FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"There's our ride," Tucker said, pointing to the sky.

Theo searched the area until a section zoomed in, and he saw a small dot. "This is new," he said.

"I'm using the armor's connection to the network to access the satellite," Cass replied, "and approximating what you'd see if you had the capability to zoom."

"You'd be able to do that if you wore the helmet," Tucker commented. "Do you know where we're going?"

Theo shook his head. "The zone is all I know. Their base will be somewhere in there. If you can tell where there are islands, that'll give us a starting point."

"Unfortunately, there is no historical data there," Uncle answered, "and because of that, no satellites were ever tasked to cover that section of the ocean."

"Can you move some and give us a view?"

"Not without alerting the other corporations, and I don't think we want them to be curious as to what's going on. Vanguard might decide to launch an attack just because we're the ones looking at it," Uncle answered.

The dot was now a sleek, black, hover. Military, Theo decided by the lack of light reflecting off it.

"How reliable will sensor data be once we're within the field?" Tucker asked.

"I have no way to know," Uncle replied. "While the interference looks natural, I doubt it is, so it will depend on if it's a bubble or a filled space."

"I doubt it's filled," Cass offered, "The Anarchists need to be able to navigate in it. That means some form of buoy system."

The hover was larger than Theo expected, it could fit half a dozen soldiers easily. It landed next to them without disturbing the ground.

Tucker coughed and hacked up blood.

"You okay?" Theo was next to him.

The smile the other tiger gave him looked creepy with his bloody lips. "You do care."

"I'm a caring guy, this isn't about you."

Tucker hacked up more blood, then wiped his lips. When he spoke, it was his voice instead of the digitized one. "Lungs are fully repaired." He spit blood. "Just had to clear out the blood from them." He indicated the hover. "Come on, let's get moving. We have some terrorists to stop."

* * * * *

Uncle looked at Tucker and Theo in his recreation of the inside of the hover, both naked and relaxing at opposite ends of the cabin. There had been Tucker's offer of sex, and Theo's usual refusal. He dissolved it and formed that of his office, the black marble floor, the glass wall looking over a city that died centuries before. So long ago he didn't know which one it was, although he suspected it was San Francisco since this was the memory of the person he was based on.

"Cass, can we talk, please?"

"Of course," came the response from near the chair facing Uncle's desk.

He could make out a form, but more a haze in the 'air' than an actual person. Cass had no form. It wasn't an affectation. He truly considered himself the man behind the camera, and as such didn't see himself as a 'physical' being, even in this digital world.

"I'd like you to contact the person who helped you remain hidden from us and let them know they can stop."

"I don't know who you mean," Cass replied.

Uncle sighed. "Cass, I appreciate that you are used to keeping things to yourself, but I'm not asking you to tell me who they are, just to let them know they can stop, we're on the same side now, and I'd rather not have to deal with trying to find you and Theo once this is over."

"Let me rephrase what I mean," Cass said. "If someone is helping us, I don't know who they are."

Uncle stared at the distorted space before him. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I thought I'd just been that clever. It's a bit disappointing to know I had help."

"You were clever," Uncle said, looking at the data he had. "They just misdirected the search at the start, it gave you a head start." He showed Cass some of the corrupted data. "Does this look familiar?"

"No," Cass lied.

Uncle wished he hadn't. Wished Cass and Theo trusted him, but they were in the business of not trusting anyone, so he didn't hold it against them. The lie did tell him something. This unknown agent didn't operate solely on Earth. Cass had never been on Earth until Uncle brought him and Theo.

Uncle had seen this type of fractal corruption on Mars, but he'd associated it to one of the destroyed AI there. If it was instead the signature of a hacker, it would explain how it was now on Earth. What it didn't explain was how a living person could remain hidden from Uncle.

Uncle hated not knowing.

* * * * *

"I'd prefer you keep your distance," Theo said as Tucker sat on the same bench as him. He wanted to put on clothing, but Cass was locked out of that too for the moment. He could bring the armor back, but Tucker said it needed to recharge and Cass said the tiger was right. The armor took much more power and could drain the belt if it was active too long out of the sun or without access to some form of broadcasted power.

Theo figured Tucker just wanted to look at his naked body.

"I'm not going to touch you unless you ask nicely," Tucker replied.

"That," Theo indicated the other tiger's erection, "tells me you're running low on will power."

"That," Tucker gave his hard cock a stroke, "Is my natural state, no will required."

"I don't know what to make of you, Tucker. One minute you're a killing machine, the next--"

"I didn't kill," Tucker stated, letting go of his cock. "I don't kill if I can avoid it. I'm a soldier, not a killer."

That was pretty extreme a reaction, Theo thought.

"Before you ask," Cass said, "I'm not finding any records of Tucker Orr being part of the military. At this point, I'm guessing it's classified information."

"How do you even become what you are?"

Tucker grinned. "Well, you start when you're very young, I fucked my first man when I was--"

"Not what I mean and you know it, Tucker. I really don't need to know about your under-aged sexual escapades."

"They weren't underaged. It was after my tenth birthday; my implant was fully functional. But since you're a prude, everyone in our family has to do two years of military service when we're sixteen. I just took a liking to it and stayed in."

"There are no records of any Orrs," Cass stopped, "Any Orrs who can be identified as being connected to your family, I mean, having been in the army."

"We don't attend under our names," Tucker said, "Can you imagine the kind of trouble that would cause? The temptation for Vanguard to mount an attack on a training facility? As far as the world's concerned, dad took us on a two-year trip across the solar system so we'd get to know all the facilities we own."

"You, the sex-obsessed guy, took a liking to the army? I have trouble believing that," Theo said.

Tucker shrugged. "Not my job to convince you if my prowess saving your ass didn't get the job done."

"I have no doubt you're a kick-ass soldier, I saw that. I just don't understand how you got to that? You're all about having fun, not thinking about the consequences of your actions. And you're an engineer on top of that; how did you get all that done? Training for my job took just about all I had."

The other tiger snorted. "I doubt that's true. You just didn't bother diversifying. You're smart enough you'd get anything you want done if you put your mind to it. That's what I did. Put my mind to it."

"But how can you be so different? Uncaring one moment and..." Theo pointed back to where he thought the island was. "That."

"Do you really want your family to know what you do?" Tucker asked, his tone serious.

"My parents know what I do."

"But do they know what that means? The things you've had to do? Do you think they'd understand? Could they look at you the same if they knew?"

Theo bit his lower lip and shook his head. "I don't talk about it. I'm not allowed. They shouldn't even know, but I've never had secrets from them."

"My family knows I'm in the army, but I don't even want them to think about it so I don't bring it up. I don't do anything that will remind them of it. I want them to only remember I'm this foolish happy-go-lucky cock grabbing guy without one care in the world. And if you tell them otherwise, I will kill you."

The seriousness of Tucker's tone made Theo pause. "That can't be healthy," he finally said.

Tucker smiled. "Hey, the military shrink program says I am perfectly well adjusted."

"I'm doubting that program's validity more and more."

"It's tested regularly." He grabbed his cock, "so, this is going to be a bit of a ride, how about you suck me off and I return the favor?"

"No." Theo rolled his eyes.

Tucker stroked himself, "figured as much, but never hurt to ask."

Theo closed his eyes. "I really wish Cass had more control over my senses because something tells me you're going to be loud just to bother me."

As a response, Tucker let out a loud moan.

"If you need a distraction," Cass said privately, "something's come up we need to talk about."

'Go,' Theo finger coded. Data appeared before him. He made out it was corrupted easily.

"Does any of this look familiar?" Cass asked.

Theo studied it. 'Zoom.' The corrupted data jumped at him, showing him more details of how it was corrupted. There was a definite fractal pattern present. 'No,' he coded.

"This is Caduceus' signature."

'Okay.'

"This was found within Earth's information hiding our escape by Uncle."

'Does he know?' if Uncle knew about Caduceus it would cause no end of problems.

"No, but you're missing the point. What is a Caduceus signature doing on Earth?"

'Agent?'

"Caduceus has no agents, you know that. Casanova, Mirror, and Angel are the only AIs who operate outside the Colonies through their agents, or outside the Colonies at all. The only way for there to be a Caduceus signature is--"

'Caduceus is on Earth.' "Fuck."

"What's wrong?" Tucker asked, cutting off a groan.

"Keep jerking off, you can't help with this."

'Hiding us?'

"Yes. It misdirected the search, created blind spots in the satellite network we slipped through. It gave us the time needed to vanish on our own."

'Until Vanguard.' If Caduceus had protected them, it wasn't the enemy. Theo didn't want to contemplate a scenario where it was the enemy. Caduceus wasn't the oldest of the AI, or the most alien, but interacting with it was strange, for one thing, it considered itself and 'it' instead of a 'he' or a 'she' even some of the older core AI's gave themselves genders.

"As good as Caduceus is, it can't think of everything. Aren't you worried about why it's here? I mean, no AI is allowed out of the Colonies without a good reason, and it just sent itself here?"

'Authorized?'

"I guess that's possible, but then why not tell us we have Caduceus as a form of backup? If I'd been able to contact it, even indirectly, I could have planned our escape a lot better."

So Anderson didn't know Caduceus was here. If Anderson didn't know, it couldn't be authorized. This was going to be so much trouble down the line. It was going to make the Colonies look like they were in league with the Anarchists. Theo was so happy he wasn't getting back to the Colonies now. He didn't have to think about how he was going to tell Anderson about this.

Somehow Tucker managed to get his grunting to intensify and Theo cracked an eye open in time to see him cum. That was a lot of cum, he thought, and realized he was licking his lips.

"Enjoying the view, I see," Tucker said as he sighed.

"No," Theo replied just to contradict the tiger.

"Hey, it's a great view, you should enjoy it. What to help me with the cleanup? No showers in here."

"No." Fuck why couldn't it have been someone other than Tucker who'd rescued him, because Theo would love to lick that clean, and suck a cock, and fuck and--

"You sure you don't want me to suck you off? That looks kind of painful."

Theo glared at the tiger, ignoring his own hardon.

The hover jerked and Theo ended up in Tucker's lap.

"Got it," Cass said on the hover's audio.

"What happened?" Theo asked, too aware of the cock pressing in his stomach.

"We crossed the boundary," Tucker said, not moving.

"I had to take control of the hover," Cass added, "we also lost Uncle."

"I expected you to push me away," Theo said, getting back to his seat.

"I said I wouldn't touch you." Tucker grinned. "But I did enjoy you touching me. You really should help me this time, this one's your fault."

Theo looked at the cum on his stomach. "You have a cloth I can clean up with?"

"Come on, it's cum, just use your fingers." Tucker did so, running his finger through the cum on his stomach and licking it off.

"I am not licking your cum," Theo said.

"It's on your body, technically, it's yours now."

"Why don't I just get the belt to deal with it?"

"Military design. That's not the kind of cleaning it does."

"Cass?" Theo asked, not trusting the other tiger.

"I have no idea. I'm locked out, remember?"

Theo glared at Tucker as he cleaned himself as best as he could, pausing as the cum's taste hit him. Tucker's cum was pretty good.

"I knew you'd like it. Cass, how long?"

"No idea. I'm listening for signals, but nothing so far, but that could be because they don't reach as deep as we are. I'm going to move us up until I get something, if there's anything to get."

Tucker remained silent as he finished cleaning up.

"Is it this quiet for you?" the tiger asked Theo.

"What do you mean?"

Tucker tapped his head. "In here. You don't have an implant so I'm guessing you don't receive all the signals."

"Cass handles that."

Tucker nodded. "How do you deal with the silence?"

"It's just there, isn't it?"

"Not for us. There's nothing. It's just me and my thoughts."

"You have a library of music, don't you? Books, movies?"

"Sure, but that's not the same. There's no background noise. The white noise of the network. We're always bombarded with adverts; the over imposed sights stores want you to see instead of bothering with actual decorations. That stuff's always there, until now." He gave a small shudder. "How do independents do this?"

"I couldn't deal with what you're describing. So we're on the same page, just opposite sides."

Tucker grinned. "Same page? Does this page say we're going to fuck?"

"Yours might. My side says it's going to be a hot day in space before that happens."

"I guess I'm going to have to take us closer to the sun."

"I swear Tucker if you don't--"

"And I'm pleased to interrupt this debate with news of a signal," Cass said. "Not only that, but it's built so no one needs to contact it. I guess they are paranoid about something leaking outside of their bubble. Our destination is approximately an hour away."

"Please tell me you can get us there a lot sooner," Theo said, watching Tucker's smile turn lecherous.

"I'm afraid I can't. You are going to have to fight off the tiger in heat for that long."

"He's a tiger too," Tucker said, "appearance to the contrary."

"Oh, he's the tiger I was referring to," Cass said. "Why, are you horny too?"

"Cass," Theo growled.

"Oh just give in and do him already, I'm all ready to record."

Tucker frowned. "What is he talking about, record?"

"I did tell you Cass uses the sex I have as templates in his movies, didn't I?" Theo asked innocently, figuring that would put the tiger off.

Tucker smiled broadly. "You mean I get to be in a Cassius Gold movie?"

Theo groaned. "No, you don't, because we are not having sex." This was going to be a long hour.