FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Once I was done eating I grabbed my gear, had Allen put the map to the basement on my PDA and headed out. Since the power was back on, I was able to walk down to the stair well without too much trouble. The stair case went down about 40 feet or so and I could see the water down at the bottom glowing a faint blue with all the bioluminescent bacteria in it. When I made it to the bottom of the stair case, there was a utility door that had been taken off it's hinges by water and mangled the frame that it was set it. The door itself was laying under the water as a twisted hunk of metal. Beyond the doorway was a small room that looked a generator repair shop, which made sense seeing as how every other room in this lab had one. There were two work benches in the back of the room that had electrical motors on them and there was one on either side which held what looked like parts for a V8 Briggs, the biggest in production. There were pistons and crankshafts on a work bench in the middle along with a turbocharger and a Tesla Coil.

In the back of the room was another hallway which was lined with any possible manner of wires and pipes. There was a wire bracket up top that was carrying five, heavy info cables down the hallway and there were two smaller ones next to it carrying thousand amp lines. On my right and left were thick iron pipes carrying gauges and many, many valves and joints. The floor was grated to allow access to many more pipes and wires that ran underneath and I could see some of them were rusted out while others looked brand new. There was about a foot or so of water on the floor, making it hard for me to slush through. There was a bit of a current to it as well, so I guess that it was flowing down from a stair case somewhere up a head. I could also hear sloshing up ahead and deep, low throated moans.

"Allen", I said getting onto the radio, "what did you say it was that was hiding out down here?"

"The feeders", Allen called back, "there though little fuckers, but as long as they don't get the drop on you you should be fine. Why?"

"Because I think I hear some up ahead", I answered back raising my FAL.

"Let me take a listen", Allen said.

I pulled the ear piece out of my radio and held it out to the air as the moans became slightly louder.

"That's definitely Feeders", Allen said, "sounds like there's a couple of them too. Be careful, you may have acid for blood, but if they get a hold of you and you go under...well...let's just say that I doubt you'll be coming back up."

"I don't intend to let them touch me", I said putting my ear piece back in. I continued down the hall way, coming to a four way intersection. The sign above me had the directions, but judging as it was a neon sing and that there was water dripping from the ceiling, I think it was safe to assume that it was shorted out. I pulled my flashlight out of my vest and shined it on the side, the directions read "TO MAINFRAME, TO GENERATORS, TO REPAIR, TO MANTAINENCE." According to the sign, the generators were down the hall to my right. I turned to the right and started down the long, flooded hallway. I kept the flashlight out so I could see where I was going, and this met that I was holding the FAL one handed, which translated to at least a 75% accuracy loss since I couldn't look down the sight.

At the end of the hallway was a heavy utility door. I let the FAL fall to my side and I held the flashlight with my jaw as I needed both hands to work the door. It was a little hard and I had to put a little bit of pressure into it, but the handle eventually gave out and I was able to pull the door open. Only to get jumped by that Feeder two feet behind the damn thing! He jumped at me with a blood curdling shriek and was literally on top of me so quickly that I hadn't even had time to jump back.

To stunned to do anything, I fell back into the water and the creature wasted no time in pinning me down, hissing and snarling at me as it did. I knew it was intending to drowning me, which it wasn't going to have a problem with the way I was pinned. I was in such a position that I was looking back the way I had come, also exposing my neck in a way that was more than enticing the creature to cut it. My situation also wasn't helped by the fact that I was thrashing around trying to get a grip on the thing. Get a grip on yourself before this damn thing drowns you! I grabbed hold of the creature, sinking my claws as deep into its flesh as I could and with a heave, I tossed it off of me, hearing slam against the ceiling and hearing a splash soon accompanied by a wave rolling over me. I quickly sat up, coughing and choking as I tried to get the water out of my lungs. I felt another wave as the creature got up and snarled at me. I stood up myself and turned to face it.

It was the single most ugly thing I'd ever seen in my life, and that met something coming from me. It was basically a flesh covered skeleton with absolutely no muscle mass to speak of, I was surprised it was even up walking around, to say nothing of being able to pin me. It's eyes were rotting out and there were areas in it's grey decomposing flesh where I could see the fractured bone. It's hands were small and deformed with long, slender fingers and horrible looking, needle like fingernails to rival the Katana on my back. There was no flesh on it's lower jaw and it looked almost like someone had taken a hammer to it with the way it was cracked. A side effect of essentially not having a mouth was that it was dripping saliva and blood, my guess from it's last victim. Mom always said zombies weren't real, Dad disagreed.

"And I thought Jacob was ugly", I said aloud as it roared at me and jumped.

Once again, before I was able to raise my rifle and shoot, it had a hold of me and was trying to force me under. This time I was ready for it though. I was able to grab a hold it in mid flight and slam it into the wall. It wasted no time in slipping out of my grasp and trying to sink it's jagged teeth into my neck. I grabbed onto it's shoulders and with the bit of Primal Rage that all Xenomorph's had inside of them, I grabbed his head and wrenched it clean off, a good bit of it's spine coming out with it, turning the clear water underneath us red with blood. I dropped the head and took a deep breath, trying to get the air back into my lungs. I couldn't help but notice that I felt numb, weak every where, especially in my arms.

"Allen", I said getting on the radio, "come in."

"What's up Sky?", he asked.

"I just got in to a fight with a feeder", I said between my gasps, "I feel weak in my arms."

"That should go away in a few minutes", Allen said, "sounds like you got hit with some of their knock out juice, work it off if you can. Get that generator running and then get to the Mainframe, we get that moving we get security, coms, distress, everything."

"I'll do what I can", I said managing to stand back up and walk into the generator room. In the back of the room was a large, Briggs & Straton V8, one of their more powerful models. It was a huge thing that looked like it belonged in a heavy Transport truck rather than a generator. It didn't look too badly damaged as the most water it had on it was only up to the foot mark and even then it looked as if everything it needed were set above that level. I opened up the control panel and was met with gauge after gauge and an endless array of switches, none of which I knew how to work.

"Walk me through this Tyler", I said into the radio.

"What model are you dealing with?", Tyler asked in reply, "send me a pic."

I pulled out my PDA and snapped a picture, quickly sending it to him.

"Looks like a Briggs & Straton InteleGEN V8-TT 35 Super Volt", Tyler said, "in the bottom row there's a yellow switch labeled "Fuel Pump", flip it on."

I quickly scanned the board for the switch and flipped it on, "what next?"

"There's a row of blue switches up top that correspond to each cylinder, make sure each one is on and then find the switch that says "battery", make sure that's on and then look for a red, J shaped rod with the "Throttle" label, pull it out until you see the number 3."

I flipped all the blue switches and then the orange battery switch. I located the throttle level and pulled it out until I saw the three.

"Done", I said, "now what?"

"There are three silver switches labeled Ignition 1,2 and three, make sure there all on and flip on the starter motor, once the engine kicks on, you have to turn the starter motor back off or it will die on you."

I flipped the three switches and then the starter motor. The V8 powering the massive generator roared to life and I quickly kicked the starter off.

"Push the throttle down to 1 and switch off ignition three", Tyler said.

I did what Tyler said to and the engine revved up to 7,500 before the needle in the readout kicked back with what I assumed was a gear shift, settling into a 3000 Rpm spin.

"Did that thing just shift gears like a car?", I asked.

"Yep", Tyler said, "it will shift to gear three once the security comes on. Get up to the mainframe and I'll walk you through the boot up process."

I left the generator room and went back down the hall to the navigation sign. I took a right hand turn and started up a stair case and down another hallway to a huge utility door. There was no way I was ever gonna open that. It rivaled even the big door guarding the Biome labs.

"Problem Tyler", I said getting onto the radio, "there's a big door here, I mean a BIG fucking door. I don't think I could even blow this damn thing open."

"Lemme get that for ya", Allen said.

The door's locks gave off a rusty sounding wail and three metal flaps folded back as the door pulled down into the concrete. There was a hiss of air as an unseen pneumatic system emptied it's tanks and the final two pieces of the door pulled up.

The single biggest super computer I'd ever seen was resting inside. Behind the glass wall in the back I could see towers that rose to ten feet in height and they were linked by data burst lines rather than traditional wiring. I walked up to the glass and peered into the back of the room. I could see what looked like a stone floating in what almost looked like a Gravity Well. To my left there was a holographic display with a glowing keyboard underneath it and the screen simply had a typing cursor.

"Let me walk you through this one step at a time Sky", Tyler said, "what your dealing with is the Nova Systems Cluster 300, the biggest, most powerful hypercomputer the universe has ever seen. This is approximately 4 trillion times harder to operate than your PDA and there are few people besides the man who built this who can work it, luckily for us I'm one of the few. The first thing your going to do is type in "Initiate Start up-Protocol 3654."

I typed it in. Almost immediately, the computer replied with "Welcome User, Enter Inquiry/Set Rit now."

"It's asking me to enter an inquiry and set a Rit", I said.

"Exactly", Tyler said, "type in "Enter Inquiry, Mainframe Boot-090365218, Set Rit-Volume 3000JG."

I typed in what Tyler told me and more text appeared underneath it.

"CHDISK has received inquiry-verifying-accepted. CHDISK has received Rit-Volume, verifying, accepted. Set File Protection/Enter User ID."

"It's asking for File Protection and a User ID", I said.

"Type in "Set File Protection/File Protection-334201A. User ID, Tyler W. James ID/2263142032."

I typed it in as he said it.

"CHDISK is verifying File Protection....Accepted. CHDISK is verifying User ID....Accepted. Set Clearance Code."

"It's asking for a clearance code", I said.

"Right", Tyler said, "my clearance code is 13274698."

I typed it in and the computer wasted no time in asking me for something else.

"CHDISK is verifying clearance code...accepted. Welcome Tyler W. James. Enter Password now."

"Whats your password?", I asked.

"My password is Deez Nutz", Tyler said.

"Seriously?", I asked.

"What?", Tyler asked.

"Deez Nutz?", I asked, "dude...like..seriously? That's your password?"

"Is there a problem?", Tyler asked.

I shook my head, even though he couldn't see it through the radio. I typed in the password and six or seven different holograms popped up, dumping me with more information than I was capable of putting together at once.

"Like seven different screens just popped up", I said, "which ones do I look for?"

"Two red ones for security and coms", Tyler said, "if you would down load our research data and bring it back that would be nice too."

"Where would I find your research data?", I asked.

"For the three of us it would be in the green hologram", Tyler said, "it works by data burst, so just holding your PDA to the hologram will work."

I quickly downloaded Tyler, Sarah and Jacob's research data and then turned my attention to the red holograms, both of which had big white "System Offline" flashing on top of them and a big, "Begin Reset in the middle of the screen. I'm going to have to reset this stuff manually aren't I? I hit the button and a keyboard popped up.

"Welcome Tyler W. James. Com Systems Down, Set Rit Volume now."

"It's asking me for another Rit-Volume", I said.

"Type in Rit-Volume 0000-00321", Tyler said.

I typed it in.

"CHDISK is verifying Rit-Volume..error...could not verify Rit-Volume retrying...failed...retrying...failed...retrying ...accepted."

"What the hell was with that?", I asked.

"What it do?", Tyler asked quickly.

"It failed three times before it accepted", I said.

Tyler sighed, "it might be detecting a virus, type in "Set Secure Override 0090-2309"

I typed it in.

"CHDISK is beginning sweep. Virus found...scanning...completed. Virus ID 209-345 Remote running software. Blocking...completed, beginning data purge...completed. Virus removed. Set File Protection now."

"It says it dealt with remote administration software", I said.

"I can see everything you can back here", Tyler said, "if there was remote software in that computer then that means someone in the lab used their arbitrary clearance code to install it, there are only a few people here with that code and I'm not one of them."

"What does that mean then?", I asked.

"I'm not sure", Tyler said, "what's it asking for now?"

"It wants File Protection", I said.

"Enter in 100-300", Tyler said.

I entered the numbers, the keys making bleeping sounds as my clawed fingers glided across them.

"CHDISK is verifying file protection...accepted. Enter System Security password."

"Whats the system security password?", I asked.

"What system are you on?", Allen asked.

"Security", I said.

"Sledgehammer", Allen said.

I typed it in.

"CHDISK is verifying password, accepted. Booting security systems. Basement...completed. Level 1...completed. Level 2...completed. Level 3...completed. Level 4...completed. Level 5...completed. Initiate Biome Lab Security Systems....completed. Level 6....error. CHDISK detects Level 6 security system software removed from Drive (E). Level 6 systems fully operational."

"Umm guys", I called, "it says that the software for Level 6's security systems has been removed, but is fully operational."

"That's not possible", Tyler said, "that computer runs everything in this lab. Nothing here doesn't operate on the CAD 21 system."

"You see it don't you?", I asked.

"Yeah I see it", Tyler said, "but I don't believe it. Someone else is running level 6 off the CAD 21. To do that you'd have to be the guy who built the lab...or figured out how to pass by CHDISK, the most powerful security program ever written. Type in Set Assemnet-3421."

I typed it in.

"CHDISK is verifying version software...completed. Warning. CHDISK detects operating system CAD 22 installed on drive (E). CHDISK is scanning software-CAD 22. Warning. Unknown user has locked CHDISK out of Drive (E), commencing Drive (E) separation, completed."

"I see it", Tyler said, "but I don't believe it."

"Some wrote a program that can beat CHDISK", Allen said, "I didn't even think that was possible."

"Seems like it", Tyler said, "Skyline, get the coms booted up and get back here. If there's a survivor in this lab who can beat CHDISK, then he's running the show."

I closed up the security screen and went over to the coms. I hit the begin reset button and the same text popped up.

"Welcome Tyler W. Mason. Set Rit-Volume."

"Enter Rit-Volume 0345-2310", Tyler said.

I punched in the numbers.

"CHDISK is verifying Rit-Volume...accepted. Set File protection."

"Enter 0314-2234", Tyler said,

I typed it in.

"CHDISK is verifying File Protection...accepted. Enter password now."

"The password for the comlink system is "Voices", Allen said.

I typed in voices and ever more text came on screen.

"CHDISK is verifying password...accepted. Booting com system. Basement...completed. Level 1...completed. Level 2...completed. Level 3...completed. Level 4...completed. Level 5...completed. Initiate Biome Lab Security Systems....completed. Level 6....error. CHDISK detects Level 6 comlink system software removed from Drive (E). Level 6 systems fully operational...."

A red screen popped up in front of me.

"ERROR. CHDISK DETECTS BREACH IN DRIVES (W), (P), (I) and (A). CHDISK is accessing user data base....error. No such users match current profile. Begin scrub...scrub completed. CHDISK is verifying Cluster 300 is fully operational...completed. Begin system reboot...reboot done. Restoring last manual in put...input restored. All systems normal."

"Did...did the cluster 300 just get hacked?", Allen asked over the radio, "what the hell is going on down there Sky?"

"I don't know", I said, "it says all systems norm..."

I was cut off as a screen showing a younger looking man in a lab coat with a combat vest on underneath it appeared. The look on his face made me sick to my already gurgling stomach.

"Well, well, well", the man said, "looks like you three survived. Unsurprising,"

"Who the fuck is that?", I asked over the radio.

"I could ask you the same question Xenomorph", the man answered before disappearing from the screen.

"Okay", I said aloud, "what the hell was that about?"

"Get back here Skyline", Allen said, "things just went from bad to worse."

"Who was that guy?", I asked I as started for the door.

"That...", Allen said, "was the embodiment of death."