FSE

Furry search engine

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"You know why you're here."

"Know? No, I can only presume."

"Don't play dumb, start talking."

"But detective, I thought we already were talking."

"Enough of this!" The detective slammed one of his fur covered hand onto the steel table. "I have been searching for you for almost a year now, and damn it I want some answers!"

Across the table the eyes of the suspect, a common enough looking Red Fox, moved slowly from the German Shepherd's hand back to his tired face.

"Answers about what, detective? I have a great many answers, though I suspect you want some in particular."

"I told you, I have had enough of your games. I want to know when, where, and how you did it."

"Oh my detective, I doubt you really want to know that. I mean, since I'm currently sitting in front of you means that you at least know all of those; wouldn't you be much more interested in the why?"

"I have no intention of entering the mind of a psychopath."

"Surely you don't mean that; you've spent the better part of a year following me. After all that time and energy invested, certainly you must have been dying for a chance to sit down with me. And you wish to waste this time with me telling you things you already know?"

The detective could not deny that, though he would never admit it, that after all the time spent on this case the fox was right: the one thing he wanted more than anything else he could remember was to know what could possibly push someone to go as far as the creature sitting in front of him had.

"Fine. Tell me why you did it."

"That's the spirit detective. The truth of it is I had never really thought about why I did it. I suppose that I simply got tired with my life."

"No, you listen to me and you listen good: the bullshit stops now. I have enough evidence to throw your miserable tail in a cage for the rest of what you call life, and if you don't tell me what I want to hear I'm going to do just that."

"But detective, if all you want me to say is what you want to hear, why do you even need me here? Wouldn't it be easier to simply tell yourself that I am crazy, unfit to be in society? The product of a cruel and unforgiving world, one who cracked when presented with the horrors of our reality? If that is what you truly want, simply say so and I will."

After thinking for a moment, the Shepherd remained silent.

"Excellent! Now, as I was saying, I believe I had simply grown bored with my mundane life, as I'm sure you must have numerous times detective. I grew tired of asking myself daily those pointless questions: what should I have for dinner, what is the best type of code for this new program, should I ask the pretty vixen down the hall out for coffee? In their stead, I began to ponder more important questions, like I wonder what the pretty girl's fur would smell like after it had been burnt from her body."

"You're a monster."

"A perfectly valid position detective, but I prefer visionary. See, as I'm sure one who has studied my work so extensively would know, I never personally did anything to those I worked with-"

"Tortured", the detective interrupted.

"Another valid term, detective. As I was saying, I never personally touched them. I simply put them into positions where I could see how far they would go before they broke. And it was then I realized that was the question I should have been asking all along. The deeds that they would do, the character that they exhibited, the way their minds worked fascinated me."

"So you want me to believe the reason you did this was for some quest for enlightenment?"

"Well, the spiritual and cultural connotations of that phrase aside, that would be one way of putting it."

"That was the reason you immolated a mother and her cub?"

"To be fair, she could have saved him. It wasn't my fault that she chose to put her dominant hand into the jar so that she lacked the coordination to insert the key into the lock."

"I've had enough of this" as the detective pushed away from the table and signaled for the door to be unlocked.

"Sit down detective, we both know your curiosity has yet to be satiated. This is your only chance for these answers, as even if we meet again, I will say nothing to you after you pass through the entrance containing us now."

When he heard this, the detective stopped at the threshold, standing torn between two worlds. His captive was right, he couldn't leave, not now. The detective turned around, signaling for the door to be locked again, and sat back in his chair.

"There's a good boy, and so curious too! Why, you even remind me of me at times; or perhaps you are more like this one feline fellow I had the fortune of meeting. If only he had not picked the more interesting of the two doors, then he needn't-"

"I know what happened to him; I was the one who had to clean up after you. I thought you weren't going to explain the how since I already knew that. All I need you for is the why."

"It's so nice to hear you say that detective, but, I'm afraid you already know most of it. I'm sure that one to one who has studied under me for so long this may come as a surprise, but it was as simple as my own curiosity at how we act under certain stimuli."

"That's why you made me sit through this; just so you can tell me you did all of this because you were bored."

"Now detective, I thought I explained that to you: my boredom at the mundane rituals we call life were merely the catalyst which spurred me to my deeds, much like I was the catalyst that spurred you to yours."

"Stop comparing me to you, we are nothing alike."

"Oh, yet another valid proposal detective, but may I offer an opposing view? For what have you been doing this entire time, but trying to figure out how my mind worked, to figure out the character of my being? And for what reason other than to fill your own curiosity? Why, you and I are more alike than I think you would like to admit."

Silence filled the room as one captive waited for the other to react to what had been done. The detective turned his head to look at his reflection in the one-way mirror on the near wall. He knew that on the other side were half a dozen specially trained officers that had been observing everything that happened within the room, recording everything that was said. He knew that he would personally review the tape of this conversation an equal number of times as the number of people in the room.

His gazed shifted over to the reflection of the fox in the same mirror. By some trick of the light, the more he gazed at the reflection, the less it looked like that of the madman that had entered the room thirty minutes ago. Eventually, he couldn't find any discernable difference between how he looked in the mirror and his captive. He turned his gaze away from the mirror and back to his other sitting across the table, and saw the flash of a smile draw across his lips, as though he had just made the move in a protracted chess match that assured checkmate.

"Enough of this, I'm done playing this game of yours. I won't be some experiment for you to examine."

The detective pushed himself away from the table and walked briskly to the door, again signaling that we wished to be let out.

"Oh, but detective?"

He stopped, again at the doorframe, but he vowed to leave this time. He sensed the fascination he felt towards the man beside him dwindling, and he would not remain long on account of that alone again. The detective turned his head in order to meet the gaze of his captive.

The two simply stared at each other for what seemed like a year, though in reality it was only a couple of seconds.

"Detective, when you next see your wife, do tell her I am sorry. So many nights you had to leave her alone because of your work on me, I can't but help to feel remorse on the effect that I had on your family."

The detective left the questioning cell, and closed the door behind himself personally this time.