FSE

Furry search engine

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Despite the fact that she was clearly injured, the two detectives seem to find it somewhat strange that they were unable to catch up to the fox Morph. But they had been delayed a bit getting down as they had to wait on the elevator, which was seemingly almost trying to slow down their ability to leave the hospital. By the time the two of them finally are able to leave they see absolutely no sign of the Morph. There is a trail of blood leaving into the city, but after like a block the trail stops cold. Either they found a way to stop the bleeding entirely, or they managed to get a ride. Either way they were left with no direct leads. Having a bit of time before they need to check in at the precinct they decide to drive back to the general area that they had found her the first time and start asking around if anyone knew her. Thankfully, technology can be one's friend at times and their squad car was equipped to automatically take the photo of anyone entering the back seat. It doesn't upload it anywhere unless they manually tell it to but they can use the photo of when she entered the cab to help ID her.

Reaching the area where they had found her originally, they park the car and step out, finding that her blood has already been cleared from the streets. The roads are starting to get a lot more active at this time of day as well. However, most are extremely wary of the two detectives and give them a wide berth but otherwise pay them no attention. They head over to a nearby food stall, figuring if anything they may recognize the person the most easily.

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you knew this morph?" Detective Ryan hands over a plate with her image on it. The store owner takes a quick glance at it and a flash of sympathy shows over the ferret morph's face, but then he simply shrugs and says that he hasn't seen her today. As they go about checking for most people to see if any of them have seen her they start to notice a trend. They all seem to be willing enough to cooperate, but as soon as they show her picture their knowledge of actually seeing her tends to become extremely sparse. Some will admit that they have seen her in the past, but not a single one of them admits to having even seen her earlier today. As they turn around the corner where she was beaten they notice that this treatment changes drastically. Instead of trying to at least seem like they're helping, now as soon as they start to approach they look nervously to the side at one individual and then decline any sort of information.

Detective Matthiews looks up and sees the person they look at and nudges at his partner. Staring them down from the top of the stairs to a building is one of the biggest Morphs they'd ever seen. An eight-foot-tall tiger with fairly large muscles and a lot of bulk. The tiger moves down with the grace of someone that's used to their form and everyone makes way around him. Clearly someone they all either respect, or fear. Without any sense of hesitation he walks right up to the two of them and stares down at them, a small growl escaping his lips.

"You're disturbing the people," He says flatly. "What do you want?"

"We were hoping to find any information on the whereabouts of a female fox morph," Detective Ryan states calmly, making sure his badge is present without deliberately trying to show it off. He moves to show the tiger morph the picture of her but he doesn't even bother taking his eyes off the two detectives.

"Has she committed any crime?" He asks in his half-growling manner. He folds his arms and stares them down.

"Well, no. But--"

"Is she suspected of having committed any crime?" He interrupts. He makes no motion towards or away from them. Instead he stares them right in the eyes as they talk, never letting them wander for even for a second. All of the other Morphs in the area simply walk around the three, pretending they weren't even there.

"Well she did technically escape police custody by jumping out of a hospital window."

"Is she wanted for any crime she may or may not have committed," the tiger asks, completely ignoring the response, though Detective Ryan can definitely read into the insinuation that that statement gave. And as this tiger is clearly not at all interested in looking at the photo he puts it away.

"Well, no."

"Is she wanted for questioning for any crime committed?"

"Well, yes. She was the victim of a rather brutal assault and we were hoping she could come in for questioning to help apprehend her perpetrators."

"She will not be pressing charges," The tiger responds a second later.

"Shouldn't we be asking her this?"

"She will not be pressing charges," the tiger growls. "You have no business here. Leave."

With that the tiger turns and heads over to one of the stalls and begins to have a conversation with the owner, all the while tapping out a drum beat to some song or other on the table. The stall owner doesn't seem to notice and continues on with the conversation. Sensing that the tiger would likely step up to stop them if they were to continue trying to have any sort of luck in this area they decide to move further down the town, see if anyone knows who she is down there. Except as odd as it may be, the moment they step out the car none of the morphs want to give them the time of day. Instead quickly answering to not know anything to any question, with a lot of them having a nervous tapping in response.

"Well doesn't look like we're going to be getting anywhere out here, at least not right now. I mean it's possible she never made it back into the town proper. You know how some of those creatures are. When injured they'll just go find a hole to go nurse their wounds for awhile," Detective Matthiews says.

"So what do you think? Go ask someone from Black Industries if they know anything about deafness in morphs and maybe come back tomorrow before our shift?"

"Eh, sounds as good a plan as any."

With that they walk back over to their car, still hearing that nervous tapping all over the place. But the two are not so much concerned with that as they are with the issue of why no one will talk about her. Whether if it's something that is strictly anti-cop or if it's something about her, that she's effectively being exiled from the town for some reason or another. Assuming of course that she ever got back to the town. But after talking to the tiger none even acknowledged they even knew her. They get into their car and listen to the police chatter from the radio, seeing if perhaps anything has reported seeing something like the two humans they had noticed earlier and had stopped them from attacking her. But so far nothing at all has been reported. They arrive at the nearest booth for communication and step out of their car. Though they could just call Black Industries on their phones there is a lot longer wait and a lot less that they'd be able to truly do from the phone. This booth basically allows for them to create a holographic projection of themselves anywhere else there's a receiver, which lets them have a more personal talk as well as much easier exchange of information. There is something to be said from actually being able to touch and read from an object rather than simply read text from a screen. Not to mention it's a lot easier to authenticate that they are there for police business rather than simply someone with a phone. The facility that picks up is apparently a Conversion center, where they would give the serum that would turn ordinary humans into morphs. There's quite a few doctors walking around and some patients in various stages of alteration. The two their attention to addressing the secretary at the desk.

"How can I help you, officers?" She asks.

"We're wondering if you could tell us about potential disabilities associated with morphs," Detective Ryan asks, noting how though the receptionist was fairly young looking they had a look about that practically screamed cosmetic surgery. "I know they can heal faster than normal, but are there conditions that may be more permanent?"

"Well some injuries can take a really long time to heal. Most things that can never heal for a human won't heal for a morph. They can't repair their own eyes, after all. And then there are always potential side-effects of the conversion process itself, at least for Reds."

"Side-effects?"

"Our facilities are equipped to make sure the conversion process goes through without any issues whatsoever. That said, not all facilities are as diligent about their samples. Contaminations in the fluid can cause all sorts of defects. It is unfortunate but it does happen. And some of these can be quite permanent unless they go through the conversion process all over again. Is there a specific defect you are asking about?" she types some information into her computer.

"Is deafness a possible side-effect of the conversion process or is it only trauma related?"

"Now are we talking true deafness or something else?" she asks, not even looking up from the computer.

"What do you mean?"

"The ears," she points at the point where most morph ears are located. "Did they move around outside of emotion or were they still?"

"Pretty sure they were moving around."

"Probably something with large ears, a fox morph I'm guessing?"

"Uh, yeah."

"It isn't deafness. Or at least not true deafness. It happens when there's a defect in the conversion serum. It is a rare condition, but it does happen with races that have enhanced hearing. Basically the situation for her is that when her brain was being rewired to handle all the enhanced capabilities of her ears, it did not reconnect the language center of the brain to the hearing center of the brain. In essence she can hear everything you say, it's just that in her mind it's nothing more than sound. She can no more understand anything you say as you can understand the words of a trumpet or a trombone. In her head, they're about the same thing. However, we have gotten really good at curing those kinds of conditions and it's a really simple process to fix. If you were to point out where she's living we'll even go so far as to send out a couple of people to help her here and administer the cure for her, letting her have her hearing back before anyone would even notice."

"Well currently we don't know where she is. We last sighted her just outside the morph hospital, but she managed to get away on foot before we could catch up and have so far been unable to determine where she ran off to. We were looking to see if deafness was a conversion issue, a genetic issue or a result of the trauma. She seemed rather put out, even after the assault and was completely unresponsive. We were hoping that perhaps knowing if it's a true defect or not might give us a clue as to tracking her down to make sure she's doing okay enough."

"Well I can pass the word along and I can see what I can do. I cannot guarantee much, however. I can say that she definitely wasn't converted at one of our facilities. We would screen for that and correct it right away, if such a defect were to occur. But if you do get sign of her, let us know. We would be more than willing to fix that defect for her."

The two detectives nod and turn off the device but don't immediately leave the booth.

"Well that was a bit of a waste. At least we now know why it was she never seemed to respond to anything we said."

"It doesn't tell us, however, where we might be able to find her. But considering the fact that Black Industries knew enough about the situation to pick up on who we were talking about directly without us offering that information means that she's clearly someone to Black Industries, whether that's a good thing or not is another matter."

"So what now? Give up for now and head back to the station?"

"I want to try one more place, then might as well. It's not like we're having all that much luck here to begin with."

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Richard stops his truck just off the side of a lake. His passengers are definitely quite nervous but that stands to reason considering everything they've all had to deal with thus far. All seven of them had been recently abducted by someone or other and were all being kept into a facility for processing when he found him. Taking out the guards watching over them was easy enough. They weren't expecting him to trace them over to that storage box. Of course because he knew it would bring a lot of heat and also knowing that it's not like those particular guards had ever done anything other than follow orders he took them out without killing them. Now was simply the matter of figuring out who was safe to return to the city with and who would be left behind here. He was still a few hours drive outside Vitraan so no need to worry about cops at this point.

"All right, everyone out. We're going to stop here for a moment while I check on some things," the wolf morph instructs, turning off the engine.

His passengers, all of which are morphs of various species step out and begin to stretch their legs, already somewhat tired from the drive they've had to do to even get to this point. Richard reaches into a duffel bag he kept up front and tosses them all a bottle of water. As they all drink from their bottles he reaches under his seat and pulls out his gun and a small device that's slightly longer than his hand with a small needle at the end.

"Now, I hope you will all forgive me for this," Richard says, bringing their attention back to him. "But I hope you'll understand when I say that unfortunately I will not be taking any Blacks back with me back to Vitraan. Oranges and Reds are all I'm taking. This device here is going to take a small blood sample and tell me what I'm dealing with. Something I'm sure you're all familiar with having to do."

The group seems somewhat resigned about it, though more than a little disappointed that their troubles aren't completely over yet. Richard has had some time to get a feel for how they're behaving and decides to start with a little mouse morph woman who seems so on edge at the moment that she'd probably make it hardest to deal with further down the way. He moves behind her and pokes her in the back of the neck with his device. She flinches slightly at the small bit of pain when it digs into the skin enough to draw a bit of blood. He steps back a bit and looks at the display as it looks at the result. Technically it isn't the same as a normal blood meter, all it's looking for is if there's any Black blood. It displays a Green bar along the display.

"Okay, you pass. You're free to hang out here or go back into the truck if you want."

The woman doesn't seem all the certain about what she should be doing. She stands up and walks a bit away from the rest, rubbing the back of her neck where Richard had poked her with the device. Richard goes about cleaning the tip as best he can. It's not absolutely necessary, especially since the last one is a pass, but one can never be too certain about stuff like that. Ideally, he'd want a brand new tip for each person, but that'd be way too expensive and easily tracked for something that wouldn't ultimately make any difference. He walks up to the one he's most certain has been flipped based on how calm they've been this entire time and pokes them in the back of the neck with his device. They don't even flinch when he does so. And unsurprisingly enough his device flags him out as being a Black. He doesn't even really react to it, just moves the device a bit out of the way and then draws his gun.

"Nothing personal, but this is what must be done," he says calmly before pulling the trigger.

There are screams from the other passengers but Richard doesn't really make any note of it. He made sure it was a clean kill, there was no honor in prolonging their death when they technically did nothing wrong beyond getting captured. The blood of the one he dropped was mostly black already, implying they may have either been there as a plant, or to try and keep the others calm while it was being done to them. Either is a possibility. Unfortunately, the gun shot did create a panic from all the others, which forces him to address them more directly.

"If you run, I will shoot," he threatens as a few of them are clearly trying to inch their way away from him as best they can. "If you are Black, I will shoot. If you are clean, I will escort you back to town and help you get situated. So for the rest of you, it's either wait for me to clear you, or take a bullet. Your choice."

Naturally, they don't all seem to want to listen and as one of them tries to make a break for it Richard sighs and then shoots them in the back. The one he passed also makes a point of getting far away from him and hiding on the other side of the car, but he had already cleared her. There was no reason for him to do anything more to her. More to satisfy his own curiosity than anything else Richard walks up to the one he just shot and sticks the device into the wound and checks the display. Though their blood looks mostly red, the sensor fails them. Figuring it's justified enough in shooting her once he feels that it's best to not delay their suffering any more. "Nothing personal, but this is what must be done," he repeats as he shoots them in the head.

He then makes his way over to a couple of escapees that are huddling together for support and tests both of them, having to force out the hand of one in order to get any actual reading. And both fail the test again and so he repeats his line to them as well and pulls the trigger. And the blood of both of them look to be completely red. Richard frowns for a moment, wondering if perhaps his device is malfunctioning. Figuring that he best put it to the test he jabs it into his own arm after cleaning it yet again and waits for the response. And after the standard delay it displays the green pass symbol. In which case Richard frowns in that the situation he finds himself in right now is just a matter of really poor timing. Their blood looks red but the device is reading them as Black. Meaning that most likely they were only just recently converted. Either they only just picked up that girl and the others are only a day or two into the conversion, or if the device is really accurate and if he was only just a few hours faster then they all would have lived. Except for the plant, of course.

He doesn't particularly enjoy this kind of work, but it is necessary. To let even one of these Blacks live would endanger everything they are striving for. And there's not much joy to be had from simply killing machines, even if they were at some point and possibly even still are a bit of a person. Doesn't change the fate that must befall them for the sake of everyone. In Richard's mind, if every single Black on the planet was destroyed, then a lot of the problems that those like him had to face on a regular basis would no longer be a thing. And unfortunately, enough, of all of the ones he had rescued, only the one mouse girl seems to have been clean. Which is a shame, but no sense in feeling sorry for a machine. He pops the magazine out of his gun and looks down at it, seeing how much he had left. Not too satisfied he puts a new one in and pockets the old one. No point in wasting ammunition, after all.

He finds the girl still cowering on the other side of the car and puts his gun away. He walks up to her and just sits there a moment, letting her calm down for a moment before they leave. Being a comforting figure is not exactly the thing that he's all that good at. There are others for that. Sighing after a moment, he looks at his watch.

"We really need to be getting out of here. Don't know if any of them are following us but the sooner we're out of here the better," he says as he opens the door for her.

She climbs in reluctantly but it's still clear she's terrified of him. He shrugs and gets into the car and starts down the road again. He keeps his eyes on the road and makes sure that the gun and the device are as far away from her view as possible. Eventually, though, he feels needs to address the situation for her.

"Look, I'm sorry that you had to see that, I truly am. I would have liked nothing more than to have been able to take every single one of you back to town with me. But the fact of the matter is that there's no way to really know what all has been programmed into a Black and there's no guarantee that they wouldn't have just gone and immediately tried to kill everyone one of us or even just go and report back to the others where our safe houses are, what vehicles we use and if a single one of them were to leak this information to the people grabbing you then we won't be able to protect any of you ever again. So I'm sorry you had to deal with that, especially with how traumatized you must already be about this entire endeavor. But I promise that we will make sure you are safe. First thing first is that when we get into town is to get a decent meal into you and then we will be going and staying in a safehouse for a day or two, to make sure your place is safe and that no one else is after you. If it looks like there is someone still trying to get you we'll have you moved to somewhere safe.