FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter I

Last Ditch Effort

Zoreia sighed lightly as she stood outside the classroom. Once again she was relegated to the hall for something she could not control. The class was enjoying a movie in the darkened class while she was regulated to the hall due to the bio-luminescence. Zoreia was a Tiger-Shark female born on Mars and left in the care of the Megacorp of MarsCo. the classrooms were mandatory for students to attend but the educational droid had determend that the glow coming from the stripes along Zoreia's back and arms was distracting to the other students. So anytime the class watched a holo about the Earth-that-Was or humans or pretty much anything else that no longer existed she was regulated to the hall.

'Eighteen and ready for graduation, but I still know next to nothing about humanity or Earth-that-Was.' Zoreia thought as she looked back on the last several years of her life. This however was not a bother for Zoreia, merely an inconvience...

The sharkess reached into her backpack at her feet and pulled out a small disk about the size of a poker chip. Along with it came a pair of headphones made for her fin like ears and a tablet like device. Her opinion was that if the class would abandon her then she'd learn on her own terms. the disk was known as a Toggle and it contained her personal network key to allow her to log into the tablet device. she placed the Toggle on the glass screen of the tablet before slipping on the headphones.

Instantly thrash metal began blaring through the headphones, though due to advances in sound cancelation technology no one that was not wearing the headphones would not hear. After a moments boot time the tablet lit up with more then music. On the first tab was the FlashMail, then came the various news programs Zoreia tracked. Lastly on the list was applications to the other Megacorps. If Zoreia had a choice she would not be staying with MarsCo., instead she tried for Advanced System Robotics and even the Inner Ring Police Force.

For a brief moment her blue eyes lit with life before the fall of hopelessness. Not a single response.

"Fucking hell..." Zoreia said as she shut down the interface and drowned out her despair in music. Zoreia told herself she would not cry in desperation but at the moment her body revealed just how depressed she truly was.

***Later that day***

Zoreia sat in her dorm thumbing through her personal mail later that day. Dorm was a generous term. Unlike the students that had families to back them, Zoreia had what could be considered a coffin more then a dorm, just like the rest of MarsCo. orphans. it was four foot wide, had a pillow at one end, and was entered from where one would normally keep there feet. in the Ophidius Dorm hall there was approxiamately two hundred similar coffins per floor with five floor to the dorm hall. All were filled either by Orphans or Corp transfers that had come from other companies to work for MarsCo.

The coffin had a small alcove for placing things on which Zoreia had her tablet and toggle with a five second looped footage playing. The only image from one of her parents, it was all MarsCo. was willing to share with the young adult when she petitioned them to know more about the people that had left her in Corporate care. The looped image showed a cloaked figure sneaking over the wall of the MarsCo. school and leaving a bundle in the rain at the foot of the Founders Statute. That bundle was Zoreia.

Zoreia had tried using publicly available footage editing software to deteremine at a minimum a sex of the cloaked figure. All her efforts proved for naught however. All she could make out was that the person seemed to have a Tiger Shark tail.

The young shark was jerked from her focus on the moving picture by a knock on the coffin door. "One moment!" she shouted slamming the picture closed and turning in her bunk so her head was at the door.

Once she was turned about she entered the unlock code upon a small keypad next to the door and thrust it open.... right into the beak of an unsuspecting avian.

"Oh my gosh. I am so sorry." Zoreia said apologetically as she grabbed the bar above the door and slid out.

Laying on the floor in a crumpled heap of feathers was a Lateral Falcon. He was obviously dazed as Zoreia scooped him up. Laterals were memebers of the Vector race, the same race of animalistic anthromorphs that Zoreia was born into, that were born into bodies very similar to the feral counterparts. While all morphisims were considered equal, the laterals were looked down upon due to the difficulty they had in the modern world.

After a moment when the falcon was able to perch upon the door unassisted Zoreia asked lightly, "I don't mean to be offensive, but are you feral or Lateral?"

The avian fluffed its feather lightly before locking its piercing blue avian eyes upon the shark. "You're a strange one." The Avian said. Zoreia was sure if he could smile he would be right now.

"Sorry. I once talked to a cow for several minutes before someone pointed out it wasn't a Lateral..." Zoreia said before looking the avian over more intently. Other then the Lateral morphism this avian seemed to also be a member of the split tail of avians. He also wore a messenger scroll case across his back.

It was odd to see data transferred in paper format but the way things were, paper couldn't be hacked, and as long as the message carrier was competent there was rarely evidence the message had been carried at all.

"May I help you?" Zoreia asked before the bird began preening himself.

"One moment. Got a few feathers out of place." the avian said before returning to preening. when he was done he held out a leg talon as if to shake paws.

"I am Ikarys, a messenger for a Spyglass employee by the name of Gideon." Ikarys said once again giving the impression he'd be smiling at Zoreia.

Zoreia gripped the scaled avian talon lightly noticing how sharp the talons were before she smiled weakly back at Ikarys and let his talon go.

"What can I do for a Spyglass messenger?" Zoreia said. Despite her attempts to play it cool, Zoreia knew Spyglass was a MegaCorp often associated with the best in information gathering and data control. A perfect career opportunity had literally run smack into her door.

"That depends. Before you are hired from MarsCo. Gideon wishes to test you. Is this acceptable?" Ikarys said sternly.

"Depends." Zoreia said suddenly a tad worried.

Ikarys fluttered to her shoulder and gripping onto her tank top's shoulder strap said as if it were common chatter, "Head for the clock tower."

Zoreia tried to move without giving the avian reason to dig into her shoulder. The sharkess had not even changed out of her jeans from earlier luckily so she did not have to worry about leaving the dorm partially dressed.

A few minutes later and a elevator ride after that to the enclosed belfry Zoreia, found herself in the digital workings of the bell tower. Displayed on the smart glass on four sides were varying designs of clocks that told the campus the time. Just outside the north window was what looked like a steel backpack.

"Okay Ikarys, what's the test?" Zoreia said nervously.

"Preety simple, all the supplies you will need as well as direction to Gideon are located in that backpack. You simply have to retrieve it." Ikarys said as if climbing on the ledges of building was the simplest thing in the world.

"How about no?! The fall from here would kill me much less I'd get expelled from every major MegaCorps for reckless endangerment!" Zoreia shouted at the avian on her shoulder causing him to fluff up with indignation.

"Fine then. Take the parchment roll from my back and go back to your dorm. Enjoy your life in MarsCo." Ikarys said bitterly before flapping over to a nearby bench and turning his back upon Zoreia.

In a huff, Zoreia ripped the scroll case from the Velcro holding it to the straps on Ikarys so hard that a few lesser feathers came with it. Ikarys made no sound of discomfort nor said anything else as Zoreia stormed off with what was likely yet another denial letter in her hands. when she got back down to the dorm she threw open the coffins hatch and climbed in, intent on going to sleep and forgetting about what had been yet another shitty day on Mars.

As she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep however, a nagging sensation filled her. with apprehensive hands she took the paper tube and peeled it open. all theat was written inside was an address and a credit chit.

The Address was as follows,

334 Highland Watch

Cerebus Fossae

Southern Mars.

Flipping the paper over Zoreia was not entirely sure what to make of it. However, the weekend was coming and at the very least she could check it out. With a sigh she slipped the paper into a storage slot on her tablet, slipped out of her clothes and made ready for bed.

~A.N.~

I hope everyone enjoyed the first chapter and I plan more to come. Anyways please leave reviews and feel free to ask whatever question you wish.