FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

To my readers,

You can still see them walking the alleys or hiding under heavy clothing. You might even see a wagging tail tucked into a pair of jeans. I am sorry to say I had any part in their existence. I'm sorry for those people that look like horses, and foxes, and even those with scaled skin like an alligator. However, I am not sorry for their arrival onto this earth, but rather the attitude they are met with. I am sorry that people can take something so beautiful and look at it with scorn. I hope that in short time, people will read this and treat those wonderful, strange breeds with the respect and equality they deserve.

The story really begins back in 2011, when I was working with my professor on a project at a university in New Mexico. Our project was in the field of genetics, and the idea was pretty simple. See, earlier in the decade it was found that certain evolutionary artifacts could be shown by "turning on" normally dormant genes. For example, by turning on the right set of genes, you could theoretically turn a household cat into a saber-toothed tiger. However, you still can't just turn a cat into a dog this way; they just don't share the same evolutionary path. We wondered instead if we could somehow implement certain features of one species into another. Imagine a mouse with feathers, or a fish with fur! It sounded crazy, but we knew the genes responsible for these things. All we had to do was find a way to modify them in the right way and boom! Cats could be dogs.

When the project was small, all we could work with were small fish. The changes we were able to make were small at first; making fins larger, changing their body shapes slightly. We got better each week. Finally, we were able to publish our research and in half a year's time we already had a major lab sponsoring us. GeneRate Labs was their name and they had generously given us a quarter of a million dollars to develop new changes based on larger animals. Pretty soon the technology we helped innovate could give nearly any common animal different fur patterns, or scales, or many more customized features. As was expected, we gave them the rights to the patents, etc. Once the process was automated, it turned out it was pretty easy to mass produce these "chimeras". This was loosely regulated, as lobbyists from the labs had kept the government from stepping in. Animal rights activists hated it, and there were attempts to harass the company using protest, vandalism and smear campaigns.

My research team had previously advised them to keep clear of animals in the same order as humans (primates), just to be safe and prevent any genetic changes that could affect humans. Now, this is important because of the way the changes are made. Basically, an airborne virus is used to deliver the modified DNA to the host animals' sex cells. The hosts are then required to mate and bear the modified offspring. Viruses are harder to contain if contamination occurs, so it was important to ensure that it didn't matter if the virus came into contact with humans. It was all figured out, so no disaster could possibly happen under any circumstance. Unfortunately, one of the R&D techs at the labs developed the same appearance-changing genes for a lemur species for personal benefit. It was still ok, though. The virus vectors were still kept in control, so it still wasn't a big issue since researchers had follow strict containment protocols. However, containment was lost on July 16th, 2013.

An animal rights terrorist group had gotten together and bombed the laboratory facilities late that night to enter them. Not even the security could prepare for that. They had incidentally bombed the vector cold room, and in their attempt to free the animals in the facilities, they had inadvertently infected themselves with the vectors made for the lemur. The virus chosen to act as the gene vector takes about 3 days to be eliminated by the human immune system. For 72 hours, anyone they were near could contract the vector virus, and for 72 more hours, that person could infect others, and so on. It didn't take too long before entire cities were infected. I would say by the end of the virus' spread, about 90% percent of metro areas, and 40% of the world had been affected. No one noticed, though, because only offspring concieved soon after could be affected. No one even blinked because the only symptoms of infection were those of a common cold. The lab directors kept everyone reassured when questioned, because even they didn't know about the lemur vectors. However, on March 23rd, 2014 the first reports of an unusual baby being born surfaced in Arizona.

The baby girl was normal for weight and length and otherwise healthy, but the doctors noted very unusual features: a long tail, a fur-covered body and face, different ears, and a slightly longer face with unusual characteristics. The papers next morning described the child as an animal, but reported it as a result of an unknown genetic disorder. However, many other reports started surfacing, with each case being unique. It turned out that all of the babies who expressed these changes were conceived between mid July and early August. The FDA was pretty quick to investigate and GeneRate Labs was later shut down.

Now, almost forty years later I'm a regretful biology professor at my old alma mater and those kids are grown up. Perhaps the most fascinating thing is that many of them have kids themselves that take traits from both parents. "Furries" are what they have named themselves, most likely due their near perfect resemblance to furries in contemporary art. So that's what they were colloquially called. Not all of society had kindly accepted them and many publicly demeaned them. Some were beaten, ridiculed, called wild animals, and even treated as such. Few even "disappeared" and no one was the wiser. Why would they care? It wasn't like they were humans. They were even given their own species name, Homo animalis, by the media just to emphasize segregation. In the workplace it was near-impossible to find a job if you were a Furry, and bullying was largely aimed at Furry children in schools everywhere. Even colleges had lowered themselves to rejecting Furry students, just to uphold their pitiful reputation. The amount of abuse Furries endured could be compared to the way Jews were treated during World War II Germany, but the worst... ...the WORST are the parents who killed their own children, just because they were different. It was legal; there was a God-damned option on hospital birth forms.

Only a few were able to make it into college, much less a prestigious university. I remember the first time having one in my intro class. She was about five-foot-six and nicely shaped with brown fur and a patch of white on her belly and her forehead, and most of the features of a bat. I'm not afraid to say she was gorgeous, stunning even. Still, she always sat alone in the far corner of the lecture hall, and I had never seen anyone talk to her or vice versa. Most would avoid her when exiting the class. Now, I always tell my story about the aforementioned GeneRate incident, and my involvement, to the class at the end of the semester. This time, however, before I could finish I saw the young bat lady start to cry. I stopped midsentence when I noticed and I can still remember what had followed:

"Miss Cornier, I'm sorry, I realize this must be a very sensitive topic for you. I understand if you refuse, but why don't you come up here with me for a bit." I urged. She reluctantly came up to the stage with her arms, and wings, shyly tucked into each other and her head hung low. I cheered her up a bit with a few jokes and encouraging words before wrapping up my class entirely. "Evolution takes many forms, but the results are always fantastic. Mila here is no exception and she's pretty cute too, isn't she?" She blushed a bit and some of the class nervously smiled and laughed. "I've had a great time teaching all of you and you've all done very well so far. Some of you will have me again next semester, and I look forward to it. So, on that note, good luck on the final, and you all have until December 14th to catch me at my office." I gave Mila a friendly kiss on the cheek before I shook her hand and ushered her off. I could swear her fur started to glow after that and I saw her smile for the first time as she walked off the stage. I know it was a risky move to put her in the spotlight, but everyone in the class seemed to be a lot less judgmental after they saw someone like me give her the respect and admiration she deserved. The last thing I saw as the class left was a handsome young man talking with her out of the hall.

That was 2 years ago. She is still my student to this day, and I am invited to her baby shower as a guest speaker next week. I wish I could say there are happy stories like that for all of her kind. I can only imagine what life is like for others in public with all of the ridicule, hate, and abuse that is still thrown at them... ...and it's all my fault.