FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"What does it say? Leather patch made in China?" Luke grinned, hitching up his pants as he came back into the living room.

"I wish." Nathan waved at the screen.

(FOIA) DARPA Biotech, ID: 34098fho3245 Lutra Lutra 3%, Pteronura brasilensis 2% Inception: 10-Jan-2004, Decant: 5-Sep-2004 Project: [classified], Location: [classified], Status: [classified] Remaining entries: [classified]

"I'm guessing your birthday is September fifth. Is that right?"

"Yeah, but, but, how'd the chip in my pants point to this?"

"It's not in your pants, Luke," Nathan said angrily. "It's in your butt. Those assholes tagged you like you were a fucking lab rat." His voice was getting shrill. He tried to calm down.

"You're sure? In my butt?" Luke sat down on the couch next to Nathan, still gaping at the display, but rubbing at the offending body part. It wasn't much, but this was much more personal than what was available by scanning his wallet. This was something only his doctor should know, not just anybody who wanted to find out.

"Yeah, but you can't feel it. It's too small. Wave the wand around. You'll see it that way. Or hear it, rather. Go on back in the bathroom again. When there aren't any other rfids nearby, it'll be obvious where the wand is detecting it."

"No, I don't need to do that. I'm sure you're right. They always knew just were we were on the Farm. This explains it." He sounded a little numb and leaned against Nathan as if for comfort. Nathan could feel the warmth through their shirts.

"How'd you manage to get it? It looks like it's still classified."

"Most of the entries, yeah, the ones that aren't shown. I used the Freedom of Information Act. That's what the FOIA stands for. If you know enough to ask for it, they have to release any information that isn't classified. Of course, now they know I'm interested in you. FOIA queries are always logged." He put an arm around Luke's shoulders. He had to. The kid was obviously hurting.

"I'm sure they already knew about you. They still keep a close eye on me even though funding for the Farm was canceled. National security." Luke sounded bitter now.

"Oh. Makes sense." And he'd thought he still had a little privacy.

"I think you should get it taken out as soon as possible," he told Luke. "If I can find this, so can anyone else with an rfid wand, and they're cheap. Someone knowing even this little about your genetics could do nasty things. It really simplifies the sequencing of a cell sample, for example.

"Except for the birthday, it looks like only the chip ties it to you, though. Was anyone else born the same day?"

"Yeah. Some. Not many. We're all different, though. They decanted us in groups. There were larger groups later. Called us 'litters.'" He sounded even more bitter now.

"Do you know how to get ahold of anyone else from the, uh, Farm, did you call it? They all need to be warned if they don't already know."

"No, I lost contact with everyone else when they split us up in '13. The fosters wouldn't answer any questions about the others, either. Insisted I needed to be 'mainstreamed' so people wouldn't think of me as an animal; not that it helped a lot. Maybe some of that prejudice wore off on me. I haven't wanted to try contacting anyone even after I got the scholarship here and got away from the fosters. It's been lonely," he admitted.

Nathan gave him a squeeze. "Well, you're not alone now. I may not be a 'splice like you, but I do care. A lot." There. He'd said it directly, not just blurted it out accidentally like before. Nathan felt relieved. But still scared.

"Enough about me," Luke smiled wanly. "Maybe the offworld links are working again." He obviously wanted to think about something else for a while. Searching for the others could wait.

"I bet they aren't." They weren't.

"So what else? Didn't you say you had some ideas about finding out if anything's inside Ben? That is why you asked me to bring him here, isn't it?" One of the reasons, Nathan thought. Not that the others mattered any more.

"Sure. I thought we could check his density: measure his volume and find out if he weighs more than that much fluff and foam would."

"I'd rather not put him in water. It'd probably soak in. That'd mess up the volume measurement, too."

"Archimedes is old fashioned," Nathan reassured him. "All we need is a recording from all sides." A little louder he said "CC. Conference call. Local only. Record as Shape-of-Ben. Endit.

"Now just get him out of the box. It'll be a little easier if we put him on the table. Yup, now turn him around a few times. And over on his back. That should do it! CC. End conference call. 3D process. Shape-of-Ben. Endit."

A 3D view of the room appeared in the screen. It was as if they were looking through the screen at two people on a couch. The image of Luke got Ben out of his box and put him on the coffee table.

"Select object, select track, select structure," Nathan muttered while selecting icons, then "select process." The people in the screen jerked as the recording was processed. "Select display object."

An image of Ben rotated slowly in the screen against a 3D background grid. Various labels and numbers floated around it, one of which was his volume. Fields for his weight and density were there, too, but both were NAN.

"See? Simple! Now his weight. There's a scale in the bathroom. Come on." Nathan picked up Ben and lead the way. "Stand on the scale. Here's Ben. Now let's go back."

On the couch again, with Luke seated next to him stroking his tiger, Nathan mumbled some more while selecting menus, mostly for Luke's benefit. "Select ScalesBr1, select time range, select b, select a, subtract. Viola!"

"So now we know how much he actually weighs. What about the polyfill and foam?" Luke wondered.

"They should be pretty much standard, I think. I know! We could compare him with Sasha. She's certainly not a Companion, so maybe it'll tell us something. I've already got her recorded." Soon images of both plush animals were rotating in the same view.

They both looked at the results glumly. "Sasha's heavier and denser. That's no help." Search the 'net: stuffed animals, polyfill, foam, density. "Foo. Those kinds of density variations are a lot more than I expected. Sorry, Luke, this isn't going to help." Nathan was trying to avoid the milder of his usual expletives. Although Luke's splices weren't rodentia, some of his childhood friends might have been.

"What about the box? Do you suppose it might have a chip in it?" Luke wondered. "Maybe we could get more information that way."

"That's a thought. It's certainly sturdier than the usual cardboard carton. If they're made special for their tigers, it might have been worth chipping them. Why don't you scan it?"

Beep! "PCInc. Secure container. Certified for nonRGE shipping. Power requirements" and the rest was in the strange character set they'd seen previously.

"Power requirements?" Luke wondered. "Why would a box need power?"

"Maybe they're just keeping the hoax consistent. Wasn't there something about recharging stations in one of those blurbs we read?"

"Yeah, but that was for use by the Companion, I think. Not by a box."

"Unless maybe this is supposed to be a recharging station. It'd need to get its power somewhere so its induction field would work. Hold on."

Nathan went back to one of the cabinets. Some of his scanning wands were for things other than rfids. Like detecting radio waves given off by comm devices.

"Try this. If it's a recharging station, maybe it has a residual EM field. It surely would have its own power storage for use when there's nothing else available. We'd better calibrate the wand before you put it inside, though. The room should be pretty noisy from all the computer communications. Yup: here's the normal background." The signal shown by the simulated oscilloscope in the screen was jumping all over the place.

"Now to subtract it." The trace settled down to almost nothing, with just tiny background noise spikes now and then.

"OK, test it by holding it next to the rfid wand while it's reading Ben's chip." Large pulses spiked across the screen.

"Looks good. Now put it inside the box." Nada. If anything the background noise spikes were smaller than before.

"That's interesting. Pull it out?" The spikes grew just a little.

"Why don't you put the wand in the box and close the lid." A bright red error message popped up in the screen: "RF Sensor 3 Carrier Lost."

"Oh, my. Shades of the dog in the night."

"I beg your pardon?" Luke didn't recognize it? What kind of education were engineers getting these days?

"It's from a Sherlock Holmes story. What was strange about the dog was that it did nothing in the night. In this case we have no signal. It should go right through that box. What do you suppose might be happening?" If Luke didn't get it, he didn't deserve that t-shirt he'd been wearing earlier in the week.

"Oh. A Faraday cage."

"Yup. What might that imply, do you suppose?" Nathan was enjoying this. Success! Proof! Well, almost.

"Hmm. The radio waves are being reflected around inside. Forming standing waves, maybe? Oh." Luke's eyes got big. "An induction cavity! It is a recharging station!"

"Don't get too excited. Maybe it's just a good forgery. How can we find out if it's actually generating rf power inside and isn't just a metal box? I'd rather not sacrifice one of my wands." Assuming it hadn't been fried already. Most likely not, though. Ben wasn't inside the box being recharged. If it was more than just a metal box, and if Ben was a Companion, and if his power was still low and if the box or Ben hadn't already realized what they were trying to do. A lot of ifs.

Luke grinned. He was a lot more cheerful than he'd been earlier. "Do you have some aluminum foil in the kitchen?"