FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

After trekking through various alleyways, relying half on his memory and half on his intuition, the raptor managed to reach an underground bar he was well acquainted with in Canaryville. A place down in a deep basement where the dregs of the streets washed into it like sludgewater into the sewage drain, slowly shuffling to the door and into a secret little place. Sadly not the kind of magical secret little place, but the more harsher reality. With fatigue coursing through his veins and threatening to slow him down, he entered the underground bar. The place was called "Two By Two", inspired from some old story of a dusty old book of one of the religions that he couldn't bother remembering about. The bar was in an area that was not so friendly to the richer folk as other areas would be. As a result, most of the 16 patrons in tonight were rough workers of the streets. Tables were spread out as cheap wooden constructions refitted by metal, along with a long brass and wooden bar in front of the entrance. A few slatted and grated and thick glassed windows were along the left of the entrance to reflect the haunting neon glows outside. They seemed to invite the shadows of the urban spectral lights to come in, yet also repelled them out from the underground bar floor. Behind the bar were severals rack of drinks in bottles, along with a door leading to the backrooms where either business occurred or the owners lived. He stood out like a broken thumb owing to his nakedness. He hadn't actually realised he was until now. "Fucking nudists," muttered a rhinoceros at a table beside him, a jukebox at the right wall.The raptor ignored his comment and walked to the front of the bar. The owner was an anthropomorphic dolphin, her tail receded somewhat into her body by her bipedal development. She had long evolved beyond her marine needs, her skin naturally glossy underneath the dull lights. Her age was evident in the old grooves around the base of her snout, beneath the brown eyes that, while softened themselves towards the newcomer, remained nevertheless as sharp as broken glass. The bartender didn't even look up from polishing a glass, simply greeting with: "Long time no see Rex." She wore a dark brown shirt buttoned up with tight fitting overalls, her chest starting to sag with a not-so-firm set of cleavage that had lost their use already. She called the raptor "Rex" despite it not being his name, but she knew it had something to do with dinosaurs finding the name somewhat amusing. Said dinosaur replied: "Don't worry Sarah, I have a long story this time." Humour would help enlighten his mind, and she immediately leapt into it on cue. "Ohhh? Not another fucked-up relationship I hope?" "Ohh not this time-" "Listen, I know how you are with stuff like this."

She put her glass down and served a boar who had come up to the bar asking for malt whisky. She duly served it to him, before he realised that this was a private discussion and moved two stools away. "Now why do you think it's always a relationship?" "Your honour, I call forth the evidence of four months ago, then seven, then thirteen, then twenty-" "Woah woah woah, you actually keep track of all my dates?" "It helps pass the time. Not good material for a play but at least it's free to watch and I get some good entertainment." "Pfft, I forget how that bottlenose of yours is sharper than it looks, when it's not stuck in a bottle." "Wait 'til you get to my teeth." She flashed a toothy grin with a knowing smile. She made no move to get her friend a drink and he never asked for one. As much as she was willing to lend an ear and offer miniature psychological reports, as was the duty of every bartender in existence to do so, she did not give out free drinks. Ever. This was not because she was greedy or anything, but rather she thought giving out free drinks was the first sign of poor businessmanship. That and she hated creating debts for others. Debts killed the soul. "Well, Sarah, do you want me to explain why I walked into your bar...of all the bars in all the slums in all the world?" "I dunno why you had to walk into mine, Rex." She smiled at his attempt to make a reference. He'd paid attention to movie night after all. "But all I wanna know is, was it a guy or a girl this time?" "Technically it was a guy." Much as he was distressed, humour was soothing his anxiety, or at least covering it up well. "Technically? Ohh hell...don't tell me you went and picked up a drag queen, they're the worst." "What?! No no no, this has nothing to do with-" "Face it James, you always give 'em the skin off your back until they can see the back of your kidneys which you carved their names on. You gotta tighten up and not lie on yer back for every pretty face out there. I know ya like bein' a whore but-" "Sarah, this is not about relationships, I was captured!" "By who?" "The Armee!"

At that very moment in time, the conversation grinded to a halt, like a train slowly coming into its station. The Armee, as they were simply named, were well feared by everyone. They weren't the kind of people who'd run you up against the wall and shoot everyone down, yet, but they had plenty of weight to throw around a good martial law every so often. They were also not actually with the US Army in itself, but rather a shady paramilitary organisation loosely related to them known as the A.R.M.E. Advanced Research Military Enterprises. But they had other purposes in having JUST enough freedom to reach the edge of abusing rights by stepping over the line by a toe when no one was looking, and then slipping their foot right back when anyone looked. "You...got hit too?" asked Sarah in a hushed whisper. "Yes." "Shit boy, how tha hell didja git here?" asked the boar two stools down. A glass was half full in his hand, eyes saucer-like in his direction. It nearly frightened James, what with everyone looking either directly at him or just not moving at all. Two humans in a dark corner were given scrutinous glances. He singled them out with his eyes. "I...I...I dunno..." "Hey hey hey don't pressure him everyone." Sarah put up her hands to maintain order. "Nothing to see here. He's drunk, that's all." "He hasn't even bought anything yet." replied the boar, a grunting low murmur of disapproval. "This is my bar. If I say he's drunk, then he is drunk. And right now, he looks like he needs to rest. Come on James." Sarah first headed to the backroom to call out her assistant, Jennie to take over. The doberman looked as tough as her boss, with the addition of a few tattoos on her arms and a nasty scar along the forehead above her left eye. James wasn't sure what it was from, she had told him once but he forgot. James was let in through the bar and followed Sarah through to the main building interior. The building itself was actually a small apartment block, where Sarah lived as a squatter in one of them, in the loosest legal sense. She technically owned the building however so it wasn't something anyone could complain about. Besides, the neighbours were kind and moral enough to believe in the underground populace sticking together. And those who didn't were dealt with by blackmail from Sarah, since the ones who disagreed with her presence were usually the lowest of unscrupulous criminals or at least never entirely clean. She could always anonymously tip them off to someone if the time ever came. Her trump card was coloured black and blue. Her back rooms were really her home, a small kitchen, living room, and a bedroom for herself, with James having his own room in turn. Among peeling egg-brown walls with spackles of what was hopefully white paint and flakes of plaster around the skirting board. James had lived here ever since he first came to the bar, when Sarah took pity on him. He even had his own bed and TV.

"Now...what happened to ya?" Sarah always asked bluntly, straight to the point as he sat down on his bed with her. "Well, I was getting my delivery done, like you wanted me to, and was walking back to my bike when suddenly these guys, like police or something, try and grab me! So I dodge down a few alleyways, escape on my bike towards the highway, they cut me off, make me crash, knock me out, and when I woke up, I was in their lab. "But by the time I awoke, it must've been ages 'cause they were already finished and then flicked the switch, was tied down and had electric stuff coming out of me, like that old monster movie with the lightning and the crazy doctor!" "Frankenstein." "Right, that one. So anyways, someone fucked up lucky for me and I managed to escape. I dunno how I did it though. All I know was that....I became like a monster, tore my way through them and escaped out of their place....I don't know how I did it....but they did SOMETHING to me. Hope this isn't a bother to ya." "I keep telling ya James, yer never a hassle to me." She put an arm around him in a motherly fashion, smiling softly to comfort him. He appreciated it, rubbing his head. He thought a headache would come, but it never did. "But...you feeling anything else now?" "No...not now anyways...my mind feels all jumbled up, all this stuff is in my head. They...they put something in my head and now I can't stop thinking about...things." "What things?" "Weird things. Like mushrooms that make you big....guys that look like martial artists shooting fireballs from their hands....blue hedgehogs that go zooming past like lightning, all this crazy shit, what did they want with me?" "I dunno...but I bet myself three whiskeys you're gonna find out." "...you're betting yourself?" "Hey I gotta get SOMETHING out of this. You manage to find something, you learn what they did to you. You don't, I get free drinks." "And how do YOU not get free drinks?" "I have to pay me. And damn do I hate paying for drinks." He had to chuckle at this before feeling a little thirsty himself, but for now he only wanted proper sleep. He went into his bed, the cool springy mattress soothing him. Sarah looked down on the young dinosaur with a soft sigh, and stroked his head as he began to close his eyes. "You just rest real good Rex. Tomorrow, yer brain's gonna feel good as new." Technically his brain WAS new now, not that she really understood what he said to her.

The next day James woke up with Sarah's form standing over him peering down, her breasts being naturally the first thing he looked at. They were just the right size to start swinging, not much, but enough for a pendular force. "I got a question for ya." "Mmhmm?" He was a bit sleepy still so he wasn't too vocal. "If I somehow got an alarm clock in each of my tits would that get you up any faster?" "Mmahdunno." He turned away a little in impudence which made Sarah kick him in the leg, waking him into sitting up and rubbing his leg. "Owww, fucking hell woman!" "Yeah, that works better than a clock don't it? Listen, you wanna go find out about the Armee right and what they did to ya? Well, been calling around the Fishnet and I think I got an idea." He perked up slightly whilst rubbing his leg a little more. "Really? Alllrighty, go on then." The Fishnet was the name of a network among Sarah's personal friends, a joking name that soon became official for the seeds of resistance being planted, should it ever be needed against the A.R.M.E and other such dangerous organisations. "We managed to find out where in the Armee place you can find out about what they did to ya, snippets of radio chatter told us that some experiment, guess who, broke out of the 32nd floor, and we even know which room when someone last night got a picture of the window you broke to get out. So....how the fuck didya survive such a drop Rex?" "Wh...32 floors?! It was that high!?!? I...I've no idea! I just...just....this is gonna sound weird, but I...skated out." "Skated? Okay two things wrong there. One, I'm sure you weren't skating last night cuz you left yer boots here. And two, how do you skate out of a building 32 floors up?!" "That's the thing, I really don't know! I just had this automatic thought in my mind, it told me to skate, so I did! I suddenly had skates for no reason at all, I grinded onto this rail way down on the roads and leapt off to the pavement, then...ran back to you! ...oh shit, they could've followed me!" "Relax, we been keeping an eye out, no Armee guys came to this area so yer safe for now." "But they ARE searching for me right? I mean come on, I broke a window AND I'm one of their li'l projects!" "Well of course but hey, any of them snoop around, Fishnet will letcha know." "Yeah...but..." "What?" "They...did something, I'm scared Sarah..." He sat on his bed rocking back and forth slightly in fear, the dolphin sitting beside him to hug him close with one strong bruised arm. "Shhhh...s'alright." "I mean they're gonna want me back, they're gonna find me, how can I keep evading them? It won't even be a matter of jumping rooftops forever." "Then you gotta start crawling underground, and when they catch up, run back through the rooftops." "They're going to be a step ahead of me eventually Sarah." "They have half of the city to find you, and you might have even slipped into the bright side of the city...we can always plant some false leads around the place, if they start asking about ya." "Thanks..." He gave a tender kiss to Sarah who merely nuzzled her bottlenose against his snout. "Awwww now, yer my kid, I'm not gonna let anyone hurt ya long as I'm alive. And you can take care of yerself, you made it here on yer own after all." "That's true..." "So what's the worry?! Now, time to get up, you still got chores." He slowly got up from the mattress and headed downstairs to the bar. Since he started living here he had to pull his weight as assistant bartender, which was anything the bartender did herself but only when she was too busy to do it. Mainly it was cleaning glasses, serving customers, clearing tables, and dealing with fights.

Rows upon rows of glasses and multicoloured bottles laid before him within a wooden set. Every early morning, after the bar closed up in the late night and the staff had a good sleep, he had to clean all the glasses. He always had at least one chore at this time, and Sarah made sure to keep him busy. When James wasn't busy with something, he usually wandered off into trouble out of boredom, sometimes without meaning to. Picking up the cleaned and dried dishtowel, he began to wipe through the glasses one by one with a trained pace, letting his mind ponder on what had happened to him while his body worked on automatically. Slowly not realising he was just cleaning glass after glass, he began thinking about how he managed to make that jump from the lab, how he even escaped, and what the Army would do if they caught up with him. Time passed as mere seconds in his head when he grabbed a glass that wasn't there, only to realise that he'd reached the end of the rack, a little surprised with himself. "Uhhh done the glasses boss." "Great, now couldya go out the back and grab the cases? We're a li'l low on Jaegermeister so I had to order some." "Okay!" He headed out the back door, keeping it open with a wedge as he picked up one of three cases of Jaegermeister. Bringing the last case in, he quickly shut the door in the same way anyone does when faced with a dark narrow stretch of pathway, even in the daytime. James walked over to Sarah who looked wary for some reason. "Hey, Sarah? What's wrong?" She turned to James and said lowly: "They're coming for you James." "Wh-wh-what?" "Look, one of our pals found this posted on the streets." She handed him a poster which read in clear bold letters:

WANTED JAMES ROBERT CAMPBELL FOR GBH AND VANDALISM TOWARDS THE ARMY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS PLEASE CONSULT POLICE IF SEEN

The poster showed the front and side shot of the raptor looking quite an arrogant bastard with a criminal sneer. The fact his name was on there frightened him the most. James noticed the picture was of his police profile from his arrest long back, for illegal streetracing. He recognised the criminal number he had to hold underneath his face. The luckiest thing about it was they couldn't find his motorcycle to impound it. "They know my name...how the fuck do they know who I am?!?" "I dunno Rex, I really don't. Makes me wonder if you got kidnapped by accident at all. That or they just found your police record for that pic." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Would they have made that much effort to find yer name if you were just some random punk they took off the street?" "Well they want me back, I'm obviously important to them for something and if the Army can find anyone, they're gonna use everything to get me! I have to get out of here Sarah." "There's no way yer leavin' Chicago kid." "Why not!?!" "You don't think they're gonna monitor anyone who leaves the city? Where you gonna go anyway, back to London?" "Fuck no, there's nothing back there for me!" "Then stick with me, I'll protect you, the safest place to be is right here. They'd not have put this up if they knew where you were, right?" "...I guess." "Then let me and the Fishnet handle it. We'll keep ya safe, yer already a celebrity around here in a day, and I'll make sure nobody squeals on ya." "You sure about that?" "I'm practically your mom, I'll kill anyone who does." A blushing smile of gratitude came from James. She was the closest thing he had to a protector, or a parent. "Th-thanks Sarah. So...what do we do now?" "Right now you stay low like a snake and stay in this bar at all times. If you need anything, ask me. You sure nobody was following you last night?" "Absolutely not, nobody followed me." "Good. Course someone'll squeal so we'll keep the net tight for the next couple of weeks." "What about the people who come into the bar?" "Hmmm..." Looking at the poster again, she noticed the one identifying mark of James being the two horizontal purple stripes on his snout, something of a birthmark. She got out a bandage from the first aid kit under the bar and offered it to James. "Huh...but won't anyone ask why I have this, it looks a bit iffy." "Then how about some paint, just need one that matches your colour though." "I'm not comfortable with having paint so near my nostrils." "Fine fine, we gotta think a way, it's only those damn stripes on yer snout...HEY I got it!" She grabbed the raptor's arm and dragged her upstairs to her room. It was a modest abode with a dresser warped with water damage from being salvaged; a TV she "rescued" from a neighbouring apartment that caught fire, which she was not responsible for; a wide collection of movies all in CDD format; a bed and an AC unit sticking out of the wall, high abvoe with a soothing hum near an enclosed rectangular window. Sarah rummaged into her dresser, a shoddy-looking mirror upon it as she brought out what appeared to be makeup in small oval boxes.

"You wear makeup?" "Hey even a bitch like me's gotta look pretty. Now hold still." Grimacing at the idea of putting on makeup, he let her apply some to the snout with the attention of a mother with a wet napkin cleaning a son's face. She covered it slowly in odourless foundation to eventually match something similar to his scale colour. "Aw come on you don't need this crap." "Don't question what I need when I'm using it to help ya, this is full coverage. I use it for my scars when I wanna look like I haven't been mangled. Okay, now take a look in the mirror." Doing so, James saw himself with scars gone from a snout scarily unblemished. In a certain light, it was just about right. "I feel...so pretty!" said the raptor with a gay mocking pose, with a limp-wristed gesture towards his reflection. "Knock it off you faggot, now you just make sure not to wash it off at all and it should be alright." "For a few weeks?! Seriously? I'm gonna need baths and everything still." "Unless you got any other ideas, this is all we got. Also, did they hear you speak, the Armee?" "Yeah?" "Right, then you gotta work on an accent then, just talk like me and we'll be okay." He tried to mimic her with an obviously put on American accent. "Uhhhh...aul-rai-ee?" "...yeah we'll work on that. Now, what say you an' I get some sampling of that Jaegermeister in?" "But...it's 10 in the morning." "And? We've had worse times to do stuff." "....well alright then, let's crack one open." James went over to the case he had brought in and pulled out two bottles, handing one to Sarah as they opened and clinked the bottles. The bitterness made the raptor sneer, not entirely used to alcohol as well as the older bar matron, who drank it like water. "Mmm, this shit's good quality, glad I bought it eh?" "Ahh huh..." He eyed the rim of the bottle absent-mindedly, still pondering over the events that had happened to him. Sarah merely patted his back and encouraged him to drink more with the phrase: "If ya don't finish that in the next fifteen minutes you gotta pay for it." A little encouragement worked as he began to steadily down the Jaegermeister, not fully intoxicating him but enough so to make him a little more carefree. After a while he became more absent-minded. giggling up with his boss, landlord and only friend. As his thoughts stewed in his head, something occurred to him with the events of last night. Something important. "Oh shit, Sarah, my bike!" "What about it?" "It's still out there, when the Armee cornered me on the highway entrance, my bike skidded off near there!" "Well no way in hell yer going out there to look for it." "But Sarah-" "Have you just forgotten about the shady group that wanna take you back dead or alive? I know you got a disguise but how many raptors do we know here anyway? Don't exactly blend into the crowd do ya?" "Urrrrrgh...I fucking love that bike! Can't you ask any of the Fishnet to find it?" A sigh like that from a weary mother came from the bartender. "Fiiiiine but we gotta be real careful about this, they know it's yer bike after all, maybe they even took it with them. Where was it?" "Uhh near the entrance to Lincoln Highway." "Alright, I'll leave a message for them to see if they can get info on it, I know what it looks like so don't worry." Relieved, he slumped back slightly and rubbed his eyes, feeling tired again and bored having nowhere to go. "Wanna go watch some TV, Rex?" A small nod from the raptor as the two went to Sarah's room, sitting up side by side on the bed, letting the hours slip away with endless flickers between half-assed panel shows and glorified toy commercials disguised as shallow flatly animated cartoons. Their drunken trains of outspoken thought became their own entertainment. The two had always been close since their first encounter with each other, even if it had been unusual. More or less because James was trying to rob her bar and ended up on the ground bleeding from the leg, forced with an ultimatum. Either take the job as an assistant because nobody else would, or suffer time in jail. But the encounter that managed to flourish into a strange friendship and employment deal. Eventually the two began to drift off into the effects of boredom and alcohol, nestled in each other's arms on the bed for the night shift.

The Two By Two Bar opened at 6pm every night except on certain holidays, attracting a wide clientele from the dregs of Chicago's poorer districts, the local block especially for they all knew Sarah and regarded her like a matron. In the sense that she kept an eye and ear out for the neighbourhood, as well as being the head of the Fishnet, the "local neighbourhood watch". She always made sure to keep everyone's nose clean, and everyone's dirty hands firmly buried in unseen pockets if anyone came snooping around. The usual patrons as well as some newcomers passing through on the bar crawls of the night shuffled in and out of the place, nobody really recognising James from the Wanted poster other than the cursory glance sa he couldn't hide his species. Those who knew him were trustworthy long-standing donaters to the bar who either had enough moral code to not snitch to the Armee, or were armtwisted by blackmail from Sarah. Either way, they all knew if James was reported and picked up by the Armee here, the rest of the area was in trouble, and the spotlight across their whole block would have them scurrying in panic. Cockroaches to be later dealt with in their own ways. For now the fugitive was safe, other than the newcomers that weren't local or had not enough of a moral code to not snitch. Thankfully however, they were too afraid to be mistaken or afraid of wasting the Armee's time.

Eventually, Sarah received a note delivered from the rear delivery entrance, and called James to the back for a few minutes for a talk. "You seem to be in the clear kid." "Thanks to your handiwork boss." "By the way I got some news for ya. One of the fish found your bike." "No way!" "Lying near the highway entrance like ya said...well, sorta, someone took it to try and sell it but my boys managed to get it back for a discount." "Oh god thank you so much Sarah." "It's a li'l broke at the back but nothing an amateur mechanic couldn't fix, even you could spruce it up a bit. Anyways, you feelin' alright?" "Yeah, I'm just nervous is all, the whole business with the Armee and all, I just hope they don't come around at all. You sure there's no way they can find me?" "Well...I was thinking about that picture of you. It was from a police report wasn't it?" "Yeah?" "Well...don't they log addresses?" "I...don't remember, I don't think they ever asked me where I lived." "You realise eventually someone's gonna rat us out and screw the consequences." "When I get my bike back I'll race out of the city." "Last time you got in a race with them you got caught." "I didn't know who I was dealing with then! Now I'll use all my tricks if they try me." A heavy sigh came from the dolphin. "James...I'm more worried about here and now. What about me and my bar?" "I...shit..." "You know they're not gonna leave this place standing. The only reason they won't nuke this place is they don't wanna hit the news." "You can't just ride with me out of here?" "And be an accomplice to you? Sorry I wanna keep my nose a li'l more clean." "You're already an accomplice in their eyes, they wanna come in here and make some noise, fine, they'll never find me! I'll hide somewhere if they come searching!" "...yeah...you know what you can." She dealt with a few more customers, making sure they were full before heading down into the basement near the stairs to their rooms. James had never really been down in the basement before, except for storing drinks whenever they were having a slow week and had to put some crates away for keeps. It was dank with grey plaster walls stained occasionally, and several spare mattresses in the dryest area for anyone who needed to rest, or were on the run who deserved safety. "I read this book about a li'l kid back in World War II, you know that right?" "Yeah I know it." "Well, she had this family that hid in a secret part of the house, this big ol' bookcase or something that could be opened like a door." "Cool, did they manage to stay hidden?" "Well..." a look of discomfort grew on her face, then on James'. "Either way, it's a good idea still to try. If anyone comes knockin', you open this door here."

Sarah gently rubbed her hands until she found a small hole in the actual corner between two walls. She twisted her finger in it to the left, then right, then a little left, then full right. It was as if she was working a safe before something clicked, and a part of the wall swung outwards with only a creak of the hinges. The front of it was solid granite like the walls, but the inner part was like any door, and well-crafted. "Holy shit...how come you never told me of this until now?" "No reason to. Now it locks automatically when it's pushed back into place, and there's another hole like it in the door itself on the other side. It's practically a home in there for ya." She showed him the inside which had its own lighting with a built-in wall lamp, as well as a bed, a wardrobe and a feasible stack of food and water, it had the simplest needs to survive. Almost like a fallout shelter. "Awesome!" "Now, remember this." She put her finger in the hole again but only halfway and twisted her finger in the same manner to show James. "Left, right, half-left, then right, okay?" "Right." "Alright, now push it back and we'll get back to the bar." The two pushed the door back which closed shut with a thud, before they headed back upstairs to find a few straggling customers whining for beer, the night passing by with little problem. So far, so good.