FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Effie's truck motor was still running while she waited for Braidon to show up. He should have been down already, but there was nothing to do but wait. Parked two blocks away from the Horizon Unlimited laboratory just like her friend asked. Boredom was creeping up on her. Effie reached down into her cargo pants pocket to retrieve the palm sized NeuraLink and placed it against her left temple. The sleek carbon fiber coated triangular device vibrated just a little to indicate it was positioned properly before the world around her lit up in a brilliant nimbus of lights. All around the streets of steel and concrete an overlay of creativity and information 'enhanced' her experience. The NeuraLink projected the sights and sounds directly into her mind.

With a small gesture Effie opened a display across the open space between her and the dashboard. With augmented reality screens had become obsolete for anything other than public use. The feed of content creators was never ending, but her favorite sketch comedian BlathersQ08 had posted two vids and a stimcast today. Effie reclined her seat and started the vids. She was mid chortle when the passenger door lever started getting pulled repeatedly. "Fuck, shit, not now... open!" the voice was familiar but had startled Effie anyways. She sat up and unlocked the door remotely and Braidon clambered into the truck.

"Why did you lock the door? You knew I was coming! Doesn't matter, drive. Please hurry, drive." Braidon said impatiently, he was in his mid thirties now, and was sporting a chocolate colored five o'clock shadow from at least two days ago. His normally well groomed suit was wrinkled and Effie could smell smoke and sweat on him. "What a hot mess! I know you've been busy with your new job, but you could have at least showered." Effie complained to her old friend. Braidon shifted into the seat a little more and strapped his seatbelt on. He was looking around nervously like he expected to be followed, he was holding a rather thick glass cylinder in his lap that had been cradled in his underarm a few moments ago. Effie was about to press Braidon further for her inconvenience and the mystery but Braidon's hazel eyes met hers "Effie, now. We need to leave."

Feeling the seriousness of the situation Effie removed her NeuraLink and readjusted her seat. Quick movements had the truck engaged and driving down 48th Ave holding just barely to the speed limit. "Alright, we're moving. Which means You are talking. Spill it." Effie said with enough irritation to imply without a good reason Braidon was going to find his ass on a curb soon. Braidon's attention was still drifting quickly from street corner to street corner, aware that Effie seemed to be taking him home. "Okay, okay. The less you know the safer you are I promise. Horizon... Doctor Michelle Freemont specifically." Braidon stammered for a moment trying to find a thread to begin with. "She's been making a mutagenic agent. Real heady gene therapy kinda stuff. I was expecting the uses to be primarily clinical, but..." Braidon paused for a long moment "I found evidence that Horizon is working on a nanodroid delivery system." Effie listened and gave Braidon an incredulous look "So what, you decided to go Pilgria Plaza on your new employer? Is that the... mutagenic whatsit?" She asked, quickly realizing that her friend was not only a corporate thief... but had brought her in on his get away!

Braidon shook his head no. "I grabbed the core of the experiment, I was working mostly on the protein matrix in the mutagen, this was only ever referred to as the Origin Sample." He explained before holding up the sealed glass container. The container itself was about as thick as Effie's calf and about as long as her elbow to wrist. Inside of it a viscous mulberry purple fluid barely sloshed around. "You stupid, mother fucking, asshole!" Effie shouted at Braidon as she took a side street, now intent to dump him on the curb. "You're on camera just walking out with that and into my truck?!" Braidon looked startled by her sudden anger and shift in direction. "Whoa! I couldn't just let whatever they were going to do happen! We just..." Braidon's earnest retort was interrupted as an all black SUV abruptly took the sidestreet behind them. "Oh no they found us!"

Startled by the now swiftly approaching SUV Effie jammed her boot heel first into the floor over the accelerator. The simple and sleek black truck jolted forward haphazardly before traction caught up with torque. The SUV behind them accelerated as well to give chase. "Oh fuck, Braidon! What was the fucking plan here?!" Braidon half turned in his seat and watched the other vehicle closing the gap before he responded "I don't know, try to lose them!" Car's whipped by and Effie had to drive up across a sidewalk when a knot of congestion threatened to squeeze them to slow. "Great fucking advice!" She yelled, while bits of garbage bounded out from the console between the seats from the violent thrashing. Braidon held onto the cylinder like his life depended on it.

A long straight away towards the freeway lay before them, they had made their way to the port access south of the corporate center. Large freight ships haunted the edges of the horizon between momentary breaks between passing buildings. Effie screamed bloody murder as the SUV made contact with her bumper. Their obvious intent to abruptly end their merry chase sent cold fear down into the pit of her stomach "They're gonna fucking kill us!" She hollered and glanced at Braidon who looked just as panicked as she felt. "Drive faster!" was the best reply he could come up with.

The onramp was swiftly approaching, Effie slammed the break and gunned it trying to throw the other driver off, but they managed her evasion without difficulty. Desperate Effie lashed out at the other driver, slamming the break and then turning her truck into the side of the other vehicle. The decision was catastrophic. It drove both vehicles off the onramp and down a steep embankment which was used as a maintenance route underneath the upcoming bridge. Like a stop motion film Effie saw the front end of her truck crumple near the left tire, a snapshot of the sky as it rained broken glass, and the roof of the cabin twisting like paper mache. The sound of her own screams were lost in the thunderous maelstrom of destruction.

The blood was pounding in Effie's ears and she struggled to focus, but she wasn't dead. The thinly built woman instead hung limply from her seatbelt. The roof of her truck was pressed in nearly to her eyebrow. A throbbing hurt was coming from the right side of her rib cage, making it difficult to take anything deeper than swift shallow breaths. Effie's arms were dangling in the broken glass, blood running from a shard that had embedded in her forearm. Mulberry purple goo was all over her arms and in the glass. She looked to the right and found Braidon had gotten unbuckled somehow... and had crawled halfway out the passenger side window. He wasn't moving anymore, his legs were likewise covered in the purple sludge.

"Braidon... You alive?" Effie asked weakly, barely able to project more than a whisper. Lifting her arm from the ground drew the sludge up with it, seeming to stick better to her than the inorganic material of her wreckage. "Ick..." She fumbled at the seatbelt suspending her upsidedown still. With her body weight against it she had significant tension across the belt. It took Effie seven tries to dislodge the buckle, and when she finally did the woman gasped as she fell the short distance to the roof of the cab. Effie's left leg began screaming up and down her nervous system, threatening to fully overwhelm her senses and drag her into the dark embrace of unconsciousness.

After a time Effie was able to master herself, she was ready to start moving again. Slipping an arm out the remains of the windshield she was about to start the process of pulling herself free when the ichor covering her writhed. The open wounds on her arms began to burn with the viscous fluid in them. Her attention drawn away from escape to her more immediate situation Effie watched the origin sample swell as it drew fluid in towards its central mass on her arms. Again the burning sensation intensified as it pushed its way into her wounds. Effie's mouth agape with growing horror in a silent scream as the thing swelled again drawing in it's extremities into its main mass. Effie's forearms bulged as the things mass pushed in, spreading up to her fingertips and into her upper arms.

Cold concrete was pressed against Effie's face when she opened her eyes again, the wreckage still lay above her. Her fingers flexed hesitantly, expecting the resistance of thick sausage fingers. Instead her fingernails pressed into the palms of her hand. Blood was still smattered amongst the glass, but the purple sludge she had seen before was entirely absent. Again Effie began pulling herself through the windshield. When she was out Effie tried to push herself up and tried to tuck her legs under her. The left leg simply wouldn't bend or support weight. Water lapped at the side of the port, wind rushed by without a single whistle of sirens.

Just a stone toss away was the wreckage of the SUV, the driver had been thrown half way out of the vehicle and had been crushed. Braidon shifted and rolled onto his back to stare up into the sky. Crawling painfully to him Effie panted out "good, not dead... So I can kill you." The levity in her voice was forced as she collapsed next to him. "Effie?" Braidon turned his head to look at her, coughing a few times after using his voice. "Find... the NeuraLink. We'll call an ambulance." Effie suggested, too exhausted to act on her advice.

Braidon groaned and squirmed uncomfortably against the concrete below him. His hands coming up to tug at the collar of his ruined button down shirt. "Can't.." he rolled onto his side towards Effie and reached out towards her. The edge of his jaw line was purpling like a ferocious bruise before he gasped with an audible pop of the jaw. His face started pressing forward, reshaping itself slowly into the muzzle of a dog! Effie watched with morbid horror, her own dislocated leg began throbbing and burning. She looked down at the joint as a deep hollow pop sound came from it sending electric flairs through her. She writhed and screamed through the pain.

In a panicked shuffle Effie drew herself up against the side of her truck so she was sitting, facing her legs down at the end of her torso. The skin crawling burning sensation was spreading down across her hips and further down her legs to the tips of her toes. It felt like her feet were swelling, with a force of will Effie hooked one heel behind the other and kicked off her boots. Her legs twisted before her... the balls of her feet shifted and the instep of her feet stretched out. The cuffs of her cargo pants caught around the joint that had been her ankle as her shins shorted to accommodate a different center of gravity. Effie's socks stretched at the base where her toes were bundled until claw tips pierced out from the fabric.

Looking back at Braidon, his face had turned into a relatively feminine looking muzzle and horns were starting to sprout out of his skull, sweeping back and curling up like some kind of dragon's ridges. Fur started spreading across his features, and when his eyes opened his pupils had turned a vibrant purple. "Help." He begged as Effie watched, the spreading sensation growing up her waist and across her chest. Like a relentless tide the force changing her rose up through her throat and around skull. Like Braidon her face strained until it popped at the jaw, she couldn't keep her eyes open as sensation overwhelmed her. Every inch of her body was being consumed from the inside out.

When Effie could open her eyes again she saw Braidon had somehow slimmed, his clothing now a baggy mess around a lithe frame. A tail had emerged from between his slacks and dress shirt. He was some kind of werewolf? The features and fur pattern didn't match any kind of wolf she'd scene before, even as she was looking down the length of her own new muzzle. At the very tip was a mulberry purple nose which matched Braidon's. Tentatively Effie reached a hand up and slid her fingers back from her forehead and up across the horns that had developed there.

Braidon again rolled onto his back panting now with a sense of exhaustion in him. "What... have I done?" He seemed to ask whatever divine entity that might be watching them. He seemed to recover enough to pull himself over to Effie's side. The burning had dissipated entirely now, and Effie had had to shift a bit to the side as her own tail emerged from her backside. "We, we need to go." Was the best Braidon could muster, though speaking with the muzzle distorted the sounds a great deal.

Effie leaned over until she could tuck her feet under herself. Using the wreckage to prop herself up as she stood, Effie could feel her legs were strong but didn't move quite right. She helped bring Braidon to his feet, but found his muzzle directly in line with her own. Braidon had lost nearly a foot of height advantage between the two of them. "Where?" Effie asked and it came out barely understandable. Braidon pointed towards the city center where several hospitals might help them. Shakily the two stepped away from the wreckage and came together. Supporting each other like two drunks fumbling home.