Chapter 5: Gordon

Perspective: Gordon

"I'm sure you all know why we're here." said Alex Black.

The lion anthro's voice was as commanding and solemn as ever, and with his broad shoulders, bodybuilder physique, and that wide mane, he was certainly intimidating. I suspected this was one of the reasons he had been granted a place on the FSF's inner council.

"Many members of our organization have become restless." he continued. "They are insisting we do more."

The other council members stirred at his words. Some seemed uncertain, others actually looked intrigued, even inspired by this proposition. Not enough of them looked as apprehensive as I felt.

"Our fight against the AFA and others like them has gone on for months," he said. "There are those who feel we should be taking steps toward ending this fight for good. Myself among them."

"What do you mean by that exactly?" Lana said next to me. The white wolf leaned forward in her chair as she spoke, her tail swishing once and her ears twitching, rotating toward him like radars.

"The FSF needs to start prosecuting these anti-furry terrorists." Alex growled. "We have to show them their behavior won't be tolerated!"

Some of the other council members murmured agreement.

"I agree with Alex here." said the sly voice of Marik, the feline anthro whose piercing blue eyes seemed to examine the soul of anyone he looked toward. He was the head of our reconnaissance teams, charged with gathering intelligence about the movements of our foes, one of our many ex-military allies. "If there is a time to strike, it is now, while the AFA is still small and reckless. We cannot afford to let them continue to gain ground!"

"The FSF is still small, too." said the smooth voice of Iona Peters, a black cat anthro and the FSF's logistics manager. "We can't overexert ourselves, or—"

"We are faster, stronger!" Marik spat. "We have senses more than twice as great as they do! They hunt us down, when it is us who should be hunting them!"

"Enough!" I yelled, quieting them. "Have we really all forgotten why we're here?? It hasn't even been a year since all of this started! This group was founded on the principle of preventing violence, preventing death, not causing more of it! Pushing too far will only start a war!"

"Years from now, we will look back on this moment in history as a major turning point!" Alex argued.

"Our kind have been in the shadows for too long! If we don't show them who we are today, if we don't push back, who will? Can you truly say that you have done everything you could do to protect your people, Gordon?"

"Yes." I said. "I can. I won't start a war. That's how more of us die. The FSF uses violent tactics only as a last resort, to prevent further violence, to prevent innocent blood from being spilt! We do not enact vigilante justice! You want to talk about historical turning points? I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone of the Baltimore riot."

An uncomfortable silence lingered. Some of the council members shifted in their seats. It had only been a few months ago that a large pro-anthro protest in Baltimore had turned into a violent riot, the newly-transformed anthros unable to control their feral instincts when provoked by the surrounding police officers and nearby jeering conservatives. Thousands of dollars of damage was done to city property and ten people were killed; eight anthros, two cops. They had lashed out and our entire community had paid the price.

"I see more people everyday who turn against us, who think that people like us should be shunned or exterminated for being who we are." I said. "I hate that people like that exist, but we cannot give in to our hatred. It will only make us into the monsters they accuse us of being."

"The monsters are the ones who continue to tolerate their behavior! The ones who turn a blind eye to us and use legal technicalities to get these conservative criminals out of the punishment they deserve!" Alex snarled.

"Our country is already divided." I said. "The FSF cannot continue to operate effectively if we divide amongst ourselves, our own people! We can't give in when we've come this far!"

"The public already despises us!" Alex said. "We have to send a message about what we stand for!"

"Taking the law into our own hands is not what we stand for." I said. "The FSF is not about sending a message or enforcing the law, it's about being the last line of defense for the anthro community, for people who are literally being hunted down by domestic terrorists!"

There was a strained sigh on my right as Lana let out a slow breath.

"Say we do compromise." she said, her tone of calmness and reason cutting through our shouting match. "Say, hypothetically, we did decide that the AFA and other anti-furry radicals deserve more punishment than the justice system is willing to give them and that we should be the ones to give it. Where do you suggest we start, Alex? Do we round them up and bring them here? Lock them in cages, let them serve out a prison sentence of our own? Or would you suggest we simply slaughter them all? The latter would make them martyrs and the former would only give them more reason to hold a grudge against us."

Alex was for once at a loss for words, any snappy comeback replaced by a displeased scowl on his face. The tension in the room was palpable. The council seemed divided in half, each against the other in this debate. Alarm pheromones of several species hung in the air, setting everyone on edge. Our fight or flight instincts were kicking in and all of us had to fight hard to push them down.

"I agree with Lana." Iona said. "Even if we did have the resources to go out and start 'prosecuting' these radicals, as you suggest—which, by the way, we don't—the matter of how we prosecute them gets messy. So a few of them are let out on bail or get out on a legal technicality. That sucks, believe me, it does, but we can't just jump in and become judge, jury, and executioner."

"Exactly." Lana said. "What if we did scoop up one of these unjustly released criminals and subject them to a punishment of our choosing? Maybe we even upload evidence of this punishment to the internet for the world to see, but there is no guarantee the public will agree with our actions. What if we're branded a domestic terrorist organization?"

I took a breath, steadying myself to deliver my final point calmly.

"This group was founded on the principle of killing as a last resort." I reiterated. "The police and the military are distracted dealing with the virus, so it's up to us to do what we have to do to keep others like us safe. We do what we have to. Nothing more, nothing less."

Alex sat back in his chair, still scowling. The tensions seemed to ease and I knew he had relented.

"I'm sorry, Alex. I know you have a lot of passion, but I'm afraid it's misplaced." Lana said gently.

"And, as I said," Iona continued, "we simply don't have the resources. I'm sure many of our fighters feel the same way you do, but that spirit would likely only get them killed. No one wants that."

"Well, if we have nothing else to discuss," I said, straightening and promptly ignoring the dirty look Alex was giving me, "I think we can adjourn this meeting."

The council members got up and filed promptly out the door. Lana smiled brightly at me as she passed and I refrained from a very public display of affection, though it took a lot of willpower. I had hoped the others would leave quickly so we could have a moment, but no such luck. Out of politeness, I waited to kiss her until most of the people had left the room.

I caught the scent of someone standing behind me moments before I heard a voice.

"Gordon…"

I turned to see Kaleb Jones, a feline anthro with dark grey fur and penetrating yellow eyes.

"I just wanted to say I appreciate you sticking to your guns." he said. "Err—so to speak. Poor choice of words, but you know what I mean."

I nodded.

"I know the others tend to rile each other up, so I'm glad there's someone on our team with the courage and conviction to set them straight." he said, smiling brightly. "I look up to you. Just wanted you to know that."

"Thanks, Ash." I said, hoping I'd remembered his fursona name correctly. By the grin he gave, I figured I had. "Honestly, though, I feel like Lana did all the work. She holds it together way better than I do."

"It's that military training, you know." he said.

"Right." I chuckled.

"You two do make a good team." he said, smiling knowingly.

"You're dismissed, Ash." I sighed.

He snickered, then nodded and wandered off.

I turned then to Sara Reeves, AKA Redfang, one of the members of the FSF's science division, who had been waiting patiently nearby. She was a green-scaled dragon anthro and despite her slim figure had to sort of shrink into herself to fit through the doorway, tucking in her wings and ducking her head so her curved horns didn't get caught on the doorframe.

"There's something I think you should see…" she said, passing me the open laptop cradled in her arms.

On the screen was what appeared to be the header of a website, the words "Second Strain" written in blocky black letters across the top, backed by a green DNA helix. I raised an eyebrow.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"Remember the group of government scientists that started this whole thing?" she asked. "Apparently, they're trying to develop a newer non-lethal virus, like we are."

"Wait, they're…" I trailed off and started again. "I mean I knew even after all this, they were still trying to finish their project, I know they had different intentions for the original virus, but you're telling me they're, what, outsourcing it now?"

She nodded.

"That's exactly what they're doing." she said, turning the screen around again and showing a live chat between several anons discussing the virus. "They've even got a recruitment video."

"Isn't this… illegal?" I asked, peering closer at the screen. "I mean how hasn't this site been shut down yet?"

"Well, yes, it is illegal." she said. "If you remember, the scientist team is at large as of 12 hours ago."

"Right." I sighed. "Sorry, a lot's happened since then."

"The site is on the deep web," Sara explained, "only accessible to those with an encrypted link."

"Ah." I said. "I assume we have our informant to thank for our access then?"

She nodded, then turned the laptop back to face her, balancing it on one arm as she typed and scrolled.

"There's more. The informant—if that's really what we're calling him—said this would be of particular interest." she said, turning it toward me again. This time there was a screenshot, showing an image of a specific group chat on the site where an anonymous user suggested the idea of using a mutated form of the virus to create the non-lethal second strain.

"They… need the blood of someone with a smooth transformation." I said, nodding as I put the pieces together.

"And considering yours happened literally over night…" she said, letting me extrapolate.

"Jeez, and I thought I'd done enough blood tests for our own science division." I sighed.