FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

As much as she'd learned from discovering the merits of solitude, a year of isolation hadn't done much to improve her social networking capabilities by that point. She hadn't known anyone she could use as a focus group to get a second opinion from (or even try it on herself because how would have she known if the drug worked without anyone around for her to feel empathy for?), any poor devil she could have struck a Faustian bargain with, anyone to get the word out about her invention or any second set of hands to help her carry any loads or to deliver any packages for her. Two heads were better than one, she'd known that most people generally believed, and she'd thought that having someone around to prove that she wasn't the only one who found what she'd be selling worthwhile would have lent her more credibility than she'd have had on her own. She'd been able to fight two or three people as easily as one, to treat three or four adversaries as two and four or five as three, but beyond that, even with her capacities, she'd known that she could still have been overpowered, and figured that having a bodyguard around in case anything went awry couldn't have been such a bad idea. She'd wanted a comrade, a travelling companion, someone who could serve as a mirror to see herself reflected in, whose voice could serve as confirmation that she'd still existed.

She may not have used Klein's contact information in about a year by then, but he'd always been a believer in better late than never, said he'd be glad to get back in touch with her to catch up a bit and had told her where and when she could find him as well as how to get there. She'd piloted her sub all the way up north to the country he'd lived in and had docked it somewhere reasonably well concealed, not that just anyone could have broken into it, mind. She'd heroically navigated the foreboding twists and turns of the port town which she'd had to settle for as a stop along the way since her ground-faring travel abilities had still been relatively limited and she'd gotten a ticket to their mutually agreed-upon meeting place at the bus station she was currently waiting in line at so that she could eventually bridge the remaining distance between them.

The waiting line was contracting, expanding and waving erratically about like an intoxicated snake-accordion. People felt like swarming flying insects buzzing around her with their sting safely tucked away but still within easy reach at all times. She felt like a salmon swimming against the current, like a dolphin trapped in a tuna net, the streams of people flowing through the corridors reminding her of the agitating nervous impulses coursing through her own nerves at the very sight of it.

"Why does there have to be so many of them? Wouldn't much less still be plenty?"

Too slow in the front, too fast in the back, easy on the sides, there.

• HEY!

Caught in the crossfire.

• Don't apologize or anything!

A rabbit in a suit, who'd somehow escaped her continuous visual sweeps of the area, had blindsided her, slammed right into her and was still too busy bowing down to stare at his busily tick-tocking pocket-watch as he sped away to even look back at her, much less waste time on luxuries like civility.

"You're not supposed to want to slam into me any more than I want to slam into you, so why am I doing all the work instead of us working together to reach a goal you don't even seem to care about reaching?"

• I'm talking to you!

A peacock shot her a haughty dirty look, for making so much out of what she'd just been through, no doubt. She bit her tongue and grit her teeth, holding back from telling him just how easy projection could make snap judgments, that ignorance was only not an excuse when the wilful kind led to assumptions, that she didn't want revenge, justice, compensation or even apology, that just an acknowledgement of her existence would have been enough. It wasn't like she'd been the one to slam into him, but if that look had been any indication, she might as well have.

"Am I a bad person for wishing I could just kill some people with a single thought sometimes?"

She just shook her head and sighed, resolving to wash up to remove the stain of stupid whenever she'd be back on board and leave it at that.

The incident had drawn unwanted attention to her and she saw a golden retriever spotting her, breaking out of the crowd and honing in on her. Everyone knows you can't say no to a golden retriever, don't we?

"Let's see if there's a crack in the ground I could try to squeeze into..."

• Excuse me, miss.

He sounded like he was telling her more than asking her.

• Yes?
• Do you have fifteen dollars?
• Pardon?

She'd been raised to always say 'pardon' rather than 'what' so as not to accidentally come off as rude, but even though it wouldn't have been exceptional for her to give a dollar or two to a beggar without a second thought and she'd even gone as high as five once or twice, she couldn't help but feel that she had to make sure she'd confirmed the question she'd just been asked before accepting it as fact.

• I said, I need to get fifteen dollars.
  • Why that much specifically?
  • Because that's all I'm missing to buy a bus ticket.
  • Why do you need to buy a bus ticket?
  • Because I'm going somewhere! What else do you think?

Mano frowned and showed both upper palms to him.

• Hey, take it easy, I was just asking because I was wondering where you could be going, that's all.
• What is this, some kind of an investigation?
• You don't have to tell me anything, I was just curious, that's all.
• Well, I don't have time to stand here answering questions all day, so if you're not going to give me anything...
• I will, I will, just give me a second, okay?

Mano rummaged through her cloak pockets then handed him a neatly folded piece of paper he snatched and looked at disdainfully before pocketing it grudgingly.

• Five's already a pretty good start, isn't it?
• I'm afraid that's not going to be enough, no.
• Pardon?

"Hook, line and sinker."

• I already told you, I need fifteen dollars so I can buy a bus ticket.
• So all you have to get is two more like this and you're all set, right?
• Why would you force me to keep looking around for other people to get money from even though you're right here right now?
• Listen, I really, really wish I could help you more, but see, I came all the way from halfway across the world just to meet someone here tonight, and I only brought my bare essentials with me.
• So?
• If I spend any more of what little money I brought, I'm not going to be able to buy him a bus ticket so he can come along with me tomorrow.
• So what you're telling me is that he deserves to ride the bus and I don't. What's he got that I don't have?

"Manners, for one thing."

• That's not what this is about.
• Oh, I know what this is about.
• I don't have that much to begin with.
• Where are you going?
• Why are you asking?
• If you have enough left for your friend's bus ticket, then you either have more than fifteen dollars on you or if the ticket's so cheap that you'd need less than that, you might as well walk there.
• It's not that simple.
• Don't talk down to me.
• I haven't been meaning to and I apologize if I have.
• Sorry doesn't cut it.
• What would cut it, then?
• Do you have fifteen dollars?

"Brahma, give me patience, but damn it, give it to me now."

• As a matter of fact, I do.
• Now, we're getting somewhere.
• That's not the point.
• Really? I'd say that's precisely the point.
• The point is that I have exactly as much as I need, no less but no more.
• You don't have to rub it in quite as much, you know?

One thing she'd learned from Elizabeth was that one reason for which poetry creates an emotional impact on people is that people's minds already naturally function by analogy by default, and poetry just goes right in and takes advantage of an already existing tendency. It'd become difficult for her not to begin to subconsciously draw analogies between events in her personal life and the greater scheme of things, and this wasn't always a convenient way of thinking. Right then even though she thought the guy was being a jerk, she still couldn't help but think of him as the Universal Poor Man yearning to have enough and to think of herself as the Greedy Capitalist Villain withholding it from him, who she most certainly didn't want to have to be. How much she'd given to others before and how much she was intending to give others in the future didn't make any difference somehow. He knew this, and she knew he knew it, but for some reason that still didn't change anything.

• I'm not.
  • What do you call what you're doing, then?
  • I call it explaining to you why no matter how much I wish I could I simply can't afford to help you any more than I already have so it's going to have to be enough for now. You can't get blood from a turnip and I don't have that much to begin with, you know?
  • You still have more than I do, don't you?
  • I don't owe you anything.
  • I need it more than you do.
  • That's really what you believe, isn't it?
  • Absolutely.

"The less people have, the more what they give means coming from them, isn't that how things are supposed to work?"

• Isn't other people's money just as good as mine is?
• I'm going to have to wait for another long while before I'll have gotten enough from other people to get where I'm going.
• Is that a problem?
• Can't you tell?
• What's wrong with waiting?
• I've already been waiting for hours.
• Then what's a few more?
• You wouldn't be saying that if you'd been waiting for as long as I've been. It'll take forever. Generous people are hard to come by, you know.
• Can you blame them? I gave you a hand, you asked for an arm and a leg, who wants to be put through that?
• How can you stand there and say something like that to me? You seem like you've got arms and legs to spare.

"Am I being put on trial, is this an advertisement, is this some kind of twisted hazing ritual, is there a hidden camera, for crying out loud, is this a dream?"

• I am not going to have this conversation. I've done my part. Other people can take over from now on. I suggest asking for smaller amounts at a time, it increases your chances of getting them.
• You know, I'm disappointed in you. I can't believe I actually called you a generous person earlier. I thought you were different.

"I'd call this cheap manipulation if it wasn't for the fact that it doesn't seem like it's going to be very cheap at all."

• What if I told you I can borrow ten from my friend tonight and give it to you tomorrow?
• I'd say you seem to have forgotten the part about the waiting.
• How about I give you ten just so you'll leave me alone?
• That'd be fine.
• Thank gods!

She shoved another five into his hand without being able to conceal her mounting exasperation and turned to walk away from him but stopped right in her tracks when she heard him start talking again.

• Um, that's only five.
  • That's right. I told you I'd give you ten, the first five plus the second five, that's ten, that means you've got as much as you just said I needed to give you for you to finally leave me alone. We had a deal, didn't we?
  • It's just that when you said 'ten' I thought you meant a whole other ten, in addition to the first five, which would have been enough for what I need it for. This still isn't enough. You shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.
  • Get the hell away from me or I'll call the police!

Mano didn't generally think of the police as her ally, so for her to have been threatening someone with calling them for help, she had to have become pretty desperate by then.

"Speak of the devil."

• What seems to be the problem here?

Rather than to plead her case the way she'd threatened to, Mano chose to try to use the doberman's arrival and the fact that the retriever's attention was being diverted toward him as a distraction to make a stealthy tactical retreat while she had the chance.

• Nothing, it's just that, you see, I need fifteen dollars, sir.

She didn't even slow down as she looked back over her shoulder in disbelief because she didn't want to get dragged into the whole infernal dynamic all over again, but the retriever was probably not aware that she was still well within hearing range when he said that. She couldn't believe he was just starting over with the original amount.

• FIVE!

"Praise Ganesh! My bus is here!"

The ticket-ripping greyhound at the end of the waiting line tilted his head at her questioningly.

• Excuse me, miss, are you sure you're all right?
• Yes, yes, thank you, sorry about the trouble, sir. I get a little nervous in crowds and sometimes it becomes a little difficult for me to calm down after I've been in an agitated one like this for a while, but I should be fine after just a few minutes on the bus with everyone sitting still. I'm not a troublemaker or anything, don't worry.

"Pleasedon'tsearchmybagpleasedon'tsearchmybagpleasedon'tsearchmybag..."

Her ticket ripped, she took two steps and a half toward the open bus door.

• Uh, miss?
• Yes?
• I'm afraid your bag isn't going to be allowed on the bus with you.
• Pardon?
• It's not compatible with the bus company's approved allowed luggage carrying measurements, you see.

"Someday I need to remember to go in some great big desert in which there'll be no one around for miles and scream."