FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Stay very still. This shouldn't take a minute."

Fork nodded slowly, feeling his friend's wings on the back of his head. It wasn't like the yellow-scaled synth couldn't update his own firmware - he'd done so many times, in the past - but he'd gotten used to Sparky doing the process instead. He wasn't entirely sure when that had started, but by now it was a routine.

On the other hand, Sparky did know when he'd first convinced his friend to let him upgrade his firmware manually. It had been a couple of months ago and, luckily for him, the synth had been easier to convince the next few times. By now, Sparky had more or less made sure his friend would think letting him upgrade his firmware was normal.

He didn't intend to keep that forever, of course - but the green jay thought the fact that he could so easily make his friend do whatever he wished was hilarious. Besides, he had a feeling Fork would have found it hilarious as well, had he found out.

"I have to say," the synth began, "that I'm surprised you're so quick when doing this. Upgrading the firmware physically should take longer than doing so internally. Your wings must move really fast back there."

Sparky chuckled.

"Oh, well, you know me. I like to do what I do fast."

That wasn't the real explanation, of course. In order to keep his hijinks hidden from his friend, the first thing he usually did was deactivate his memory function - which made the whole process feel much shorter to the synth. After that, all that was left to do was toy with the personality module.

"Be careful, though. I remember something weird happened last time."

Sparky's wings shook.

"Really?" he asked, trying to sound disinterested. "You didn't mention anything out of the ordinary back then."

"Uh, yeah. It's something I've been thinking about lately. Like, I couldn't really point my finger on it last time, but there was definitely something odd."

Sparky chuckled softly, a bit nervous. He had disabled the memory function a few seconds ago - meaning Fork wouldn't remember that conversation five minutes from then, as that was when the memory cycle would reset - but it was still a bit unnerving that the synth seemed to recall something from their previous "upgrades".

"Maybe the upgrade didn't stick properly," Fork resumed.

"Yeah, maybe!"

There's nothing to worry about, Sparky tried to reassure himself. It didn't look like the synth was implying whatever weird thing he thought had happened was his doing. Besides, I was intending to tell him someday. It's not like I have to keep doing this secretly, right?

The smile returned to his face... seconds before he realized what he'd actually been doing.

"Oh, no," he muttered.

"What is it?" the synth asked. His voice sounded... different.

Sparky gulped. He'd been so focused on the conversation that he hadn't noticed he'd made a few mistakes while manipulating Fork's personality m0dule. He'd entered a few commands that were unknown to him and now he wasn't entirely sure what he had done.

"Are you..." The green jay cleared his throat. "Are you feeling well? I think I might have made a mistake while changing your- I mean, upgrading the system."

"You did?" Fork asked. "I don't know. I feel fantastic. Like I'm on top of the world, actually."

"Uh, really?" Sparky asked. That was surprising.

"Yeah. I feel great. More confident. More... powerful."

Sparky decided there was definitely something different about Fork's tone. It sounded more assertive.

He closed the manual access on the back of Fork's head and walked around the synth carefully, trying not to step on his yellow tail.

Once he was standing in front of him, he noticed there was indeed a change of expression on his face and the visor that covered his eyes. Whereas Sparky had been trying to make the synth feel more submissive, the look on his face right now was... rather dominant.

"Uh." Sparky stuttered. "Yeah. Let me fix that for you, buddy."

But before he could walk back to his previous spot, Fork grabbed him by the shoulder and kept him in place.

"Nah. Don't worry. I like it like this."

"But, you know, the process is still not..."

"I don't care about the process," Fork interrupted him. He stepped closer to Sparky, who gulped as the synth's face approached his own. "I can always finish it internally. Do you know what I really feel like doing now, though?"

Sparky held the synth's gaze.

"What?" he asked, knowing fully well that he might regret that question.

"Well, I did say I was feeling on top of the world," Fork reminded him with a playful smirk. "Which means... seeing other people wriggle helplessly on the bottom would be very pleasant."

Sparky opened his mouth to complain, but he didn't make it in time. Suddenly, the synth's visor twitched and the image it displayed changed to a big, bright spiral. The green jay tried to look away, but by then it was already too late. His eyes were captivated by the alluring display of pulsing lights and changing shapes. No matter how hard he tried to turn his head, it felt like he was paralyzed.

"H-hey..." he murmured. His head felt hazy. It was like the rest of the world was staring to get blurry and distant now.

"Don't worry, bird," Fork said, placing his other hand on his shoulder to keep him in place. "I won't be playing with you for too long. Ten minutes, tops."

Sparky opened his mouth, but the only sound that came out of it was a soft moan as the intensity of the spirals doubled and his mind was sucked into the bottomless, ringed pit displayed on the visor. His pupils mirrored the image and his body grew lax.

The last thought he managed to form before completely fading away into Fork's grip was that it was really unfortunate he had already triggered the synth's memory function off. Now his friend was going to keep forgetting the previous five minutes over and over.

It seemed Sparky was going to be stuck there for a long, long time.