out, a bullet that tore apart her ear and shaved through her metallic skull. Amara’s internal systems cheerfully informed her she would have collapsed in pain or outright died from the blow. For a machine, though, the superficial damage was not enough to stop her.

Instead, a sheer wall did that.

The coordinates flickered in her vision, a waypoint echoing to a simple, flat, featureless plane of gray stone that stuck out from its rusty surroundings.

And there, as her feet touched the surface, her survival probabilities hit zero.

Not close to zero, no infinitesimally small probability remained. The red, glaring circle held no addendums and no asterisk.

The hovercart that contained her Momma flickered and died as she stared at the wall. The medical equipment was still active, but the device had failed. She fought to keep the medical tray stable as flashlights flickered to life in the entrance, cones of illumination coming sharply into focus.

The lead woman, a vulpine model of android, stepped forward with a smile. Momma would have considered the pouty lips sensual, but The others spread out to give them distance, to let Amara see her lips move silently. The wounded android understood she was gloating, strobes of light within her eyes carrying a message. Unfortunately for the vulpine but the last shot had ruined her communications suite.

Instead, Amara used the moment to look over her form. Her sensors told her that the team’s leader was a pleasure model with a retrofit. Thin bones and lean musculature wouldn’t do much to protect her from Amara’s swings.

Except she couldn’t get close, not without abandoning the woman in the malfunctioning medical bed. Her priority was to keep her alive as long as possible.

Their pursuer’s eyes glittered in delight. Her right hand rose as she continued to speak, as she let a single hand fall. The others, four in total now that Amara could see amongst them, darted forward, towards Momma’s wounded, shrouded form.

The feline was amongst them in an instant, punching and kicking with her remaining limbs. Her combat processor flung her between them,slapping away swings that would shred her charge’s body, only to be rewarded time and again with the slice of a blade across her back, across her legs. Synthetic skin parted to reveal glittering chrome and carbon fiber as the four dove in and away, provoking an autonomous reaction from her body as they carved away pieces of her form.

Their eyes shimmered beneath pink goggles as they danced and spun, each one a beautiful dervish to her sloppy, wounded movements. The accents on their armor were the same effeminate hue, each point of color only serving to further enhance the display.

It was mockery. Pointing out their own superiority as they waved their guns in her face, then spun to slice across her skin with another cruel swipe. Her logic processors tried to comprehend why they were acting in this way, why they had hunted her and her Momma down. She searched for a reason for the mockery, for bombing the two and taking their time to savor their victory.

Her CPU strained as a foreign sensation wormed inside her artificial mind, a rampant madness that threatened to bite at the back of her programming.

Then one of the women’s heads exploded.

Shards of ceramic and metal hung in the air as Amara’s systems froze, as her computer struggled in vain to process what had happened. Her survival percentages flickered at zero, before finally warping to a word she had never witnessed before.

ERROR

The dance halted in an instant as the four remaining women went on alert. Their bodies snapped to attention, their hands pulled upon weapons.

They were in shock, distracted, and Amara threw herself towards the leader. Her mouth was pulled back in a snarl and her clawed feet threw rocks into the air with the force of her movement.

Another woman saw her movement and turned to fire. Instead, her chest cavity turned inside out, polymer and steel shunting through her back like she had been punched by the fist of a god. A god pissed enough to have reduced her torso into scrap metal shavings.

The glittering fragments lashed out like knives. The first shards cut through another woman’s right arm, forcing alarm into her face as she tried to raise her weapon to Amara’s head. Instead, the severed bicep twitched and sprayed fluid across the floor as it rose, doing nothing to stop her blitzkrieg as a second volley ripped through steel and flesh alike.

Without breaking stride, the combat android pushed through the storm of shrapnel. Her eyes locked with the one who had pursued them. Within arm’s distance, Amara could tell that she was an upgraded civilian model, on the border between a military drone and an industrial-grade assistant.

The massive warrior had no need to calculate the amount of torque she needed. She simply set her muscles to activate at their greatest output as she looked down upon the smaller model.

The force of her fist against the construct’s head had been enough to split the plating. Servos within the neck whined as they fought to keep the skull upright, but that only served to help the fist drive deeper. The eyes of the damaged unit sparked and sizzled as the clawed hand dove even deeper, punching into the mechanical throat, then into the chest cavity.

AI cores were created spherical to give them the best chance at survival, to make them resilient enough to withstand direct gunfire and repeated blunt impacts. Instead, the entire thing fractured like an egg with Amara’s blow, the outside caving in and adding to the chaotic, randomized mess. Bits and fragments blew out through the smaller drone’s spine, splintering against the red rock floor in a veritable torrent.

Lifeless eyes stared in opposite directions as the massive feminine model finally withdrew her hand. Gravity and weight soon became an issue and, a moment later, the thing fell to pieces.

Amara’s eyes quickly searched for another target, another victim for the strange burning within her circuitry. Her sensors showed there to be no one around her, but even then she saw the figures that slipped from the cavern’s shadows, that seemed to separate from the walls and stand before her with weapons drawn. Their bodies were stony, encapsulated in a layer that seemed formed from the rock itself,

None, however, looked at her. Instead they peered beyond her, towards the medical tray.

The protective drone’s lips curled in an airless snarl and saw two on either end of the device. Their hands, though, were calm and collected while they worked in tandem to lift the broken vessel.

All four pushed towards a sheer wall at full stride, only to disappear through its surface The rock-coated soldiers that had previously gathered around Amara were quick to follow them, though they gave the android a wide berth to do so.

The last looked towards her for the briefest moment, then stepped through the surface.

Amara had no commands to follow. No instructions filled her mind. All that existed were a series of errors and unsolvable calculations within her neural architecture. She considered the wall for the first time without an instruction given, without an objective or direction.

She stepped towards the surface, a hand outstretched towards its surface. What she felt upon contact was not stone, however, but fabric, and all it took was a gentle push to ease her limb into the barrier.

--

The dream quickly dissolved into war cries, gunfire, and smoke.

Amara bolted forward, her eyes burning with a heated anger and panic, one that died slowly within her pounding head.

A whisper slipped through her mind, telling her that she shouldn’t feel. She was an android, and androids didn’t feel. The murky and muddy thought bubbled deep inside her as the pain in her chest and the ache across her head continued.

She eased out of her medical bed and staggered towards the bathroom. Her naked body rippled as she passed by the mirror, every step flexing well-toned muscle fibers in her shoulders, chest, and gratuitous ass. The few cuts and tears in her epidermal layer revealed milky white scar tissue, tissue that was quickly knitting and fading from the previous day’s training.

Yet more things that a machine shouldn’t have. She mused over the concept as she relieved herself, then washed and tried her best to ignore her headache and the burning pain in her torso.

Underwear was pulled over her hips. Her gratuitous ass ate the lily white cotton, transforming the garment into nothing more than a thong. A few adjustments let her impressive ballsack and cock slip into the fabric, the material fashioned just right so that they wouldn’t be crushed against her pussy lips. Her bra came next, cupping her massive breasts, pulling them closer to the massive slab of her chest.

The feeling of fur against her fingertips brought a smile to her lips, the sensation still stroking her in just the right way to make her giggle. The reaction was involuntary and made her heart quiver.

The happy woman in the mirror looked nothing like her, but she enjoyed it far more than her original form. What was once patherine had become fluffy and soft, her shoulders and back sporting a mane of royal silk. A similar trail wandered down her belly and her spine, joining together around her sensual bits between her legs.

From afar, the only hints that she wasn’t a living creature were the segmented nature of her skin and the solid purple gemstones that made up her eyes. Of course, her hair was too long to let anyone see those stones, too messy to let anyone see her small muzzle or the long, sabre-like teeth that pushed between her lips and rest on either side of her chin.

A knock at her front door broke her silent reverie. Her feet felt heavy as they carried her towards the entrance to her domicile.

The door to her apartment opened with a thought, revealing a blonde-haired woman. Her form was a perfect and petite hourglass, every inch covered in purest ivory ceramic. The lack of details on her entire form meant that the drone didn’t need any clothing.

Amara had decided that it made her sad to see the drone kept up a mannequin appearance. Of course, it was tempered by the fact that she never could tell what the drone would do.

Like the fist that buried in her stomach, that made her start coughing and fall into a retreat, “What was that for Clara?”

“You weren’t breathing.” The woman’s voice was soft and gentle as her pose reset; the arm that had impacted the taller woman’s stomach retracted to her side. A moment later as she stepped into the single-room home and looked over the articles of clothing that had been neatly arrayed along the wall,.“Been eating well? And the room is to your liking?”

“About all I need,” Amara answered between gasps. Amazingly, despite the blow she had begun to feel better. Her head was clearer and the hot sensation in her core had abated with each breath, “Thank you.”

Clara’s diminutive body turned twisted towards the woman. For a moment she said nothing, only watched with a quiet intensity, “You’re doing well.”

For a moment, the woman had forgotten the mannequin was a Vox. For the better part of a month the woman had been helping her learn how to control her new body, how to manipulate the metal that flowed within and across her body. But when she made cryptic statements, Clara betrayed her nature. To draw a Vox out of that mental closet required a direct approach, “What do you mean?”

“You’re remembering more how to control yourself. You went out last week, and not merely on patrol with the militia. You didn’t drink in excess either, though you did have two beers.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, it’s quite good actually.” The featureless face of the android was covered by a hand in an all-too-human gesture of mirth, “You gave your liver exercise, which it needs.”

“Glad I’m surpassing expectations then,” The shaggy woman returned with a broad smile. Her hand rubbed across her abdomen as she recalled the bubbly heat that had built within her depths, that had encouraged her to buy a second bottle. “I’m still getting used to having organs.”

“I’d imagine it is surprising, as surprising as it was for me to realize I didn’t really need all of mine. It’s the nature of surpassing our limitations, what the biometal allows us to be when it changes us.”

It had been a pool of ebony and ivory that had changed Amara’s appearance from the pantheress to the shaggy, fluffy hybrid with a pounding heart and a forgetful streak. The preceding day had been one of further violence, of holding a gate of immutable gray stone as men and women stepped into her current reality.

As it stood, she was stranded, and she was still waiting for Momma to open her eyes.

The thought plagued Amara as Clara watched her dress. A light tee and a pair of shorts covered the majority of her belly, while a jacket ensured she would stay warm even in the Empire’s brisk morning air.

The android stopped her at the door and stared upwards at the taller woman with those sapphire eyes.

“You should take better care of your appearance. Who knows if your Momma will wake up today or not,” She said the words gently, quietly. Her hands rose and pulled the taller woman’s hair to the side. Her hybrid face was shortly revealed to the dawn’s gentle rays, a pair of circular hairpins slipped across her bangs to attach the strands to her big, floppy ears.

“Thanks.” It was the only word Amara could offer.

It was those little insights that reminded the populace of who the Voxes were. In an empire with a missing leader, they acted as the arbiters of her will, elected with trust by an armed populace easily capable of removing them.

They were forthcoming about the few that had broken their oaths. The other Voxess had hunted them down, that the population they were mandated to assist had assassinated a few once their egregious nature had become apparent.

Resilience did not beget immortality.

Her musings had rendered Amara blind to most of the world, until at last her hand reached out to touch the elevator’s panel. The doors sealed and sent her down the side of her home structure. The glass behind her showed a city of concrete, steel, and brick, of busy streets and vibrant green trees.

At the heart of it all was the ship that had brought the Iron Empire to this reality, a glimmering black and white ship that had planted itself into the soil like a lawn dart. Its engines proudly glinted in the sunlight, wings spread across the city like a bird’s wings.

But that wasn’t her destination. A mental message called out over a wireless network and pulled upon the taxis services for the best rate. A single driver pulled up and whisked her down the street. Her only company was the feminine mannequin beside her, that continued to watch her with gemstone eyes.

“You know you don’t have to follow me everywhere.”

“I know. I want to,” The woman replied. Her voice carried a gentleness that no synthetic intelligence could ever emulate, “I get worried about you on weekends, when you’re waiting in the hospital.”

That same hospital was swiftly approaching. A pristine building with too many windows for Amara’s safety-conscious mind. Still, she had been told that sunlight was good for healing.

Credit was deducted from her account with the swipe of a plastic card. Ride paid for, the woman at the front desk welcomed her as a regular visitor without a need to sign in. Amara’s feet barely stopped as she hustled across campus, forcing a smile across her lips as she waved to doctors, nurses, and patients alike.

An old woman gave her an apple. She passed along to a child visiting his father.

In another time, another place, she would have been disturbed by the number of orderlies and visitors that carried firearms, swords, and long-bladed knives. Her brain would have counted and calculated every path and possible strike. Here, however, all walked with a certain confidence and ease that had never existed on Mars.

The door to Momma’s room slid open with a hiss, the automatic panel keyed to the biometal woman’s presence. To her surprise there were flowers on the room’s far table, fresh ones. A card was written in bright and cheerful fingerpaint, ‘Get well soon, from your daughter’s friends.’

It wasn’t only a single blossom either. Amara realized that as she flicked on the light. The display spilled over the table and across the far wall, creating a mosaic of color and floral scents that even made her eyes water.

She tried to smile as she assumed her vigil at the side of the bed, an unfamiliar tightness welling within her chest. The sensation only intensified as she watched the woman on the bed breathe, as she listened to the soft beeps that measured her heartbeat.

Her fingers were laced through those that belonged to the woman on the bed, though it wasn’t entirely her own. They were metal and were cool to the touch. The white blood that coursed through them, propelled by small motors and fed by reservoir, didn’t hold its own heat well without a body’s natural temperature.

It had been two months since the bombing, seven weeks since they had slipped through the gate into the strange world. Four weeks ago she had first woken up.

Momma’s fingers slowly twitched as she pulled herself from a dream. As always, the first thing she saw on Saturday morning was Amara’s smiling face, her protective and confident grin outlined by the blue sky behind her.

“Morning sleepyhead,” The massive woman said gently. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

The much smaller woman in the bed returned the grin, but didn’t move much further. Her muscles were weak from healing, and from the physical therapy courses, “If it’s okay, I’d like to sit here a bit longer. I almost finished the printer files we’ve been working on.”

Files and schematics poured from the bed’s database, a reservoir of information spilling out upon the injured woman’s lap. Plates, digits, limbs all spread through the air, fragments and scraps fluttering like butterfly wings before consolidating into a single, unified form. A reptilian snout was matched by long, sleek limbs and delicate fingers. Three toes, long and muscular, were attached to her feet and flexed for stability while a single sharp heel could rise and fall like a deployable shoe.

The body itself was lithe and skinny, with delicate curves that only hinted at Momma’s sex.

The two had discussed a biometal treatment. Amara had even demanded it from the doctor. They didn’t acquiesce, however, even after Amara had broken the first table.

Breaking the second had earned her a snap across the nose.

She had yelped and whimpered like a chastised pup as the doctor explained the dangers of submersion, and how they were amplified when the subject was physically frail. Amara herself was lucky, had been thrown into the sludge by an errant explosion and fought her way to the surface, had forced the material to accept her will.

Alexis, Momma, had no guarantee.

So instead the two continued to toil upon a replacement body, something that would fix what pieces were broken and augment that which was damaged. The smiling face that looked back at them after three weeks of work, between bouts of fitful rest and deep sleep, was something that the bed-bound woman could call her own.

“Ready to hit send?” Amara finally asked as her fingers brushed through the thick, coiled dreadlocks that adorned the wireframe’s head.

“Yeah.”

A single button press threw terabytes of information and details through wires and connections. Lists of components were compiled and Amara’s burdened account was taxed just a little bit more. Somewhere a 3D printer turned on and began to lathe the pieces one by one.

The creation of Alexis’s body was out of their hands.

Burden relieved, life ahead of her, Momma smiled at her first creation. Her fingers cupped her guardian’s jaw and smiled, “The hair clips are beautiful by the way. It’s nice to see your entire face.”