FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Western Cube

Chapter 1

Sponsored by Taiko

By Draconicon

The white tigress was tied down, her arms locked in a metal ball over her head and her wrists restrained to the metal table under her. Her head was locked down with a collar, and the same silver-steel restraints pinned her chest, waist, knees, and ankles. The ones around her ankles buzzed with warning charges of electricity, reminding her of the consequences of the slightest mis-step.

At either side were the scientists, her 'owners', and the ones running the experiment. One a grizzly bear, the other a 'proper' tiger, they looked down at her with austere, stern faces that belied what they had done to her again and again and again.

Tatyana struggled to breathe as they traced flickering electric wands over her thighs. They never made direct contact; they never had to. Merely coming within an inch of her skin was enough for the electricity to arc out and strike her. She stiffened every time the miniature lightning hit her, but managed to keep from swinging her legs up. Barely. Barely.

"Her adrenaline is up," the tiger said.

"And her neurons? Firing faster?"

"Speeding up. The mental processes are definitely running faster."

"Excellent. Test another patch."

"Where?"

"Start anywhere."

"Then I'll start down there," the tiger said, moving from her side to the end of the table, near her bound legs. "If she's to respond to as much stimulation as possible, might as well start with the every-day stuff..."

Tatyana stared at the ceiling, her breath coming faster and faster as she braced herself. The needles in her arms and the one in her thigh were pumping her full of hyper-sensitizers and other drugs designed to drag her nerves to the surface, to make them feel everything at two, three, four times the sensitivity she normally did. She gritted her teeth -

The wand jabbed into the arch of her foot, and she screamed. She arched her back and her legs, unconsciously slamming herself into the electrified restraints. Her scream rose higher, and the scientists waited.

Eventually, she collapsed, gritting her teeth still, her face hurting. She knew that her ankles would be singed, her waist likewise. Her head hurt, her mind raced.

"Results?" the bear asked.

"Definitely getting a better reaction off this formula. She'll be adjusted properly soon."

"Good. I assume you're waiting for your chance for...other experiments?"

"Who wouldn't with this one?"

"Who wouldn't, indeed..."

Tatyana closed her eyes.

#

When she opened them, the pain was gone, as were the other things that she'd remembered. Pain, pleasure, the warping of the two as a means of survival: all of it was gone, replaced by the warmth of a blanket, the soft firmness of the mattress beneath that, and the gel pillow that supported her head.

The room lit up slowly as it responded to her shifting brainwaves. The mix of old and new technology in the walls followed her waking patterns, making itself of use as the bed folded under her, lifting her from a prone to reclining position, and then to a sitting one. The vent overhead opened up, allowing two of her spider-bot assistants to climb into the room. One lowered a cup with a wire 'web', while the other climbed down with its abdomen filled with dark fluid. Tatyana took the cup and held it out.

"Dispense," she muttered in Russian.

As the spider-bot released the hot coffee that it had carried in its fluid sac, she slowly rolled her legs to the side. The metal-paneled room blocked out all sight of what lay beyond, an intentional design choice once she'd taken over the lab. The last thing that she wanted while sleeping was a reminder of where she was. Sometimes, the nightmares liked to creep back in and take over if she gave them too much power.

The spider-bot that had brought the cup lowered itself to her shoulder, resting delicately across her collarbone. Despite appearing made of copper, and thick copper at that, it was light enough that she barely felt it, save for the vibration of its various parts turning and thrumming on the inside. It beeped in morse code at her, and she nodded slightly.

"Yes. It's an Integration Day."

It beeped again, multi-eyed head cocking to the side. She shrugged, getting to her feet slowly as the cup was fully filled. She sipped at it as she walked across the room.

Clothes. A thought opened one panel, and a mechanical arm drifted down, holding a lab coat on the end. Another arm rose from the floor, bearing a pair of rubber-soled sandals, with a protective polymer layer over the toes. She slid them both on, followed by a pair of panties. It would suffice for now; it was not as if there was anyone else living in the lab, particularly not down in the Cubes.

Her assistants followed her to the one piece of furniture outside of a bed that wasn't hidden behind the panels. A single console remained, lifted up on a white-steel podium from the floor. A scanner embedded in it started blinking, and she leaned forward, holding her eye open. It scanned her retinas, then read her thumbprint, followed by asking for a password. Twenty-four digits and letters later, it opened, dispensing a tablet for her loaded with everything that she needed.

" Commands, Chief Tatyana?" the console asked.

"Open," she muttered.

The panels at wall-level obliged, sliding off to the side and exposing the glass coverings just behind them. The room tripled in size, expanding from a chamber fifteen feet across to one that was nearly fifty. The walls were transparent, curving up and out from the floor before attaching to the ceiling. The tigress took a deep breath as she pulled her lab coat a bit tighter around her, looking straight ahead for a few moments more, letting the coffee kick in before walking to the edge and looking down.

From her suspended chamber, Tatyana could look down for at least a mile and a half before the darkness started to become a factor. While the various layers of the underground lab were well-lit and the walls were lined with modular labs and cells that could be attached to each other as needed, there was only so far that one's eyes could penetrate the darkness. Even feline eyes, used to that, could only go so far.

Leaning on the glass, she lifted her head slightly, picking out one such cluster that was the focus of the day's work. Ever since she'd taken over from the sadists that had run the place before - and good riddance to the lot of them - the biggest and most time-consuming tasks had been taking control of the various Cubes that had been set to independent research. Some had been detached and left to run unsupervised for a few months, others for a few years, and some even longer.

The one that she was staring at was one of the larger collections of labs slapped together, and as far as the records in the computer system stated, it had been left to run for years before she'd even arrived as a subject. Considering the time that the scientists at the Facility had been experimenting on her and the several years that she'd been free afterward, that meant that it had been in isolation since at least the sixties, possibly earlier. It should have been long-since dead, but it was still drawing power from somewhere - perhaps running its own mini-nuclear reactor, for all that she knew - and it was past time that she saw just what was in there. The Cubes were taking up valuable research space, and if there was anyone else besides her that had survived the experiments, then they deserved the chance to leave.

Not everyone can escape on their own, she thought, sipping her coffee. And besides, there's nothing in the computer about what they were doing. That could be useful...or it could be dangerous. Either way, I need to see what's inside and re-integrate it.

She smiled, draining the rest of her coffee before holding out her cup. One spider-bot took it away, while the other offered her a pill. She nodded, taking it dry. The usual filling feeling of a morning's breakfast spread through her quickly, and she felt ready to start the day.

The Union may have failed as a regime, but one cannot fault them for the survival gear they created...

"Come," she muttered in command to the spider-bots, and turned to the hatch that led down to the catwalks. It was going to be a long descent to the Cube's level, and then she had to make sure that the walkway emitters still worked. There were so many things in the lab that only worked when it wanted to, but today was going to be an Integration Day.

After all, she wanted the challenge.

#

Tatyana hissed as she was pinned to the wall, gloved fingers gripping her from behind. Mechanical arms held her down, pressing on her shoulders, squeezing her wrists. The grizzly was behind her, his hand rubbing along the back of her thigh. Every touch was a reminder of what he had done, what he, the tiger, the others had done to her body as she felt like she was on fire.

"Read-outs?" the grizzly called to the side.

"Rising sensitivity, greater neural activity to match."

"Hmm...Comparison to male subjects?"

"Thirty-percent greater neural activity and rising."

"Disappointing."

The bear's finger flicked across her anus, almost sliding in, but he restrained himself, keeping it purely to pressure there. She hissed softly, baring her fangs for a moment as she was pushed up on tiptoes from the pressure back there. Juices that she didn't want but couldn't deny ran down her legs.

"The experiment was meant to improve the next generation," the grizzly said. "Not to improve only one-half of it."

Tatyana didn't respond. She knew he was digging for something, looking for an excuse to have her terminated. She'd realized that six months ago, when she started exceeding testing standards. The extreme tests and questions after - the treatment that they'd put her body through, the 'use' that both male and female scientists pushed for - had told her that. They wanted to stunt one part of her growth.

She refused that. But she refused to give them an excuse to end her, too.

"Do you believe that you are better than the other experiments, Subject Tatyana?"

"..."

"Do you believe that you are better than them? Answer."

He punctuated the question by shoving his finger forward. Unlubed, dry, it was almost painful as it slid past her rim and into her ass. Almost; she had been taught how to enjoy that. Self-taught, but it was enough. Pain was pleasure, sometimes. Pain was pleasure when it had to be, and now was one of those times.

"I am smarter," she muttered.

"You have been made smarter. You are not naturally any better than them."

"What is natural is what I am. What I have become. If you did not want a smarter woman, you should not have made one."

The grizzly pulled his finger from her ass, and she gritted her teeth again, not in pain, but in unwilling pleasure. To survive, her body had learned to enjoy the use, the pain, the indignity. One did not get through the experiments unscathed without learning to enjoy them on some level, even if one did not wish to be in this place.

"Put her down in Section B5. If nothing else, the experiments might breed true. Find her a partner by the end of the week."

#

Tatyana hated anything that did not challenge her. The memories liked to poke in when that happened, and she'd been thinking more and more about her old times in the cells of late. She remembered being altered, remembered being given the intelligence boosts that she profited from now. The tigress remembered quite well how the scientists loved to 'test' that intelligence, too, taking her increased sensitivity and using her. It was easier for them to believe that she was willing when she could not fight her body.

But the repairs on the hard-light emitters were done. The walkway burst into being, running from the steel catwalk under her chambers to the Cube in the distance. It was more of a set of stairs than a walkway, due to the distance and the crick-crack bending of the light, but it still sufficed.

The tigress made her way down, followed by the two spider-bots from her chamber and one more that had joined the group. The third carried her tablet, waving it with one free leg, and she reached down to take it.

"Thank you," she muttered.

Tapping the screen brought up the symbol of the Soviet Union. Hammer and Sickle remained, and would always remain, no matter the fact that the Union itself had long since been dissolved. This had been their brainchild, the place of their greatest, most illegal experiments, and they had had such pride in it that their symbol was everywhere. She had chiseled it free of a number of different locations, but the digital remnant refused to be erased.

She worked past it as she walked down the stairs, opening what little information had been put into the central computer system. The Cube, registered only as "Project West", had been put together during the Cold War, and had been disconnected from the system as a whole merely ten years after. Several attempts had been made by the scientists in charge of the Facility at the time to try and reconnect, but every attempt had either ended in failure or been aborted.

It was the latter part that interested her. Considering that any subjects in there had either died of old age or experiment overload at this point - and that any survivors were probably the descendants of said subjects, more than likely conditioned beyond repair - she was more interested in what would have caused the men and women running the Facility to actually abort their attempts to reconnect with the Cube. Whatever "Project West" was, it had been something that had obviously fought back against them.

That could mean any number of things, but it was a guaranteed experiment of interest and challenge, something that she needed at that moment. It would keep the worst of her bad thoughts at bay.

Finally, she reached the bottom of the hard-light stairs. The emitters at this end looked to be in good shape, but considering the fact that there was a real possibility of the Cube's power source being on its last legs, she didn't want to shut it off just in case it couldn't turn back on again. Her spider-bots were useful, but she was well out of range of any of the walkways and walls from here. They could throw themselves for quite a distance, to the point where she could just make a grappling hook with them to the catwalk she'd left, but that was Plan B, at best.

Now...what do you have inside you...

The tigress approached the large bronze door that marked the entrance to the Cube. It was the largest of the individual pieces that made up the overall structure, probably a major lab that had been integrated as the entry point. At a guess, she imagined that this had been lodged against one of the dormitories at one point, allowing for other subjects to be shuffled into the Cube as a whole. She'd probably find a processing unit inside, and that would require some extra handling.

Gesturing around the door, her spider-bots took positions around it. They each sprouted two 'fangs' that would serve as tasers, each one powerful enough to bring down a security drone if needed, and the two at the sides also opened their backs, revealing scorpion tails that were armed with emitters at the tips rather than stingers.

If anything is still in there...

Tatyana knelt at the uplink console at the door's left. She tapped her tablet against it, the two devices communicating with one another. The administrative privileges on her tablet quickly overwhelmed the door's security, though there was something else there. Something that shimmered and looked...different.

"Run diagnostics," she ordered.

The tablet did so, and four files were immediately quarantined. One was a virus, two were executables, and one was morphing even as it was shoved into the background. Tatyana shook her head: something on the other side was still active, alright, and if she hadn't been paying attention, she could have had a problem.

"Purge system of all files acquired in the last five minutes."

The tablet beeped, and the quarantined files were expunged, as well as a few other, minor things uploaded over the last few minutes. She opened the options at the top, turning off the wi-fi capability of the tablet, and then locking that behind both the tablet's password and a biometric scan. If there was something on the inside, she didn't want it using her tools against her.

"Open the door."

The spider-bots bobbed their heads, beeping in morse affirmative. The two at the side sent a quick electrical signal through the doorframe to unlock it. With the door's security protocols disengaged, it opened easily. Too easily, in her opinion; if there was something inside that had fended off the entirety of the Facility before, then that meant that it wanted someone to come in.

Well, there was nothing to be gained, and she had to admit that she had been lacking in challenges for some time. She wanted to see what was in the Cube, and she knew that it would, at least, keep the past at bay. Tatyana gestured at her spider-bots to stay where they were and stepped inside.

As she expected, she had entered a processing chamber. It was dim, but not entirely dark; low-level lighting was still active, casting a dull green glow on everything around her. The tigress stepped forward, her sandals tapping softly against a metal floor. She could see little pillars akin to what one might have seen in transit centers, as well as emitters that would have created line-barriers. Terminals on either side of the room stood dark and empty, waiting for clerks that weren't there, and the far end of the chamber, past two checkpoints, was graced with a dull banner of holo-light, stretching from side to side but too dim to read.

Flicking a hand behind her, she called one of her robots in. The spider-bot crossed the threshold and climbed up the back of her leg, sitting on her shoulder and looking around. Three of its eyes poked up on long stems, looking left, right, and center, taking in the information.

With a hypothesis in mind, Tatyana stepped into the queue. No sooner had she entered it than the whole thing lit up. What she'd thought were bronze pillars bloomed into gold, and blue lines ran back and forth through it, creating a line that went left to right in serpentine patterns. The rest of the room pulsed and whirred as the motion of a newcomer restored power.

Thump.

And...the doors closed behind her. Tatyana had half-expected that, but it was still not something that she was best pleased with. She rubbed her forehead, muttering in Russian under her breath.

Well, that was to be expected. There would be a door release somewhere in this chamber, or if not here, then in one of the others. It depended on whether Project West had been made with each chamber serving individually or as a fully integrated thing. If the former, she could open the doors from here. If not...

That meant finding where the central command of the cube was. She didn't know if that would be a room or an intelligence on its own, but she imagined that she was going to find out in short order.

Tatyana walked through the queue, the spider-bot on her shoulder lowering itself to her neck and holding tight to her. She gave it a few reassuring strokes the way that one might have done to a pet animal, and it slowly relaxed. She knew that it could not feel what she was doing to it, nor did she really understand why she did it. Instinct, she supposed; they were meant to imitate animals rather than being cold, hard things, and that meant that one responded to them as if they were.

She reached the end of the queue at the same time that the holo-strip at the far end of the chamber lit up completely. The banner read 'Welcome to Volt City', and she immediately winced.

Culture experiment, she realized. And with the title 'Project West', that probably means American...

That was not, in and of itself, a bad thing. The Union had produced several different culture experiments during her time as a subject, and she'd even had the chance to participate in one. Not that it was the most enjoyable participation at the time (they generally devolved into a demonstration of how the Soviet way of life was better than any other) but it meant that she wasn't getting poked, prodded, or otherwise harmed at the time. It was as close as she had ever come to a vacation.

The Facility had run experiments and simulations on Japanese, Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Polish, Arabian, and German cultures, but this was the first time that she had seen one that had become completely distanced from the rest of the facility. The fact that something that was almost entirely meant as a propaganda tool had been severed from the main hub was not encouraging.

She didn't let it slow her down, though. The tigress walked to the first checkpoint, half-expecting the computer to glitch out when there wasn't a living being to serve as an administrator. It surprised her, producing a flat holo-person, almost as green as the letters in the older monitors in the Facility. The mouse looked up at her, smiling almost the way that a real person would have.

"Welcome to Volt City," the mouse said, speaking in English rather than Russian. As Tatyana worked on translating it for herself, the checkpoint booth dispensed a pair of buttons. "Press button one if you are fluent in English. Press button two if you are not."

There was no way that this was an ease-of-access sort of test. If she said that she was not fluent in English, she would imagine that would involve either a penalty or something worse. She looked at her spider-bot, and then held out her hand. It hopped down, extending a leg. She used it to press button two.

It was worse than she thought. A transparent but stiff wall of some plastic-like substance shot up on all sides, pressing her closer to the booth. The mouse inside continued speaking.

"As a non-native speaker, it is imperative that you speak the language of Volt City. Please wait for the integration of English into your mind."

Tatyana knew that there was no getting away from it. Re-education by the Facility was always extensive. She pulled the spider-bot away, knowing that it had no chance of surviving the electric shock that was coming, and replaced its leg with her hand.

The jolt hit her, and she hissed, thumping her other hand against the glass barrier between her and the mouse projection. Fiery pain ran up her arm, through her muscles, and through her shoulders to her spine. From there, it hit her head, and it felt like popcorn going off inside her skull. She ground her face against the glass as a grounding sensation, holding herself steady as the information was forced into her mind.

It only took five seconds, but it hurt. It really hurt.

The barrier fell, and the mouse spoke again.

"For the record, say your name, place of birth, and country of origin."

"Nnngh...Tatyana...Stalingrad...Russia."

"Russia, hmm? Well, then. You've been selected for random additional screening. If you would step to the side and remove your clothes..."

#

"Remove your clothes."

Tatyana had heard that command more times than she could count since coming to the Facility. Since being driven there. Since being told that she would be part of the uplifting of the Soviet Union with the things done with her and the others that were part of the other Projects that the scientists were running.

The white tigress stood naked, her body on display to the men and women on the far side of the room. This was different from the exams by the doctors. This was the first time that so many had watched. Some of them muttered, and she could just barely make out what they said.

"Certainly pleasing."

"A body designed for the female uplift."

"Useful to see if the traits breed true."

"She'll not be normal when we're done."

"Make sure that she doesn't get too smart."

"And make sure she understands her place."

Tatyana stood there until one of them, the grizzly, walked up. The older man reached between her legs and shoved a finger inside of her. It hurt, but there was something on it, a drug or something, that made her tingle. He pulled her close, and there was something in his stance that told her that fighting was not an option.

"Your name?" he asked.

"Tatyana. Tatyana -"

"Subject Tatyana. You have no last name. Understand?"

"...Yes, sir."

"You will begin your first experiments today."

Tatyana nodded. She did not know it then, but the first lesson had already been taught with that tingle on that painful finger. There was always a way to turn something you didn't want into something else.

She would learn that lesson again and again over the years.

#

The memory faded, and Tatyana nodded, making her way through the checkpoint to the spot off to the side. A blue light panned over her, followed by a soft beep as it passed over her pocket, then another as it passed over the spider-bot. A message, again, in English, played for her.

" Please remove all security-prohibited items from your person."

"List prohibited items." She touched her throat, shaking her head. Oh, that was annoying. She was being forced to speak in English. "List prohibited items."

" Customs are very strict in Volt City. All goods besides clothing that haven't been bought in Volt City are prohibited. Please discard all inferior goods for the products made in Volt City."

"Why?"

" Why be bound to the past when you can buy your future? Come to Volt City and be surrounded by all the luxuries that money can buy. The power of capitalism is yours: just bring the best you, and you will have the chance to be the best ever."

That was...about what she had expected. If they were running an American simulation, the whole idea of buying yourself into happiness felt about right. However, there was no way that she was handing over her tablet. She pulled it out of her pocket, tapped a button on the screen -

" Alert. Alert. Security Alert."

Tatyana looked up just in time to see four mechanical arms reaching for her. She threw herself into a roll, barely avoiding getting grabbed, but her spider-bot wasn't so lucky. The little thing was utterly smashed to pieces, battered beneath the arms that had come from the ceiling and the walls behind her. She got up, tapped a button on the side of her tablet, and two prongs popped out of the top. When one of the arms swung for her, she zapped it away, shaking her head a few times.

"I wouldn't advise that."

" Escalating to superior authority."

The room went quiet. The bright lights and golden surfaces truly belied the control on the other side, she was sure. Even though the mechanical arms remained where they were, she still kept an eye on them, turning in place to try and take in everything at once. There were too many possibilities here.

Eventually, a different sort of hologram appeared. Rather than the two-dimensional mouse in the booth, this one formed like someone beaming in from one of the old American science fiction dramas. It materialized from the bottom up, eventually revealing a jackal woman in the same computer-screen green as the mouse had been. She stood a half-head taller than the tigress, and she wore a business skirt that ran just past her knees, and a blouse that ran in sharp, severe lines from her neck to her waist. She grasped a cigarette holder in one hand, the other folded under her breasts.

"Well, well, well. What's the hold-up, dear?" the hologram asked. "I've been waiting for more guests to Volt City for a while now; it's been impossible to make our quota without some influx of fresh blood."

"Identify," Tatyana demanded.

"Identify? Who are you trying to kid, girl? You want something, you give something. Speaking of which, hand over the tablet. Even if we made that, only a level 3 or higher would be allowed to keep something like that."

"...Authorization Code, Alpha-Alpha-Zero-One-Zero-Alpha."

"Hmmm, haven't heard that one in a while," the hologram said, rolling her eyes with a slight smile. "What's that, the latest attempt to reel in one of us? Not going to happen, dear. Now, come on. Hand over the pad and then we can start figuring out where you fit here in Volt City. Immigration's a bitch, but you know how it goes."

The only thing that she had to her name was the tablet, and she knew better than to just trade that away. It was entirely likely that she'd never get it back, and considering the dangers that existed in the Cubes, she didn't like her odds of survival without it. She started to slide her finger along the screen, tapping it twice.

No entry points for her signal, not without turning on the wi-fi, and she had no doubt that the system here was just waiting for a connection to the outside. It had been severed from the main hub and all worldly information for decades, now, and she wasn't about to reinitiate that without some careful consideration.

The jackal puffed at her cigarette, blowing a soft puff of green vapor through the air. She seemed utterly blasé, almost bored with what was happening.

"How long are you going to waste my time, dear? Let's just get this over with. After all, you still have to pay your entry fee."

"...What are the levels?" Tatyana asked.

"Hmmm, now we can have a conversation." The jackal snapped her fingers, and a spinning menu appeared at her side. She flicked it to the top, at level six, which was simply called 'The 1%.' To get in, the cost of that was -

Tatyana's eyes went wide. A hundred million credits? That was utterly insane. Even at a one-to-one rate, the Facility could only have afforded a handful of subjects at that rate.

The jackal sighed. She shook her head, puffing from her virtual cigarette again.

"I guess you're coming in with less. Ah, well. How much will I have to work with, hmm? Come, come, dear, I don't have all day."

"...I don't have anything."

"Oh, please. Everyone has something."

"No, I don't have anything."

"Nothing?" The jackal cocked her head to the side, her lips turning up slightly into a sneer of a smirk. "Nothing...at all?"

"...Nothing at all."

"Oh, my...it seems we have an illegal immigrant on our hands...Now, this will be interesting."

The End

Summary: A soft reboot and introduction of Tatyana, the Russian tigress. We have her working to re-integrate some experiment cubes into her lab at large, only to have it go...rather wrong.

Tags: F/solo, F/M, Tigress, Tatyana, Series, Technophilia, Conditioning, Science Fiction, Kinda, Robot, AI, Dubcon, Fingering, Humiliation, Torture, E-Stim, Anal, Sexual Science, Jackal, Holograms, Mad Science,