FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Why do you keep me waiting?" Ben sighed at the creature huddled with him in the scrub. It regarded him in return with confused peach and sky tones, its eyes dancing with light. "I've explained all of the procedures as best I can," Ben said, "you'll just have to trust me." It grunted deeply. "Trust. So few weeks ago, you were a shardless kit. Now I must trust, as you tinker with my very life." "Just a few weeks ago," Ben quipped, "I was living a normal life. And I was happy, Grumble-Butt. Now shush, and let me work, or you'll never be out of my hair." Ben didn't continue his calibrations, however. His memories were stronger now, powerfully clear, and he paused to review them. Things had been simple, before everything changed. Before this monstrous creature-person appeared, calling itself 'Cindre', and ruining his life.

//--

"In international news, the super-collider in Switzerland has been officially opened, with the first experiments launching today. Spokesman Carl Hagen continues to vouch for the facilities safety, which propels subatomic particles into each other at near-light-speeds." Ben half-listened to the drone of the telly, munching rice-bubbles. Would Rachel be in class today?, he wondered. He hoped so. "Now to the weather: clear skies for all Wollongong and Shellharbor areas, top of 29, thunderstorms tomorrow. Sydney will share the balmy conditions, top of --" Lazily, he shut off the news, and got ready for school, strolling there half awake, and relaxing on a grassy hill until first period. The early sun baked onto his dark skin, heated his frizzy, short hair. A gentle breeze took the edge off. All of it was distant to Ben, all he could see was Rachel, playing netball with her friends. He was entranced. Until, "Oi!" Ryan flopped down beside him with a laugh. "Hah! Creepin' on Rach again, aye?" "No," Ben lied quietly. "Just enjoying the heat." Ryan laughed again, heavily, nodding in sarcastic agreement. "Yes, of course, this being the single and only sunny spot in the fricken school." Punching Ben in the shoulder, he got back up. "Class, mate, let's go. You gotta help me with maths again."

Mr Burke was late, which was common. Ben gazed out the window in thought. Spring was shouldering Winter out of the way, the days were longer, nights were warmer, days were hot. Summer holidays were on the horizon. So were finals, though. All in all, life was simple, and life was good. Mr Burke strode in, belched wetly, and made a crass joke, the classroom erupting into noisy laughter. Life was very good indeed. By the late afternoon, the heat was settling into a comfortable oven-bake, concrete shimmering, cicadas singing harshly. Ben tromped out of school, looking forward to a cold shower. Ryan had joked about his sweating, and it was a joke, but the comment had stuck. Something crunched underfoot, and he looked down to discover a small, white, shattered triangle. Before he could tell what was going on, Michael had him pinned to a wall. "That was my shark-tooth necklace mate! Mate?" Michael was almost nose to nose with Ben, screaming. "Whatta ya gonna do about my broken stuff, aye mate?" "Buggar, Michael, I didn't.. why was it on the gr-" Michael interrupted with a slam. "Shuddup, y'prick, you're replacing my stuff, gimme any dosh you got." A scrabble broke out between the two, Michael was strong, but Ben was lithe and taller, eventually squirming free, and running home, losing Michael in traffic.

//--

Cindre stood slowly, towering at seven feet of pitch-black, shifting wings. "Settle, petal," Ben mumbled, poking lazily at his work. "Were you really so happy," it rumbled, after a long silence. "Yes," he replied simply. "And then, you released me." Ben rubbed his temples. "I did not, mate." "You did indeed, even if by accident." The two glared at each other steadily. "Yeah," said Ben, non-committal. The powerful moment replayed brightly in his head. "But it sucked."

//--

He walked his dog, Molly, to clear his fretting head. The kelpie-collie always begged for it, every day, and Ben needed to think. Michael was one of the meanest kids at school, angry, hateful, and with a hair-trigger temper. He'd personally seen Michael beat up a kid, and heard about many more fights. Once, Michael had even brought a knife to school, and had been caught and suspended for a week. Picking through the scrub of a undeveloped block, much to Molly's joy, Ben let his dog off the leash and settled on a huge, low rock, looking over his town from the elevated spot, joined by an imposing 'ironman' transmission tower behind him. He mulled over the mess he had gotten himself into, royally pissing off the single kid at school that would happily stab him. He thought of escape. His father lived in Sydney, a bustling city of enormous shopping centres and fancy schools. He wanted out of this tiny rural town, he thought. He was just a normal kid with bad luck. He just needed a way out. Ben heard a firm, deep hum, his hair itching with static-electricity. Molly hid in some bushes, whining. He turned to gaze back over the town, and saw the impossible. It was a city, that wasn't there before. Immensely tall, skyscraper-tall, clustered, and surrounded with stubby round buildings. It gleamed and shimmered like a mirage on cooking asphalt, but gold. A gut-droppingly enormous wave of gold climbed in the east, and washed over everything Ben could see. His town, the fields and farms of green to either side of it, the city-mirage, and the mountains that dominated the background of his childhood home. Ben rubbed his eyes, taking in the new level of insanity, as the ocean-sized wave passed, and the city-vision cleared to a crisp spectacle. He saw each and every window in every building of the golden city. He saw what looked like cars, zipping around hundreds of meters above the ground. A clunk from behind made him turn and gape in awe. Enormous, hanging shapes. Letters, but foreign. Japanese maybe. The lettering wove and spun gently. Two particularly bright, harshly-magenta letters stood out, shifting methodically, 'plinking' loudly, until Ben recognised them as a countdown. Stunned, he watched the meaningless display settle on two identical, round shapes and then freeze, a siren blaring, the colour magenta rippling to overtake every other hue in the hectic, nonsensical nightmare. The shapes squirrelled away, replaced by yawning, curved lines, framing a series of images as large as football fields. Most of them were shaken, blurred, but the rest were crystal sharp. A rabbit, a hawk, the moon, grass. "What is this?" Ben whispered, hanging to the edge of his wits. "I d-don't understand." Everything froze. Magenta highlighting surrounded Ben, then sky-blue, a whirl of shapes, a reverberating horn blasting from nowhere. Ben panicked as he slowly floated upward, into the center of the lettered madness. All the images had changed to those of him, and of Molly, his mother, his clothes, even his name in large, white capital lettering. Everything started to shake, and the plink-plink countdown sounded again. Ben twisted but couldn't see the readout. What he could see was human-outlines, at least a dozen, arrayed in a grid in sullen yellows and greens. They each went magenta in random order, a siren screeching every time, until just one remained. It wavered, tinging. Ben screamed in fear. A harrowing, deep, shuddering rumble began, he heard something crash behind him, saw a building-tall symbol fall against a tree weightlessly, shatter, and vanish, leaving it untouched. A powerful machine-roar started, joined by electronic wails, a whirling wind. A presence brushed through him, consumed him, made his skin ache, his heart instantly pounding painfully. His brain seared into a blinding white agony. Ben awoke in his bed, cheeks soaked with tears, panting desperately. Silent, dark, and cool, his bedroom surrounded him in a normalcy so sudden it was dizzying. "What. What, the f-fuck. Was that." The room offered no answer. Yawning mirage heights slowly melting away with the setting sun, filling his window with gold, made only one thing clear: it was no dream.

//--

"Man. That week was a write-off. I swear I'm gonna fail History." The creature laughed deeply, a echoing rumble, dark and guttural. "Yeah, yeah, not funny. I'll probably make up for it easy though, with this 'ere mega-cyborg-brain malarkey." "Daetrica," it corrected, repeating the drill. "Invoke the label, invoke the latent." "Righto mate,chees's, I get it already." "Also, your overly-narrow and inaccurate studies are hardly an issue." "They were," Ben pouted, "and I liked it that way." "You have acetica now, a gift." "A damn burden, is what." "A power," it growled, ears bared back, eyes tinging red. "A responsibility." "Same diff'," he shot back, getting in its face. "It's nothing but trouble."

//--

Strong change is dangerous. That's what Mr Burke said, first period back after the weekend. He pointed out the Native Australians, and the First Settlers from England who discovered -- or rather, re-discovered -- Australia, bringing new tools and new farming, new lifestyles, new diseases, new drugs like alcohol. It caused a culture clash that killed millions. Burke had a newspaper clipping projected on the board, something about the golden wave-thing. It explained the 'visions' as an odd mix of mirages and Northern Lights. It didn't mention the cities that could be seen before and afterward. Few people did, if at all. "Oi Ry," Ben whispered, trying to avoid the capital offence of talking during class. "Can you read that? The focus is all off." "Whar?" Ryan said, half-asleep. Ben gave him a good shove, and then turned to try to make out the smaller lettering, but the text was gone. "Oi, Ry. Did you get a good look at that article?" "What article, mate?" "The one Burke put on the board, y'nong." Ryan grunted. "Burke ain't got the projector out, y'nut." It was true. There was no means to put an article on the board, not in the whole classroom.

Ben flopped down at his desk, five minutes late for History. After a week of madness, he felt defeated, the dreams had only worsened, until he didn't sleep at all. The insanity of the week behind him was blurred and thrown into doubt by the fatigue. All he could do was robot his way through the last school day for the week. And then he would be free. Or at least free to do nothing but lay in bed. "Ben Whyte, could you come here please." His history teacher did not sound pleased. He did not sound pleased at all. Ben internally groaned, this was not a teacher he messed with, the middle aged man had the temper of a bull and the voice to back it up. He doggedly got up and approached the teachers desk. A paper was thrust pointedly towards him. "What is this?" asked the teacher. Ben looked at the paper. It seemed like any other history paper, at first. He briefly skimmed the first page; no name, strange writing. "Sir, this is in French." "I noticed." the teacher almost barked, "Why, Mr Whyte, is it in French?" It's in French because it's in French, his tired mind thought, but as he stared confusedly at the paper, the words jumped, they curved and fell and danced. And then they settled. "...the landing of Captain Cook occurred in 1770, whereby he and his crew dropped anchor at Kurnell, a place he called Botany Bay..." Startled, he dropped the paper on the floor. "Mr Whyte, that assignment was due on Monday, and you handed it in on Wednesday. That alone earns you a loss of half marks. But this childish behavior will not be tolera- Mr Whyte, are you listening to me?!" Ben twitched, and looked at his teacher with weary eyes. "I'm sorry sir, I.." he bent down and snatched the paper up, careful to fold it so he wouldn't have to see its impossible contents. "It won't happen again." "See that it doesn't," the teacher growled, "rewrite the assignment or you will fail it. Go back to your seat." Ben fled without another word to his spot at the back. It only took a few minutes of history-class-boredom for the symbol-visions to return. They swirled, and danced, but something was different about them today. He swore he saw normal text. A chunk of garbled lettering leaped at him, settled, and structured. They remained painfully unreadable, but the layout.. sentences. Full stops and capital letters, paragraphs. It was a document. A news article, right down to a picture, that was blurred and jumbled. He couldn't understand it. "Mr Whyte, I trust you are working back there?" "Yes sir, nearly done." Nearly done deciphering this madness. He looked down, through the rain of meaningless characters that hung in the air. Glancing around, he found no one cared. More probably, no one else saw them. Ben's paper rested on his desk, folded. Written in French. With fear, he peeked at it. Foreign stuff.. meaningless. The words on the page jumped. The words were suddenly his to read. He felt his hands shake as he skimmed over the essay. It wasn't done too badly. The topic was lovingly explored, using flair only the romantic grammar could muster. But the words weren't his, just as much as the language wasn't. Someone else had written it.

//--

Pulling out a battered clipping, Ben reread the report on what had been dubbed by the media as 'The Wave', written by a French physicist. His budding abilities had drawn him to it, starting a chain reaction that lead him to this point. "I really hate having all this stuff in my head," Ben said. "It hurts. Feels weird. Feels wrong." "You will adapt," Cindre simply stated. "Uh huh. Yup. Like you did?" It scowled. "That was different." The boy held up a finger. "Oh yes, right, yes, my mistake," he said, putting on the creatures low voice, mocking. "My very essence was corrupted, brood brood, oh the humanity. Alienity. N'stuff." Cindre stared at the act played out, eyes narrow. Ben stared back. "You tried to kill me, you freakin' monster." It took a great deal of constraint, but the creature swallowed anger, and grunted. "I was not myself." "Not how I remember it," mumbled Ben.

//--

It was an impossible beast. Twice the height of Ben, and shaggy. Thin waist and barrel-chested. Wide and powerful feathered wings, heavy, and animated. Long and pointed ears, upright and feather-tipped. A short, whiskered snout. Lithe arms, ending in cruel raptor talons. Enormous legs, over sized feet, like a cat's. The creature somehow constantly balanced on massive toes with even more massive claws. But what consumed Ben's gaze was the deep, solid perfection of black the creature possessed. It was a living shadow. A shape cut out of the world. The sun glanced through the forest, dappled onto rocks, glinted off the creek, warmed the skin. But it was powerless to illuminate the monster before Ben. Every detail was hinted by edge and outline. It was a cartoon, a silhouette. And it had eyes that blazed like two sharply-cut slits with angry-red brightness behind, paler and softer in the center for a pupil, a focused and intelligent gaze. It rumbled like thunder, deep and dark as its body was. Flaring a vision-encompassing wingspan, it lifted its muzzle, and blasted a volcanic roar, shimmering the air with heat. And leaped swiftly to kill.

The ensuing battle was incredibly swift. Ben dodged and fled through the bushland, the monstrosity burning and slashing and snapping at his heels, sizzling rocks split-seconds after Ben scaled them, fire erupting in every direction he tried to dash. One especially large trunk shuddered from a flaming burst, and toppled, bringing the boy to duck behind it. He desperately tried to and push it toward his shadowy pursuer. The trunk instantly flew, propelled, and slammed with the force of a speeding truck, a narrow miss that brought the creature to a skidding halt. There was a truth. An ugly thought creeping through the back of Ben's mind. He couldn't grasp it, and he didn't know if he wanted to. "How.. how can I do the things I've done?" He pointed at the wrecked tree, and then the beast, finger shaking. "You know. You have to know. Tell me!" The creature snarled. "Tell me God damnit!" "No. Not your place. Not for you." Ben staggered. It had spoken, the monster spoke, but Ben couldn't think. There was a blur, something hurt. Ben was holding the beast up against a boulder. Not touching. Palms forward, willing the monster against the trunk. He pulled back, shocked, sweating suddenly, shaking, staring at his hands, lost, confused. He hadn't moved. There was a blur. That blur of movement was him. He was ten feet away, and then he was there. The creature growled angrily, standing tall. Proud. "Mine. My power, for my people. Not for you." "Well I'm stuck with it! I don't want it, get it out of me!" Ben began to panic. "Now, for Christ's sake!" He wasn't even human anymore. That was it. People don't pop from place to place. They don't move things with a thought. They don't mangle fellow human beings. He thought of Michael, of their second confrontation. Remembered the blood. "Want to. Do not." The creature paused, thinking, eyes blazing red. "Know. How." The two stared each other down. The boy grasped at himself mentally. Human! Meat pies, walking his dog, hating his mother, remorseful sobbing at the hospital, relief when Michael was released, healthy and humble. Homework. Oh God, he thought, I have a English project due Monday, Mum must be worried sick. He reconsidered, instead mulling over how angry she would be. A bittersweet feeling hung on him slowly, fear, and peace. He was human. Maybe he was a little messed up, maybe he had a few new edits and additions, but he was still human. He could feel it, down to his bones. And the.. big black thing, seemed calm. He still wanted to go to school, see his friends. To be who he was. The dark beast crouched into a ready position, great wings flexing uneasily. "You. Leaving?" Ben felt his lip wobble. Home, and safety. Maybe. "Yeah. Yeah, I gotta go. Stuff to do, y'know?" He offered a nervous chuckle. "No hard feelings, right?" With a powerfully low rumble, it flared, and lunged at him, screaming.

//--

Cindre was silent for a long moment. "That was not me. I was shaken, and hurt." "You were a dick." It drew close, gliding delicately, defying the looming size it possessed. "I taught you. I agreed to leave." It sat, folding massive legs carefully. "I made you leave, mate." Ben watched as the creature tinged at the edges with colour, a deep red. A symbol appeared in his vision, servicing information. 'Anger' it chimed, but Ben mentally brushed the useless thing away. "You can't just up and change things, and you will if you hang about." "Why not change things?" Cindre was calm, steady. "Well bec- y'j-," Ben spluttered at the head-tilting alien. "You just can't! We've been over this! People have their own lives to live." "Or lose," it rumbled in return. "How many die? Suffer?" Ben coughed and froze, stuck on the sudden, affronting questions. "What?" Cindre rumbled deep in its chest, quiet thunder, gazing out over the view of green farms and brown mountains. "Sickness. Poor food. Fighting without haelenica. Killing. Poisons." Ben held up his hands. "Woah, woah there mate, steady on. That's a little extreme, isn't it? Not everyone acts like that." "No," it intoned, staring steadily. "But enough do." "So, what, we just turn everything upside down? Because Mister Shadow Monster says so? Who are you to judge, to tell us what to do!" Cindre laughed, quiet, ponderously thick. "It is simply what I see. Your memories: some words are heavy, and painful. 'Africa'. 'Starving'. 'Famine'." "Those are my memories, not yours!" Ben clenched his fists, violated. "And mine, now. There are sad words, too. 'Bomb'. 'Nine Ele'-" The boy was in its face with a blink of light, fist under its chin. "D-don't you dare. Finish. That sentence." They shared an long silence, eye to eye. Ben shuddered and pulled away. "You do feel. You care." "Of course I care, you stupid animal!" Ben raged, "they all died. It was horrible." "It wasn't your fight. America is far from here." Cindre rumbled softly, deep in its chest. "Why do you care?" "Because they're people. It could have been me. It was random and terrible and heartless." The creature nodded, slowly. "You care, while not one of them. I care, although I'm not one of you." Ben could only stare, feeling chilled. "Well, then, what? What are you gonna do?" "Use the words, like I taught you. Help. There are other words. 'STD'. 'SARS'-" "Will you stop it!" the boy pleaded, "just, stop rifling through m-" "Cancer," it grunted. "Why not fix that?" Ben balked into silence. "Bwha?" Slowly, smoothly, Cindre rose to his feet, strolling, eyes busy with peach light, thinking. "'Cancer'. 'Tumor'. A growth that won't stop. It spreads, and kills." Ben didn't know anyone who had died of cancer personally, but it was obviously a horrible illness. He vaguely remembered statistics, tv dramas, charities. "Are you saying that you know how to cure cancer?" "No, not I, but haelen can. Very simply." A weight of complexity hit Ben. Instantly, his argument didn't feel so simple. He didn't know what a haelen was, but this thing he was stuck babysitting could do things. Others of its kind it could do anything, who knew? A heavy weight settled on his shoulders, and he fought it. "You're going. We have our world, it's not perfect, but it's ours. It spun before you got here, and it will merrily spin after. Got it?" Gently, Cindre gazed down at the boy, holding up its shard, an answer to the magic wand. The purest symbol of its power. Shivering, retrieving his own shard from a pocket, he remembered that power.

//--

Ben shook with abject terror. This beast hadn't killed him yet, but time and again it proved itself explosively dangerous. Raising its short snout, it turned to him, a silver shape piercing-bright in its chest. "Go," it whispered raggedly. "Go now, or die." "Where do I g-go?" "Just go!" it roared, and flared with light, so brilliant, so pure, spilling out of him all over, eyes a brutal red. Eyes darting left to right, he found the nearest window, and threw himself out of it with a shatter of glass.

Heat made the flooring bubble and crack, boiling and pooling at every taloned step. A cabinet burst into flame, collapsing into its path. Leaping lightly over it, relentless, the beast slowly unfurled its jet-black wings, filling the room and igniting everything they touched. The man cowered, as a cruel, gnarled claw pointed at him. He felt an itching, a searing pain. Screaming wildly, he erupted into flame, engulfed and consumed instantly. The alien creature, wreathed from ear to toe with tongues of fire, bent to drive the silver shape into the dust that remained, rumbling slowly. With a cough, it stopped. The blade was small, but the cut was long, and well placed. Falling to its knees, it whined in pain. The man behind him was badly burnt and he laughed, gratified at least in avenging his boss and perhaps saving his own life. He went to pull the knife from the monster, but it was stuck. The monster swayed with the effort, like huge doll, light as a cardboard box. Pulling again, he let go as the blade bit at him with heat. His stomach sank into his feet as the blade quickly melted and flowed away. The building erupted. Ben pulled back rapidly, turned to see it fall slightly inward, settling to watch from a roof two blocks away. A beam of light stabbed into the night sky. Every window shone like a sun, and with one pronounced, voluminous ball of flame, the building collapsed entirely, nothing more than a bonfire fifty feet high.

//--

"Those men deserved to die," Ben whispered. "They were going to kill everyone, and you killed them. Is that how you fix things, too?" "No," Cindre said. "That is not my way. Never again." Ben looked into those slitted eyes, watching them swim with soft purples, magenta, indigo. "You really are different now. You can talk proper-like, for one." "I learned." "And you don't rage anymore." "I tamed my new instincts." "And you don't eat like the cookie-monster." Cindre roared, a short, tight blast, trailing into a rumble. Ben winced, holding up his hands. "Chees's-crighs, scratch that second one." "I wouldn't hurt a pupil," Cindre said, voice gravelly, "you have much to learn." "Learn?" Ben snapped, losing his patience. "Alrighty, how are you all shadowy and black?" "Light-capture, for ard capacitance." "What the hell is 'ard'?" "A concept of energy," Cindre replied. "Energy. Not magic?" "Science. Technology." It offered its shard. It seemed like a bright, stylised wing now that Ben could see it closer. "Utility applications of the entomnis." "Utility. Utility? What the frack utility does setting yourself on fire serve?" "Defence and offence, from recommissioned fire-control," it replied calmly. "You would call me a 'fire-fighter'." Ben was awestruck. He'd never asked simple questions, but now that he was, it was simply answering him. Was this always an option from the start? "Why do your eyes make like Christmas?" Ben ventured. It growled, but quickly replied. "The 'emotic'. Emotional parley. While undergoing light-consumption, it is difficult to express myself." "So.. you smile and frown and stuff, with colour?" "It is an involuntary motion," it said, looking away. "And uncomfortable to talk of." "So it's all just.. tech." They were interrupted. A severe, blinding flash filled their vision, hastily followed by a shattering crack of thunder. There were no clouds, and the air hung still. "Do you see it," Ben asked, awed. Cindre nodded. Ben scanned the skies, "Where?" A perfectly black, gnarled talon pointed. Ben aimed the cobbled together alien equipment on hip lap, and fired. Nothing happened, but Cindre gasped. "Do you see it," Ben asked, squinting. "I see much you do not," replied Cindre, "I must go while I can." They shared a silence, flavoured with goodbyes and finality. Ben desperately tried to think of something to say. Something witty, or thoughtful, or polite, or hateful. He had nothing. Cindre bowed its head, and intoned, "Go with light." The alien beast, part animal, even part human, blurred away in flight, and vanished. Ben was alone, his planet saved from the witless heroics of a stranded paraterrestrial. He cried with sincerity every step of the way home, for what could have been.

//--

It was the dead of night. The winds of a Sydney autumn whipped, full moon hanging, tinging surrounding clouds silver. An enormous cusp of land was formed below, outlined by ancient escarpment, sudden cliffs between flat mountain highlands of solid green, and flat ocean lowlands of muddy brown farm-squares, spread to the blue of coast, sprinkled with dotted lines of fairy lights for roads and clustered jewels for towns. There were so many questions left. Why was it here in the first place? What was The Wave? And the mirage city? Why did it trigger the release of a monster? How did that monster learn to talk English in a day? Floating silently, scanning with minute and methodical care, a soft chime alerted Ben to a presence. Sinking downward to meet it, weaving through tree and hill and rock, there they were. Sudden and unreal, boldly strange against the pastoral landscape. The first, a deep midnight-blue, covered in shock-white splotches, tiny, and jumpy, enormous ears tautly upright, eyes huge and bright, sporting a delicate, long dress. The second, stocky, grey, balanced perfectly with grace. A long, fluffy tail, coiling and rippling with movement, triangle-ears focused. Muscles bulging to heft a massive, blunt weapon to bare, ready, alert. The last, looming, perfectly dark, wings flared, eyes shimmering with light, one patched with a jagged shape crusted with circuitry. Ben gasped, landing with a stumble. The smallest spoke immediately, voice a soft, gentle, girlish chirp. "Hi. I heard you're in need of a haelen? We were in the para-neighbourhood." "Why, " Ben stuttered, laughing, "did you keep me waiting?"

//--||--

Symbia:Beginning is the first of three novels in the series Symbia, the others planned are Home and End. This document stands as a proof of concept, and deserves more content.