FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

"Damn it." Jack turned the engine off and scowled at the cluster of patrol cars and two armored police tanks blocking the street ahead. He shook his head and sighed. "Oh, yeah, this is gonna end well."

"Cheer up, honey." Corona gave his shoulder a playful swat. "At least this gets us away from all the cameras we've got pointed at us whenever we're home."

"Yeah, there's that." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and continued glowering out the windshield. "But we're gonna have to get past all those cops, and then we'll probably have to survive numerous hails of bullets on the way into that building."

"On the way out, too," Taura said, digging her omnitool out of her trenchcoat pocket and tapping the surface. A hard-light projection appeared in front of her, showing her the layout of the Argus Defense Systems building.

"Yeah, that, too," Jack muttered. With a long list of assault charges pending against him and the girls from a previous job, the cops would be enough of an obstacle. He didn't even want to think about what they'd be walking into if they managed to get inside the building without being arrested.

"Well, the clock's ticking, so we'd better get on with it." Corona nuzzled him and opened the passenger-side door.

Taura pointed at the holofield. "Winslow is in a lab on the fourteenth floor. I'll be able to guide us straight to it once we're inside." She tapped the deck of cards-size device again, returning it to standby mode, and slipped it into her pocket. She opened the back door and scooted out of Jack's hearse.

"Fine. Let's get this over with." Jack got out, locked the doors, and headed for the yellow tape cordoning off the Argus building. He held up his ID as they approached the cops on the near side of the tape. "We're with the Justice Foundation. We were hired to--"

"Yeah, we've been briefed." The cop frowned and nodded over his shoulder. "Go ahead."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You're not gonna give us any shit?"

"I'm not happy with the situation, but it's not your fault." The man shrugged. "Not all of us are unreasonable. I've been watching all the stuff on the news about you three, and I can see your side of things."

Huh. __I'll _ be __damned. _Jack nodded and allowed a hint of a smile to show. "We appreciate that." He and the girls stepped over the yellow tape and jogged up the front steps. Jack tugged on the door handle and found it locked. "Ah, of course."

"There's an app for that," Taura said softly, smiling, and pulled out her 'tool again. She loaded a program, pointed the gadget at the lock beside the double doors, and the lock clicked.

Jack grinned.

Taura waved the device over the door, scanning the room beyond it. "No one there, organic or mechanical. Not detecting any bombs or other booby traps."

Jack nodded and opened the door, drawing his Glock and keeping it aimed straight ahead as they entered the lobby. Their footsteps echoed as they crossed the lobby's black and white checkerboard floor.

"How many people do you think are trapped in here?" Corona stopped on the left side of the elevator door.

"Give me a moment." Taura stroked the side of her omnitool and a display and keyboard designed for her oversized fingers appeared in the air in front of her. She touched one of the icons and entered a set of commands. Dozens of tiny windows appeared in her holofield. She pointed at several of them.

"Most of the building is empty; they're closed on the weekends. There's just a handful in a few offices and labs. Putting in a little overtime or working on projects that can't wait until Monday, I suppose."

"Well, that gives us some maneuvering room, then." Jack took the opposite side of the door and waited for Corona to push the button on the control panel.

The doors parted. She and Jack entered the elevator. The holofield and ghostly keyboard remained in front of Taura as she squeezed in behind them.

"Most of the floors are clear, but the fourteenth has mechanical units crawling all over it."

Corona sighed as she pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. "Great. We'll have to fight our way through them."

"What happened to your built-in urge to fight?" Jack said, quirking one corner of his mouth upward.

"Oh, I haven't lost it. It just isn't any fun when you and Taura could get hurt or killed." She shivered, frowned and shook her head.

"Don't worry about us." Taura patted Corona's arm. "Jack can handle himself, and so can I, now that I've got my head screwed on straight."

Corona patted Taura's hand and aimed a look at Jack.

He held in a sigh and put his arm around Taura. Their relationship had taken an...odd turn a few weeks ago, but no matter how weird it still seemed to him, it was too late to opt out. Besides, he didn't want to, even if it could be done without breaking Taura's heart and infuriating Corona.

Which, of course, made him even more uncomfortable.

"What kind of mech units are we gonna be dealing with?" he said, giving Taura's shoulders a quick rub before

stepping back and preparing to snap his gun up as soon as the doors opened. Good __thing _ we've _already _ loaded _armor-piercing _ rounds. _He'd been expecting human or anthro security wearing armored vests or full-body combat gear, but these bullets would work just as well on robots.

Taura opened another window in her holofield, scanned the mechs in the camera feeds, and accessed their specs. "Looks like three different models of ADS's standard issue security drones. Two biped, one near human size and the other a bit taller than Corona and I. The third is a quadruped model, sort of a miniature version of Adam and Jamie. None of them are sentient, though; they're running on a set of simple instructions and receive commands from the security server in the basement."

"Instructions which include killing our client, apparently." Corona raised her gun a few more inches and glanced at the small screen above the door. "Shows how reliable their products are, huh? If they attack the people they're supposed to be guarding--"

"It's got to be more than just a malfunction," Taura muttered as she continued typing on her floating keyboard. "Despite what you see in movies, glitching robots don't attack people. The worst they do is crash, but that only causes them to lock up and reboot."

"Maybe they aren't able to recognize this guy for whatever reason, and think he's an intruder." Corona looked up at the display over the door again and frowned.

"They'd just send an error report to their server and ask for multiple confirmations from other nearby units before taking any action. They're set up that way to prevent them from becoming a danger to the people they're protecting."

"So that means someone reprogrammed them to go after our client. Terrific." Corona scowled at the display again. "This is the slowest elevator I've ever been on. We should be there by now."

Taura held her omnitool up to the display and scanned it. "Oh, great. The elevator took us up four floors and stopped, but the counter kept going."

Jack sighed. "Fantastic. Makes me miss the days when you could actually feel elevators moving."

"So whoever hacked the mechs also hacked the elevator?" Corona shook her head.

"We've barely started, and already someone is fuckin' with us." Jack reached out to hit the button that would open the door. "What a shock."

#

The doors parted and Corona drew her gun. She still didn't like the damned things, but she'd already found herself in too many situations she wouldn't have survived without one.

The corridor ahead was empty long enough for her to take three steps out of the elevator. Then something at the far end moved.

Two robots stepped out from the side corridor, followed by two more. All were humanoid but were over seven feet tall and carried a huge pistol in each hand.

All four mechs snapped their weapons up.

Oh, __shit, _ here _we _ go! _Corona revved her body into its combat state and every thing appeared to go into slow motion. She planted herself in front of Jack and Taura and spread her wings to hide them from the mechs.

Jack ducked under her right wing and tried to step in front of her, aiming his twelve-millimeter Glock at the mech on the right while whipping his other gun out of its holster. Corona pushed past him and fired a shot at the nearest robot's head.

Her bullet hit its left shoulder. It lurched back a half step, but righted itself instantly.

Damn it! Built for combat and I can't hit the wide side of a fuckin' barn!

Taura squeezed past her and flicked her hands out. Two round devices resembling miniature hockey pucks zipped through the air and stuck to two of the robots' chests. The mechs had just enough time to look down at the discs before Taura jabbed one of the icons in her holofield.

The pucks detonated, blasting the mechs into shrapnel and knocking the others off their feet.

Corona flinched and spun away from the shower of sharp metal and plastic debris. She turned back to find the two remaining mechs picking themselves up.

Jack pumped a quick burst of three armor-piercing rounds into each robot's head. They toppled over and lay twitching on the floor, and he rushed over to them and wrenched the guns out of their hands. He scowled at them and gave Taura a quick look before moving on.

"Think you can--"

"Hack the rest of the bots? I'm working on it." She continued entering commands into her holo-display as she followed Jack to the door leading to the stairwell. "If I can get into the server that gives them their orders, I can shut them down."

He smiled, nodded, and continued silently up the stairs, letting her work.

Corona hurried past her and paused beside Jack long enough to nudge his shoulder. "You know," she said softly, "my body is quite a bit larger than yours; you can't shield me from bullets."

"I can shield some of the most important parts." He winked at her, but sobered when he saw the no-nonsense look on her face.

"I think the armor I'm wearing will do a good enough job--just like yours and Taura's, actually. It'll take a lot more to put us down than these things are packing." Corona patted his shoulder. "I don't want you taking a bullet for me."

He reached up and held her hand. "It was just a reflex."

"Well, I appreciate the thought, but Taura and I are big girls. We can handle ourselves."

"But it's so much more fun when _I'm _handling you." He grinned.

"Definitely," Taura said, "but there's a time and a place."

"Alright, I'll try not to be so overprotective." Jack grinned, but couldn't hide his concern entirely.

"I'll take point." Corona gave Jack's ass a quick squeeze as she stepped forward. "Taura, any progress yet?"

"Eh, not really. I've got passcracks in place, but this ICE is thicker than I expected. I'm keeping an eye on the security cams, too, and we've got mechs converging on our position. I'm trying to block them from using the cameras."

"How close are they?"

Taura glanced at one of the windows in her holofield. "We've got a dozen coming down the stairs currently passing the seventh floor, four entering the stairwell at the fifth floor, and six others on the fourth floor heading for the stairs."

"Jesus Christ." Jack shook his head. "I know we've only been on this job for a few weeks, but is it too early to request some vacation time?"

"I'm going on that assumption, yeah. Besides, this job is the only thing standing between us and prison. Or worse." Corona reached the third floor and paused. "Taura?"

"The mechs on the fifth floor have taken the elevator instead. I'm betting they're gonna enter the stairwell below us and trap us between them and the ones coming from above."

"Okay, this is where we get off." Corona pulled the door open, gave the hallway a quick sweep, and stepped through. "We'll find another stairway."

"And hope there aren't already mechs covering those," Jack grumbled.

"Always finding the rays of sunshine, babe." Corona led them down the hall, moving slowly, keeping her gun aimed ahead, flicking her eyes from one door to the next, waiting for one of them to burst open and unleash a squad of bots that Taura might've missed. "Taura, got that floorplan handy?"

"Right here. End of the hall, turn left, stairwell's at the far end."

"Thanks. One of you keep an eye out behind us."

"Got it," Jack said.

Corona continued forward, wincing as her claws clicked on the off-white tiles covering the floor. At least Taura had boots designed specifically for her hooves that muffled the sound of each step, but Corona's footwear left her claws sticking out. Handy if she needed them in a fight, but the noise would be picked up by every mic in the corridor, including any nearby robots.

Of __course, _ the _entire _ security _system _ can _already _ see __us. _"Taura, any luck with the cameras?"

Taura released a frustrated growl. "No. I can disable the cameras, but that would prevent us from using them. I'm still trying to jam the system without locking us out."

"Go ahead and take the cams out. We'll get by without 'em. It's better than letting the mechs see every move we make."

"I'm on it." Taura tapped a few more icons, clenched her thumb and two big fingers around one of the windows, and crushed it.

The camera at the far end of the hall stopped its slow back-and-forth motion.

"Done." Taura smirked. "They'll have to do a major system overhaul to get those things running again."

Jack grinned. "Nice work, hon."

She gave him a quick, theatrical bow.

Corona smiled at her before turning her attention back to the path ahead. Good __to _ see _her _ on _the _ road _to _ recovery. The depression and quick temper brought on by her estrus cycle were understandable, but it'd been painful to watch. _Damned __good _ thing _Jack _ came _to _ his _senses _ when _he _ did, _or _ she _might _ not _have _ been _able _ to _hold _ herself _together.

She stopped at the corner, peeked around, and continued on to the end of the hall. She looked around the corner and nodded. "Clear."

Jack chuckled. "Now all we have to do is wait for the next thing that goes horribly wrong."

#

"They're spreading out." Taura watched the blips in several of her windows change direction and frowned. "Dividing into teams of two and entering all the other stairwells."

"Fuck." Corona arched a brow ridge and swatted Jack on the ass with her tail. "You jinxed us."

"I--what?" Jack shook his head and muttered something under his breath.

"Okay, no more Ms. Nice Cow." Taura expanded her holofield to hold more windows and launched a dozen of her most aggressive passcracks,

worms, snakes, and phantoms. "I'm not waiting for those things to box us in and gun us down. Time to give 'em the horns."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Uh, what are you gonna--?"

"I'm going after their security server. Before, I was trying to disable a few specific systems without damaging anything else, but now I'm taking the nuclear option."

Corona grinned. "Mmm, you're hot when you get like this. When we get back home, I am gonna have _so _much sex with you both!"

Taura froze, cleared her throat and shook her head quickly, and continued working. Uh, __wow. _ Okay, _don't _ get _distracted.

"At least now we have something to look forward to." Jack looked around. "How close are the mechs?"

A new window appeared in her display, with a red flashing border around it. She winced. "They'll be on us in a minute, _and _we just had a bunch more hop on the elevators from the basement."

"How many more?"

Corona glanced at the window and her red eyes glowed brighter. "More than enough."

"Oh, that's just fuckin' great." Jack looked around and gripped his gun with both hands. "Can't use the elevators, can't use the stairs. That leaves--"

"How about the fire escape?" She reached into Taura's holofield and enlarged the floorplan. "Where are we?"

"Here." Taura pointed at three blips and moved her finger over to one of the rooms. "The fire escape's outside that window." She nodded off to the right. "That room."

"That'll do nicely." Corona pushed the door open, gave the room a quick look-over, and stepped aside to let Taura and Jack in.

Taura glanced at her display. "They've reached this floor." She closed the door and took a quick look around. They appeared to be in an office; a half-dozen desks lined two walls and three more occupied the center of the room.

Corona rushed over to the nearest window, checked the edges and sighed. "Marvelous, there's no way to open it." She gazed down at the street. "Good, no people or vehicles close enough to be hurt." She picked up one of the center desks and hurled it through the window, her huge muscles rippling nicely as she moved.

Jack jumped at the sound of the glass shattering, but he recovered quickly and grinned at Corona. "I never get tired of seeing you do stuff like that."

She paused for a second to flex her pipes for him, but then she got down to business. She folded her wings around her shoulders and stepped through the now-open window. The fire escape creaked under her weight and her eyes widened.

"Okay, this thing isn't holding together very well. Let's not all get on at once."

"They're outside the door," Taura whispered. She nodded at Corona. "Go ahead. Jack, you go next." She pulled two more of her disc-shaped grenades from her trenchcoat pocket.

Corona climbed the stairs, taking each step cautiously. Jack stopped at the window, staring upward for a few seconds, and finally followed her.

The door to Taura's left swung open and a seven and a half foot-tall mech ducked through. Taura flung both grenades at it, smiling grimly when they stuck to its chest. She jabbed the "detonate" icon in her holofield as she squeezed through the window.

The blast ripped the mech apart and blew the rest of them off their feet.

The metal structure rattled and groaned under Taura's hooves. A glance at the bolts holding it to the outside wall made her wish she hadn't looked at them. The bolts had been pulled more than an inch out from the wall, and the whole fire escape shifted with each movement.

"Ohhhh, shit!" She gripped the handrails and began climbing--slowly and carefully.

"Hurry!" Corona hissed.

"Trying!" Taura increased her pace. The fire escape rattled and creaked--and one of the bolts in the corner of her eye pulled out another inch with a shriek. She froze, gripping the rails, trying to stop trembling, and failing. "Careful! It could come loose any second!"

Metallic clanking sounds came from below her. She took a quick look down and gasped.

Four more mechs were climbing onto the fire escape.

"Get back inside!" Taura glanced upward and found Jack and Corona already three floors above her. When they paused to look at her, she shook her head. "They're coming out here. This thing can't hold us all! Get inside now!"

"Get moving," Jack snapped. "We're not leaving you here!"

Corona rushed to the window, peered inside, and tapped the glass frantically. She pointed at the lock and yelled, "Open it! Please!"

The mechs stopped at the bottom of the stairs just below Taura and pointed their guns at her. She revved her body up, whipped her gun out, and emptied her clip into the nearest one's chest. It staggered back and bumped into another one before it collapsed.

Taura popped the clip out and hurled it at a third mech, nailing it in the head and knocking it off balance.

The fire escape shrieked again--and all the bolts on the platform yanked out of the wall.

"Taura!" Jack and Corona screamed, and she looked up again. Someone inside had opened their window and both of them had squeezed through, and were now staring down at her.

She charged up the stairs, surging forward in a sudden panic.

The remaining mechs opened fire. Sparks erupted all around her as their bullets struck the stairs under her and the platform above.

One slammed into her back, right between her shoulder blades.

She screamed, her mind flashing back to the last time she'd been shot, but somehow she remained upright. She reached the open window and Jack and Corona grabbed her arms and pulled her through.

"I'm hit," she groaned, weeping and shaking.

Corona gasped. "Where?"

"My back."

Corona rushed behind her, looked her over, and ran her hands over Taura's back. Finally, she sighed and threw her arms around Taura.

"You're okay. It didn't penetrate your vest's armor layer."

"That stuff actually worked?" Taura sobbed again and nuzzled Corona, then she put her arms around Jack and kissed him.

"Yeah. Good ol' non-Newtonian fluid." Corona patted Taura's back. "Never leave home without it."

She nodded, took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and looked out the window.

Two more mechs were making their way up the fire escape.

She shoved her hand into her pocket, found one last grenade, leaned out the window and dropped it. It attached to the lead robot's head with a click, and Taura set it off with a smirk. The blast took the robot out and knocked its companion over the rail, sending it plunging to the street.

"Is that the last one?" Jack said, slipping his arm around her waist.

"For now."

"Good." He rubbed her back for a moment, and sighed. "Okay, let's finish up and get the hell out of here."

#

Okay. __Here _ we __go. _Shadow drove the end of her grappling cable into the roof, gave it a few hard tugs to be sure it was secure,

and climbed over the edge. The cable unspooled slowly from her harness as she lowered herself to the fourteenth floor. She stopped outside the window to Arthur's office, cupped her hands around her eyes and peered inside. Arthur sat at his desk in the corner, clutching a small briefcase to his chest and staring at the door with wide,

terrified eyes.

She tapped a claw gently on the window. Arthur screamed, spun around, and almost fell off his chair. Shadow gasped, waved her hand, and mouthed the word, "Sorry!" She motioned for him to open the window.

He hurried to the window, glancing over his shoulder at the door every other step, and slid it open. "Shadow?"

"Hey, babe." She put her feet on the window sill, leaned forward, put her arms around him and kissed him. "I'm here to get you out of this mess."

His jaw dropped. "I've been waiting for some agents to pick me up, but--it's_you_?"

"Well, not exactly. I work for the same agency, but Jack and the girls don't know I'm here. When I found out you were the one they were here for, I decided to slip in while they were keeping the guards busy." She waved a hand at the cable attached to her harness. "Come on. I can take us straight down to the street without having to get past the guards."

"But the agents--won't they be pissed?" Arthur shook his head. "I don't know, I should just wait for them."

Shadow dug her ID out of her shorts pocket and held it in front of his face. "There. See? Justice Foundation."

She put it away and grinned. "Jack might be pissed at first, but he'll get over it when he realizes that he and Corona and Taura can just cut out."

"Well, okay." He shrugged and turned to stare at the door again.

Shadow pointed at his briefcase. "You got everything you need?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so."

"Good. Now, come on. Put your arms around me and hold on tight."

His face turned pale as soon as he realized what she was about to do. She chuckled and put her arms and wings around him.

"You'll be just fine." She leaned back so he could see her face for a moment, and winked. "Or would you rather try to get past all those mechs?"

"Oh, shit," he moaned, and locked his arms around her waist.

"Here we go." She pushed away from the window, released the brake on the cable, and zipped toward the ground.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Arthur's face turned almost completely white.

"It's okay, I've got you." She kissed his cheek as they reached the sidewalk. "Look, we're almost on the ground."

Trembling, he looked down, and let a long breath rush out when he saw that they were hanging about six inches above the pavement.

Shadow glanced at her cable. "We've reached the end of the rope. I gotta let go of you so I can detach it, but as you can see, the drop's only a few inches."

"R-right." He gulped, let go, and staggered. He gasped for breath, leaned over and braced his hands on his knees. "Goddamn! I almost shat in my pants!"

"My hero." Shadow detached the cable from her harness, patted his cheek, and took his free hand. "Come on. My car's parked around the corner."

She activated her comlink implant as they jogged toward the alley where she'd left her car. <Jack? __Corona? _ Taura?>_

"This __isn' __t _ a good __ time,"_ Jack grumbled a few second slater.

<Relax. I've already got Arthur.>

Another pause, this one stretching out for at least seven or eight seconds. "What?"

<I __landed _ on the __ roof _and _ descended _to _ his _office _ while _you _ were _keeping _ the _guards _ away. _You _ can _leave _ whenever _you _ want, _though; _ it __' s __over.> _Shadow opened the passenger door and waited for Arthur to get in before dashing around to the driver's side.

"We __were _ a distraction?" Jack bellowed, and Shadow winced. "_You __fucking _ used us __ as _fucking _decoys?"_

Shadow's heart lurched. "Uh-oh."

"What?" Arthur stared at her. "What do you mean, 'uh-oh'?"

"Jack's really, really pissed. More than I expected him to be."

"How--?" Arthur shrank back from her, staring as if he thought she'd popped her cork.

She tapped the side of her head. "Cybernetic comlink implant." She started the engine and eased out onto the street. <Jack, __I' __m _ sorry. I __ didn __' t _mean--I _ was _only _ trying _to _ help.>_

"When __we _ get back __ to _the _ office, __we' re __ gonna _have _ a _little _ talk." _Jack broke the connection.

Shadow exhaled slowly and gripped the steering wheel to prevent her hands from shaking.

Well, fuck me.