FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tristan looked at the human. He knew the type, every prison had at least one of them, sycophants. They attached themselves to the power and survived by using them. He usually dealt with them by giving them a beating.

The way this one was smiling and nodded would make it easy, Tristan could see in his face how the human thought he'd won this round. Yeah, a beating would tell this human to leave him alone. The problem was that Alex was alone with the seven prison supervisors.

Alex could hold a mask for a good time, and the one they had worked on was flexible, so he could keep them occupied for a few hours, but once he ran out of stories, Tristan wasn't confident that he'd be able to come up with new material on the spot. Once he couldn't, the fighting would start.

Alex was deadly, Tristan knew that, had seen to it, but he was still only human. And the supervisors were experienced, and armed with a variety of military grade weapons. The only thing Alex had been able to get through the scans were a few of his knives.

There was a chance Alex couldn't win such a fight.

"I'm looking for Olirian Prian."

The human gasped. "You're looking for the Killer of Hastead? Why?"

Tristan stared at the human.

"Right, none of my business."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Of course I do." The man sounded slightly insulted. "I did say I knew everyone--"

"Then why are you still standing here?"

"Oh." The human moved at a fast pace and Tristan followed him in a tunnel. "This is where Alvina stays." He indicated an alcove. "It's the woman who came onto you. She was Brainy's girl. She just loves powerful men. She'd have done both of them, but Brainy didn't share her, not even with Brawn. I don't think Brawn minded. There are plenty of other women here for him to take when he felt the need. None of them would say no." He didn't slow while he talked, which was fortunate.

"That one is Robinson's place. Don't try understanding the stuff written on the walls, he claims that he gets messages from some hidden people down here and that it's their language, but he's just crazy. But if you need stuff fixed, he's a master at that."

"Over there is Gargon. Nasty temper on that guy. Even B&B tended to avoid him." The human in the alcove glared at them as they walked by. He was missing his left hand and right foot.

"There is Sopia and Julia's alcove. Nice girls, always happy to please, but you better be ready to pay for it, they don't give it up for free."

"That's Quinn's. Keeps to himself mostly. I don't think he's crazy, but, well, don't get too close, he's been known to take literal bites out of people." The human raised an arm and pulled the sleeve to show scars in the form of bite marks. "Got then when I arrived. Tried to make friends with him and he tried to eat me."

"Over there is--"

Tristan slammed him against the wall. "Stop talking. I don't care who lives where. I don't care who is important and who to avoid. Your only job is to take me to Olirian. You are going to do that in silence, understood?"

The human nodded and Tristan released him. He immediately began walking. They moved deeper into the cave system that formed Down Below. And Tristan memorized their path. Alex had done the research on this prison, and he'd told him it had been a mine, a very long time ago. When the ore had been exhausted, instead of collapsing it, the owners had decided to transition to holding prisoners. They'd removed all the equipment, except for the lift, hired people to supervise the inmates and left. They didn't actually care about this place, just that it kept bringing in money.

When the human stopped they were at the entrance of a larger alcove, large enough to qualify as a small cavern. It was warmer than the others, but Tristan couldn't see where the heat came from.

In the middle of the floor was a man lying on a pile of clothes. He was old, dirty and unhealthily thin, but he was dressed in far cleaner clothing that Tristan had expected and his long white hair had been brushed recently. Here and there around the old man were small things, objects made of stone, wood or cloth.

"What's all this?" Tristan asked, as he went to the man and knelt.

"Gifts, tributes."

"Why?" He checked for the man's pulse. As expected it was weak. Thirty-two years in this place took its toll.

"Why? Because he's the Killer of Hastead, why else?" The human spoke softly, almost reverently. "From what I heard, when he got here he was the guy in charge. He even kept B&B in check until he started getting sick."

"They didn't kill him?" Tristan turned the cuff of his pants and felt along it. He used a claw to detach the corner of a patch that was nearly invisible against the cloth, then pulled it off.

"You don't kill the Killer. Too many people here respect him. Even B&B respected him. They made sure he got enough food even when he couldn't move anymore. They made deals with one of the supervisors to get him some meds. Made sure he was comfortable. What's that?"

Tristan applied the patch against the old man's neck. "Immune booster." He felt against the cuff again and pulled another patch. "Nutrients," he said before the human could ask and applied that one on the other side of the neck. "What's he sick of?"

"Nobody knows. B&B killed the only doctor in here when they found out he was drugging some of the younger guys and forcing them to have sex with him."

Tristan felt for broken bones. His file said he was only sixty, but he hadn't had access to medical care so he looked to be three times that age, and humans became fragile as they grew older. He didn't find anything broken so he grabbed the man and stood. Once up he threw him over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" the human asked horrified.

"Leaving." Tristan retraced their steps, accumulating a small crowd from the alcoves. When he reached the large cavern everyone looked in his direction, then got out of his way.

He noted that the two humans he'd killed, B&B, had been removed, leaving only the blood on the stone floor. All, except for his guide, kept their distance from the lift as he headed for it.

He deposited the old man against it and checked him again for anything broken. The job required bringing him back alive, intact hadn't been mentioned, but Tristan didn't want some broken bones to pierce a vital organ. Someone in that state could die in minutes, and he had no idea how long it would take to get him to the cryo bed.

Confident nothing had broken while carrying him, Tristan studied the door to the lift. Metal, slid into the wall, nothing to grab to force it open. He looked at the control panel. Old, held in place by screws instead of molecular adhesives. That was good in a way, the odds anyone here had the tools needed to take the screw out were infinitely low.

"What are you doing?" the human asked, excitement in his voice.

"Leaving."

"That isn't going to work. They recalled the lift after dropping you off, and shut the system down."

Tristan didn't say anything. Screws first, then see what needed to be done. He took off his pants and pulled the inside out.

He heard the sounds of surprise, the embarrassment, the appreciation, and he ignored them. He didn't care what they thought of his nude form. He lay the pants on the ground and pulled off the material attached to it. It was thin, and flimsy. He cut a section two fingers wide and the length of his palm. Put that in his mouth and made sure it was thoroughly saturated with his saliva before laying it flat on the floor.

He cut another section, this one narrower, but longer. When he was done he checked on the drying piece. It still had some give to it so he went back to cutting the pieces he'd need, wetting them and shaping them before laying them down next to the already drying one.

When the first flat piece was dry, and hard. He took the section he hadn't hardened, and wet it. He bunched the end in the head of the screw and used the flat piece to hold it in place, forming the rest in a handle.

It took a few minutes for it to harden, and then using the flat piece to keep the tip in place, he turned it slowly. He wasn't worried about breaking his makeshift screwdriver, the material it was made of, once it interacted with the enzyme in his saliva from the injection he'd taken before they'd landed, was nearly unbreakable.

What he had to be careful of was that the screw itself didn't break. It wasn't as old as the lift, at some point in recent years they'd had to do repairs and had changed them, but he didn't know how long ago that was, the human might, and it could have seized in the meantime.

After resisting for a moment, it began turning. A dozen turns later, the screw came loose. He moved on to the next one, same type of head. Bad security, someone only needed one type of screwdriver to undo the six screws holding the cover in place.

With the cover removed, Tristan was looking at bundles of wires. The lift was so old it predated heavy computerization. It was controlled by electrical circuits formed by these wires. Alex had found him the original plans, and in all the years since, the company who owned this prison had never bothered upgrading it.

It wouldn't have mattered if they had. Tristan would have used Alex to control a computerized lift. Something this old he could handle himself.

He looked over his shoulder and the crowd took a step back. They were seeing in him their chance at freedom. He didn't care, so long as they let him work in peace. What came after that, well, they wouldn't much care for it.

He took two of the long hooks he'd made and began pulling wires out, looking for the ones that would give him control of the lift.