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Chapter 7: Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

Perspective: Daniel

"You… you’re a criminal." Eddie said.

From the way Gordon flinched, I could tell this had sent a powerful pang of guilt through him.

"A vigilante." he corrected with a sigh.

"You’ve killed people." Eddie said.

"People who had it coming." Gordon replied. "People who would’ve killed even more of us."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"What I don’t get is why you can’t even begin to see our side." Gordon said. "I saw news coverage of the protests outside your lab. You’ve seen the worst in those people. What—"

"That doesn’t mean I want them all dead." Eddie said. "They were loud, stupid, and annoying, and believe me I wanted them gone, but not like that."

Gordon sighed.

"What if they’d threatened you?" he asked, leaning closer. "What if they’d actually hurt or killed one of your colleagues here?" Eddie grimaced, glancing toward Jess. "What if one or more of them had brought a gun to that protest at your lab?"

"We had armed guards escort us in for that reason." Eddie said.

"But if they had failed?" Gordon prompted. "If you or your friends hadn’t made it?"

"Vigilante justice is not my thing." Eddie snarled.

"I’m not talking about revenge killing after the fact." Gordon said. "That’s not what we do. I’m saying, if you could shoot first and prevent your friends from dying, wouldn’t you?"

Eddie seemed to actually consider this for a moment. Gordon sat back. Another silence permeated the transport.

"I still don’t believe this justifies starting a war." Eddie said.

"We didn’t. That was you. Your virus was meant to be a calling, but instead it hurt more people than it helped." Gordon snapped. "My group is compensating by mitigating the damage."

I noticed Jess glance in his direction this time, her ears twitching.

"By shooting people?!" Eddie blurted. "You’re not mitigating shit! You and your ‘strike force’ are the reason people like the AFA are out in force and you’re the reason they continue to gain sympathy and support! You’re making everything worse!"

"We’re vigilantes, not terrorists." the grey wolf retorted. "We kill those who would kill others, and only as a last resort. Despite what everyone says about us, we’re not out to reform the criminal justice system. Also, I’d like to point out that the AFA was formed before us. We mobilized in response to their actions, not the other way around."

"It doesn’t change the fact that you’re not exactly helping our case. And it won’t change my opinion of you." Eddie growled.

"We did just save your lives." Gordon replied.

This silence was longer than the last and I realized that all the adrenaline was finally fading from my system. Only then did I manage to actually get a good look at Gordon. His armor appeared to be a light bulletproof vest, not quite as thick or bulky as some of the other operatives, emblazoned with a green paw print symbol and the initials FSF printed on each shoulder. The suit was mostly black or dark gray, lined with dark green highlights. If I were any bolder, I might’ve admitted that the colors complemented his fur or brought out his eyes, but of course I wasn’t and Eddie was still well within earshot, eyeing the vigilante and his crew with suspicion. He wasn’t much older than I was, in his early twenties, but I was currently still a minor, albeit for three more months, and while Gordon clearly didn’t care too much about the law, I suspected he had a strong sense of morality. Any sort of relationship between us would be off the table.

"So, your name is Grey and you’ve actually got grey fur? How weird is that?" I chuckled, settling for small talk over any actually flirtatious remarks. Gordon didn’t answer, glancing at the ground.

"Gordon Grey isn’t even your real name, is it?" Eddie said, scowling.

"No." the grey wolf answered.

Well, great. As usual, my attempts to lighten the mood had only made things more awkward. I decided to quit before I made things worse and we were quiet for the rest of the ride, which ended up being over four hours.

——

The sight of the FSF headquarters was almost surreal. There were more anthros in one place than I’d ever seen, many wearing tailored clothing that suited their species. There were canines, felines, avians, cervids; every type of furry you could think of, even some mythical anthro species like gryphons or dragons (I doubted they could breathe fire, but I also wouldn’t have been too surprised if they could). Many wore body armor and carried guns, but some wore everyday clothing and there was even the occasional human in the crowd. Everyone seemed busy, moving from one place to another with determination and sweat on their faces, each of them passionate about their cause.

"Ah, it’s good to be home." Gordon sighed as we stepped out of the back of the truck.

"So what makes you so sure we won’t just turn you guys in?" Eddie said from behind me. "Why take us to your center of operations?"

Gordon raised an eyebrow and gave an actually endearing smirk.

"Because that’d be a really dumb ass move." he said. "It would mean you and your people would also go to jail and wouldn’t have the luxury of a lab like ours to finish your new virus."

"That’s assuming the government actually bothered to take you in and didn’t just shoot all of you under the assumption you’re a threat."

We turned to see another FSF soldier step out of a transport that had pulled up behind ours, a muscular white wolf anthro woman with blue-green eyes and a cocky smile that matched Gordon’s.

"Ah," Gordon said, "this is Lana Warner—Frostfire, to use her fursona name—she’s the chief strategist and the only one here with a higher rank than mine. Also, my girlfriend."

She grinned and put an arm around him. I felt my heart sink despite myself. Of course he had a girlfriend. I looked away and stared absently at the ground.

"I’ll show you guys to the lab." she said. "This way."

She walked off and Eddie and the others begrudgingly followed.

"You’re in charge of the website, right?" Gordon asked. I realized there was no one else left that he could be talking to besides me.

"Huh?" I said.

"The website," he repeated. "You were in charge of that?"

"Well, I wasn’t in charge." I said awkwardly. "I didn’t, like, write the code or anything, there was another guy for that, I just moderated the discussion boards and oversaw the whole—actually, shit, yeah, I guess I am kind of in charge."

"All right," Gordon chuckled, "well I’ll show you to where you can set up the server racks."

He turned back toward the sprawling facility.

"I guess you’d know a little of what it’s like to suddenly be in charge of something crazy and huge." I said.

He glanced at me, then looked proudly out at the army of anthros.

"Yeah. A little." he said.

——

Tyler and I were nearly finished setting up the servers when there was a knock on the door.

"Guys?" Eddie said. "Bad news. Literally."

He motioned for us to step forward as he held out his phone. He tapped the screen and started playing what appeared to be a news report covering our recent escape, which confused me at first as I hadn’t expected there to be any public knowledge of the attack. No one was supposed to know where we were, not even the government, but somehow the AFA had still found us. I realized with a start that the footage I was watching was from the AFA. The voice of a male newscaster narrated the events of a shaky body cam recording, evidently taken from an AFA soldier as they stormed the warehouse.

"The footage shown here was sent by a member of the group known as the Anti-Furry Army. The group claims to have launched an attack on the rogue DARPA science team who fled from a government facility just yesterday. Toward the end of the video, you can see the scientists being carried away by the vigilante organization known as the Furry Strike Force, a—"

"They got footage of our escape," Eddie said, "now the whole country thinks we’re working with the FSF and that we’ve been in league the whole time. We’ll need to make some… adjustments… to the website."

"That’s an understatement." Tyler sighed. "We’ll need a new domain name entirely. The whole thing needs to be reset."

"The site was already invite-only." I said. It only took a second to catch on. "Ah. But I guess half the people who know the link to the site also now think we work with the FSF."

I didn’t point out that we basically did work with the FSF now.

"Right." Tyler said. "We’ll need to change the domain and the password and then send those out to only the people we know won’t try to hack us and track down our IP address."

"So, we have some work to do." I said.

"Yeah." Tyler sighed.

"I’ll leave you to it." Eddie said.

"How are things with… Jason?" I asked tentatively. Eddie paused in the doorway, his ears rotating toward me.

"I’m trying to get through the day without acknowledging him." Eddie said. "I’ll deal with that later."

"It might be none of my business, but… he does still seem to care about you guys. He did what he did to protect you." I said.

"I know." Eddie sighed. "He still lied. The FSF contacted the three of us months ago, asking if we wanted to join. Months… I can’t wrap my head around how he’d justify lying like that for so long."

"I’ve lied to my mom about the fact that I was a closet furry for years." I said. "Doesn’t change the fact that I care about her."

"Also, I feel like things may not be quite as bad as they seem." Tyler added.

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.

"Well… we’re alive, for one thing. We should probably at least thank Jason and Gordon for that, despite our political differences."

"Fair point." Eddie said. "What about the site, though?"

Tyler scoffed.

"Yeah, we were seen escaping with the Strike Force," he said, "maybe we lost some followers. So what?" Eddie and I looked at him. "We’ll handle the website, you do the virus. That’s what this has all been about, anyway. Your virus. Go finish it."

Eddie nodded.

——

Tyler was busy recoding the website, so I decided to visit the FSF’s laboratory where Eddie and the others had set up. Jess was in the process of drawing more blood from Gordon, who was seated in a chair nearby.

"So what exactly was the plan for this virus in the first place?" I said as I strolled into the lab.

"I know you said you’d planned to release it at a convention, but was that the whole plan?"

"Once it was actually finished, yeah." Eddie said.

"Kind of a risky move, though." I said. "Not, like, getting everyone’s permission. Like, say you went to a fur-con and released this virus, turned a bunch of people into anthros. I think at least few of them would have some explaining to do when they got home. What if someone went there without telling their parents and then came back as an anthro?"

"For example." Gordon said, raising an eyebrow at me with a smirk.

"It’s… not like that." I sighed. "I’ve never been to a con. Though if I had, I’d definitely never admit that to my mother, which was my point."

"We actually thought of that, too. The whole getting permission thing." Jess said. "We’d planned to set up a little questionnaire or survey that attendees at the convention would take, in which we posed the ‘hypothetical’ question of if there were a way to be transformed into their own fursonas, would they take it? Then we would tell everyone to gather into groups based on if they answered yes or no, knowing they would likely assume it was an icebreaker activity or something, and then release the virus in the group who answered yes."

"You guys really did think of everything, didn’t you?" Gordon chuckled.

"What about the cure for the first strain?" I asked. "I mean you should keep working on the vaccination for that, shouldn’t you? Being an anthro should be a right, a choice that people can make, not something we force on them."

Eddie smiled.

"That’s just it." he said. "The second strain is the cure for the first. Once they’re infected and the neural link is established in the host—"

"They’ll revert back to human form if they’re not a furry." I said, catching on. "That’s… that’s actually genius!"

"What’s more, the second strain provides a more flawless transformation." Jess spoke up. "So those who had problems after transforming during the first strain should be entirely healed of those maladies when the second virus hits."

"Exactly." Eddie said.

"So, Gordon, how’d the virus find you?" Jess asked as she withdrew the thin needle from his arm.

"I, uh… I was infected voluntarily." Gordon sighed. "Look, it’s not what you think. I didn’t go to a super-spreader con or whatever. I played it safe. I did what I could to catch the virus, but made sure to disinfect whatever I touched. Then when I was sure I had it, I quarantined myself in my room. My family was never touched by the virus."

"And where are they now?" Eddie asked. "What, you just left them behind to go on this little crusade?"

"No." Gordon said. "They’re here. Safe."

"What’d they think about you getting infected on purpose?" I asked.

"They helped me do it." Gordon said. I raised my eyebrows. "I mean, they were always supportive. They understood that this was important to me."

I felt a pang of envy in my heart, wondering how things might have been different if I’d been infected before this…

A huff of frustration from Gordon snapped me out of my train of thought.

"You know, you guys have a lot of balls calling me a vigilante." he said to the scientists. "I mean I am, but you’re not any better."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Eddie snapped.

"You admitted you always intended to release this virus!" Gordon said. "You may have planned out a lot, but what about when it went global? Even if no one died from the virus itself or from any health complications—which would be extremely unlikely—what about people like the AFA? Did you just think people would accept the fact that one day every furry became a living version of their fursonas? Did you even consider the backlash it would cause?"

"Of course we did." Eddie says. "We knew people would react dramatically, especially the conservatives."

"They burned down my goddamn neighborhood." Gordon snarls. "‘Dramatic’ doesn’t even cover it. These people are not conservative, they’re vitriolic, they’re psychopaths."

"Those people existed long before our virus." Eddie said.

"But your virus gave them reason to act. A threat to rally against." Gordon stood and tried to shake off his head rush—he was likely a bit light-headed from the blood withdrawal.

"So, say we developed some method of letting furries choose to become anthros." Eddie said. "Many of them still would have done it. The world still would have been changed."

"So it’s better for all of them to be transformed by a virus?" Gordon challenged. "To paint a target on their backs so that the AFA could come for them whether they wanted it or not?"

"He… has a point, actually." I said, jumping in tentatively. Eddie looked at me in a way that made me want to shrink into myself, but I tried to hold my ground. "I-I mean, if my mother had seen me transform into my fursona, she would have lost her shit and disowned me. I don’t know what might’ve happened after that…"

Gordon stepped closer to Eddie, taking advantage of the fact that he was slightly taller than the fox, and I saw a momentary flicker of fear in Eddie’s yellow eyes as his pupils started to narrow into slits.

"You have the gall to stand there and call us killers when you planned to release that virus knowing people would die. Our people." Gordon growled. "At least the people we kill are the bad ones."

He turned and stormed out of the room. Eddie started to follow, but Jess put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to face her and she looked at him sadly.

"He’s right, Eddie." she said.

——

I caught up with Gordon in the hallway outside the lab.

"Gordon, hey." I said. He turned and looked at me like he knew I was there before turning around and I guessed he’d likely heard or smelled me coming.

"There’s, uh, something I wanted to ask." I said. I took a breath and sighed, preparing myself.

"That mess you pulled us out of back at the warehouse… truth is, I’d only been with the others for a day by that point."

"Shit." he said. "So you’re really new to this, huh?"

"Yeah." I said. "I almost… died… and I would’ve been powerless to stop it. But worse, I… if one of them had died in front of me, I would’ve felt like it was my fault. I don’t want that. I don’t want to feel like that ever again. I want you to train me."

"You want to join the fight?" he asked.

"I wouldn’t say join…" I said. "More like I want to… go on the defensive. If that makes sense."

"You want the training, but you don’t want to be involved with my group." he said.

"Yeah, sort of." I said. "If that’s okay."

"Well I mean we’re already giving the lab and the spare room over to you guys." Gordon laughed.

"Though I guess it’s the ‘server room’ now. Yeah, sure, I can train you."

"Thanks." I said, smiling. "Really."

"Don’t mention it." he said.

"You said your parents live here, with you?" I asked. Gordon nodded.

"You want us to pick someone up? We can—"

"No, no." I said quickly. He raised an eyebrow.

"Mom and I don’t have the best relationship." I sighed. When he realized I wasn’t going to elaborate, he nodded.

"And your father…?" he asked tentatively.

"Never in the picture." I said with a shrug. "He left my mom the minute he found out she was against abortions."

"Yeesh." he said. "Sorry about that."

"It’s fine." I said with a shrug. "I never knew the bastard."

"Well, I meant about—"

"Oh, yeah, no, my parents had unprotected sex 17 years and nine months ago and bam, there I was. I came to terms with the fact that I was a mistake a long time ago. Not sure my mom ever did, though."

He raised an eyebrow again, this time with a small smirk.

"Yeah, sorry, dark and self-deprecating humor is kind of my thing. Hence, wasting days of my life on Reddit."

He chuckled.