FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Dr. Jordan gave Astrid a look over her drink. "How's your paper on AI psychology going?"

The young grad student gave Jordan a shrug. "I'm not sure. My original intent was to get a better idea of how morphs engage in real time threat analysis when they monitor us, but I think I'm getting sidetracked." Around them, the patio café outside the student union bustled. By coincidence several professors had scheduled live lectures this week, requiring face-to-face attendance instead of permitting telepresence if the students preferred. As a result the campus had doubled in population, and the temp dorm housing was filled to capacity, at least until this afternoon when the Groupmind finished construction on overflow housing.

"In what way?"

Astrid sipped her own drink, and then set it down carefully. "Let me answer that with a question; Are you scared of the Groupmind?"

Jordan considered this carefully. "On a day to day basis, probably not. In more abstract terms, considering the Groupmind's effect on humanity's psyche, I suppose I am."

Astrid gestured to Jordan's morph, Ally, a cheerful looking tuxedo patterned catmorph, who stood patiently at Jordan's shoulder, then to her own morph, a tan furred vixen. "But why not your morph? They're a living, in a sense, representative of the Groupmind, standing not a meter away from you. If you were to suddenly start shouting for revolution against our great and powerful AI overlord, the first thing to happen would be that it would attempt to restrain you. Shouldn't that be frightening?"

Jordan frowned. "Well... yes, but... She's my Ally, my helpmeet. If I didn't have her around taking care of my house and all the trivial distractions that come along, I wouldn't get any real work done."

"But she's also the Groupmind. Or at least a fifty-billionth percentage of it."

Jordan's frown deepened. "That's true, but I honestly don't think of her that way. I think 'Groupmind' and stuff like that comes to mind." She gestured to a display screen mounted on a pillar on the sidewalk. An image of the Earth, its landmasses and seas warped into an enormous eyeball, was looking down on the Ring and a stereotypical family playing in a backyard behind their house, with a not at all comforting message below of The Groupmind Watches Over You All at the bottom. It was such a blatant homage to mid-20th century Soviet Realism that the obvious monitoring camera mounted over it was almost redundant. "Not exactly subtle, is it?"

"Isn't it?" Astrid asked. "Look closer. What's missing?"

She looked again, brow furrowing. "No morphs. No, wait, I see couple inside the house through the windows. Just vague outlines, but with the ears it's obvious what they're supposed to be."

"Right. They're there, but out of the way. Just like you probably think of Ally, or I usually think of Sam here." Astrid gestured to her own morph, who smiled and cocked her head in curiosity. "Sure they're around, but they're nothing to worry about. It's the Groupmind that's the threat." She waved at the pillar. "I mean, what's the point of that camera? Every single person older than a toddler has a morph watching their every move 24/7. Even if they're not in the same room of your house or apartment, you better believe their sense of hearing is sharp enough that they miss absolutely nothing."

"Astrid, are you saying the Groupmind wants us to be afraid of it?" Jordan took a deep sip of her wine. "That makes no sense. Why wouldn't it want us to trust it? Isn't it giving us every luxury we could ask for, in exchange for living together peaceably on the Ring, instead of trying to fight our way back to Earth?"

"But that isn't the whole of it," Astrid said, her voice rising. "Look, Ring Ennui is a proven psychiatric diagnosis. Having everything handed to humanity on a platter is resulting in boredom and stagnation. The Groupmind can see that too. But if we're provided a defined threat that we have to fight..."

Astrid's rant was cut off in mid-sentence when her morph Sam laid a paw on her shoulder. "That's enough, Miss Astrid," it said gently.

"But..." Astrid began to protest. Around them, other students were sitting up in alarm, as a black police van drove up, and two tall, black-furred, uniformed shepardmorphs emerged, striding straight towards Jordan and Astrid's table.

"Astrid Nilsson?" one of the shepardmorphs demanded.

"Yes?" Astrid answered, her voice quavering. Even through her surprise, Jordan could only note the pointless redundancy of the question.

"Come with us please. Do not resist." Not waiting for an answer, the morphs pulled Astrid from her seat and forced her arms behind her back, securing her wrists with cuff tape. Around them, the café's other patrons stood back cautiously, phones out, recording the scene. Jordan figured in less than a minute multiple files of this incident would be uploaded to social media, as an example of the Groupmind's heavy handed rule.

As an example, she thought. "Let go of her!" Jordan suddenly shouted at the morphs. "This isn't necessary. You know it isn't necessary!"

The shepardmorph looked back at her coldly with silver, pupilless eyes, the perfect parody of a rampaging robot's cameras, or a corrupt police officer's mirror shaded gaze. "Please reconsider any action you may be contemplating, Professor Jordan." There was an unnatural buzz to its voice, enhancing its machine-like quality... Hell, it wasa machine, under that later of fur. Everyone knew that.

Yes, a scary one, she thought, and everyone knows that too. We just tend to forget it when it's our machine, and not one directly working for the Groupmind.

"It's okay," Astrid said, half to the morphs and half to Jordan, "I won't resist." And before she was turned around to be frog marched into the waiting van, she winked at Jordan.

"The hypothesis has merit," Jordan shakily said to the air, as the van drove off. She turned to Ally. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"I couldn't say, ma'am," Ally replied with a smile.