FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I feel a vague sense of unease. This is an unusual feeling for me; and especially unusual for me to not know why it is there. I stare at the glass in front of me as I try to figure out the reason for the feeling yet again. The drink that I stare at was one the bartender recommended, and was originally green with blue ice in it. Now it has turned a uniform brown and smells odd. I have never been a fan of these reaction drinks.

However the drink isn't my reason for feeling uneasy. Even if I wasn't here for business drinking isn't usually my sort of thing. Neither are bars, despite my being quite familiar with many such establishments. The one I am in now is fairly typical for a waypoint station: Hexagonal shape due to the space's original use as just another cargo section, with the entrance from the ceiling in the middle and the bar itself hugging three of the sides. I still don't know why almost all these stations have a bar with the exact same design. I guess there might be a company out there putting together modular kits for the purpose, but if that were the case then I wouldn't expect all of them to look so homemade. I can still see a few logos from the crates that were used to form the bar, despite the layers of paint. I guess the similarity is just another of the Universe's many unsolved mysteries. A few tables in the same homemade style are scattered around the space, with more stacked behind the bar.

The staff here are definitely not a reason to be uneasy. The few I have interacted with are friendly enough. The bartender was unexpectedly polite, especially for a computer. I look over from my table in one of the corners opposite the bar and can see the crystalline globe of his body secured in a harness. I barely spare a though to wonder once again what it must feel like to be composed of super-fluids and quantum entanglement. The answers they give to the question never make sense to me. The rest of the staff are mostly sitting at the bar and having drinks of their own. The last ship came through several hours ago, so right now is a fairly quiet time with few patrons.

Coming to the patrons is when I find the first real possibility for the source my unease. At a table near the middle of the room sits a fellow corax. Since I first came in she has tried to seduce everyone in the place except the computers. Normally I would be flattered to be included, but she has the wrong kind of hungry look in her eyes. That and the way her black feathers twist slightly at the tips tell me she is almost certainly a blood addict looking for her next fix. I told the bartender about her, and he said the station security personnel were already waiting for her to leave so they could pick her up and get her to therapy. But in the mean time she continues to give me a glance every few minutes. While I do shift on my perch in discomfort every time she does this it doesn't feel like the main cause for my unease. I don't know why exactly, but I move on anyway.

The rest of the patrons are less likely to be a source of unease. A group of five dragons are in the corner to my right. Only one of them is lucky enough to have her natural wings; the rest have field generator implants. It doesn't seem like they all know each other, but dragons usually prefer to stick with each other. I guess it comes from their culture. The only computer other than the bartender is talking with two coraxi and a human. They look to be arguing but their privacy field makes it hard to tell for sure. There are several other groups of humans and coraxi around, but few enough that they have plenty of space in between them.

Having covered everything else I am left with my business as the source for my unease. However I am unsure why that would be the case either. I admit to myself that it is unusual. A message sent to my home terminal, with no source, identification, or ever the ID of a routing server. Only the promise of payment for the use of my talents and the name "Shadow." An uncreative nickname at best, which suggests that the removal of the tracking data from the message was done to prove they have the resources to pay, rather than through skill. They are also almost an hour late, which on a station like this either means they are delaying on purpose or missed their transport. But none of this is really new to me. Most of the work I do is for eccentrics, with more money than sense. The choice of time was a bit odd. Usually if you are meeting covertly in a bar you want it to be crowded so nobody notices you. Right now if somebody were to come walking up to me almost everyone in the room would notice it, if only in passing. But if the client doesn't mind being seen then I don't either.

Having come to no further conclusions than the last thirteen times I contemplated my unease I sigh and decide to relax a bit. I chose this corner particularly because of its location above a gap in the gravity generation net. I enjoy the feeling of being a bit lighter than usual. No more than a kilogram or two difference, but still nice. I think about ordering a replacement for my drink, but decide not to.

Feeling bored I decide to practice some of my skills. I activate a couple of my implants and mentally reverse the noise scrambling on the conversation between the computer, human, and coraxi. It takes me a moment, but soon I can understand what they are saying. I was right in thinking it was an argument, but it's nothing serious. Just the pair of coraxi trying to hire the computer as a pilot for a ship, and the human as a jump-weaver. The argument seems to be going nowhere, but holds my interest quite nicely for a time.

I become so focused on the argument that for a moment I forget to pay attention to the rest of the room. That attention suddenly returns when I hear a voice right next to me. It is a voice which I have read about many times but never hoped to hear in person. It sounds like the harmony that a crystal glass makes when tapped. "You shouldn't be listening in like that," it says. A statement with no hint of an accusing tone.

Startled, I look at the source. A roughly spherical cloud of what looks like thick black smoke hovers to my left. I can see faint hints of a shifting geometric structure inside, but otherwise nothing distinct or solid. I realize with shock, awe, and just a hint of fear that the name on the note wasn't a nickname at all, and that my sense of unease was completely justified.

"Hello Aen," the Shadow says, "Would you like to hear about the job I have for you?"

__________________________________________ Author's Note:

Well I finally rewrote this. Took me several months, but now I am much happier with it.

Sorry for not getting it done when I said I would Khaesho, but at least it is almost twice as long and I actually have an idea where I am going from here.

If you spot any mistakes please tell me. Also if you have any questions about the setting, characters, or what I was thinking when I came up with parts of it then don't hesitate to ask. And that includes you, random person reading this three years down the road.

Speaking of the setting, it is Mine. It is mostly original, with only inspiration taken from other works. Don't use without permission.

The corax are genetically engineered ravens, with intelligence and size around the same as human's. But they are still mostly feral in form. I use coraxi as a plural, but I might change that later.