FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The ship's hull groaned in strain as its thrusters slowly brought the craft to a halt. Hoary was used to it by now, stretching as the two meter tall bird adjusted her stance upon her perch in her quarters. This ship had been specially outfitted for her to be comfortable in with an right-angled bed that allowed her to be cushioned while sleeping upright which was much more natural to her owl-self than simply laying down. She and the crew were riding from Mars to the outer belt, but first they had to head across the inner planets of Sol to the opposite side of the asteroid belt. She looked down at her wings while the crown on her head lit up with a pale gold as the book it held before her face turned the page for her with a delicate force of a gentle nearly invisible hand from the push-frame crown for precision movement where her body failed her.

Her cabin was mostly bare. A single suitcase acted as a wardrobe that contained extra lab coats as an armored space suit hung on the wall for her personal use. On her desk sat a field medic kit and her sample-collecting tools. The bed, desk, and shelf were each built into the walls, but the rest of the room was sparse and unusually large for a lateral vector. She examined her mostly animalistic body and then looked around the room. "I wonder if a Taur was in here at some point, or a particularly large person," Hoary thought to herself.

Her room door chimed before she could get much further into the analysis of her room or read the book before her for another of countless times, 'Interview with a Vampire'. She closed the incredibly rare hard-back volume with her left talon while pressing a button on the desk with a thought put through her push-frame crown. "Yes?"

Her voice was rather low pitched for an avian creature, at least compared to those of her genus. It still had the usual airy ring to it, just sounding a little more gruff that one might expect. "Hello, Hoary. It is Jefferson, from the company."

Rolling her eyes in response, Hoary used her push-frame to activate the door switch to open the room for Jefferson. The hydraulics slid the door open almost silently, save for the change in air pressure between the rooms. The heavy cloven footsteps echoed across the ground as a rather fat looking horned male goat stepped into the room.

Hoary had met Jefferson quite a few times at this point, since he had negotiated her contract as well as convinced her this asteroid was worth going to. "We're nearing the location, are you sure you wish to commit to this?"

Hoary turned to him, well less turned to him and more turned her head. The one advantage she had truly noticed about being an owl in all her years; her head could face any direction without needing to turn any other part of her. Jefferson took a stutter-step back, unnerved by the scientist, and let out a very unprofessional bleating noise. Hoary did her best to smile, as if amused by how she always snuck on others. The best one could do with a beak instead of lips.

"Right, sorry miss... do you have a last name?"

Hoary blinked at him several times and then let out a tired sigh, as if she had answered this question far too many times. "No, but I do accept Hoary, Professor Hoary, or Doctor Hoary if that assists you." Hoary rolled her darker brown shoulders while working down her feathered wings as she picked out something that had been annoying her. The coloration of a barn owl was more prominent for the moment on her feathers. "I possess no last name, my creator ensured I could never take one either. How can I help you, Representative Jefferson?"

Hoary clacked her sharpened talons on the wooden bird perch. It wasn't really wooden, just the approximation of wood that the 3D printers could make. How she longed to feel an actual piece of refined material again though, something that the humans would have made when they existed.

"Well, I just need these forms finalized for our contract to be ironclad; before we can allow you into the archeolog--" Jefferson was interrupted by a squawk as Hoary got his attention, his more subdued voice silenced by the loud shriek that all the avialae breeds could make. "Y-y-y...yes, Hoary?"

"It is a former human research base from pre-vector days that was run by JAXA. A country from pre-unification times called Japan ran the agency as a government organization in the times before we were run by corporations. Can we please refer to it with a bit more reverence than 'the archeology site'?" Hoary adjusted her coat with a talon, having to turn her leg to properly move the clothing around. She retrieved something that many vectors would gawk at: a spiral ringed paper notebook. Long since the fall of human civilization, it still proved to be the best way to take field notes without needing to worry about the availability of electricity.

The same technique was used for thousands of years to record field notes and, to Hoary, a reminder of so many notes lost to time and neglect by others not fully understanding what may be within the contents of such books. "When we get to the site, you will have a security detail of three IRPF officers in case the automatic defense systems come back online. Further, you will be meeting the archeologist who will be assisting you."

Hoary nodded; she had read this briefing before, yet corporate suits always go over their black and white text as if the contractor never read it. "We have been able to determine that this was some sort of pre-vector biology lab built for an unknown purpose. Your objective will be to..." Jefferson stopped for a moment in thought, as if running through a document in his head." "...determine the experiments they were conducting."

Hoary rolled her eyes, having finally had enough of being talked down to by the yes-man of a corporate representative. "I read the full report and briefing of everything since the asteroid site was discovered. I have done my homework, Mr. Jefferson. Can we please get to the point of this meeting? I realize I unnerve you, as I do with most of our kind." Hoary paused, soaking in the feeling of finally acknowledging the elephant in the room. Owls, after all, were the boogiemen, slenderman, or skinwalkers of their universe now. Yet occasionally someone would create a blip, a custom tailored vector, using an owl as the basis.

Jefferson tensed up at first, but as Hoary spoke, she also dropped the strange mannerisms and turneds her body and head, shifting from her unnatural stance to one more average, facing forward. She began using her wings to speak as well as her words, all in an effort to calm Jefferson down. Hoary had been well practiced in systems of socializing, both in her natural avian way as well as more average mannerisms that were considered socially acceptable.

It was time to allow Jefferson to relax so they could stop beating around the bush of pretext and avoiding the social faux pas that was Hoary's existence. "Very well, do you have any questions before I must go and attend another negotiation?" he asked.

Hoary shook her head, "No, I imagine my escorting police unit can answer anything that comes up or get a message to you; yes?"

Jefferson nodded and, with a slight wince, he banged his goat-horns against the shelf that contained several books, causing two to shift and thud against each other before resting at the opposite angle they had been before. "Apologies and good luck, Doctor Hoary." Jefferson left in a hurry now, just glad to be away from the creature he had been instructed to carefully work with. Hoary, for her part, began to pack up her belongings and run her starlight-class spacesuit through its various diagnostics.

She decided to remove her current clothing and place on the undersuit for the armor. While this was unnecessary, it would make the armor more comfortable. She preferred to make sure every facet of her armor was examined before trusting it to keep the vacuum--or whatever biological nightmare they might meet inside the ancient human base--out.

Hoary took a moment to look in the mirror, checking her feathers and ensuring they were in order. Her implants would cause the colorations to swirl and swell if she tapped into the powers they offered, but for now she wanted to check that each part of her was properly groomed before getting into a space suit for what could be days.

Her lighter, sandy brown crown and the back of her neck and head contrasted against the eggshell white face and frontal neck fluff, dotted with echoes of salt and pepper spots all the way down to her groin and out to her wings. She spread her wings and began checking the feathers, moving one battleship gray feather that was out of place, shifting it among the charcoal shoulders and preening it in the process. She checked the honey colored lower section of her wings and finally her pearl and beige wingtips, examining every single part of her body. Any feather out of place or anything misaligned in her plumage would bug, irritate, or itch at some point. Days of itching might drive one a bit batty.

"There you are!" She nearly exclaimed when she saw the spot that had poked at her throughout the day. It was some sort of space vermin, a relic of evolution that refused to die; a single Siphonaptera. Hoary plucked the flea from her feathers and did what her instinct told her to do; swallowed it down. "Now that annoyance is resolved. I suppose I should suit up."

Hoary turned around and began to wiggle, wobble, and squeeze herself into the inner-skin suit, covering her from wingtip to talon. The only breaks in the undersuit's protection were the holes for her actual claws, beak, eyes, and the pushframe, which flared to life to help her put the suit on. With that, she stepped into the armored shell and the AI of the suit took over, moving the joints, plating, and thrusters into place to cover her from head to toe in space worthy plating.

It was always creepy to her just how quietly the vector armor slid into place. Yet soon she was clad in a mix of pearl-white and honey yellow-brown armor. Three black plates showed her name in white text: one on the back just below the neckline, one on the front where a humanoid vector's upper left pectoral muscle would be, and one on the forehead of her helmet. She began her journey through the ship towards the shuttle that would take her to a long last place of majesty and prestige, a place where their forefathers and forebears walked. A kind of holy temple long abandoned; of the gods that created them, a place of humanity.

*****

The hotel room smelled of floral scents and streamy water. The humidity had not yet alleviated from it's occupant's recent shower. The velvet soft carpet, sweet pink silk drapes, and ornate furniture were things that Cosette was not used to. She preferred the field work and heavy survival tents of a dig but one could not live there all the time. Cosette had learned well that a stay in an expensive hotel with old world style and furniture could really reinvigorate the drive for science.

Cosette Orashen admired her tails while she stroked each of the nine of them for the one-hundredth time with a brush. She had to make sure everything was in its place and properly cared for; she couldn't bear to have the visage she bore marred by any imperfection. It was so often the best tool for getting herself into places to collect antiquities and artifacts. She was a long way from her office, departing from Mars nearly thirty days ago in a rough and rugged shuttle. A clean shuttle, of course, and well maintained, but you could see the age in the paint and how the walls had a few hints of cracks and wear in them. The bed creaked, and the ship groaned when the main engine fired for a bit.

She admired her canine features, running her hands through her fur, the remnants of pawpads peeking through the fuzz on the tips of her fingers. Her ear flicked towards the vent nearby for a moment as it cut on to maintain temperature in the room; a warm breeze of heated air swaying her long whiskers and cheek fur, while making the short hair on her head stand on end for a moment.

She wore a simple midriff-exposing blouse and a skirt with a classy slit up the side, both of them made of 3D printed leather in clean, natural brown colors. Her boots were made from similar faux-leather, a deep walnut that contrasted with her clothes nicely. As a bit of extra flare, she wore a ruby red, leather-like long overcoat with a high collar. The coat hung heavy on her shoulders, not quite as flexible as the rest of the faux-leather she wore. There was good reason for that: the ruby red overcoat was lined with armor to protect her from knives or gunfire. Her white fur contrasted well over the various leathers, and her red-patterned fur markings added a hint of the dramatic and theatric to her appearance. Her red markings outlined her eyes, contrasting with the yellow of her eyes and the red of her irises, as well as hitting the tips of her ears, and speckling her head with concentric dots that formed beautiful patterns. While her tails remained pure white for just a moment, she turned on her bioluminescent fur at a simple thought and examined all the patterns of her tails' various hieroglyphic-like markings to make sure they worked to illuminate the room in a dim pink light. It was a detail she enjoyed surprising others with.

Finishing her examination, she smirked to herself. "Perfect!" She muttered to no one as she grabbed her sealed pack and rebreather. She had a brief moment of panic, remembering the grisly decompression safety videos, before confidence reasserted itself when her PADD, Personal Access Direct Device. She started to think how such things had evolved from cell phones and tablets to what she held in her hand now. It started showing her biometric data and implant status to her. She could survive the vacuum of space for up to forty-five minutes without air because of those implants, and with the rebreather recycling her own breath, she could in theory float in the void until the filters completely corroded over.

The transcendent implant flared in preparation: with careful use of it, she could create small fields to act as leverage points to push off. It was a useful means of maneuvering in zero-gravity environments. A knock on the heavy faux-wooden door interrupted any further diagnostics on her implants, so she turned, removing a small white sensor from behind her ear. Cosette pushed away the mild irritation of the sound. The faux-wood never sounded like the real thing and she could certainly tell the difference. She wondered if the client could too. "Oh, yes, do come in." She put on her best showmanship voice to ensure that whoever was coming in would be absolutely at ease.

The door opened to a short stocky goat creature walking upon two legs in one of those generic business suits. The kind of suit you would expect was a uniform to move the next suit in his place at a moment's notice. "Professor Orashen, it's Jefferson, here to do final checks and go over the contract with you." The nervous goat felt a sense of relief as he gazed upon Cosette's rather fetching attire and supremely groomed appearance.

Cosette for her part knew that, like every corporate suit, he would want to go over the fine details, and she was more than content to let him ramble on all he liked. After all, they were paying for her time, and the longer it took to get to the site the more she would ask for. "Well then, go on, show me exactly what you are expecting." Cosette replied as she motioned him in to sit at the desk that resembled something a head of state would have used in the ancient days of human industrial revolution.

This sort of showmanship was simply her way to doing business and the price of it. Jefferson transferred a bunch of documents over to Cosette's personal PADD. He sat at the desk and admired it as if one would admire the real thing. Typical of a suit to not know the difference in a replica made from a 3D print and something truly hand crafted.

Cosette turned her attention back to her PADD. The top document was her contract, after that was a standard non-disclosure, promises for future employment, budget restrictions and action restrictions for the archeology site, declarations of ownership and crediting protocols, and so on; document after document of corporate ass-covering and over-clarification.

Cosette was unphased by any of this as she read them while Mr. Jefferson spoke, "So you see, Professor Orashen, we will be providing everything you need as well as the promise of all discoveries you make being attributed to you. We are even giving you the first choice for future research that may come from the dig." He spoke with sweeping motions, generally trying to make sure Orashen felt completely in control. It was an act, and one she knew well. She paused as she came to one of the documents, noticing something.

"Myself and this 'Hoary', a biologist you are sending as well?" Her question was phrased in such a way that it sounded like she had caught Mr. Jefferson's hand in the cookie jar.

Mr. Jefferson adjusted his tie and took a breath to brace himself. "Yes, she was closer and much easier to get onto site. I hope you two can work together amicably."

Cosette tisked her lips several times and skipped over the other documents to the dossier on Hoary she had been provided. It was thin, much thinner than she thought it should be. She opened it to see a picture of Hoary at the top left and the information on the biologist displayed over the course of several pages. She took a moment to look at Mr. Jefferson, who adjusted his tie nervously; as if worried the fox before him would decide to cancel her contract and walk away.

"An Owl Blip, with no known homeworld. An impressive four degrees in genetics and biology, specialized in theoretical biological understanding and medicine? Why would you bring someone like that to an archeology site?" Cosette spoke as if she knew exactly the answer to every question and just wanted to sweat it out of the corporate suit. She so very much enjoyed these moments; the moments when someone who should have power over her was made to squirm between her seductive voice and cutting wit.

"Well yes, Hoary is what she is; we cannot help the circumstances of one's breeding after all. But she is by far the best biologist available, and even then, we would be hard pressed to acquire a new one on short notice. Is this going to be a problem?" He looked up at Cosette with a flushed face and she could smell his sweat.

Cosette mentally activated an implant of hers, a pheromone emitter to help make Mr. Jefferson calmer and more at ease. She made a show of thinking it over, leaning back in her seat, shifting her legs to be crossed, placing a single finger at her chin and tapping it a few times while putting her pad out of sight against her thigh. All of this was a show to buy time for the implant. "Well, no. It won't be a problem at all, my dear." She waited just long enough for those newly emitted pheromones to take hold of Mr. Jefferson. "But I am more curious about why you would choose a biologist as opposed to another archaeological specialist?"

Jefferson let out a sigh as he felt a rush of unexpected relief. Cosette's smile broadened just a bit, going from seductive to satisfied; she knew he was putty in her hands, now. He spoke more easily, the pheromones doing their job wonderfully. "Well you see, Professor Orashen, the facility we have discovered is believed to be a genetics laboratory of some sort, run by a long extinct organization called the JAXA in collaboration with NASA. We're not sure what its purpose was seeing as you and Hoary will be the first scientists to step inside."

"And our security escorts as well?"

The goat gulped and nodded, "Yes of course, three IRPF officers will be present in full combat marine gear, just in case there are pre-existing automated defenses that are still functional, or for other unforeseen circumstances. Pirates, grave robbers, or the like."

"Oh?" Cosette's eyes lit up and she took a second to look uncomposed, just to really ham it up for the corporate representative. "You have reason to believe pirates or someone else have an interest in the site?" Cosette fluttered her eyes and placed a hand against her breast while leaning back to feign worry and concern.

"No, no, of course not. We have no reason to believe that, but you can never know what might possibly be hiding out here in the belt." Mr. Jefferson leaned forward, his fingers steepled together as he tried to really hammer home his own concern for Cosette as she was briefed. He wanted her on his side, after all, should they end up in court over something unexpected occuring. "As you can see from the files, everything is in order and taken care of, even your fee."

Cosette noticed the rather large fee she was being offered and the bonus for finding something of value-and an even larger bonus if she found anything that could be considered revolutionary. Cosette could happily work on these terms, assuming this Hoary individual was not insane, crazy, suicidal, or just plain mad, like many of the scientists she had worked alongside previously. "Mr. Jefferson, I think this will do just fine. I'll happily have all the i's dotted and t's crossed before my shuttle disembarks and meets the security detail on the surface. Why don't you go get something to munch on or take a moment in one of the showers to relax? I've run you through enough of the ringer."

Cosette took a moment to reach forward and pat Mr. Jefferson on the knee, almost like a mother or lover comforting someone after a long and heavy day. She stood and made a show of her tails caressing his chin to keep him enticed with her for just a few more moments. Nothing like using a little bit of one's sexuality to help them remember who was in charge. She slung her pack on her shoulder, pulling out her PADD to begin filling out forms as she stood up.

Cosette tried a quick thank you but instead had to stay for the usual corporate platitudes for several minutes. Finally she was able to excuse herself and walked towards the shuttle. She was right, the forms would be filled out, before she even got to the shuttle.

*****

"Ma'am, you sure you don't want a space suit before we decompress? I mean, isn't that usually lethal?" The heavily armored soldier in a helmet with two points for ears asked. They were either canidiae or felinade, but with the darkened visor and tail being hidden by large bulky armor around it, it was impossible to tell. The humanoid vector was armed with a high powered carbine in addition to the thick riot armor plating, all of which was covered in blue and white with IRPF, Inner Ring Police Force, logos and unit numbers on it.

The nametag read, "Cpl. K. Ingot" across it in white letters. They stood next to Cosette in the orbital lander, both inside of the airlock waiting for the automated drone to complete its approach and let them onto the asteroid they were going to be working with. There was no window to look out of, nor anywhere to really sit. Just some handles on the ceiling to hold onto during the short descent.

"No, Corporal. I will be perfectly fine, my implants will take care of me." Cosette mentioned through the radio inside her rebreather. The ship rumbled and shook as it approached the surface and retro thrusters eased the landing. Within a few moments, they felt a thud and the feeling of artificial gravity turning off as the asteroid's much lighter gravity took over.

It was always strange to feel the difference initially, like diving into water so thin it could be air. Yet you would still sink, just not quite as fast. You certainly found it easier to move, as if your own arms and legs no longer offered as much resistance to shifting, so long as you had something to push off of. With a deep exhale of the ventilation system, the room depressurized over the course of the next two minutes.

One often believes there is no sound in space, but this is untrue. There is simply no sound where it lacks air to travel through as a medium. You hear your heart, you feel each footstep and how it vibrates with a muffled thump in your eardrums. You hear your lungs inflating and deflating as you breathe. The resistance of your body to movement is amplified with noise as your ears strain themselves to hear something within the vacuum.

The feeling is incredible, and for Cosette there was an added layer to this. Unlike most creatures in the vacuum who wear suits, Cosette's cybernetic implants allowed her to operate in this environment perfectly fine. Her body held together from expanding or losing cohesion from the lack of pressure, all while her body heat protected from the absolute zero temperature. It was somehow more magnificent this way compared to when she wore a suit before receiving those implants.

"Radio check, can you hear me, ma'am?" Cosette ignored the corporal as she took in the feelings and sights around her. The sensation of being in the void for her was never the exact same and never something not wondrous to behold. Her tails fluttered in the vacuum noiselessly to all but her. She relaxes into the sense of oblivion. Space really wanted to kill you and she could feel her implants working tirelessly to keep oxygen, water, and prevent cell death all over her. It was a strange warming sensation, not unlike being wrapped in a blanket but not when you were tired, more as if you were doing it for warmth. She marveled at how it felt, slowly pulling in and out of her rebreather, the filters cycling the CO2 she exhaled back into O2. The air was stale but serviceable, she would however have liked something that felt more alive when she took in a breath.

"Professor Orashen." The officer started to reach towards her, afraid the depressurization process had killed her instead of her implants working right; it was extremely rare for such a failure to happen, but there had been reports of it occurring at least once.

Cosette held up a hand and turned to him, speaking with a muffled voice into her rebreather mic, "I can hear you just fine. I am simply enjoying the moment. Perhaps if you would relax, my dear, you could enjoy it as well." She spoke the second comment while making a show of swaying her hips, tails, and rear for the officer to follow as they walked towards a clearly artificial doorway in the distance.

A temporary instant airlock had been deployed over it, but it was transparent enough through the white colored plastics to see a titanium steel door on the other side. It was a pair of double doors designed as a reinforced airlock of days long in the distant past. Proud symbols for NASA and JAXA appeared upon it, though they could not make out the smaller writing around the two dark blue circles with rocket-ship symbology on them, and white letter writing along with several other smaller artistic works that--in the vacuum of space--did not really fade or wear away.

The space walk was going to be short, barely fifty meters. But it was fifty meters of an experience one could only have within the void.

To Orashen there was no pocket of air around her ears to transfer these sounds, they were vibrations in her ears, every moment and motion, save for the small air pocket around her earbuds that provided comms locally. Her red and amber ears pressed against the void, nanites in her blood providing them protection from the decompression. Her fur felt frozen in time against the vacuum. The trooper next to her kicked up dust with his armored boots while she barely made puffs of dust as they walked.

"That is freaky. How can you walk in the void like that?" Ingot looked over to Cosette, who could sense him looking lower to check out her rear. How strange it must have looked for muscles to not immediately reset to gravity's whim but rather move almost like a marionette.

Cosette snickered just loud enough for the intercom in her rebreather to pick it up. "Officer, eyes up. Honestly, it took six months of implants, nanites, and training with them to be able to walk in space without a suit." Cosette fluttered her tails in the void as they approached the entrance and her boots let out a light clang against the metal they now walked on; a sound she could only hear just as Ingot could hear his footsteps.

"We had to use a crowbar to open it before, stand back." Ingot started to step forward and Cosette pressed her hand to his armored chest, pushing him back.

"No, read here." She pointed at some text next to a couple of buttons. "I assume you haven't had someone here that could read this?" What her finger was pointing at were the seemingly hieroglyphic language next to each of the buttons and a keypad with several labels on it.

"Well, no, we lost two from the initial team because of automated turrets." Ingot's inhale echoed over the comm, as if remembering someone he liked before that event took them. "We didn't want to just press buttons for fear more turrets or defenses would be activated."

Cosette grinned at him excitedly and pointed at a switch, '?', "This says power," She traced her finger up to a panel label above the keypad tapping it. '??' This says door, I would say it is safe to assume these are the door controls."

"So what you're saying is, if you press those controls, the door will open by itself?" Ingot asked, debating for a moment as he turned to look back behind them at the rest of the security escort.

"Well, not by itself-it will likely need to cycle the air first. Shouldn't take more than perhaps... two minutes on these ancient human outposts?" Cosette was unsure as to what the security guard was hoping to find out, though he quickly answered her pondering.

"Hey!" The guard called over to the escort. "I bet you 50 credits that this door opens by itself in two minutes!" Turning back, Orashen heard their private channel light up with his voice, "Punch it."

Ingot took a step back and readied his weapon. "Alright, well you are the exp--" Cosette pressed the button before he finished speaking and he suddenly snapped his rifle up as lights along the door turned on. The keypad lit up and they felt a hum through their feet as power returned to the old door.

"See, perfectly--" Cosette didn't get to finish her sentence as another voice came over the intercom.

The voice was lower pitched but still female in origin, while having the airy quality of the avialae vector subtype to it. "Who in the void cut on the damn lights and power? This organism cannot survive with the scrubbers online!" Whoever was on the intercom was clearly upset and irate. This in addition to the normally prideful or irritated sound to an avialae voice escalated the hairs on the necks of the security detail.

Cosette took a moment and spoke back calmly and smoothly, "Whoever you are, please calm down. Shouting will get us nowhere."

Ingot grunted onto the comms and tapped his head, indicating for Cosette to switch frequencies. She mentally kicked her implants to change her frequency, "Hey, Professor Orashen, that would be Hoary, your biologist. Perhaps we should at least placate her until we are able to see each other face to face?" Ingot sounded rather nervous, as if he had encountered Hoary before and it was not exactly pleasant.

Hoary, for her part, had been studying the stale air that the organism consumed and took over an ancient human corpse for sustenance. Something, she assumed, was frozen and native to the asteroid or perhaps brought here to experiment on. After having barely an hour to study it, suddenly the lights of the facility cut on, giving her quite the harsh and blinding treatment.

Her starlight medium-armored spacesuit's night vision overloaded her for a moment as the facility powered up. She let out a shriek when her natural night vision and the suit's amplification overloaded her eyes. Now she was screaming at whoever was at the door, upset by the situation.

By the time her eyes cleared and she could cut off the night vision with a thought, the specimen before her; a mass of various forms of mold texture and bacterial growth, had deflated and ceased its respiration and blood flow function. It was rapidly dying from exposure to the light and the air recyclers were filtering out whatever had spurred its growth in the air.

She had been studying a mass of green-blue moss-like substance that she believed was a megabacteria which had thrived in the high CO2 environment, but now the scrubbers were running at full power, and within moments the air was too full of oxygen for the entity to exist. What had once grown from a human corpse, even eating the bones, deflated into a mass of bio-residue that bled bright blue blood and fluids all over the tiled ceramic floor. Hoary took a few steps back and sealed the room as she was berating someone over the comms.

"Well, which one of you turned on the power without asking?" Hoary was in no mood now, realizing her living specimen to study was now dead. The corpse would be useful later in an autopsy room, assuming it stayed together enough to at least collect a proper DNA sample. She was flustered if anything; a chance to study a true macro bacterial organism and now it was ruined with the introduction of atmosphere. It was like having a truly wonderful artifact of an unknown age suddenly destroyed by someone sneezing on it.

"Hello, darling, I assume the irate one is Hoary? I apologize for your experiment, but I can read the language and find the controls to turn the systems on, so we wouldn't have to use crowbars to cycle the airlocks." As she was speaking there was a rush of air and the sound of doors groaning and grinding open. Without atmosphere rust had not properly set in, but the metal was still ancient and needed some basic maintenance as the inner doors opened and everyone present heard a tone from their suit. The beep acknowledged the air was breathable.

Cosette approached the other two officers in their IRPF blue armors and tinted their face shields down. Shorter than them by a full head, in a Starlight Deep Space armored suit, was an avarle of some sort but her face wasn't tinted. Cosette's skin shivered with goosebumps at the sight of her new research partner but she had agreed to this.

Some primal instinct encoded in her DNA still told her that owls were something to be terrified of: They meant death. Cosette set that aside, though she felt their escorts would still be on high alert and tension; so much the better to ensure their survival. She felt the rush stepping into the airlock as an atmosphere returned to her fur and clothes, no longer frozen in the vacuum. She took a few steps forward and looked down at the meter and a half-ish tall owl, offering a hand down towards her.

"Cosette Orashan, nice to meet you, Hoary....." There was a long awkward pause between them as the two gave a look over each other. Cosette hoping for a good impression with delight filled amber orbs, Hoary sizing up the kitsune as potential competition with predatory eyes. "I'm sorry for this, but your dossier did not mention a last name."

Cosette's hand was suddenly gripped by an invisible force as the air in the room grew electric, a force that approximated a handshake, "Just Hoary; Doctor Hoary. I have no last name."

The escorts took a step back as Cosette's hand moved up and down while a small aura of light, as if emitted from a tiny lantern. Her hand moved and she mentally tapped into the implant to alter the color from neutral white to a welcoming blue. However, it was the fact that Hoary's entire body glowed and her feathers behind the face plant shifted colors like a chameleon rapidly re-camouflaging itself in response to a predator. The two scientists staring at each other, exchanging their ability to tap into a power between universes through the implants they both possessed."That's not a Pushframe, not from across a hallway. Transcendence? Do you always use it so lightly?"

"We both are and do. What would be the point of such implants if you restrained them." Hoary explained while looking at Cosette. "The difference being that I can move objects or blink between spaces. I have also trained for the discipline to use those abilities while under duress. You, my foxy associate, are very different." The two closed upon each other while their escorts all took a step back as the two came within range to touch each other.

"I see that." Cosette took her hand back while leaning down, bending at the waist but keeping her tails lowered to not give Ingot a show. "It is a pleasure to meet a vettedone of such talent, especially someone of your archetype."

"My genetics have been a constant issue-shall we not bring them up? Besides, I lack hands to do a proper handshake." Hoary did something that approximated a smile, for avarle this meant heightening the cheeks and raising their eyebrows while brightening their faces, as the beak simply did not move in a way to smile.

Cosette was relieved by the smile, letting out a sigh as she reached up to remove her rebreather, "I assume nothing toxic is in the atmosphere of the station and we can take these off?" The emotion of finding a proper research partner was something Cosette hadn't felt in ages. One who would be interested in the work and what it could bring above all, instead of her lovely curves.

Hoary's response was to immediately look at her PDA built into the wrist of her armor and

begin running scans of the air. She was checking for how it had altered since the unknown colony of microbes had died. They were not really microbes but rather one massive macro-bacteria, it was all a single cell nearly two meters in size. "The macro-bacteria cannot infect you, we are too large and appear to be immoble. Also the air-recyclers killed it.

Hoary took a moment as the readings from her device displayed a safety measure of all clear. "There is nothing in the air that would be toxic, either. I will be leaving my helmet on just in case. I am your medical and biology professional but I see no harm in the rest of you removing your helmets if you wish." Hoary pointed to an automated turret that was riddled with bullet holes and empty casings under it, "One of those is still on and decides it wants to separate my head from my shoulders."

Cosette shrugged and motioned to the IRPF officers around them, "That is what we have our talented escorts for. Now, shall we get to work?" She said this as their security detail pressed buttons on their helmets and lifted the various visors up. Ingot was a felinade as it turned out.

Cosette walked down the long hallway. This floor was entirely crew quarters, roughly twenty in all. Ten to each side of the main hallway towards the exit airlock. Each one contained personal effects for two personnel. Desks with long since dust gathered pictures. Posters that had faded with time as air slowly escaped this place and became too stale. Six in total of those macro-bacteria, now heaps of biomass from the exposure to air after what was probably centuries.

Cosette could smell death, but not fresh death. More like the scent of what it was like to open a tomb around her. They approached the end of the hallway where two slid smooth metal doors stood with buttons to the left of it, using the same script as the outer door and something over it written on a nameplate. In addition to this, were a series of unpowered lights with the numbers one through five on them. The current light showed one was lit while the others were off.

The rest of the small group approached behind Cosette, who pointed at the buttons. "That one says up, I assume to a landing pad or something we haven't unearthed. This one," Cosette pressed the button and ancient engines hummed to life, "Says down." After a few moments the power's hum vibrated a little louder. Without anyone else, they could clearly hear engines, rotators, motors, and other equipment moving as the double doors slid open and parted.

"There we go, this should give us... Oh shit." Cosette couldn't finish her statement. An ancient elevator platform stood before them. It seemed perfectly normal, save for the skeleton on the floor-the human skeleton. The hand was missing from it but otherwise it was intact on the ground, in a torn and ragged uniform that had several patches on it, the left shoulder had JAXA and the right had NASA still gleaming in their faded glory.

Hoary approached and turned her head, then she staggered back. A sixth sense indicating danger that she did not understand. She had examined many dead bodies. Skeletons and other once animated beings but never something like this. Long since decayed away flesh and muscle leaving only bone but somehow still with the tension to hold onto something.

There was a slash across the red keylock on the elevator from something of a sharp weapon. More of the script she could not understand was printed on various buttons and above the keyhole. What however was emitting the danger to her was the skeleton hand still holding a key with tension to keep itself there. "That is impossible. Without tendons or muscle, bone should fall away." Hoary lifted her wing and signaled her armor, which opened and retreated from her feathers. She plucked one that was out of place and lightly pressed against the bone to see if the hand would fall away from the keys but it did not move. She applied more and more pressure with the feather until the feather slipped off, harmlessly. The bones refuse to move.

She activated her pushframe crown, but it was not powerful enough somehow to move the skeleton. The device's 10kg limit reached and showed redline for exertion in her helmet's H.U.D. She re-closed her armor and activated the filter mechanism to cleanse anything from the air that had gotten in. Cosette and the others filed onto the elevator and slowly the doors closed.

"This key was used to lock the elevator." The kitsune bent down, her tails furling and unfurling as she thought and translated the symbols on the instrumentation panel. Reading everything printed there and ignoring the unnerving sight of the skeletal fingers. "Why would they lock it from moving?"

Hoary tried to summon her transcendence but found she could not reach the space between universes and summon the power with her implants. Something was actively blocking the connection to the exoverse, the space between universes, that would have allowed the use of such powers. To bend physics or outright break them by exposing reality to a place where physics was a suggestion for a brief microburst then release the hold upon that space and allow reality to take the change for your desired end result. The closest humanity and now their descendants had ever come to true wizardry and sorcery.

The doors slid closed and everyone within the elevator had a moment of panic when they locked into place with a light thump of rubber on rubber. They stood there, cautious to even speak as Hoary's implants failed to activate and she looked frustrated. More as if she was feeling her normal calm being interfered with-not by emotions, but rather some outside force. As though you normally have an absolutely clear signal and suddenly a radio begins to broadcast on your phone's frequency, giving nothing but static.

"My transcendence implants are being interfered with. Are you certain this is safe, Cosette?" Their escort stopped staring at the owl working as her armor moved back into place around her wing. All eyes turned towards Cosette with anticipation. Cosette flicked her tails around and rubbed a hand across her short furred head.

"If it supports our weight now, it is safe." She reached for the key and turned it, the skeletal hand refusing to let go even as the lock was disengaged. Still attached to the key as it turned and the elevator jolted as its brakes released and it suddenly shifted to supporting its own weight.

The sound of power returning to the elevator fully hit their ears as the lock was disengaged. The power plant continued to add electrical energy to the system, lights flickering on and the console lighting up. Cosette recognized the noise and rushed forward towards the doors, summoning her strength. She pushed against the same resistance that Hoary had discovered with her transcendence implants.

Where Hoary's caution prevented her from stressing or pushing, Cosette decided that she wasn't going to let up. She cleared her mind completely, allowing herself to go tranquil while wrestling control of the electricity within the system for herself. Her implants allowed her to control kinetic energy sources, electricity is very much active in terms of energy. She focused upon lowering the energy running to the circuits and motors. She wanted to ensure there wasn't an overload and everything normalized. The sounds in her sensitive reclaimed ears screaming as she felt the static frequencies and heard the circuits overloading in places.

She strained against the strange static that inhibited her and Hoary inside the lift. She forced it through with all her strength as her tails lit up with bright red lighting, coursing with symbols and wards of superstitious human lores as she focused to keep the power from overloading ancient circuitry and wiring.

The stress finally overwhelmed her and she dropped her concentration as the lights went from dim to full brightness and the console finished lighting up. Hoary placed an armored wing upon her shoulder as she fell to one knee, "So there is some discipline in you. I will remember to use my techniques to bypass this interference once the cuil filters out." The charge in the air had changed. They could all sense it, like having the feeling of being watched as the air suddenly got cooler and the sound of static like several TVs left on echoed in their ears.

Ingot cleared his throat, "The cuil?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hoary nodded, and looked at Cosette who shrugged at him. Hoary let out a resigned sigh, "I assume you are either new or have not worked with transcendence users before?"

Ingot nodded his canine features turning to a sense of eagerness that only a puppy could match. A facial expression that for some reason, was hard to disappoint. Perhaps it was the human parts of them from their creators, perhaps it was instinctual, either way, Hoary found it difficult to ignore that face.

"Cuil is the ambient interference when the veil between universes is thinner. The harsher it is, the higher the risk and difficulty to use a transcendence power." Hoary motioned everyone off the elevator as she spoke to Ingot. Her and Ingot finishing their conversation while everyone else filed onto the elevator. She realized her audience and sighed, "Think of it as reality saying, that's enough.

"This is why we must spend a great deal of time tuning it down and restoring the veil's we have torn small holes in to draw that power; that is what makes it dangerous. Pull too hard at the wrong time and you invite disaster."

Ingot turned his head, "Disaster like what?"

"I will spare you that detail for now." Hoary replied.

"Yes, let's not do that again." Cosette commented with a smile and motioned for them to follow while panting indignantly into her rebreather from the exertion. Something that annoyed almost every vector, they couldn't swear to cool off.

Their escorts looked between each other with some confusion sparking among their comms. Hoary held up a wing to silence them, "I can move things with my mind or teleport short distances; our vixen friend can negate or enhance kinetic energy fields, such as electricity; am I correct?"

Cosette smiled and nodded, "Yes, no need to be alarmed."

The officers looked among themselves before Ingot spoke, "Great, our scientist friends are transcendence users. Just don't summon a whisper down here, alright?" The three of them shifted nervously as Ingot spoke, as if having unpleasant memories of rumors. Ingot wanted to ask what a whisper was but held his tongue.

Cosette pointed at the dial, "Which one should we head to? Does anyone know a lot about human construction and if so,which levels do you believe are which?"

The felinade-looking escort stepped forward, her tag red 'M. Teligra'. "Well, judging by the sound of the power plant, I would imagine the generators are on level 4 or 5, for their protection probably on the lowest floor." The hearing of a felinade was certainly that accurate even through walls. "If I had to guess, the lowest floor would be the secure and secret section, so if anything was hidden down here; that would be the one place it would be."

Cosette nodded, "Then let's not go down there until we are certain of what is down there or have some idea." Cosette pressed the button labeled with a '2' and the elevator began moving slowly as the motors whirled to life. The four wearing armor engaged their magnetic boots to stay with the elevator, while Cosette felt the implants in her tails come to life. With them, she created leverage to push herself down and stay on the floor of the elevator. Slowly they whirled down to level 2.

With a ding of a speaker going out of tune, the elevator doors ground open slowly and the floor stabilized with a final small jolt. In front of them was no hallway but rather a large cafeteria and a kitchen separated from the canteen area by a serving counter. Several metal tables with metal stools attached to them were bolted onto the floor and matched the area. On them were skeletons that had been in the middle of meals. Only one had once been host to a macro bacteria, the rest were just completely barren of living or dead flesh.

They literally died where they were eating, almost like they had all peacefully gone to sleep. The lights flickered and the group looked at them as they stepped off the lift onto solid ground. Their escorts surged forward after the initial awe wore off, rifles and shotguns raised as they searched for targets but found none. An old smell was being filtered out by the air scrubbers: rotten food that had long since decayed away, old trash, and the stench of stale death.

Hoary approached a skeleton and began to examine it, the rest of the group remained silent as Cosette looked for something to sate her curiosity and indulge herself in. She could read the menu and other things around her, which were in Japanese and English, so her companions could read them as well. There were old PDAs on the ground but without power charging and replacement batteries, they were long since dead. It was doubtful that the hard drives still worked after several hundred years. Cosette hoped against that thought though, as the secrets they could contain filled her with delight as she began to gather and collect them for data retrieval.

"It is like they all just stopped and went to sleep," Hoary explained as she looked over the skeleton. "I will examine all the bodies and information up here, why don't you take Ingot down to the next floor, see what is there."

Cosette nodded as she returned to the elevator with Ingot and Teligra and she pressed the 3, looking at the skeletal hand that had somehow held the elevator. It lowered after the doors closed with a lack of weirdness and the group felt a sense of relaxation. What greeted them next was completely unexpected.

Several dozen cages on the other side of the room bore creatures ranging from the size of small laterals to huge giants, all skeletal at this point. The place was separated by rooms of plexiglass containment and their own individual airlocks. One could see in but they were airtight around. What caught them most off guard was an ursine skeleton against the wall, standing nearly four meters tall from floor to ceiling.

Cosette felt the need to approach it, to examine the creature against the wall. Her two guards stepped just out of the elevator as the doors closed behind them. While she couldn't see their faces, their body language betrayed them as they stood gawking at the sights around them.

More humans who appeared to have collapsed into sleep along with test subjects that were certainly all animals. These were not lateral vectors and it showed by their poses, positions, and bone structures. Cosette turned her head to speak to her guards, "Do not touch anything. This is all pre-vector, you understand?"

The guards stood dumbfounded for a moment and Cosette grunted to clear her throat in the stale air, "Hey, you hear me?" She asked sharply before turning to face them properly with head and shoulders, tails whisking in the air as her eyebrows narrowed at the duo.

"Oh right, yeah, not a thing. We're only here to keep you safe." They stood at attention, both heads moving on a slow swivel as their training reasserted itself. Cosette moved through the open airlock door into the large chamber towards the huge creature. It was holding something, a piece of paper that had somehow not decayed. She bent down to reach for it.

Cosette felt an instinctual reaction as she moved, her breath suddenly coming in pants and her body getting warm. Her eyebrows furrowed and her body tensed to spring away. It felt like something was watching her the whole way forward. Every millimeter she moved closer, her body tensed up more and was more reluctant to continue forward. Something was just so wrong about this place, yet the past called to her as it always did. Her curiosity would not let her stop and confront her own fraying nerves.

A gunshot rang out in the room and shattered her focus. She lept back as pieces of bone fell around her. "What the hell!? Why would you--"

"Cosette, Get away! It moved!" Her escort called out, the sound of automatic gunfire erupted on the floor above them as well as Hoary's squawking out of surprise on the radio from the floor above.

Cosette turned to look as the giant ursine skeleton began to move and shift. Its movements seemed unnatural, as if the force controlling it were unsteady as their escorts snapped out of their surprise and opened fire. She did not need a reminder of their warning, dashing for the elevator doors which her escorts hit to open them. Both turning to fire at skeletons that all came to life. Some bullets were stopped by the plexiglass containment rooms while others tore apart bones and shattered skeletons that still insisted upon moving.

Cosette and then stepped into the elevator, "Gregs, what is your status?"

A scream of pain echoed over the radio, drowning them out as the elevator doors closed. Gregs was screaming for a few more moments before the radio signal to him cut. Cosette watched the world in hyper-focused slow motion as the skeletal hand which had refused to let go of the lock key, leaped forward and slammed upon the 5 key before clattering to the floor. The elevator began to move downward.

"This is Hoary, Gregs is down; his arm is nearly severed. The skeletons-they've come to life." Hoary was cool, calm, and collected, though her voice betrayed her surprise. Upstairs she was hurriedly trying to contain the bleeding of officer Gregs as her wings flapped and the pushframe worked through the medical kit, pulling out bandages and instant liquid sealant.

She had been trained as a combat transcendent; splitting her focus wasn't that difficult for her as she leapt into the air with the aid of her wings. The field from her pushframe maintained pressure upon the wound as her talons slashed and ripped into the enemies around her. The suit retracted around the biotech-enhanced bird of prey implements, allowing for her claws to lash around her. They were sharp enough to slash through most forms of steel, yet these were just skeletons with nothing she could discern for weak points. Cutting them into dust stopped them from moving that part of the skeleton, but otherwise they kept getting up and advancing, even reassembling if she did not pulverize the ancient bones.

She would fight off one skeleton, drag Gregs with her talons a few more meters and then fight off a few more that had caught up to them. Finally she pushed Gregs into a tight closet of some sort. She slammed the door closed and was relieve none of the skeletons were in here. At least here, she could focus upon treating Gregs's wounds. She panted slowly and looked at him, "Sleep if you need, I will dress this wound. You will wake again, I assure you." Hoary did not know if she was lying or not but she understood that in extreme trauma, the body tries to shut down to conserve energy. Gregs was barely conscious, no need for him to waste energy he needed to stay alive.

Down in the elevator, Cosette and the guards pressed the other buttons in vain to stop the elevator, but they refused to respond as they hit the 4th level. "I thought this thing was safe-why is it suddenly not working?" Ingot demanded as he kept pressing the emergency stop that Cosette directed him to.

"I don't know, it is safe. We aren't falling, just riding down nice and sl--" Her voice was interrupted by the ding of arriving to the lowest floor. They all turned to the door with fear and apprehension. The escorting IRPF officers raised their weapons as the elevator settled. There was a brief moment as the group waited for their fate, until the doors opened and then Hoary squawked over the radio.

Outside the closet, Hoary heard all the skeletons trying to get inside one moment before clattering to the ground in heaps. She peaked out of the door and saw the piles of bones no longer moving or holding coherence to stay together. She considered dragging Gregs to the elevator but decided against it. If they came back to life, she could not protect him in the open and the only way in or out was the elevator which those on the bottom floor needed to get out as well. She closed the door and queued her radio.

"What did you do? The skeletons just dropped back to the ground." Cosette and the group however could not respond. In front of them was a sight that made so little sense: Ten tubes, with a ring of metal at the top, bottom, and in the middle. Each one was roughly a meter around and two and a half meters tall. They had medical readouts to their subjects they contained, with various small white suction cups on the bodies and wiring running to the rings of the tubes.

That wasn't what was the cause of their silence, however. It was what was inside the tubes that caught their undivided attention. Ten humans. They were in nothing but white tank tops and long black brief underwear, but there were ten distinct humans. They included both males and females. They stepped into the room in awe. No living vector had actually seen a human being for centuries by this point.

IRPF kept their guns raised and slowly stepped inside the room as Cosette approached one of the pods, placing her hand against the steel. She recognized the technology from an archeological dig-but she just had never seen one this ancient still working. A suspended animation caskette still working and it's occupant, still alive. "Cosette, what are we looking at here?"

"One of you better go upstairs and get Hoary, we need to confirm these biological readings." She said as they walked around the small room. There were 36 tubes in the room but only ten had their fluid in them. The lights were on, but flickering as the medical equipment was semi-working though the screens were long since burned in with dead pixels following the peaks and troughs of the pulse readings.

Tilga, the one security detail on the elevator suddenly saw the elevator start movement on its own. She panicked and yelled out as her comrades rushed to her only for the doors to close and ignore the call button.

A few moments later, the door dinged and she stepped out, seeing piles of bones scattered across the hallway as she arrived back on the second floor. "Hello? Hoary? Gregs?" She called out remembering that they were still on this floor, if they were alive.

"Closet, eighteen meters ahead on your right." Hoary called back as she furiously worked the suture kit. Tilga turned and moved quickly checking her corners and the other rooms as she got up to the door.She arrived to find Hoary, her suit off as she worked, Gregs was unconscious but alive, his arm having been sown part way back on and armor stripped off as well. Hoary caked in his blood.

The owl lateral had been frantically defending her fallen comrade. It had not been a skeleton that had penetrated his armor but rather his own sidearm. He had reached for it instead of reloading and the poor canidae was swarmed by one of them, causing him to lose his gun, accidentally discharging it into his armpit in the process. The lighter armor didn't hold against the bullet and nearly cut his arm off as the hollow point tore through his shoulder.

Hoary was pulling his armor off using the emergency release inside his power pack while applying bandages and pressure with her pushframe. That is, until the skeletons fell back to being inert. Now she was calmly entering surgeon mode and doing her best to keep his arm attached and prevent him from bleeding out. Tilga ran up to them and let out a cry to get their attention.

"Friendly, friendly, calm down." She spoke as the owl opened up her wings, preparing to jump and attack, and then nodded to her before rotating her head back around. This sent a shiver up Tilga's spine as she had not seen any creatures that could rotate their head completely independent of their shoulders, at least until now.

"He will need better medical attention than my field kit. The bullet went into his armpit and passed through, bouncing off his collarbone before ripping out of his back into his armor suit. I can stabilize him if you can get him to the surface and into one of the unbreached suits the humans once used."

Tilga stopped and turned to Hoary, perplexed, "What about the archeological value?"

Hoary glared at her with the fury of an angry god. "No, we are here and now, alive. The past is long since dead. If one of those suits keeps them alive to get to the shuttle; then to hell with its historical value. I will not sacrifice my patient regardless of any corporate prerogative."

Tilga's training came back to her as she went to lift Gregs by his undamaged shoulder and helped him towards the elevator. "I will escort you up then head down to see what Cosette has found."

Only once Gregs was in a sealed suit-one of NASA designs-and was being escorted to their landing shuttle did Hoary move towards the elevator and head down. She had put her Starlight suit back on and pressed the 5 button to head down. She stepped out, staring in awe as Cosette worked to document everything she saw with her PAD while taking photographs.

Ingot stepped towards her, seeing the blood on Hoary's armor, but she held up a wing to get him to stop, "I am fine; Gregs is on his way to surgery back on our mothership. I am sure your ship's doctor can handle it from here." Hoary stared at the humans, looking between them; her own curiosity overwhelming her reasoning for holding back or protocol as she signaled her armor to peel back and dusted the tube off with her bare wing.

"So close to our creators, yet unable to touch them." Hoary said as the realization of their discovery began to truly dawn upon her. She checked the medical read out and Cosette pulled out a ring of different adapters to hand to her. Each adapter from ancient computer systems was no longer made but able to be connected to their personal computer systems.

Hoary set her pad to a medical monitor and then plugged in the adapter to the monitor on the tube before attaching it to her own, after a moment of computers talking to each other, there was the distinctive beep of a heart monitor. Hoary turned to Cosette, both of them looking at each other's faces as they expressed exhalation and dread of the situation. Something magnificent and wondrous was in front of them, but also something very deadly and destructive. "They're alive."

*****

Hoary was perched upon a chair in the corporate office, her suit off and Cosette able to see her feather coloration in person for the first time. How it changed, the feathers shifted so the brightest color was on top and darked upon the tips when she activated her pushframe or transcendence power. Cosette wasn't sure how, as the bird took a sip of the hot cup of tea in front of her then returned the cup. Her wings returned to their normal pattern as she did.

"Do your wings always do that? It is quite lovely and brilliant." Cosette remarked. She had been working in the depths of the facility for five days, with no more ghosts or skeletons moving around.

Hoary nodded. "Anytime I use a pushframe or transcendent powers, yes. It is a transcendent echo from the implants and accessing the exoverse where we draw our power from." Cosette rolled her eyes at the long form explanation.

"Must you give the long explanation every single time?" Cosette's tone was rather irritated and done with this, having had to deal with Hoary's way of explaining things for the entire week they had known each other.

"I can give shorter ones once I have an idea of how much you already know." Before either of them could reply or react, the large framed cog in front of them started to move. He was taller than either and possessed ten legs, all robotic, as well as two arms. He moved slowly and deliberately as the cog finished downloading the data.

The office they were in wasn't one of the prefabricated ones made in the style of 3D printing. This was manufactured more in the way of the parts made and assembled by hand. Every surface was wooden, with special care towards the artificial windows that displayed a welcoming forest around them, even if they were upon terraformed Mars and underground now. The cog had its upper body shaped like a canidiae, of the golden retriever variety-One of the more unassuming and common vector types.

The gears and motors that drove the robotic creature were silent and graceful as it pulled two pads off of one of the cog's legs and slid them across the fine oaken wood desk. The wood may have been 3D printed, but a true master crafted its shape and design. The red velvet carpet on the floor was further evidence of that.

"I will begin this meeting now. Your discovery is unprecedented, but at this time we must reach an agreement concerning it." Hoary and Cosette picked up the pads while it spoke and Cosette was immediately disheartened. Hoary had expected this.

MarsCo was burying the discovery. Hiding it as nothing more than a common metal research outpost from before the time of vectors. The genetic research they had uncovered there as well as ten living humans was a discovery that none of vector kind was ready for, according to MarsCo.

"You're burying THIS!?" Cosette jumped out of her seat and slammed her hands upon the desk, tossing the pad onto the floor.

"Miss Orashan, I can assure you, it is in the best interests of Vectors everywhere." The cog held up his hand and tried to motion for Cosette to sit down. As he did so, he pulled out another pad, "However, all things considered, MarsCo is prepared to offer a blank check. Research access beyond your dreams, your dream project funded, whatever you can imagine. So please, write down on those pads your terms and we will negotiate them properly."

Cosette thought about it and realized why they sent a cog to do this. Her usual allure of good looks and pheromone emitter would be ineffective against a cog. Further, the cog would be solely executing the functions it was made for and wouldn't allow emotion or illogical reasoning to justify whatever they asked for.

She however, had one priority. It was because of corporate interests and controls like this she had become an independent contractor. She would make an unreasonable demand first, "And what if we don't agree to any terms here?"

There was an artificial sigh from the cog and he shook his head, "While it would be difficult to explain or just play off within the current media; you would be forgotten about if necessary and MarsCo is prepared for that if it becomes necessary. We would, however, have a much easier time with things if you simply were willing to testify with the story we provided."

Hoary and Cosette looked at each other realizing the gravity of this situation. "I believe the correct term is, an offer you cannot refuse." The cog replied with a hint of humor in his voice as if recalling some ancient saying.

Cosette looked at the pad and started to formulate a plan to get back at MarsCo now. Hoary had pulled a piece of paper and wrote something upon it with her talon working a small pen. A relic of an age long since past, so very few things were done on hard paper anymore and even then it was almost always scanned and then repurposed afterward. Hoary had entire collections of spiral notebooks and binders that Cosette had seen her using. She kept her notes, information, and everything upon hard copies; and she wrote with her talon instead of her pushframe, a skill that likely took her a year or longer to perfect.

Hoary passed the note across, her heart dead set on one thing. She looked at the cog as he viewed the note and seemed to be processing the near paragraph written upon it. Then with a nod to her, "This is acceptable and within parameters."

Cosette on the other hand, wrote upon the pad something that she never expected to be accepted. The cog processed for a shorter period of time and nodded, "A ship can be arranged. There will be some stipulations attached to it. However, yes we can create a scavenger class vessel for you, as a fully independent vessel if you truly wish for that."

Cosette's heart humped into her throat. For once, there was no witty comeback or quick remark. There was simply a shocked look upon her face as Hoary turned to her and spoke, "Does that make you a captain?"

Cosette turned to the bird and nodded as she reached over and softly brushed the feathered shoulder, "It does, and I will need a second officer and doctor for such a vessel."

Hoary cooed at the touch and nodded her head, "I accept." She replied with a level of jubilation that Cosette had not heard from her in the last week. A level of emotion, she had begun to doubt Hoary was capable of. Until they both turned to the cog.

"Very well then, I will begin the arrangements and paperwork for your requests to be finalized. Thank you for your cooperation."