FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Almost eighty years ago, two intrepid explorers where searching for....something. They came to the planet in search of more asteroids to mine from. The explorers themselves were sent home finally to see parades or some other nonsense. That was all Kareth or Gunther honestly was able to pull out of the presentation. There was a lot of fancy talk, "all hat and no cattle" as Grunt had said on more than one occasion, snorting loudly when the subject of recreation had come up.

The trip that was supposed to be three hours took nearly nine due to the detour they had to take which brought them back around various valleys and through ravines, all while the military stared out the windows as if wishing for another attack to occur. Jagged rocks stabbed out of the thick fog. The shuttle raced by them deftly, weaving around the formations without even slowing down. As the vehicle rocked gently from one side to another, the armed members on the shuttle would clutch the weapons they held just a little closer, in expectation of another attack. No other attacks took place, though it was rumored protesters had some other surprises waiting for them.

The gentle rocking of the shuttle was comforting in its own right, and even though he spent most of that trip on his feet, Kareth was able to doze off. Only waking up whenever someone tried to shuffle to the rest room in the back of the shuttle and brushed by his tail. His nap made the trip a confusing group of scenes his subconcious mind didn't even bother trying to put together. It went from a long monotonous gray landscape to a confusing one full of images of gray rocks and swirling gray dust, a green wall, and rows and rows of buildings that all seemed to be the exact same in each neighborhood, as if someone had just copied one design thousands of times.

He had never seen the front of the building they were brought to, nor the protesters. He heard them, though and the large rock or whatever it was that had been thrown at their shuttle. A crowd had amassed somewhere. One that more resembled a massive beast with a thousand arms, a thousand legs, and five hundred heads. One that was incredibly angry at the new arrivals. A beast that may only be satisfied with blood.

The shuttle rocked gently as furs on the outside began to push on it, chanting obscenities at them. Screaming at them for things they wish the new workers to do. Some of the activities including fornacating off of something and then dying, or for them to go fornacating all the way home. Or for them to go fornicate, as fornicating fornicators. Whatever that meant.

Doors to the shuttle opened with a soft whoosh. The wall of screams, shouts, curses, grew exponentially, drowning everyone inside the shuttle. Outside, the military dressed personnel stood in front, making a wall. Each man cradled their weapons closely. Machines of death slung low and ready, with personnel itching, angry, and ready to use them. The workers rushed inside the building, up the stairs, and down a hallway. A sky light had been built into the roof over head, but no one took time to pay attention. No one took the time to stare at the windows or walls or any of the probably only interesting architecture on the entire colony. They just ran. Ran as a group, up stairs, down a hallway, and into an auditorium where they took seats, gasped, and collapsed into the brown desks that had been arranged for them. As he slowly began to drift off, Kareth had a thought: I've been at this job for less than a day, and I'm already sleeping through a meeting.

He was not alone. The auditorium could have filled at least two hundred individual souls within. Less than thirty remained however, minus Victor who had stayed on the shuttle. They were sprinkled through out the rows of seats, like a fungus growing on the rings of a tree stump. A professional looking Giraffe stood at the front while they piled in, standing in front of a clear projection screen that would soon be filled with boring images of smiling founders and groups of very rich and very dead people.

She spoke about each image. Of the founding of Cloverleaf, the company itself and the planet, which was named after the company, that they would now reside on for the next 3 Earth Standard Years. She spoke of the technology that kept them all alive. How the panels themselves relied on the algae inside of them to purify their air for breathing. How the LED panels helped energize the Algae as well as provide lighting for the entire colony. Pride gently touched her lips and ear tips, causing both to raise a bit as she spoke of how they had once projected a movie on the dome itself before it ever got to theaters. She spoke of the seventeen other colonies that resided on the planet.

After a nine hour shuttle ride and into the third hour of a talk that seemed designed to induce comatose on anyone subjected to it, the giraffe finally started to talk about their pay. She seemed to smile wider as her discussion was met with nothing but snores. She walked as she talked, her tail swishing slowly behind her, causing her skirt to ripple gently.

It's always the weird things that your mind pays attention to when its bored and trying its hardest not to sleep. The way the Giraffe who had been Cindy, or Candi, or another name that strongly suggested she paid her way through school by working a pole instead of tables as a waitress or an internship, would always walk to one side of the stage, turn, look into the crowd, then turn and go to the other. The manner her blouse seemed to be red on one side of the stage, green in center, or blue on the other. Or how her ears would tip back just a bit in pleasure as another individual would drop off into slumber during the presentation.

"Now." She smiled, a hint of pleasure creeping into the professional grin she had maintained until now. "You have been guaranteed twenty five hundred cred gross." She said.

As Kareth heard her mention the pay, he started to sit up a little straighter. Tried to pay attention a bit more. After she went over the third item on the fake pay stub that had been projected behind her, he almost wished he hadn't. They were being paid twenty five hundred credits. Nearly five thousand dollars a month. Less three hundred credits for air purification. Less five hundred credits for room rental. Another four hundred credits for 'water services'. Which, by the way if you went over your allotted amount, you were paying ten cred per liter. Nearly twenty dollars for a liter of water! "The gangs back home are more fair than this." Kareth grumbled, his ears folded back and a snarl on his muzzle. Four hundred credits per month for equipment rental and maintenance. Another Three hundred credits for transportation. Plus Four hundred credits for food.

"Now we here in colony seventeen have the best restaurants on Cloverleaf." The Giraffe said after mentioning the food charges. "However, due to the ongoing disagreement with the labor unions, none of the restaurants are currently operating and the core area is off limits to temp workers."

A young human sitting in the front of the stage raised their hand. All humans looked the same to Kareth. This one was no different. Kareth wasn't sure if they were male or female. "What if we don't eat all the food we're given?" The human said, with hope in his/her voice.

"You'll be charged the full amount whether you eat the food you're given or not. Should you require more food, meal packs will be charged to your account. Twenty cred per meal pack." As she gave the answer, she never broke stride.

All in all, they would be getting three hundred credits per month net. That's not including any that the company has to take out for taxes. So any poor soul from New Angeles who was recruited to work for this company could in effect actually earn more than three times what Cloverleaf paid just by pan-handling. Some great deal indeed. Kareth thought with a snarl.

The rest of the meeting dragged on. The Giraffe discussed safety procedures with a smile, but that same grin wasn't there. The type of grin that small pups had as they burned ants with a magnifying glass. This was the more professional 'I'd rather do anything else but this' grin that she had when they first came in.

The meeting finally came to an end after another half hour of exhaustive droning from the smiling Giraffe. Everyone woke up slowly, stretched and slogged their way through the hall, ears and tails dragging. As they made their way outside it was still just as bright as it was when they arrived, the sky of the dome had a weird uniformed brightness that covered the entire ceiling. A soft white glow that felt unnatural to most when they first arrived to it.

The protesters didn't stick around. It looked like they weren't given much of a choice to stay. Signs had been thrown down, on the concrete there seemed to be random spots of blood, almost like it was one of those fancy paintings that Kareth had seen the one time he conned his way into a museum.

As the shuttle slowly pulled away, the light stayed its same strange near mid day brightness. The windows on the buildings seemed a little more sinister now. The dark within them just a bit darker. Like there was an anger behind them and within. A multi-limbed, multi-headed beast ready to pounce when everyone least expected it.

The entire neighborhood of buildings seemed to go on forever. The shuttle twisted and turned its way through the streets, sliding by building after building that seemed to be a carbon copy of the others. They had large gray walls that looked like they could withstand a nuclear blast. The buildings reached up two floors before just flattening off. With a dome and no possibility for rain, there was no reason for sloped roofs. Large windows with solar glass installed in them to generate electricity for the occupants inside. It was the same style of solar windows that Kareth had seen installed on his apartment back home. This meant to him it was build cheaply.

Each building had one set of steps and doors to go in and out of. The steps were large and stone, wide enough that ten Grunts or similar equines could stand shoulder to shoulder and never touch. Older style doors stood on the outside. Even Kareth's apartment down in New Angeles had an auto door, one that would slide away as you approached it. These did not. They had the old style push bars with steel kicker plates at the bottom. A by gone relic of a by gone era.

_What the hell did I get myself into?_Kareth thought to himself as he finally disembarked the shuttle, with Grunt at his side. He wasn't even sure if this was his stop. It was where the shuttle stopped. It didn't seem like the company much cared where he went, what he did or how he got there. As long as he showed up to work in the morning.

"Three hundred cred a month for this." Grunt said, flicking his tail in annoyance.

Kareth nodded. "You know I could earn more pan-handling?"

Grunt laughed, a nickering sound that seemed to emanate from his throat. "Yeah! I could earn more than that washing dishes in my brothers restaurant. Hell, he'd feed me too. Not charge me three hundred cred for it."

They walked up the steps of the building, each marveling at the cracks in the pavement. The cracks in the walls. The places that seemed as if pieces of the building had fallen away. Or had been pulled away by an angry mutli-headed beast.

Their new home was arranged similar to a dorm. Both floors had eight rooms on each wing. In the center of the floor plan was a large shower area, that also housed toilets. Neither Kareth nor Grunt decided to check out the showers. Grunt, being former military had guessed that the showers were open bays. That thought didn't bother him much. When he pointed the shower situation out to Kareth, he just laughed "hell, at least we have showers. The way this Cloverleaf is ran, I wouldn't be surprised if they charged us for the damn shower heads."

Their hallway was mostly unoccupied. Room after room stood empty, waiting. Their doors open and minimal furniture covered in a thin layer of dust. Apparently Cloverleaf, the company who paid for everything, couldn't be bothered to spend the 5 cred a month it would have cost to have a bot dust the rooms once a week.

That was probably the least surprising news of all. The hallway itself had a layer of dust in it. The same light bluish gray walls that they had seen in so many other places. Some idiot out there somewhere with an expensive piece of paper hanging on their wall has used all of their college education to say that this weird shade of blue gray is soothing. The color just bothered Grunt and Kareth just slightly, like a splinter just out of reach under your skin. Enough to be the cherry on the crap Sunday that they had been served.

Cheap over head lighting illuminated the building as soon as they walked into the hallway. At first the went left, looking into room after room. Nothing but dust, minimal furniture, and a metal box stenciled with the words "Grade A Food Products" stood within. There was five beds in each tiny room. The beds themselves had been hung on the wall, large metal beams supporting some sort of sheet metal that held up the cheapest, thinnest and oldest mattress they could find.

The last room in the hallway, the last door on the right hand side actually had someone inside it. It was the one room that didn't reek of stale dust and stale depression. The room itself was clean, with one of the two dressers pressed against the far corner of the wall. A much different position from the others. A large bull sat on one of the beds, happily swinging his legs, chewing. "there's more..." He mumbled out, pointing to the "Grade A Food Products" box sitting by the far wall underneath a window.

"They restock it daily. Don't worry." He said, between bites. His belly hung down a little bit, brushing against the mattress he sat on. His ear flicked gently in time with his twitching tail in pleasure. A gray bag sat next to him with some writing stenciled on it. Apparently it was supposed to be a breakfast bag of some kind, but instead it looked like cereal someone had over cooked at the factory then ran over with a truck. The pieces where tiny, some parts looked burnt and others just a strange sort of dark brown. He was wearing a pair of stand shorts and a tan shirt, one that blended in well with his fur.

Opposite of the bull was Victor. The bear lay on his back, gasping as a paw clutched at the wound he was given from the attack on the transport. "I hope you weren't attached to your friend." The bull smiled. "He won't last the week."

The attack. The protest when they got in. The long meeting detailing how in every manner and detail they had been screwed. The crappy accommodations. Now this guy. Happily munching away while Victor lay possibly dying. Making jokes. Everything welled up inside Grunt and Kareth. The anger and stress they'd been dealing with since they arrived reached a boiling point.

Kareth was quick, but Grunt much quicker, physically picking up the bull and slamming him against the far wall. A snarl had reached the horses face, a murderous fire was in his eyes. His massive paws held the bull against the wall, pressing on his throat. Burnt cereal was scattered everywhere. On the bed, underneath the bed. It had flown and rained down like confetti at some sick parade. The bull grasped at the horses paws, vainly trying to remove them until he saw Kareth peering over the horses shoulder. His own fangs bared, his ears back. A muderous fire burning within his own eyes.

"Now you listen," Grunt growled, deep enough that the bull felt it in his bones. "We don't want that kind of talk in this room. You either start learning to be a whole lot more positive about Victor's future. Or you will be taking your meals through a straw. You got that?"

The bull started nodding frantically. "More positive...about the bear....got it..."

"His name is Victor you son of a bitch. Victor!" Kareth snarled. "Say his name! Victor!"

"Victor..." The bull croaked out, "His...name is Victor..."

"Victor is gonna live ain't he?" The horse snarled.

The bull nodded frantically again. "Yes!" Tears had welled up in his eyes and began streaming down his face. His nose and lips started taking on a deep red tinge. His eyes where large and terrified, nearly bulging from their sockets. The fur's ears had been plastered back in terror.

A tan paw settled on first Kareth's shoulder, who whipped around suddenly, then on Grunts. It had belonged to a kangaroo that they hadn't seen before. His ears and tail twitched slightly in a universal sign of fear and concern. "You don't want to kill him." The new roo said.

"I might." Grunt growled, tightening his grip on the bull for a moment.

"They own the entire planet here. The only laws here are Cloverleaf's laws. You kill, you're condemned to a lifetime of slavery." The roo said all of this in an even tone. A calm one. Grunt was going to ignore the new fur and squeeze the life out of the bull. Until a groaned croak could be heard from behind them. "Don't!"

Victor was sitting up on his bed. A paw still over his wound. "No...killing for me. Let him go."

Grunt turned and looked at the bear, then nodded and released the bull. He slumped over on his side, holding his throat gasping. The only sounds that could be heard in the room for the next several moments was the sound of the bear gasping for life, and the bull gasping for breath.

"I'm Jerry....a pretty big deal.....You're gonna pay!" the bull choked out through gritted teeth, still laying on his side and grasping at his sore throat.

"Yeah, well I sleep with one eye open and love a fight. So any time you're feeling froggy go ahead and jump." Grunt snarled back.

Kareth turned to Victor. Underneath the clawed paw was professional stitching. The skin had been weaved together like only a trained medical bot could do, leaving a tiny criss-cross pattern where he had been stabbed. However, the lips that had once been a dark black was now closer to blue. His wind pipe appeared to be painfully pulling to one side. Kareth hadn't known Victor for any length of time, but he still felt helpless, watching him as he laid back down.

There wasn't a lot of sound in the room that night. Despite everyone's hunger no one opened any more food to eat. Despite Kareth and Grunt's exhaustion, neither could go back to sleep. They listened with intent the entire night at each breath that Victor struggled and wheezed out. Each one sounding as if it could be his last.