FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is the last one. Time to move on to my next project. Ninjas, dragons, or weres, its all up to the toss of the dice now.

Contains mature themes, subject matter which may be innapropriate for those under the age of 18 . . . We've heard it all before. Its the same old song and dance. Enjoy. ^-^

Part four: Evolution.

The long night has finally ended and the Earth has begun to heal its wounds. Though its scars remain, those changed by the virus have all but abandoned their old lives. Preferring instead to embrace the new world, and discover its many wonders.

"WARNING." Flashed across the screen in bold letters. "Primary systems are malfunctioning . . . guidance systems are offline . . . Auxiliary controls offline . . . back up generator . . ." The escape pods mechanical voice faded away.

"Offline. I know I know." Quite possibly the last man alive swore softly as yet another system malfunction registered on screen. "Is there anything that's not broken on this floating tub?"

"Remaining power is insufficient to maintain life support functions. Switching to stasis mode to preserve energy."

"No, no, no." He pried the control console open. Only to reveal a twisted mess of fused circuit boards and wiring that had seen better days. "Doing that would be very, very, bad." Pulling out an emergency repair kit he started working. "Once we're caught by the earth's gravity we'll be pulled towards the planet. And unless I can get the override for the thrusters working we won't be able to break free."

"Switching to stasis mode." The escape pods voice systems attempted a reassuring platitude in a bright cheery voice. "Pleasant dreams, Carl Walker."

Carl was able to catch a glimpse of the Earth from the window on the pod's door as they slowly began to drift towards it. "Oh fuck me . . ."

* * *

"Uh. . ." Carl tried to ease the tension between his eyes as he stumbled from the escape pod. The air was alive with the sound of birds driving jackhammers through his skull. Or maybe they were just singing, it was hard to tell with the way his head felt like it was splitting apart.

Falling to his knees he held onto the ground until the world stopped spinning. When he could manage a coherent thought he asked. "Computer. How long was I in stasis for?"

There was no response.

"Computer?" Carl turned to look behind him. The entire pod was buried beneath a mound of green.

Covered in thick trailing vines it was as if the pod had taken root in the earth and was now a home to various mosses, flowers and insects. Not one of which he could recognize.

"That long huh." Carl managed a few tentative steps. His body felt like it had been set on fire. "Guess there's no other choice but to try and find civilization then." If there's any left.

He didn't get very far before he began to feel as if the forest itself was watching him. Silent eyes seemed to stare from everywhere, offering little solace with their inhuman gaze.

Carl shivered. The hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand on end. Then he realized it. The forest had grown silent. There was nothing, not even birds singing, simply the ethereal stillness that seemed to seep into the very earth.

Someone shattered the silence by yelling. "Get down!"

Carl didn't need to be told twice. As he fell flat a woman dropped to the ground from a tree above him. He had to blink twice just to believe what he was seeing. Long slender legs gave way to a graceful form blessed with caramel colored fur. Her tail swayed back and forth creating drifting shadows in the sunlight.

Her clothing had been patterned to perfectly blend her fur coloring with tree bark. It created an effect that would leave her almost invisible if she leaned against a tree and stood still.

As if attracted simply by her presence alone a pack of wolves drifted from the woods.

Half the size of horses the moved with a grace and intelligence that belied their origins.

"This pack has been making trouble for some of the local villages." She said. "Thanks for luring them out into the open for me."

* * *

The strange woman lashed out with metal tonfa's. The blow snapping a wolf's neck with a sickening crack. Starting her own weapons spinning with a flick of the wrist she said. "Stay still and they ignore you." She smiled and her eyes shined like stars in the sky. "Don't worry. I can handle them on my own."

Carl felt himself at a loss for words. "Sure. Stay still. No problem."

Watching her in action was awe inspiring. She was an artist. Using soft flowing movements she seemed to dance on invisible currents of air. Her tonfa swinging about dealing death and destruction. With no wasted movements she made short work of the mutant wolf pack.

A truly massive wolf, bigger even than all the others had been circling around them the entire time. Watching the way she fought. Studying her with almost human intensity.

It rushed her. Lunging in from a spot that would leave the sun in her eyes the moment she saw it.

"Behind you!"

He needn't have warned her. The world slowed to just short of stopping as pivoting on the ball of her foot she unleashed a powerful kick that sent the dire wolf spinning through the air.

She was in motion before it had even had a chance to land. With a rapid series of strikes she juggled it in the air, before snapping its its neck with a final blow that slammed it straight into the ground.

Cleaning her weapons on the grass she looked at him and said. "Damn things regenerate if you don't do enough damage. Killing them once usually isn't enough. Now. Why were you wandering through the wastes without a weapon anyway?"

Carl's mouth hung slightly agape. He had just been saved from a pack mutant wolves by a woman who also happened to be a talking kangaroo. Why lie? Things could hardly get any stranger. "The lunar colony came under attack and we were ordered to evacuate, but there was a malfunction in my escape pod's guidance control systems." He pointed to the pod just beyond a copse of trees. "I crash landed nearby."

Carl didn't particularly like the way she was looking at him. It was the look you gave to someone you wanted to humor, while you were secretly thinking they were crazy. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head on something? Maybe have a little to much to drink?"

He growled low in his throat. "I am not drunk!" The words that issued forth from his mouth sounded more like a clipped bark than anything else. The sound surprised him.

She sheathed her tonfa at her side and held her hands out to placate him. "I'm not saying you are. It's just . . . how else would you explain such an extraordinary story?"

"I'll show you the pod if you don't believe me." He struggled to stand, but his legs were still unsteady from being out of use for so long and he fell over.

"Let me help you." She let him lean on her shoulder for support. Together they managed to achieve an awkward but steady gait. "I'm Sara by the way."

Up close she seemed even more remarkable than he had first thought. "Carl. I'm Carl."

He took a deep breath and stopped short. He could smell her. Really smell her. It was like she was wearing some kind of perfume that no one could ever duplicate. It was a scent all her own and it teased him in ways he hadn't thought possible.

"Careful Carl," She said with a hint of playfulness to her voice. "Wag that tail of your's any harder and we'll both fall over."

"I have a tail?" He used his hand to feel for the offending appendage, eventually grasping it and realizing the implications. "Oh shit. I have a tail!"

It was the last thing he said before the rush of darkness streaming forth from the shadows of the forest swallowed him whole.

* * *

The hospice was lit by softly glowing ferns that grew in pots suspended from the ceiling.

With hands outstretched Pios probed Carl's body for any possible sign of injury, physical or otherwise.

"I found him wandering through the wastes." Said Sara. "Think you can do anything for him?"

Pios closed his eyes as he concentrated. "I'm not sure. His fever is unlike anything I've ever seen before." Touching two taloned fingers to Carl's forehead he said. "His mind is in turmoil as well. Almost as if his entire body was trying to reject something essential to his existence."

Sara rolled her eyes as she willed herself to be patient. "And for those of us not blessed with psychic powers that means . . . what?"

Pios chuckled. "Forgive me, I often forget what its like to communicate verbally. It's such an imprecise mode of speech."

Sara resisted the impulse to reach out and smack him. Barely. "Spare me the cerebral speak and just tell me what's wrong with him."

"He's having a dream." Pios feathers ruffled slightly. "One that's killing him."

"So what can we do?"

Pios opened his eyes. "There isn't much we can do. Either he awakens from the dream or he dies in his sleep."

"I don't like exactly that last one."

"Neither do I." He offered her his hand. "Shall you journey forth to find him then?"

Sara spared a moment to glance at Carl's sleeping form. For a wolf, she decided, he wasn't that bad looking. "You had better be worth it."

Taking Pios' hand was like stepping off a cliff. Even though her feet were touching the ground the overwhelming sensation of falling filled the room.

Pios voice seemed to reach her from across a vast distance. "There's just one problem. If he dies, then you will die as well." As he spoke the walls melted away, revealing a metal corridor surrounded by unfamiliar stars.

"Greaaaatttttt." Said Sara as she took stock of the dream world surrounding her. The place was more alien to her than anything she had ever seen before. "Now you tell me."

* * *

Carl looked at himself in the mirror and struggled to reconcile his reflection with the image of his former self that he held in his mind. The midnight black fur, the piercing blue eyes, they marked him as being different. Changed from what he had been before.

The fact that he still stood like a human was a comforting consolation, but his body was now closer in form to that a wolf's. The long sleep sealed in stasis hadn't stopped the virus from infecting him. It had simply changed him without his ever knowing. How long until I forget what I used to look like? He wondered. Or that I was ever human to begin with?

Now that he knew he had been changed it was only a matter of time before the hypnotic suggestion Genetech had programmed into his mind killed him.

They had called it a failsafe, a way of insuring that the virus would be unable to spread to the other colonies inadvertently. It didn't matter that the virus spread through touch, that it could take years, even decades to show signs of infection. It was enough that people were so afraid of being infected that they would look to Genetech for a solution. Even if it that solution was one were they allowed themselves to be turned into a walking timebomb. Dead is dead. He turned away from the mirror and poured himself a drink. At least the virus wouldn't have killed me. Still. There could be worse places to spend your final days.

The suggestion had perfectly reconstructed the lunar colony. Even his personal quarters had been recreated down to the smallest detail. It was a place where he would dream out his final moments, as his body slowly withered away.

He had been assured he would feel no pain, that, for him the time spent in the dream could last as long as he wished it to. A moment or an eternity; both lay within the palm of his hand.

Carl spoke simply to hear the sound of his own voice. "Who would have thought that heaven could be such a lonely place?"

"Your idea of heaven needs a lot of work." Said Sara. "For one thing, where are all the wildflowers?"

Carl looked at the drink he held in his hand. The stuff of dreams was powerful indeed. "How did you get here? Wait. I'm not imagining you am I?"

She reached out and slapped him. "Did you imagine me doing that?"

Carl's reply was an emphatic "No!" He rubbed his face, being struck had actually hurt. "You know a pinch is considered traditional."

She shrugged. "I'm not a traditional sort of woman."

"So I've noticed. But what are you doing here anyway?"

"Saving you of course."

"I thought men were supposed to be the ones who rescued the damsel in distress."

She smiled at him and said. "This isn't some story Carl. It's real life."

* * *

Leaving his quarters behind Sara led him towards where she had first entered the dream. "So where is this place anyway?" She asked.

"A colony we built on the moon. A remnant from the days when we were more interested in exploring space than wiping each other out with whatever weapons our minds could come up with."

She was silent for a moment as she considered his words. "I'm sorry."

"Hmm? Sorry . . . what could you possibly have to be sorry for?"

"Back in the wastes. I didn't believe you were actually telling me the truth. I wanted to though . . . since; ever since I was a child I would look up at the stars at night and wonder just what was out there. And now I'm standing among them. It feels just like a dream."

"This place is a dream."

"Maybe. But it was real once. Before our ancestors threw everything away in a dream of fire."

He needed no explanation. "The cataclysm."

"Carl. Could you, could you tell me how it happened?"

He shook his head. "I was just a soldier on shore leave aboard one of the colonies when it happened. One minute the Earth was pure and blue, the next . . . Genetech destroyed our own planet in an attempt to wipe out some virus. They never told us why. The day after I resigned my commission and took a job as a technician. Helping try to put things back together gave me a sense of purpose that being a soldier never did."

Sara chuckled. "Then they'll love you at Tabana ne Re."

"Tabana ne Re?"

"It's a small village on the edge of the frontier. It's where we are in the real world right now. After you collapsed and I couldn't wake you I brought you to an old friend. He's the one who helped send me here."

"Then I guess when we get out of here I'll owe you for saving my life, twice."

"Oh don't worry. As a professional bounty hunter I have my ways of collecting any . . ." She ran a finger possessively across his chest. "Debts."

* * *

Blocking the exit was Carl. Or at least. An illusion of the human he had once been. "You're not allowed to leave." It said.

"Would the real me please step forward?" The doppelganger looked confused. "I thought so."

Sara had already unsheathed her tonfa. "The real world lies just beyond that shadow right Pios?"

"Correct. He is the guardian of the sealed path. Defeat him and I can open the door."

She passed one of her tonfa to Carl. "Then tell Gram to have a bottle of firewine waiting for me along with the bounty for finishing off the wolves." She saluted her opponent and said softly. "Fighting always makes me thirsty."

Working with Sara was a pleasure. The way she moved, she gave all the training he had received as a soldier a new meaning. It was almost as if they had been fated to meet.

The doppelganger was hard pressed to fight against both of them, eventually resorting to trickery to try to win. "Stop!" It said. "Kill me and you'll only be killing yourself!"

Carl rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Oh please. At least grant me enough sense to which one of us is real." Sweeping out with the tonfa he wiped the shadow from his mind.

Without the suggestion to give it meaning the lunar colony was beginning to disappear, returning to somewhere deep within his subconscious mind.

True to his word Pios opened the door; beyond it Carl could see himself lying on a bed, with Sara standing next to him holding his hand.

Sara walked forward a few steps towards the door, swaying her tail back and forth. To Carl it seemed to be an action both suggestive and seductive all at once. He forced himself to pull his mind out of the gutter, before he gave wolf whistling a whole new meaning. "Wait." He called after her. "Don't these stories usually end with a kiss?"

"Who said anything about this being a story?" Turning to blow him a kiss she said. "See you when you wake up on the other side."

* * *

Sara hefted the pouch. There was enough money to cover her travel expenses for a good long while.

"Ever the wanderer." Said a grizzled old wolf. His fur having long since faded to gray Gram had given up on his wandering days to settle down and help build Tabana ne Re. "Are you sure you won't settle down and help us build?"

"You know me Gram." Sara poured herself a glass of firewine. "Curiosity is in my blood. I can't stand to be in one place for to long anyway."

"That man you found. Pios said he has knowledge that predates the cataclysm."

Sara knocked back the drink in a single swallow, letting the heat slide down her throat and warm her belly. Nursing a second she wondered just how much she could trust him with and what she needed to keep a secret. Finally she said. "So much was lost during the cataclysm. Our knowledge, our history, our past, and now . . . no one even remembers how it happened or why. I want to solve the mystery."

Gram finished off half the bottle in a single go. After wiping his lips with the back of his arm he said. "I know I can't convince you to stay. So all I will say is this. Be careful. If our ancestors did possess the power to destroy the world, then perhaps their's is a knowledge better left buried."

* * *

Night had begun to fall by the time they reached the outskirts of the village. "Most people won't come out this way because of the ghost." Said Sara.

Carl almost scoffed at the idea. "Ghosts aren't real." He said.

Sara pointed towards the mouth of a nearby cave. "Tell that to him."

Carl almost shed all his fur when he saw the pale apparition of a man with white hair and silver cat's eyes seemingly vanish into nothing.

"Don't worry. We'll make camp here for the night and explore the cave in the morning."

Carl shook himself to clear the cobwebs from his mind. Something about that 'ghost' had seemed unnervingly familiar. "Yeah," He said. "The morning. That sounds good."

Sara began building a fire. "Scared?"

He watched her strike a spark from the flint she carried with her. She was even using some of her own fur as tinder. "Yesterday I existed at the center of my own universe, one where the world made sense. Today I learned that the world I knew is gone and nothing will ever bring it back. Scared?" He shook his head. "Ask me again tomorrow."

"Well. I only brought one bedroll." She smiled as she said it. "So either we share or your sleeping out in the cold."

Feeling unusually wistful Carl look up at the night sky and said. "At least the stars are still the same."

* * *

The fire had burned low when Sara shifted to look at him. "You should get some sleep. The barrier created by the espers keeps wild beasts from coming anywhere near the village. So there's really no need for you to keep watch."

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was, for a while anyway. Why don't you come to bed. Its more comfortable over here anyway."

Carl was sorely tempted by the idea. "No. I think I'll be just fine over here."

"If you won't come to me." She said. "Then I'll just have to come to you."

Carl could only stare in open mouthed awe as Sara threw back the blanket, leaving her naked body silhouetted by the firelight. It gave her an almost ephemeral beauty.

Crossing the distance between them she took his hands and placed them against her breasts. "Keep me company tonight Carl. I don't like sleeping alone."

"I really shouldn't. We might."

She silenced any protests he could have made with a kiss. "Your lips may say no." She pressed herself against him, her hands traveling across his body, drifting lower in slow tight circles, until she was stroking the growing bulge in his pants. "But your body is saying yes."

"You make a very convincing argument."

She helped him out of his clothes. "That's not all I can do."

* * *

Sara wrapped her legs around him. Squeezing him with her thighs. Drawing him in with every thrust.

Carl had never felt anything like it. She was tight in all the right places. But every time he pushed forward he felt like he was coming up short somehow.

"Just a little more." She whispered. "Just a little further and . . ." Her words were carried away by her rising climax. A flood of pleasure washing through her body as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in tight. Forcing him forwards that extra bit.

Carl couldn't help himself. His howl echoed through the night as his knot finally slipped inside her.

Caressing her breasts with his tongue before nipping her neck softly he felt himself spill inside her in a warm rush. The feeling of being held so tightly both inside and out was indescribable. While trying to withdraw from her merely elicited a gasp followed by a slight moan. They were well and truly tied.

Carl propped himself up on unsteady arms. A self satisfied smile on his face he looked at her and asked. "So how long should we stay like this?"

She teased her fingers through the fur of his chest and pulled him in for a kiss. Her own smile was equally satisfied. "All night if we have to."

* * *

It was unlike any cave Carl had ever seen before. There was no dampness, no stale taste to the air. And the sharp turns and branching paths that split off at perfect intervals nagged at him. "Something about this place feels familiar." He ran his fingers along a wall. Beneath the trailing vines that clung to them, despite the wear of countless centuries, they were still as smooth as the day they had been made. "This place isn't a cave." He said. "Its Lost Shinjuku."

Sara cocked her head to the side. "Lost Shinjuku?"

"Its, it was, a research facility. Genetech performed experiments here."

"What kind of experiments?" She asked, knowing instinctively that she wouldn't like the answer.

Carl's face was a carefully composed mask, one that showed nothing of the turmoil he felt raging within himself. "The kind that involved people." Sighing he said. "If there is an answer to why the cataclysm happened. It'll be here."

* * *

"I think it still works." The lights slowly flickered to life as Carl's hands flew across the console. They had managed to find an old service shaft that led to the lower levels. Amazingly enough someone had routed all the back up generators into a single subsystem. It had survived countless years and now. He frowned as a systems analysis report flashed across the screen. "There's some kind of program locked into the system. I can't access anything else from this console."

A digital approximation of a human voice issued forth from the speakers. "Time index twenty-one-sixty-six. Final recorded image from observation satellites orbiting Lost Shinjuku." Repeating on screen in an endless loop was a video of Stone Burner detonations scarring the world forever.

Sara stumbled backwards. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. "Its. Its."

Carl clenched his fist as he forced himself to look away. "The day the world died."

Over and over again entire cities were wiped away as a wind of destruction scoured them from the face of the earth. Leaving little if any trace of the fact that they had ever been.

"A cataclysm unlike any the world had ever seen. One that wiped the slate clean. In time, I came to think of it as a kind of Tabula Rasa. A chance for us to start over."

Carl spun around. The speaker had been the ghost.

He was drifting towards the console, passing through whatever debris stood in his way.

He reached out to touch the screen. Then, as if remembering that he couldn't actually touch anything, faltered, a look of profound sorrow in his eyes. "Genetech however, believed that it was a matter of right and wrong. That, once we had gained our own freedom, to think and act as we saw fit and decide for ourselves our own destinies, we became an evil unleashed upon the world. One that needed to be rooted out and destroyed.

"But concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil don't exist in evolution. For there is only the desire for self preservation and the selfish instinct to eliminate any possible competition."

"You! You know something about this! Tell me what happened!"

Carl reached out to her. "Sara. He can't hear you. He's just a hologram. A recording someone made. He's . . . he's not actually real."

She looked confused. "A hologram?"

"I'll explain later. C'mon. We should follow after him before he gets too far away."

* * *

The hologram drifted through abandoned halls, past corridors forgotten even by time. As he went he spoke of the past, while leading them through a place where even angels feared to tread. "From the moment of its conception Lunaforte Granz forever began to alter humanities destiny. The loss of everything we knew was an unavoidable outcome. And yet . . . despite our best efforts, we could not quell the fury raging in our hearts, nor ease the pain of our great regrets. For endlessly we lamented all that had been lost, even as we sought to reclaim it.

"It was an undeniable paradox. That, in order for us to fully embrace our new lives, we first had to forget the old."

"And people were just supposed to accept all of this?" Standing in the hologram's way Carl swept out his hand. "How were people just supposed to forget that they had ever been human! Did you think we wanted to change? Did you think that it was right for you to play god! Tell me Rasler. Was it right to choose for everyone the way things would be?"

The hologram drifted on, oblivious to Carl's outburst. "Eventually I came to a conclusion, a way to solve the paradox. So that such a senseless tragedy need never be repeated again. I would complete the Tabula Rasa. By erasing all knowledge of our former lives and existence from the collective unconscious, I would suppress for a time our innate desire for war. But in so doing, I would condemn myself to a death beyond oblivion, for there would be no one left to remember me as well."

The words shook Carl to his core.

"When compared to the extinction of our entire race, versus the extinguishing of my own self as an existence. It was far from being an easy decision to make.

"But make it I will. And though I will have no memory of it, and thus no regrets. Still will I leave my words behind. So that in this place, all will not be completely lost. For there is still one unresolvable paradox remaining.

"That those who have no past. Have no future."

When they came at last to a door marked with the number twenty-three the hologram stopped and reached out its hand. "Here it all began. And so here it should end." The hologram turned and said. "Only you who has borne witness to the world that was could have come this far. Beyond this moment lies only truth. Whether you decide to embrace it, or cast it away forever is the decision you will have to make. Know then the agony that tore my own heart asunder, as I too was forced to make just such a choice. The password is: Genesis Erased."

With its program finished the hologram of Rasler flickered once and faded away forever into light.

Carl stood before the door. Contemplating what it would mean to simply walk away.

Only he and Sara would ever know why the old world had met its end. Only they would ever know how much had truly been lost.

He began to tremble, the enormity of the choice set before him was overwhelming. "What should I do? I can't make that kind of a choice. Not for everyone."

Sara took him by the hand and said. "Whatever is behind that door won't change this moment. And it certainly won't change the past. What's done is done. All we can do now, is to keep walking forwards."

Nodding in agreement, and praying that he would not become the next Pandora Carl entered the password and opened the door.

Sealed in air tight vacuum packaging to protect them from the ravages of time were books. Thousands of books piled to the ceiling on every subject imaginable. A legacy of knowledge that spanned countless generations.

Yellowed with age and on the verge of crumbling away to dust forever was a single piece of paper.

It said:

To you who have opened the sealed door. And to all those humans born of a new generation. Know you now the truth of the past and my part in preserving humanities legacy. Will you judge us from our mistakes, condemn us for our actions, or forgive us for our sins. The final choice, I leave to you.

Epilogue: That which rests beyond the stars.

Tabana ne Re had changed greatly in six years. No longer was it a small hamlet eking out its survival on the edge of the frontier, but a thriving city that saw trade come in from all the world. After six years of wandering the world together Sara and Carl could hardly recognize it.

"You know." She said. "We could have gotten here sooner if someone hadn't lost our map."

"It was raining. I didn't want it to get wet so I wrapped it up in my bedroll. Its not my fault you keep finding new and innovative ways to misplace it."

She smiled at him, leaning in for a kiss."We only really need one anyway."

He wrapped his arms around her, feeling for a moment the new life growing in her womb. "It feels good to be home."

Sara pulled him in close. "Just shut up and kiss me already."