FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Look I don't care what you say, orders are orders." The gruff terrier was eyeing Laguna up and down, a little more than annoyed by the fact his requested was denied.

"I don't care if Joe told you it was a rush job, you can't have him for another two days. He still needs to recover from the trail, I won't have you doing anything to break him, that's my job." Laguna shot back, uncaring at the terrier's anger. He knew the terrier was just doing his job as requested by Joseph but Laguna never really took much of a liking to their methods, Orwell, like his mentor Joseph was more about erasing their pet's minds and building them from scratch. Laguna just couldn't get behind those methods.

"The mutt has until Monday, in the meantime I'll get everything set up. I trust you'll at least allow me full access to his mind?" Orwell wasn't happy about waiting but the extra time would allow him to fine tune his program if nothing else.

"You have free reign to do whatever you want, I just ask you don't leave any permanent side effects from your 'testing' in there."

Splicer was finally able to get enough strength back into his body to wash himself off, heartbeat once again replaced by mechanical whirring. His payout was massive, yet still barely put a dent in his debt.

Yeah maybe if I can chain two dozen wins back to back, I'll be getting out then, maybe... He had finally managed to shower most of the mud and, other stuff from his fur and was now practicing his breathing in the tub. Unaware of the discussion currently about him occurring, he sank below the surface.

The next morning Aurich seemed a little concerned as he looked over Splicer. The wolf chalked it up to dying yesterday, albeit momentarily.

"You all good?" Splicer asked still wanting to know what had the skunk all unnerved.

"Yeah, no I'm fine, you, just be careful." Auruch was asked to keep the details of Orwell's visit hidden from the wolf but he still felt the need to warn him somehow. Splicer shrugged and continued lapping at his coffee.

Splicer felt off that night, he was barely put to sleep through nanite intervention anmore but he saw the pink order to sleep coming that night and remembering the warning from the morning he shot up and did his best to hold off the forced sleep approaching rapidly. He held the knife he was sharpening in the paw and held his back to the corner of the room. He was fading fast, the elevator door slipped open and an unfamiliar terrier stepped out and watched him shivering in the corner with a smirk.

"Fu-fuck, stay away from me..." Splicer was stammering, the knife dropped from his paw and clattered to the floor as he dug a claw into his palm, he just finished a trial this week, it was far too soon for another one. The terrier approached. Splicer wasn't going to make it easy, he licked the inside of the paw and pushed all the energy he felt flowing in his body to his legs. He shot forward ignoring the sluggish feeling enveloping him, he just needed one good hit, take whoever was in front of him out and then he could sleep in peace. Orwell was warned of this final burst of speed the wolf could use to temporarily ignore the hold of the nanites but even still the speed caught him off guard for a second. He used a foot to shift the end table between the two of them, Splicer saw the movement but his mind was to addled by the strain of keeping his legs moving to react, his shin caught the table and he collapsed forward. The las thing he remembered before his eye closed were the terrier's leering eyes.

...

Splicer's dreams were restless, he felt like he was being dragged through a hazy oil. He knew he was being moved somewhere but no matter how hard he tried to wake himself up he couldn't. He saw the terrier's face occasionally in the oil, taunting him for failing to stop his capture. All the wolf wanted at the moment was a break, the few days he was given since his last trial weren't nearly enough to recover from the stress and strain, yet here was the next labour probably assigned by the badger already dragging him down hazy corridors.

Splicer's eyes slowly opened but all he saw was darkness, he raised his head and coughed.

_What's this pressure on my chest?_Splicer tried to move from his uncomfortable position but found his wrists and ankles in cuffs keeping his chest pressed down against some wooden beam. Ready or not his next trial was here, not that he even knew if it was a trial or not, he could only assume.

"Hello? Laguna?" Splicer called to the darkness around him but no one answered. "Anyone? Hello?"

The thought that he was being pranked flashed through his mind but he quickly dismissed it, this would be too funny for the badger to think up, this was business. He felt the cold breeze of a door opening behind him and rough hands grab his cage.

"D-damn, so forward~" Splicer tried to muster all the courage in his body up but the rough handling and no response was beginning to set off his alarm bells, his fur bristled.

"Shut it mutt." The uncaring voice responded to the wolf's tease.

The classic teasing method was out, Splicer shifted to his next try to get any form of context.

"To whom do I owe the pleasure? I assume you're the visitor from last night? This blindfold is a little tight, maybe you could take it off for me?"

"Last warning, shut it..." The voice wasn't playing, one shot left.

"At least give me some indication what goin-HHMP?"

Splicer couldn't finish the sentence before he felt a ball gag being roughly stuffed into his muzzle and tied behind his ears.

"Don't saw I didn't warn you, also, Joseph told me to send you his regards..."

Splicer felt his eyes widen, recalling the threat he was left with. But there was no way Laguna would let something like that happen in the facility?

Unless he chanced his mind already... Splicer was trying to figure out the best way to get out, his claw fiddled with the strap of his binding but was met with the clunky feeling of a padlock.

This guy isn't messing around... One hard pull at the restraint proved to be a failure too, he was given maybe a millimetre of movement. Shaking his head as best he could to get the blindfold off prove futile as well, he could feel the pressure of a strap under his chin as well around his ears keeping it securely in place. His last resort was to scratch the restraints open, he began sawing at the leather cuff with a claw but he knew it would take hours to cut through it. He felt a rough kick on his hand.

"I can see you, you dumbass, don't even think about ruining my cuffs with your dirty paws..."

Splicer let out a yip into his gag, his assailant was given the advantage of being able to see the wolf while he remained oblivious. He let a puff of air escape his nose, he'd exhausted all his options, all that was left to do was wait. So, he waited.

"I was sent here to figure out why you were able to reverse your processing, to make sure it never happens again for mutts like you. While Joseph would never admit it, but you really seem to be a fascinating specimen for a mutt, I'll love exploring your brain here."

Splicer didn't like the sound of that, he had enough of people playing around with his mind and changing things around. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried to blank it as best he could when a brilliant purple filled his vision. The blindfold sparked to life burning his eyes with the words that filled his vision.

INITIALIZING, PLEASE KEEP EYES OPEN FOR RETINAL CALIBRATION.

---

** ** Splicer saw enough, his eyelids slammed shut. He wasn't about to listen to anything associated with Joseph, and the voice seemed to be aligned quite closely to the cocky otter. He kept his eyes shut but it almost felt like the purple was trying to reach trough, burning the words into his eyelids. He started shaking his head, trying to push the words from his mind. He began wondering how long he'd be able to keep his eyes closed, he figured a long time when suddenly a booming crack broke through his train of thought.

What was that? Splicer's mind soon blanked as he felt 4 lines of white hot pain burning fire down his back. His body was thrashing against the restraints, he heard a light thwacking of something hitting flesh behind him.

"Each minute you waste of my time I'm going to add another lashing to the previous. I promise you it get's worse, but please. Hold on as long as you want, I'm sure Joseph is enjoying the show from his office."

The mention of the otter made Splicer snarl against the pain, if he want's a show he'll have to be disappointed, the wolf decided to provide as little a reaction as possible. Lash after lash hit his back, in the exact same spot, making the four lines sting even worse than the previous, Splicer growled, grinding the ball gag between his teeth, he was amazed he hadn't sawed through it by this point. The next minute passed, then another and a few more. Splicer wasn't buying it, he knew something was planned. He could feel the presence of the voice behind him. A single line of pure pain flashed down his back, larger that the last one, Splicer wasn't prepared for it, he felt his eyes snap open and long guttural whines tried to escape from behind the gag. He was staring at a small purple dot, the sight of it confused him.

I was expecting something a lot scarier honestly... He watched the dot as it grew, a sick curiosity in his mind.

Orwell smiled, he won, once the process begun it wouldn't stop.

Splicer kept watching the dot as it grew until his entire field of view was encompassed by the purple glow.

You know, this purple is kinda nice... Splicer's mind was only focusing on the colour now, as it slowly began shrinking, returning to be a large dot in his vision. His body felt so far off, no longer restrained by the discomfort of his position, he was floating in mid air. He felt the far-off breeze of an open door.

"I thought I told you I wanted to be alone for this..." The agry voice sounded to be in a different room that Splicer despite being right next to him.

"Joe said I could monitor from within the room, can't have you going overboard with my pet after all." That voice was familiar, Splicer couldn't pin it down, he didn't particular care, he was only thinking about that purple as it slowly shrank.

"Whatever, just don't mess around with anything, I'd hate to fry the mutt's brain or something..."

"I'm sure you would Orwell, I'm sure you would."

That made Splicer's ears perk up for a second before he went back to focusing on the dot, it was almost gone and he'd hate to see that purple leave him alone back in the darkness, but it blinked out of existence, leaving the wolf alone in the darkness once more.

RETINA LOCKED, WELCOME TO THE FOREST, SPLICER

The brilliant words flashed into his eyes before the whole of the wolf's vision was once more filled with the purple colour, slowly fading away, bleeding into other colours until the wolf was alone, standing on a dirt path in the middle of a forest. He looked down at his paws and noticed he was naked, he looked at his unrestrained sheath and touched his free neck. He didn't know why but something about the whole situation seemed, off, but he couldn't quite put a paw on why. He felt the confusion fading from his mind as he began walking down the path, maybe the answers he was looking for would come to him if he kept walking down the path.

"Is he in?" Laguna asked, seeing the struggle of the wolf die down until he looked to be asleep with his head hanging down over the sawhorse drooling idly.

"See for yourself." Orwell motioned his head towards the monitor displaying the view the wolf had in real time as he removed the gag from the wolf's muzzle, it wouldn't be necessary anymore, the wolf's body was essentially paralyzed as his mind explored Orwell's program.

Splicer could hear two far off voices in his ear, but he couldn't find where they were coming from, he spun in a circle, he should have been able to see them from how they sounded but he was still alone. Splicer kept walking, idly watching as butterflies flitted in and out of his vision, all of them were the same oddly familiar purple, he held out a paw and one landed on the tip of his finger, he watched the purple wings gently flutter, looking at them put his mind at ease, he gently flicked his finger upward pushing the butterfly back into flight as he continued down his path. He ran his paw across the bark of a nearby tree, the rough surface ran along his paw and the scent of pine needles filled his nostrils. He felt like he was where he belonged, recalling the long days and nights of exploring the woods around his home when he was a pup, playing hide and seek with his friends. Yet he knew he was alone here, and there was an odd clawing in his head that made it hard to get lost in his happy exploration. He wished he could brush the clawing off as he kept walking, praying to just get lost in the sensation of wonder he was feeling.

He came across an old cabin and knocked on the door, it creaked open when he rapped his knuckle against the wood. He peered inside, inside was a long-forgotten wood stove and a bed, he walked over to the end table beside the bed and looked at the dust coated picture frame that was on top. He held it in his paw and launched it across the room, shattering it against the opposite wall, he ran back out the door and looked at the ground panting on his hands and knees. The picture was one of his parents, him in between, one paw on each shoulder. They had been the first he had left behind when he abandoned his old life. He wondered what they thought of him, if they still held search parties to comb the woods, not ready to give up the hope of finding some sign he was still out there. He wondered if they ever got any of the money he sent to the whole town, curious if there was the slight possibility they'd make the connection, he knew they didn't. He didn't want to leave them but he didn't have any other choice, did he?

"This is going nowhere..." That voice again...

Why am I on the ground?_Splicer forgot what was going on, he stood up and looked behind him at the empty clearing behind him, _I swear there was something there a second ago...

He began walking down the path, that ever-present clawing was still there, it was so grating it almost felt like claws on a chalkboard. He came upon a small lake with an island in the middle and a massive tree sprouting from the island's heart. He approached the clear water and looked at his reflection, he bent over and washed his face in the water, before taking a long drag of the cold liquid. He looked back down at his reflection, it had a collar around its neck that seemed to hold the weight of the world within it.

_Maybe that's why he was scowling..._Splicer wasn't sure why his reflection was scowling when he personally was feeling rather relaxed despite the clawing headache.

"Hey dumbass." His reflection called "You know they're playing with your head, don't you?"

That must explain the headache Splicer found he was matching his reflection's scowl now.

"Well What can I do about it?"

"I dunno, wake up I guess?"

His reflection was gone, back to being a mirror of himself, the clawing in his mind was louder than ever and he felt an idea hit him. If he was in a dream and he needed to wake up he recalled the feeling of shooting up in bed when he had one of those dreams where he was falling that felt all too real...

He didn't waste a second to think about it any longer, he dove into the cold water and reached the island in the middle until he was jumping up the branches of the tree before him with years of practice guiding his paws. He stood at the top, looking around at the beautiful forest that expanded further than he could see.

It would almost be a shame to leave this place... The thought crossed his mind as he closed his eyes, stretched his arms wide and allowed himself to fall backwards into the air below.

Nothing, he waited 20 seconds before opening his eyes again, he was on the ground, laying on his back looking up at the sky. Like someone had cut out the entire fall and just skipped to the end result of him laying on the ground without the impact of it. He laid his head back and closed his eyes, hitting a fist to the ground. The next idea hit as he felt his tongue slip between his teeth, applying a light pressure until he felt what he was looking for. Electricity flowed along his tongue and suddenly he felt himself floating up into the air before being slung down a black void getting faster with each passing second until he felt himself whipping to a stop on top of an uncomfortable wooden bean with his wrists and ankles tied down.

"LET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS THING! STOP FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!" Splicer spat out, dripping blood from his maw and thrashing in his restraints.

"How in the fuck?" Orwell was shocked, he had never seen anyone forcibly break their way out of his program without a door before. He looked over at the other monitor, which was displaying the wolf's nanite feedback. "Too much adrenaline, how is that possible?"

"He has a habit of exceeding expectations." Laguna smiled, watching his pet snapping and swearing at the darkness around him. In that moment, the badger was so glad he had swiped up the wolf.

"Whatever, he's going to need to go back into the forest, I'm not satisfied."

"Honestly? Nor am I. I'm curious to see more..."

"I'M RIGHT HERE! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT, LET ME OUT!" Splicer's eyes were squeezed shut, scared of what he might see. He wasn't amused by the two discussing his predicament like he had no say in the matter.

I suppose I don't really have a say given my current situation... He let out a nervous chuckle. He could almost feel the dot burning away at his eyelids when he felt a paw gently petting the still burning lines on his back.

"It'll be alright puppy, I'll be right here for you~" Laguna's voice cut through his doubt and in his moment of weakness, Splicer's eye lids fluttered his pupils were trapped by the purple dot again.

"No, no no, please Laguna, stop it... you can... still... stop this..." Splicer slowly felt the struggle leaving his body as the dot grew larger, filling his vision.

What was I struggling about again? Splicer saw the dot disappear, the flash of purple, the forest. He was back in the forest, standing on a dirt path. He wasn't sure why, but a strange feeling of déjà vu hit him, he walked forward. The collar he was wearing was strange, it felt like he was carrying an anchor within the blue bone tag. He carried on down the path all the same, he was used to the burden of his own weight anyways. The longer he continued on the path the heavier the collar grew. First his gait slowed, then his paws dragged, then he stopped and put his back against a tree along the path. The rough bark of the tree helped prop up the monstrous weight that was hung around his neck. Another splicer wearing the same collar came down along the path, walking with a skip in their step and a whistle in their muzzle, the same collar bouncing weightlessly around his neck. He stopped and looked at the Splicer laying back against the tree with idle curiosity.

"Need some help there?" The standing Splicer asked.

"Isn't that heavy?" Splicer asked back, pointing at the collar around his neck.

"This old thing? No, I shed that weight a long time ago, why?"

"How did you do it?"

"I let someone else take control for me~"

Splicer was sick, there's no way he'd let anyone shoulder his weight for him, he was alone, he would always be alone.

"But why?"

Standing Splicer shrugged, he didn't see why letting other people help him was an issue.

"Because we all need help sometimes, even me I suppose, especially you."

"But aren't you me? There's no way I'd ever let myself be you after all."

"Who can say, if you still aren't ready to let others help you, at least let me help you." The standing splicer held out a paw, sitting Splicer grabbed it.

"Well, that was somewhat interesting at least..." That far off voice mocked him, where was it coming from though?

Splicer was alone on the path, the collar around his neck was heavy, but somehow the weight felt more manageable.

What am I even looking for here? Splicer felt the question running through his mind, but no answers.

He kept walking, he found himself at a lake with an island and a tree in the middle. It seemed like a good time for a swim, so he swam. The water was refreshing on his fur, and the longer he swam he felt his worries being washed away in the water. He dove below the surface and began trying to find the bottom of this odd water.

"I'm done with this today, we can resume tomorrow." That voice cut through the water. Splicer kept swimming down, until he found a purple door floating deep in the water. He placed a paw on the handle and opened it, the water around him began pouring through the open door pulling him through with the water until he was falling through the void. He felt himself crash land back into his own body and he was back to his struggling and spitting. He wasn't held down any longer, he was thrashing around on his back in his crate, the elevator door to his room slid shut.