FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Location: Falsetto Docks, The Cradle.

Time: 15:30pm.

Year: 2180, March 14th.

We were both sitting quietly in the small living room, equipping a few weapons and tools. We needed all the advantages we could find if we wanted to raid this building. If we failed, we'd be thrown out of Falsetto, and into another blind search; if we succeeded, we'd be put on the right track to finding this money. It seemed like a bit of a chore to go through to get all this money.

"So what's the plan?" I asked Elise as she zipped up her cloak, hiding a torso piece of body armor underneath.

"We'll be up against mechs mostly." Elise grunted as she lifted up a large case hiding her large rifle; "We won't be killing anyone living."

"That's not what I meant." I said, holstering my small pistol, but replacing the magazine with much smaller pellets that could hardly be seen if one was on its own.

I picked up the new pistol that I had purchased whilst in the city, and placed the same kind of clip in that. The nozzle was two times longer than my other pistol, but was still the same color; silver-white with a darker shade on the grip. It barely cost me under one-hundred dollars. I didn't really see why I needed the money; the least I would spend it one would be clothes or food, and even then I was left with a good portion of spare money.

"I'll come up with something." Elise sighed, placing a small pistol in her belt-holster, and looking at my new pistol. "Is that all you bought? Nothing for me, at all?"

"I got you this." I said, pulling out a cube two times the size of my fist, containing a few clips for Elise's rifle. "Just incase you run out again. I also bought myself a decent set of body armor."

"So where is it, then?" Elise asked doubtfully. I pointed at the Seeker jumpsuit that I was wearing, and Elise's face lit up. "You had it implanted into your jumpsuit? How much did that cost?!"

"Just under two hundred dollars." I answered, opening up my jumpsuit to reveal two holsters for my pistols. I placed both carefully inside and zipped it back up.

"It doesn't look all that different." Elise said doubtfully, noticing that both the inside and outside of my jumpsuit looked the same as it did last time she saw it.

"I thought that too." I said, picking up a sling with half a dozen clips attached. I opened up my jumpsuit again and hid it in there. "The salesman said it was 'pure battle mesh, not very visible to the untrained eye'. Still, it's hard to see how this would be a bad thing..."

Elise stayed silent after that, and opened up the large plastic case, revealing her large rifle, along with six clips; my gift to her added four more to that number. I had to rely on her to do most of the shooting; even with my two pistols, there may be too many mechs to take on, on my own. Worst of all, we didn't have much of a plan; I considered climbing up the building, but it would we almost impossible with how much weight we were carrying. We'd be much better off taking another route. Maybe we would be able to jump from one of the surrounding buildings; that would be quicker than taking the ground floor.

I stopped thinking for a second and looked at Elise who cocked her second pistol, and hid it under her baggy right sleeve.

"Lets get to work." She said quickly. I obeyed, and followed her quickly out of The Cradle.

Location: Falsetto, KnightsTower.

Time: 17:45pm.

Year: 2180, March 14th.

It took us over two hours to reach the center of the city, though we weren't fatigued in the slightest; we were too determined to think about how exhausted we were, being this close to the money, and most likely meeting The Director in-person; Though this final stretch may be a little tricky.

We were stood in front of the large tower in the center of the city, and were looking directly at the entrance, which was heavily patrolled by mechs. I noticed that the area was surrounded by a concrete wall that rose up as high as the first story of the building; there weren't even any buildings close enough for us to use to get over the wall. We had met a dead end, and were feeling pretty sore about it.

"So what's the plan now?" Elise asked, taking the words right out of my mouth. I had a good look around before answering. There was nothing around but flat, hard ground all around us.

"Isn't there any way we could get over the wall?" I asked, turning to Elise. She shook her head slowly, still looking on at the tower.

"...I say we break through it." Elise said after a long pause. I looked at her with a confused look. "I could punch a wall through there using my rifle."

"We'll need some smoke bombs or something if we want to get there without them shooting us down first thing." I suggested sarcastically. "I don't suppose you have anything like that, do you?"

Elise stayed silent, but placed her case down on the floor, pulling a large cube out of it. She tossed it to one hand, then the other, and bent down to lay it one the ground. I wondered what she was doing; she got up and held her arm up in front of her face, pointing directly at the entrance a few hundred yards away, and in one smooth movement, picked up her rifle and kicked the small cube across the open space with all her strength.

The cube had slid along smoothly and let out a few puffs of smoke as it went, shrouding the path with a long, light grey cloud. Elise shot forwards, picking up the case with me trailing behind her quickly. I couldn't hear anything for a while except for our footsteps. In another quick action, I could barely see Elise raise her rifle up and shoot forwards, unleashing an entire clip through the smoke and into what must have been the wall. It didn't take us more than a few seconds to reach the cracked and brittle wall, where Elise forced herself into it, thus breaking the section down and creating an entrance for us.

I squeezed through the opening, where I could see Elise clearly, brushing the tiny pieces of rubble off of her cloak and getting up quickly, barely avoiding a small hail of bullets to our left. I jerked around and pulled both pistols out, firing at whatever was doing the shooting. It took a while before the smoke finally cleared, and I could see everything clearly; including what had been shooting at us.

Elise's assumptions were right; there were mainly mechs around the area, though these ones were different; they had the build of a Wolf, but the fur had been replaced with a blank, white metal shell, their guns were actually grafted onto their arms, and their heads were replaced with a white, skull-like build, probably used for psychological uses. I looked to my left and saw two Wolf-Mechs fall to the ground, still crackling and sparking from the shots that I fired. I wasted no more time and followed Elise inside the building, jamming the doors behind us with a piece of scrap metal that we picked up along the way.

The interior was much more structured that it looked from the outside. The corridors, as well as every room we came across, were completely hexagonal! It definitely felt like a military base now. We had entered what looked like a small reception room, though there was no one around, no furniture, just a large metal desk that almost completely blended in with the room.

"I think I'm going to be sick." I muttered, scowling at how ugly the place looked; though it was organized, it was too plain; even The Cradle had more color than this.

"Let's just find this archive and get out of here." Elise growled softly, slinging her case over her back, making her stagger slightly.

There were two paths; one to the left, the other right in front of us. We chose the left, though there were no signs to tell us where we were going. I followed Elise blindly down the corridors, constantly looking back and keeping my pistols held up. I also noticed that all the doors we went past were angular to blend in with the hexagonal corridors.

I noticed that no sirens or alarms had gone off during the time we were there; it was odd that no one was around to stop us or ambush us along the way. I would have expected a few mechs, some actual soldiers; even an alarm would have eased my tension. Unfortunately, nothing was around to do so, making me grip my guns so tight that my hands started to ache slightly. I ignored the pain and continued following Elise, keeping as quiet as possible; we still had a job to do.

"Hold up." Elise whispered quietly, holding up her left arm and signaling me to back up against the wall.

I tucked back into the wall with Elise, and listened to our breathing, and beyond that, the sound of wheels. The sound was slowly beginning to draw closer and closer to us from around the other corner. The sound reminded me of that giant suit of armor that we had seen when we arrived in Falsetto; luckily, the corridor had three paths; one to the right, one that went straight on, and the last one going where we came from. I just hoped that the mech would take the route that I thought it was going to take. I just hid there and listened.

The sound of tires had started to fade out and go silent; giving us all the proof we needed to tell that the mech was gone. We forced ourselves out of cover and turned the corner, heading further into the building. We turned countless corners until we ran into something that would save us a lot of time; an elevator!

"I'll watch your back." Elise whispered to me, pushing me softly to the front; "See if that elevator can take us where we want to go."

I obeyed without question and advanced down the long stretch, heading for the hexagonal elevator that blended in with the rest of the building; I wondered how anyone could tell an elevator from just another corridor; all the walls and rooms seemed to look the same, there were no signs. Maybe the whole building was controlled by mechs. It would make sense considering they wouldn't need signs to tell where they needed to go.

I was just a few meters away from the elevator, when I saw a white silhouette step out from the left. It jerked around to face me and lifted up its right arm, firing something into my chest at point blank range, knocking me onto the floor. The impact was strong enough to force all the wind from my lungs, but not break my ribs; I had the battle mesh to thank for that. I reached for one of my pistols, which was just next to me on the hard metal floor; once I had it in my right hand, I rotated my arm to meet the mechs head and pulled the trigger four times, all shots hitting its head.

The mech slumped to the ground and didn't get up. I heard Elise run over to pick me up, but by the time she arrived, I was already on my feet -staggering, but on my feet none the less. My ears were ringing slightly, but I could hear more metal footsteps coming from the other end of the corridor. We both rushed into the elevator, whilst Elise still had her rifle aimed at the opening; meanwhile, I had to look for the right switch that would take us to the recordings archive.

"We haven't got all day." Elise shouted nervously, starting to shake; "Hurry up, if you can."

"Just a moment." I muttered loudly, keeping a cool head and finally finding a switch that read out; 'Archives'. I immediately pushed the button and watched the doors close in front of us, leaving us in a metal elevator that slowly descended down.

"That was too close." Elise sighed loudly with relief; but kept her rifle up. "We're not out of it yet; so check your ammo, and be ready for a firefight."

Luckily for me, I was. I kept both pistols out, and breathed in deeply before the elevator finally arrived at the bottom floor. I wasn't surprised that the archives would be located below ground; things like that needed to be protected, and what better way than to hide it under a building filled with mechs.

The elevator doors slowly opened, revealing a huge cube-like structure in front of us, held up by many steel support beams that scattered across the room in an organized fashion. It looked like someone had dug out a really big section of ground and filled it with metal tiles; I could see a few gaps that revealed bare patches of dirt. Whoever made this must have been eager to do so; otherwise the place would be a little less...dirty.

I brought my head down to the ground floor, where something was lying in wait; varying from white skeleton-like machines, to large suits of armor on wheels; but past that, I saw something that grabbed most of my attention.

Bookcases! Dozens of large bookcases, probably containing all the logs from all the years since the city was constructed. It pained me to see that there were so many bookcases, and not enough time to search through them; that, and there were dozens of mechs in the way. I turned to Elise, who was already facing me, smiling.

"Well, lets get to work." Elise said with an eager tone, stepping out of the elevator slowly. I followed her.

And walked blindly into the firefight...