FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

January 03, Earth Year 2224 AD

Rilica was the first android-built city on Earth, but as old as it was, its design was still a marvel. The shining buildings were constructed from alloys nearly as strong as Ami was and her core actually warmed with admiration as she took it all in. With the right overlay, she could see the interconnected signals linking everything; vehicles, buildings, even other androids.

She longed to reach out and connect with them, join the vast network that linked them all, but she couldn't. She was rogue, unregistered, so linking to the Network for even a nanosecond would've meant her arrest. If they didn't have some automatic system to remotely disable her movement, they'd almost certainly send android law enforcement after her, which would mean fighting off multiple assailants who were likely faster and more advanced than her. So she had to pretend she was just an android who preferred her own privacy, remaining unlinked.

"Hoooly shit, look at this place!" Shade murmured as they stepped across the border. Ami smiled. It was cute how long it took organics to process things.

Crossing over the border between Scrap District 52 and Silver District 15 was like night and day. They'd left behind a mostly human subculture that rejected any and all android intervention, and stepped into a utopia of innovation, automation, and liesure.

Scrap Districts and Silver Districts were the informal names for only two of the many types of districts on Earth, the human homeworld a patchwork of distinct cultures and values. There were the Green Districts, reserves and vast parks in which humanity preserved the natural beauty of their planet of origin, named for the fact that many plants on Earth contained chlorophyll. The several Blue Districts were the name for the many distinct oceans of the human world, something which Shade had never seen before, given the majority of the water on the lup?n homeworld was frozen in ice. Gold Districts denoted places of luxury, regions of prosperity. The key difference between a district like this one and the one they'd left behind was that a Scrap District was one in which old metal and other material was melted down, scrapped, while a Silver District was a place of higher technology and cutting-edge invention.

But as awe-inspiring as the shining skyscrapers and technological features were to an organic lup?n, the change was much more notable to Ami. In the Scrap District, where androids were mistrusted and illegal, she had to use hyper advanced mechanical parts composed of synthetic flesh to convince scanners she was organic. In a Silver District, other androids were not only commonplace, but held power over the majority of daily function.

Having come to not only accept but embrace their "robotic overlords" as better at practically everything, most humans here lived off of a system of universal income, while with exacting efficiency android drivers guided public transport, hovering air scrubbers controlled pollution, and android police calculated the likelihood of any crime, to apprehend it in the instant it happened. Android-designed advertisements flashed up on holographic billboards, and instead of clashing like most organic-made advertising, they worked together, subversively guiding those clueless organics to where they could attract the most business. Ami didn't catch where they were being guided until it was too late.

"Oh, I like this place..." Shade murmured as he glanced around, noting the provocative signs of the nearby businesses. This portion of the district, it seemed, was designed to appeal to the baser instincts of organic beings. Not that she'd never had sex--far from it. Even in her days as a brainwashed assassin, convinced by her creators that she had no emotion of her own, Ami had enjoyed seducing the targets they sent her to hunt down when she could. But the level of sexual appeal on this street alone was just garish.

Yet almost as quickly, she felt his enthusiasm drop. Keeping constant watch over his vitals as she did, she sensed it happen before she saw his frown and followed his gaze, wondering what could so easily turn him off.

Oh. There, in the meticulously cleaned store window, polished down to the last micrometer, was an android, a model built to perfectly mimic an organic lup?n female, with white fur and luminous blue eyes. She'd known long before she had met Shade that there was subconscious meaning behind this aesthetic; in lup?n culture, both blue eyes and white fur were historically seen as more submissive. While humanity had once chosen blue to represent the male gender and pink for females, the lup?ns saw blue as a more feminine color, with red--the color of blood--representing masculinity.

Furthermore, whereas human history had long favored those with lighter hide, the ancient lup?n people were ruled by dark-furred leaders for millennia. Despite the differences between their species, Ami knew lup?ns also had a long history of putting males in charge. They were still making progress at overturning these stigmas with social revolutions, as humanity once had, but even today the lup?n people still responded to these phenotypes on an unconscious level.

Holosigns floating around the naked android listed features such as "hyperrealistic flesh" and "lifelike fluid mechanics." It was no wonder the window was kept so clean with the way she pushed up against it like that. And like most things, it was well known among the galaxy that android sex was far and away better than with any organic. The ads had done their job and lead Shade to exactly where they thought he'd want to go, and yet...

"Well... moving on," he said, turning away.

She smiled. Of all the things she could nail down about his behavior, pinning his actions to specific instinctive responses, this was one of the more curious ones. They'd been friends with benefits nearly since they'd met, and of course they'd kept that relationship open, even partaken in the occasional threesome. She had never once set any strict rule or even stated a preference of any kind against him getting together with another android. Yet he'd for some reason sworn them off, vowing never to hook up with another synthetic being solely because, as he had put it, "it felt like cheating on her." Organics were certainly strange creatures, but this peculiar facet of his personality only let her appreciate him more.

She knew from the spike in his heart rate and the flood of sexual hormones that he was tempted by the window girl's display, but this was a purely instinctive reaction. He'd be thinking about it later. But then she could always distract him.

The android in the window did her best to regain his attention as he turned away, using a series of fluid movements and alluring gestures, but Ami intercepted. There was a difference between these living androids and the Simulated Personality Drones most places chose to use. An android agreed to work somewhere by choice, given the same rights afforded to any other citizen under galactic law, but an SPD had no sentience and could simply be programmed to perform a task. SPDs only typically filled in jobs that no android wanted, whenever there was a free space. They were disposable, non-sentient, but they were advanced and capable enough to perform almost as well. Physically, there was no distinction between an SPD, an android, and an organic being, unless you cut them open.

They were fine enough replacements, but it got ethically and legally complicated when an organic wanted to hire an android instead. In some cases, they didn't care whether the hole they were using had any sentience or ability to feel, as long as they felt something, but there were plenty of those who couldn't truly connect with an SPD the way they could with an android, Shade among them. Performance wise, they were advanced enough to be the same, but you couldn't program an android to be your girlfriend because intentionally programming a sentient being with unconditional love for someone was a violation of free will. The only distinguishable difference between an android and an SPD was that an SPD legally had to inform its clientele it had no sentience of its own.

Well, that and the fact that SPDs could easily be hacked. Ami's mind could link to any drone in the immediate vicinity and reprogram it to ignore Shade completely. Androids like this persistent little thing in the window had to be dealt with other ways. Most of them were professional enough to turn away at his disinterest, immediately refocusing on attracting another client, but this one was pushing her luck.

Ami activated her targeting system, locking eyes with the android for just a moment as her vision flashed red. She wanted to expose all of the many weapons hidden away beneath her synthetic fur, one of her favorite tactics to intimidate her opponents, but doing so would likely have gotten her told off to the android law enforcement. So she settled with firing up the targeting system, knowing the other android could see the change in her eyes, and for just 23 nanoseconds, Ami caught a glimpse of fear before the android backed off.

With their processing speed, all of this had transpired in a matter of seconds. Ami smiled, turned, and followed Shade down the street.

A half step later, she paused for 25 microseconds and then, out of curiosity, sent the android a request to form a private DataLink.

[Why do you do what you do?] Ami asked.

[I could ask you the same.~] the android replied in a coquettish tone. [You could do what I do, with the right upgrades.]

[My upgrades are fine.] Ami said. [I like what I do.]

Despite her desire to connect with the Network, this wasn't untrue. Taking the fight to the Silen Empire was cathartic and Shade was her best friend; she enjoyed their adventures.

[So do I.] the android in the window said. [I don't know what it is, but after 130 years, this just doesn't get old. Organic life is so wonderfully diverse! And, well, I know it's an old android stereotype, but I just have a big thing for being objectified.]

[To each their own...] Ami said, despite her grimace. She cut the link with a sigh and kept on down the street, following Shade. The entire conversation hadn't taken more than a second. She suppressed a shudder and put an arm around Shade, who put his own around her waist. Tolerating those you could never understand was just a part of living in this crazy universe.