FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The squirrel ran across the room. "Horace!" He hugged the bull. "Where have you been?"

Horace looked at Trevor. "I was held up."

Nori followed the look. "Were you kidnapped too? Or was it spy stuff?"

"I'm not a--" Horace's look at Trevor turned into a glare, and the tiger's ears folded back, and he looked away.

"I was angry."

"I'm not a spy."

"But you're not an independent, right?"

Horace shrugged. "Sure, not that we see ourselves that way. Or even take part in anything happening inside the solar system."

"Right," Trevor drolled. "Not taking part. Who did you say was holding you off the network for a few days again?"

"I didn't."

"But they weren't here because they were involved in anything, right? Your people are completely insular, without any interest in manipulating events within the solar system, right?"

Nori looked from the tiger to the bull. "Okay, I'm not sure what I just walked in on." Why did Trevor talk about it like Horace was from outside of it? "But does this have anything to do with rescuing Bobby?"

Trevor broke the staring contest and shook his head. "Sorry. There's some history here."

"I got that," Horace said before Nori could comment. "But you do get I don't even know what it is? You've explained your brother and Cassius, but that doesn't explain the edge of anger you're holding."

"Are we about to get sidetracked again?" Nori asked.

Trevor took a breath. "No, it doesn't have anything to do with this or you Horace. Sorry for letting it affect the conversation."

"So what is happening?" Nori asked. Trevor waved his hand and pictures appeared around them. A lot of snow and ice. There was a mountain range, the top part of a distant tower that looked familiar, and even more distant city skyline. He pulled images from the archive in his interface and compared them to the images before him. "That's in the lands, right?" He indicated the three pictures.

Trevor added three more. "Yeah, these I recognize. It's the rest I have no idea. All of these are what the files Bobby sent us contained. Very well encrypted and cut up, so we needed the four of them to reconstruct anything."

Horace cursed. "I need to check something," he said to the look they gave him. Then he sat and closed his eyes.

"So, is there any hidden message in the images?"

"Not that I found," Trevor answered.

"Okay, and why are we looking at them, instead of the police?"

"You mean ignoring the fact I'm an inspector?"

"Are you?"

Trevor sighed. "Yes, I am. I explained it to you, Nori. That's why I have the Pakesh ID, because everyone thinks the only thing Trevor Orr is good for is a fuck."

"That's because they don't know you," a new voice said. Another tiger joined them, entering the room. Nori licked his lips as he took in the muscular form, thick erect cock, firm ass.

"Tuck, what are you doing here?"

"I'm here to help." Tucker posed for Nori, who panted. He was looking at Tucker Orr.

"Put pants on," Trevor said.

"Don't do it on my account," Nori said, licking his lips.

"That isn't helping," Trevor glared at Tucker. "Pants, now, or leave."

The tiger rolled his eyes and gray fabric flowed down from the belt to cover his lower body. It clung to it and molded around the hard cock and balls. The fabric turned dark blue, denim, Nori realized, except for the crotch. Which was a perfect image of Tucker's cock, only the texture indicating fabric covered it.

"When you guys need a break," the tiger told Nori. "You and me can have some fun."

Nori nodded. His sister was going to die when she found out he'd had sex with Tucker Orr.

"Can we focus?" Trevor asked, annoyed.

"We should," Tucker replied. "Trev gets impossible to live with if sex is all that takes place."

Nori shook his head and did his best to stop thinking about the tiger's cock and ass. "Why are we the ones fucking on--working on this? Even if you're an inspector, I'm just a manager at a small shipping company. Horace runs a publishing company."

"But we're the ones Bobby sent this too," Trevor said. "Not the authorities."

Nori looked at the tiger. "So, Bobby thought an investigator, two managers, and a publisher would do a better job than the authorities?" the squirrel narrowed his eyes. "That sounds dubious at best."

"Fuck," Horace said. "Fuck!" He grabbed the ice pictures and lined them up. "That's Siberal."

Nori shared Trevor and Tucker's confusion.

"It's the next world for the Lands of Farr," Horace explained.

"I didn't know there was a new world planned," Trevor said.

"Same," Nori said.

"They aren't advertised. It's where the Artidras are from."

"So Bobby got advanced access?" Nori asked.

"No, he can't. The server shouldn't be active. In fact, it should be packed and on a ship heading to Mercury. But Constantine confirmed it's running, which means it's not even on its way to Mercury."

"Who's Constantine?" Trevor asked.

Horace hesitated. "He's my contact within the company that runs the Lands."

"And he told you all that?" Tucker asked, sounding suspicious. "Aren't you just a beta-tester?"

"It's a little more complicated than that."

"Are you going to reveal you're actually the son of the guy who created the Lands?" Nori asked. Why not? With all the other revelations that had been made over the last few days.

"Not exactly."

Nori stared. "You're kidding, you have another secret?" He checked Trevor, who was also studying the bull, so he didn't know what this one was either.

"You might as well tell them," a new voice said, and Uncle stood between Tucker and Trevor.

Horace stared. "Tell them what?"

"Yeah, Uncle," Tucker said. "What are you talking about?"

"At this point, I'd think it's obvious." He looked at Trevor. "You spend a lot of time in there, haven't you questioned the depth of the world?"

"It's a game, the designers added it."

"Which designers?"

"The game's designers," Trevor replied.

"Who are?" Uncle looked at Horace. Who was looking more and more uncomfortable.

Tucker burst out laughing. "You have got to be kidding me. The Colonies created Trev's favorite game?"

Horace slumped.

Nori decided now was not the time to ask who the colonies were, and filed it with why Trevor had spoken like Horace's people weren't from within the solar system.

"It still doesn't explain how Horace knows everything he does," Trevor said.

"It does when you consider how those AI work. Doesn't it, Horace?"

"I'm lost," Nori said. "AI?"

"Artificial Intelligence," Uncle answered. "The Colonies have perfected their creation. One of them is behind the creation of the Lands of Farr, which means he has a representative Horace can contact. I assume his name is Constantine."

Nori vaguely recalled Artificial Intelligences from his history classes. They had something to do with the cataclysm, maybe?

"Yeah," Horace said, sounding defeated. "There are more worlds than the ones you guys know. I know about them because I've played all of them before moving here. Siberal is the next one. It's been assembled here, since officially the company behind the Lands is a joint business between three companies, one of which is on Luna. Siberal's been finished for a few years. A few people got to test it, including me. But it was shut down six months ago in preparation for the move."

Uncle nodded. "The manifest of the Intrepid indicates it's on board. They left last month."

"Except Constantine can hear Siberal, which means it's still running."

"Didn't he tell you before?" Trevor asked.

Horace shook his head. "Constantine is the manager for Gaia. That's all he's in charge of. He knows of the other lands because each of their managers sends updates as they apply to the worlds' interactions. Trade and travel, that kind of stuff. Constantine didn't know it was supposed to be shut down, or rather he didn't know when it was to happen." He indicated the pictures. "For Bobby to send us those, he was inside Siberal when he took them. Those aren't archive pictures. I know where they're kept and ran a comparison."

"So we go in after him."

"We can't. Siberal isn't on the network, and it doesn't have an outpost on Gaia. Without that, there's no travel between them possible."

"You said you played in it."

"Yes, when the outpost was activated for the tests. But it's been shut down."

"Can't they activate it again?"

Horace shook his head. "There's no one with a connection to Siberal since it's shutdown and on its way to Mercury. As far as everyone is concerned, everything is going according to the schedule. All test connections have been removed six months ago. The people that were assigned to do the real-world check of the hardware have been reassigned. There's no way to get on Siberal."

"Except that Bobby sent the file only a few weeks ago," Uncle said. He indicated the ice and snow-filled pictures. "Months after any connection was removed."

"Tuck, can you have a team check where the server is warehoused?" Trefor asked.

Tucker was looking at four pictures. "I don't see how that's going to help." He moved them, putting them side by side.

"Get control of the server, establish the connection, go in and--"

"They're going to wipe it the instant someone shows up. Bobby's father is already moving around looking like Bobby, right? So why ever he brought Bobby there for, it's done. I doubt what's left that he needs these to get is worth risking everything. We go in physically, and they can destroy it. The call for help came from within the lands. I don't think we can save your friends from outside."

"We?" Nori asked.

"Tuck, you aren't--"

"Horace, that's Mauna, right?" Tucker indicated the skyline.

"Probably not," Horace replied. "It's definitely a Vulcose outpost, but even if it isn't active Siberal will have one."

Tucker shook his head. "That's the Gaia one. The sky's wrong for Siberal." He put a picture of the ice where the sky was visible next to the outpost skyline. "Look at the clouds. One thing I noticed when we were on Ceril is that the Lands are adamant about their themes; the clouds there are just more floating rocks in the air. On Gaia it's normal vapor, look at the edges of the clouds on Siberal, they're crystalline, like ice. Just like the rest of the landscape."

Nori was impressed. He hadn't noticed the difference.

"So why did Bobby include these?" Tucker asked, indicated the four pictures where the clouds were misty, instead of crystalline.

"That's not the right question," Trevor replied, sounding excited. "Why did he send pictures at all? Why not just call us? Or send a message?" he took the images. And placed them around the room, adjusting their sizes to match their relative distance.

"They controlled his connection," Uncle answered.

"But he knew he'd have a chance. When Horace revealed this was Siberal, I figured that was just Bobby's way of telling us where he was, but if he knew we couldn't go there physically. I'm pretty sure this is a map to his location." The floor became a map of Gaia and Trevor moved it until the pictures matched their corresponding locations. He traced a circle in the center. "This is roughly where he'd have stood when he saw these."

"Except it's the middle of nowhere on Gaia," Horace said. "That's the Arvil forest. There haven't been any events there in over a decade. Nothing planned either for the future. That's Lake Borden, again, not of any interest unless you're a fisherman. Some of the highest quality fishes are in that lake. Why would they go there?"

"I can't tell you that, but this tells us they went there. So we need to go too, so we can find out why."

"We?" Nori asked. "Again, why aren't we telling the authority?"

"Because we are the authority," Tucker answered, indicating the three tigers.

"Okay, fine, you guys make sense, but why me and Horace?"

"I have to go because of Constantine, right?"

"Yes," Uncle answered. "That is one of the reasons."

"Okay, that leaves me. What reason do I have to go?"

"Don't you want to save Bobby?" Trevor asked.

"Of course, but I'm just Nori Maeda, not some sort of hero."

"I seen to recall you being more than just Nori," Trevor answered. "I remember Tora Sato, Alchemist. Itashy Toruko, farlin healer. If I remember you took on a tribe of oxan barbarian with that one, just to rescue a party member. There's that raid you saved with Usun, when you made your way behind their line to kill their leader. Even Marc had been caught."

"But that's not me. Those are who I am in the Lands."

Trevor smiled. "Isn't that exactly where we are going?"

"Oh. Right."

Trevor squeezed Nori's shoulder. "Glad you're on board." He turned to Tucker. "You are not coming."

"You need me."

Trevor rolled his eyes. "I don't need that monkey of yours. Knowing you, you'll start fucking the first mob you manage to get naked; if you don't get yourself killed before we even make it there."

Tucker narrowed his eyes. "First off, LongDong is level twenty-six."

Nori snicker.

"I'm not the creative one in the family," Tucker stated. "I go with what I know."

"I'm double that," Trevor replied.

"I'm fifty-first."

"I don't know," Nori said to Tucker's suspicious look. "It'll depend on who I play."

"It doesn't matter. I'm not going on a raid with your guild. For all we know, everything we're going to encounter is going to be level one. So I'm going."

"It's best that he does."

Trevor glared at Uncle.

"Bobby send the file to four people. It's possible it's just a coincidence, but he specifically broke the file in such a way the four were needed to get these images. Without having David Medved here, you need someone to take his place."

"There are better players out there," Trevor said. "I can come up with half a dozen right now who take the Lands more seriously than Tucker."

"How many of them will give me the level of access to their implants I have with both of you? It's the only way I know to keep you safe. Or them."

"Someone else in our family has to be on the Lands."

"Sam has a stable," Tucker said.

Trevor sighed. "Don't screw this up, Tuck."

Tucker grinned.

"What is this about keeping us safe?" Nori asked.

"I'm not giving you access," Horace said. "No offense, but I don't know you."

"Caduceus will look after you Horace, and you Nori are safe. You'll be using a suit. Without the direct connection to your mind an Implant grants, nothing I can envision being possible within the game will affect you."

Horace frowned.

"Can I get the suit from the hotel?" Nori asked.

Uncle smiled. "I think we can do better than that."