FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

We arrived at the roof and piled into the helicopter. One of only two working helicopters that I was aware of. The other belonged to Rsx. It rose into the air and powered off into a Southwesterly direction, carrying us over the gloomy remains of Fairhaven. There were a few scattered lights down there, hold outs of survivors making do. Only The Mall and the Zephyr building shone like stars in the darkness.

"Tell me if this is proprietary info, but where does Zephyr get the gas to keep this thing moving?"

Mike looked over at me a moment, "To be honest, I don't usually ask. They send out the agents to forage for things all the time. I kinda just figured they picked up some gas along the way. With almost no cars running, there's not a lot of competition for the stuff."

"Yea, but we're at that point that any gas left laying around has to be going bad."

He shrugged, "I'm a pilot, not a scientist. They top up the tanks every time I put down, and I take off again, flying good as new. I don't question it."

That was the difference between what was, essentially, a non combat agent, like Mike, and a field operative, like myself. We had to ask questions, or things didn't get done. I would put the question to some of my scientist buds. Having little better to do, I sent off a quick mail about it while we soared over pitch dark wilderness.

Silence settled between Mike and I for a moment before he spoke up, "You asked a question."

I just nodded, unsure where he was going with the statement.

"Alright if I ask something?"

"Go for it, but same condition applies. Company secrets, you know the deal."

He shrugged and peered out into the darkness as if he could see something. Maybe he could, if his comm were set up special for the helicopter. It seemed pretty likely. "It's not about your company, about you. You were always total human right?"

I was caught unaware by the question, "Yea, why?" Mike never struck me as the racist sort. One thing you could give Zephyr, they didn't much care what their clients looked like, almost to a fault.

"Relax, just curious. I got caught on P day. Zephyr agents rescued me out of a pile of gryphons. And here I am. It's been, what, two years now?" He looked across at me a moment, "I can't remember not having a tail, or fur, or feathers. What's it like?"

It was my turn to roll my shoulders, considering the question a moment. "Could you tell me what having a tail is like?" I countered, "It's hard to say, you are what you are. You don't get more used to much anything else in the world. It gets cold at night. I can fall into a seat without crushing anything. And I only have to trim hair off a few parts of me instead of everywhere. Barber must charge you guys a fortune."

He burst into a sudden laugh, "Barber's on Zephyr payroll for us agents, but yea, it's a half day trip when you need a trim. Half of it naked. A lot of people skip on it... But could you imagine if I was shedding in here? Nothing doing."

The idea of a shedding mutant tickled. I smirked at the mental image, "That could get messy. Don't the nanites regulate that sort of thing?"

"You'd think," he said, pausing a moment, "But no. They only change hair length when you're first hit. For some of the field agents, changing all the time, not a big deal. Every change is a reset. But for guys like me? Stuff just grows, like normal. You have to take care of it."

"So how do you avoid it? I mean, I know you're not going out on combat missions, but I'm sure mutants give it a try once in a while?"

He smirked, which still struck me as an odd expression on a beak, "Sure they have, but I'm a, what do you call it, a native, at this point. Even if a creepy crawler tried to convert me, I'm just so used to being a gryphon now, I don't turn very easily, and usually end up changing back if you give me a day or two."

"Free haircut," I noted dryly.

He snorted at the joke, "Not the way I prefer to take care of business. So you'll excuse me if I stay on the ground just long enough to let you off this bird."

The flight settled into a companionable silence, with only the soft thump thump thump of the rotor blades overhead. I didn't have the time pulled up, so I wasn't sure exactly how much had passed when he spoke up again.

"Arriving on point. I'll sit you down in North Oakland, just on the border of Berkeley. I see a clear spot right by Telegraph. Close as I can get."

We began our descent, my gut lifting up with mild queasiness as the ground reached up to catch us. With the lightest bump, we kissed mother Earth. I had already unstrapped myself, throwing the cloth and metal aside and half throwing myself out of the vehicle as it stopped. "Good luck," I said to Mike, getting a salute in return.

The helicopter lifted gently, and was soon lost in the gloom of night, only the sound of its rotors told me it was still there, but that was growing rapidly fainter.

Dark. It was easy to forget that a little light was more than no light at all. This part of Oakland seemed to be all lights out. A glance up at the sky showed little. Overcast. I hadn't brought night vision goggles. This mission was off to a great start. I checked the mission specs for time constraints. I was supposed to be in position by four AM. No option to wait for morning then.

Nothing for it. I pulled out a flare and gave it a wrench. It ignited in a blindingly bright flare of harsh red light. As I squinted against the glare, I heard something approaching. I tossed the flare aside and grabbed for a weapon, just barely getting the assault rifle into position when I was bowled over under the crushing presence of something large and furry.

I squeezed the trigger and the gun danced between us, sending bullets firing off to the side impotently. The beastly mutant was at least startled, drawing back for a precious second that I used to bring up a knee. Male. It made a pained snort at the sensitive strike and suddenly swatted me aside, sending me skidding and rolling across the cracked pavement.

My world was spinning, but life was rough those days. My body was already getting itself upright while my brain caught up, pushing off the pavement with scraped hands while minor abrasions complained dully across my body. The beast never went down. In the glare of the red flare, I could see it was some variety of horse.

His great hands flexed as his nostrils flared. A detached part of me took note that the beast had feet, not hooves. Not that it mattered at that moment. It rose to its full height, about seven feet, and slapped its hands together in a loud clap. Was it posturing? Possibly. I wasn't in the mood to play chest thumping games. I rose my gun at the beast, finger already squeezing.

Only a single bullet escaped before something smashed down onto me from behind. To my fading satisfaction, the mutant caught the slug in a leg, and he went down with me as darkness became absolute again.