FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 13 - Codes

"Do you think any of those tigers are related to Billy?" the voice of the dead said to me while I was unboxing some items along the shelves.

"What?" I said, looking over at what I still was not sure was a ghost or something wrong with my mind. Avery was sitting on one of the top shelves, kicking his feet as he watched me work from his perch. He was smiling.

"Billy," Avery said. "Do you think they're related to him?"

"Who, like Tin and Nickel?" I turned the jars toward the front with the labels all aligned. Palmer was always a bit of an ass if they weren't just right. I continued once I had the last of the jars set. "I really doubt it, not all tigers are related."

"But they kind of look like Billy. I'm certain they have the same stripes."

I sighed. This was tiresome, but then I realized I wasn't actually angry at the ghost. Honestly the conversation was making the shift go by much quicker. I looked up at Avery and shook my head. "Every tiger has unique stripes. No two are alike."

"That can't be true!" Avery said, sounding in disbelief at the revelation. "How would you know that?"

"Billy told me when we were working once," I said. I felt my ears flush and a slow grin crossing my muzzle as I put my hands on my hips. "I've also seen plenty of tigers naked."

Avery laughed and jumped down from the shelf, landing in a crouch. He always landed like that when he jumped off taller things back in London. It was like watching a memory play out in front of me.

I leaned against the ladder, looking down at my friend. Was he really a ghost? I wish I knew. I couldn't ask anyone, not without sounding crazy. I know my friends trusted me but only so much because I haven't done anything insane. I know Rut was watching me all the time, making sure I wasn't going to get him and Fiz in trouble. I couldn't blame him for that.

"You ever think you'd be like this?" Avery asked innocently.

"What?" I asked, quirking my brow, then thinking about the conversation I put the pieces together. "That I'd like sex?"

"Yeah. Back in London, you were more interested in playing practical jokes and hunting down secrets."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Av. Interests change. I don't need to trick the old ladies for apples anymore. I can buy my own."

"You never did this with Gideon though, and you two were always close." Avery saw the pain on my face and rolled his eyes. "He's not dead, Simon, and you need to think about him. You never shied away from stuff like you do now."

I gritted my teeth and growled. He did have a point. "You're right... and no, Gideon and I only kissed. I rubbed under his shirt once. But we never did anything overly sexual. We were worried people would find out and want to stop us."

"So why do you like having sex so much now?"

"It... It feels good. I like how it makes me feel. And I like that people want me like that."

Avery chuckled. "You do realize you turn heads when you walk into a room and don't look like a gloomy storm cloud, right? When you walk in and you're in a good mood people notice."

"Now my ghost friend is giving me advice on how to attract people! I'm gonna see if Palmer needs anything or if I can leave."

I went to the door and locked it. We were closed but I wasn't going to be in the front. I headed toward the back.

"Asking a ghost to mind the store! Really mature, Simon!" The voice sounded behind me. He actually didn't follow me like he usually did. Interesting.

I walked into the back office where Palmer worked in the afternoons. In it was a small table to work on his own concoctions and a huge desk with books and ledgers, order forms, and books of various plants and animals. Palmer may have been a bit of a jerk, but he was also really smart. He could have been a doctor, I think.

I tapped the cheetah on the shoulder and he looked up at me. He snorted a little bit but looked back down at the balance sheet he had been writing on. "Simon. Don't sneak up on a man like that, you're liable to end up with a black eye."

"Sorry, sir," I said and took off my hat to wipe my brow before putting it back on. "I wanted to check in with you to see if you needed anything else before the end of my shift."

"No, no," Palmer said and sighed, pulling his spectacles off the bridge of his muzzle and rubbing his eye with thumb and forefinger. "You've done a lot today. You can go if you want."

I moved to leave but paused. I stepped closer and perched myself on the edge of his desk and looked down at him. "Sir, you okay? You don't look fine."

"Caring about me now, Simon?" the cheetah said with a dark chuckle. But I could tell it was just an act. He sighed. "Apologies, I'm usually a bit harder on you and I shouldn't be. It's a habit. My father taught me that employees are rather untrustworthy."

I grinned. "So you finally trust me? I mean it's a long time coming, I'm easily one of the most trusting foxes on this side of--"

I saw a spotted hand come up and grasp my muzzle, keeping it closed. The cheetah stared up at me with his tired but amused eyes. "You need to learn to stop talking sometimes, boy." He let me go.

"I thought I kicked that habit. I used to run my mouth a lot more than I do now when I lived in London."

"So that's why they made you Uncle Sam's problem?" The cheetah chuckled at his own joke. I watched his eyes move down from my face to across my chest. His expression was still amused, but he looked...different. Like he was seeing me for the first time.

I thought of making a joke, but Palmer still looked at me with those odd eyes of his. He flicked them up to my face and moved himself closer to me in his wheeled chair. So I kept quiet.

My boss brought his hands up to my neck and rubbed the black fur right along my throat. I was wondering what he was doing but he moved his fingers downwards, undoing the buttons of my shirt. I looked down as he got it open, sliding his hands up along my stomach. This was different.

"You don't smile all that much," Palmer said, feeling the fingers brush through my fur. "But when you were grinning just now it was...very different. You almost looked like a different person, Simon."

I gulped. The way Palmer touched me was not how he usually did. Sure, he had felt me up plenty of times, but this time he was being almost sensual about it. I moaned softly under my breath as his hands found my nipples, rubbing his palms over them before moving up to my shoulders and pushing the suspenders off with my shirt. I was naked from the waist up.

"Mr. Palmer, what are you doing?"

My breathing became a little harder as the cheetah now loomed over me, his lips near mine. I didn't mind what was happening, the erection in my pants was evidence enough, but he had never been this way with me.

"You've been different lately. Like... you're more alive or something." He kissed me before I could respond.

Instinctively my hands went up to his shoulders, gripping him through the fabric of his nicer clothes as I pushed up into the kiss. My lips parted and his rough, feline tongue slid into my muzzle. I could feel him coil about my own, brushing in a way I had discovered only cats could do.

Palmer made me shudder as the hands moved back down my torso, stopping once more at my nipples, before going down to my waist and starting to work the button and zipper open. I flushed as he tugged my pants off, throwing them to the floor with the rest of my clothes. He pulled back and looked me over before reaching up and plucking the hat from my head. I was naked and very hard.

"You usually...don't do that," I said, swallowing as I watched the cheetah fumble with his own clothing, quickly undressing himself and almost falling as he hopped out of his trousers. He was hard as an iron bar I saw when his slacks came down and kicked to the floor.

Palmer stepped over to me and shrugged. "You look good...and I need this more than I care to admit. You do too by the looks of things."

I looked down at myself, the clear bead of pre hanging from my tip. I didn't have the heart to tell Palmer that I had never wanted for sex. "And does it matter? Enjoy it."

I was going to stand but Palmer had other ideas. He was always a strong man and he had me around the waist, lifting me up and putting me down on the floor. My knees were bent and I was sitting up on my elbows. "Mr. Palmer, I--" He silenced me with his whole muzzle wrapping around my erection.

I groaned and brought my hand over to hold the back of his head, rubbing through his headfur as he bobbed on me eagerly. In the whole time I had known Palmer he had never done anything about my own pleasure, at least directly. I thought he didn't even like doing this, but here we were, his muzzle bobbing quickly from root to tip.

I lay back and enjoyed myself. My hands were up above my head and I felt Palmer's slide up my thigh and taut stomach. It made me writhe in pleasure as the textured tongue brushed across the sensitive underside of my flesh. I swallowed hard and focused on not hitting my peak too early. For all my skills and all my experience I was still less experienced getting pleasure than giving it. My stamina was not nearly as high.

Minutes passed and I was still enjoying myself when I felt the warm mouth slip off and made me open my eyes. I sat up again and looked at Palmer who was wiping his muzzle with the black of his hand and licking his lips. "Lie back so I can--"

In a flash the cheetah had me by the wrist and pulled me forward as he lay back. I yelped loudly as my hands came down to brace myself over the man. I felt my legs curl around my waist and I looked down. I was in the position. I looked up from my waist to the cat and swallowed. "What...What are you--"

"Simon," The cheetah said with a growl. "Do not make me state the obvious that handsome men should be quiet. Be quiet." He reached down while sitting up (damn cat flexibility) and actually held my cock. I gasped as Palmer angled myself right against his hole.

"Sir, wait, are you sure?"

To make his point clear he let my cock go and he tightened his legs, pulling me closer. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to run. Not that I was interested in running. I felt familiar resistance at my tip and turned my hips slightly before the resistance gave way to a tightness and then warmth.

I had topped before. A few times, actually. I liked it like most people liked it, but I also liked being on the bottom. It was also easier to have sex with men if they didn't feel like they needed to submit to me. Still, it always took my breath away when I felt myself enter another person. The heat always surprised me, as well as the firmness and the wetness. I was glad Palmer had used his muzzle. If he had pulled out the oil I would have tried much harder to convince him to let me be on the bottom.

Palmer hauled me forward and kept his legs around me as I hilted his body. I moaned softly and looked down at his face. I swallowed hard and blushed and the cheetah, for his part, had one arm around my shoulders. The other was between us and holding himself, masturbating.

I was panting and controlling myself. I think Palmer knew what I was going through because he didn't rush me like he usually did. He waited until I started to pull myself back and then push forward.

That was how we started. I was hanging my head down, panting as I slowly began to build up speed and find my rhythm. For Palmer, he helped by angling himself and squeezing with his thighs and legs. He was tight around me (in more ways than one) and seemed hell bent on not letting me go.

Minutes were going by and I had picked up the pace but not much. I was still sliding in and out gently, and Palmer kept urging me on. He chuckled a little bit and spoke quietly as the only sound in the small office was our breathing. "You don't do this much, do you?"

I shook my head, eyes closed, and focused on the movement without hitting my peak. I swallowed and found the ability to speak. "Months..." I managed to croak out, eyes opening again and grinning. "Sensitive."

We kept rocking together in pleasure, not speaking again. I felt Palmer move himself a little bit to the side and angling my cock inside him. I knew what he was doing and watched with one open eye as the cat writhed under me. I sped up a little more and shivered.

It had not been long but I felt the tightness increase around me. I heard the growlish purr that Palmer always did when he orgasmed and gasped when his walls clenched so tightly around me it nearly hurt. I could feel his muscles spasm and throb as he came, spurting out his hot white seed out and across his stomach, his chest, and my own. He had hit his peak before me. The man was talented.

Thankfully we did not need to wait long. I clenched my teeth and held the cat at his waist, holding him close and pulling him in tighter against me and cried out while I felt sweat droplets fall off my face.

"I can't...!" I gasped as my orgasm hit me. A wave of pleasure washed over me and I clenched, holding it back as long as I could before I exploded inside my boss. I pushed with my knees and pulled with my hands to get as much of myself inside him, pumping rope after rope of seed. The pleasure was overwhelming and I felt more stimulated than I had in a long time. I ground forward during the whole climax and only started to relax when climax edged into afterglow.

I relaxed and panted, hovering over the older cheetah who looked content and amused. I didn't move until I felt myself soften and then flopped down on my side, separating us. I looked at Palmer who rolled to face me, bringing his head up to rest on his chin and smirking like a cat who was too pleased with himself.

"I know you have a reputation of being a playboy, Simon, but I didn't think you'd be...not as experienced on top. You have the body to be."

"It isn't about how I look," I said as I caught my breath. "It's about what I liked."

"Well, to me, it looked like you enjoyed it far more than you care to admit. Maybe you should reconsider what you like. I know I'll be upset if that's the last time I have you over me." Palmer said, wiping his brow with his discarded shirt. "I think you could do with some endurance training."

"I laughed and rolled onto my back, draping my arm over my head. "Are you volunteering, boss?"

Palmer didn't answer. He just gave me a faint smirk got up onto his feet. "I'm going upstairs to wash up and enjoy dinner. Don't forget to lock the door when you're ready to walk again, Simon."

---

I was almost home and noticed that I was still grinning. Was being on top being that good? It had improved my mood -- I hadn't felt like this in a long time. I also noticed I didn't see Avery. He always seemed to make himself scarce when I had sex.

I hadn't bothered to put my shirt on as I climbed up into our tenement and into the shared living space. The sun had already set, so the room was completely dark save for the flickering light coming from a candle placed on the table in the living space. I blinked when I saw Fiz and Rut at the table huddled over something, whispering to one another. Fiz kept turning something around and around while Rut was chewing on a pencil, deep in thought.

I walked over and flopped into my chair at the table. The twins looked at me.

"Simon happy," Fiz observed.

"Simon had sex," Rut added.

"Simon always has sex. Not new."

"Simon must've had some really good sex, then."

"Simon would appreciate," I interrupted, "if you twins didn't stick your snouts into his business." I then put my chin in my hand and looked between them, still smirking. "But yes, Simon had sex and Simon feels good. What are you two working on, anyways?"

"Simon should have that sex more often," Fiz said and went back to turning what he was holding--which turned out to be a page of paper with some writing on it--around and around and around.

Without taking his gaze off the paper in front of him, Rut replied to my question: "One of our plants in Crossbell Industries was able to get some documents from Mordecai's desk." He slid a page toward me. "But of course he wrote it in some kind of code."

I looked down at the page and tilted my own head to the side. Across the top of the paper were the words _From the Desk of Mordecai Crossbell_written in fancy embellished letters, followed by what seemed to be complete gibberish. But it was strangely orderly gibberish. What I mean is, instead of words of different lengths, the page was filled with letters that were spaced apart equally within the page, resembling a chessboard. But instead of pawns and knights and whatnot, the chessboard was filled with random-looking letters that made no sense.

Honestly, it wasn't anything unexpected. Mordecai, from everything I knew about the man, was a genius. So he definitely would take precautions like this, to use some sort of code for his documents, such that no one else could understand what was in them.

"It's a cipher," Rut said, looking down at the page, "but without knowing what kind of cipher it is, I can't really do much..."

"Shouldn't you be asking someone else in the gang to take a look at this?" I asked. "You know, someone who might be good at this cipher thing."

Fiz looked at me as though I criticized his mother's cooking. "Rut very smart!" he said, tapping the side of his cranium. "Best code cracker in gang. Can crack code like eggs! And unscramble codes. Like eggs!"

I doubted anyone could unscramble a scrambled egg, but I let that slide. "He seems like he's having a hard time with it, though."

"I just need some hint. Some inspiration," Rut said, scratching his head. "I've tried reversing the letters, shifting the letters, and skipping the letters to see if I can find anything, but so far, nothing seems to be working. I think it's something more complex than that. Maybe something that requires a keyword of some sort, or even a whole book as the key!"

I watched as Rut kept grumbling to himself for a few minutes, but eventually got bored and went to heat some water to make myself some tea to drink. I grabbed a chunk of cheese and crackers from the cabinet and sat back down at the table.

"Cheese!" Fiz said, his eyes glittering. "Can have some?"

"Help yourself." I slid the plate with the cheese toward him, and he took his knife--his favorite knife--and began slicing the cheese into smaller pieces.

I looked at Fiz's knife. I never paid much attention to it before, but in the dim light of the candle, the knife glimmered and sparkled like the Queen's crown--not that I ever saw it meself, of course. It was then that I saw how intricately decorated the knife's handle was. There were some gemstones placed here and there, but what caught my attention was the engraving of a snake slithering between the gemstones.

"That's a really nice knife, Fiz," I commented. "I don't think you've ever told me where you got it."

"Hm?" Fiz looked up at me, his mouth chewing on the cheese that he just cut. "Roamers. Won in contest."

"Roamers? Contest?"

"It's the band of people who travel from town to town, performing music and dances to earn their living," Rut answered. He looked defeated, with his disheveled headfur pointing everywhere, no doubt because of hours of head-scratching.

I remembered hearing about the Roamers. They wore rags for clothes, traveled in wagons, and usually made camp in the woods not too far from where I worked. I remembered Palmer grumbling about some of them being thieves and stealing other people's things, but I had never met one in person.

"And the contest is a knife-throwing contest," the white fox continued, standing up to make himself a cup of tea as well. "We met a troupe during one of our assignments for the gang. The leader of the troupe had that knife with him, and Fiz immediately fell in love with it when he saw it. I asked the leader how much the knife cost, and he told me that it's an heirloom of sorts that had been handed down from the previous leader to the next leader, who could only be the leader if he could beat the previous leader in a knife-throwing contest."

When Rut came back to the table, he was holding a cup of tea. "So, naturally, the leader challenged Fiz to a knife-throwing contest. If Fiz won, he could keep the knife. But if he lost, he would have to join the troupe... _We_would have to join the troupe."

"Wow," I muttered. "I don't know about the Roamers much, but aren't they pretty skilled with their hands? I heard they could steal your wallet from right under your muzzle."

"They are very skilled," Rut corrected me, taking a sip of his tea. "And to be honest, I thought Fiz would finally meet his match. I was preparing to explain to Renaldo why we suddenly had to switch job from gangsters to Roamer troupe members, of all things."

"Rut thought Fiz could lose," his brother interrupted crossly. "Rude. Fiz never lose. Not with knife. Fiz, invincible with knife." He then held his knife proudly like King Arthur when he pulled out his sword from the stone.

The white fox smirked. "Oh yeah? I wouldn't call that one an easy win." He turned to me again. "The Roamer knife-thrower was really good. He and Fiz kept tying each other's scores for hours. So we decided to play a trick of our own."

I watched as Rut placed his cup on the table next to mine. "Let's say that your cup is the opponent and my cup is Fiz. The target would be the candle. Both Fiz and his opponent were facing the target, and I was standing by the side line so I won't get in their way." He then took one of the crackers and placed it on the table, such that my cup--the opponent--was right in the middle of the cracker and Rut's cup.

"Before the opponent came to start the next round, Fiz and I each tied one end of a long string to one of our legs, and we let the string slacken so nobody would notice that there's a string between us. The string was green, so it blended in pretty well with the grass around it. And when the opponent prepared to throw his knife, I pulled on the string hard using my other leg. Now, the string is taut, and just a couple of inches above the ground. That's enough to catch the opponent's foot. He lost balance, and Fiz won that round, and"--he looked at Fiz's knife--"the rest is history."

I looked at the other black fox in the room. "So you cheated."

"No," Fiz said, shaking his head. "All fair in love and war. Fiz love knife, Fiz get knife. All fair play!"

"You know Fiz," Rut said with a shrug. "He'll do anything to get what he wants, and when it comes to strange and unorthodox things, he will be very interested."

But as he said that sentence, the white fox's face hardened, and his eyes widened. "Wait... fair play? Fair play... Play fair... Playfair!"

With that, Rut slammed his hands on the table and grabbed the pages, pulling them closer and laying them out in front of him. "Of course! How'd I miss it? It's a Playfair cipher! It switches groups of letters... but the keyword. We must know the keyword, or we can't find which letters to switch!"

I had no idea what Rut was talking about, but from seeing his face change from contemplating to excited and back to disheartened was enough for me to know that we were still far from cracking the code.

"So we're back to square one?" I asked, frowning and sitting back down in my chair. "I swear, that damned Mordecai has to be annoying at everything he does."

"He is a murderer who dresses up as a creepy demon and has an unhealthy obsession over you, after all," Rut said and looked at me. "Assuming, of course, that what you've told us is true. I have to admit, I was skeptical, but when we saw his hiring practices and saw the really lopsided amount of black furred foxes he has on his payroll..."

"Fiz get good job," his black fox brother said with a grin.

Rut stared at him and sighed, shaking his head. "The last time you got a regular job in construction, I went on my lunch break and saw you on a rowboat in the river."

"Water was cold," was all Fiz said, but I wasn't going to pry on what he meant by that.

Topic has now shifted to what keyword Mordecai could be using on his own Playfair cipher. Rut gave me a rundown on how the cipher worked--and I assure you, it was enough to make my head spin and then hurt from all the switching and replacing involved in the process--and we spent some time trying different keywords that we could think of, only to find out that they didn't work. By the time we had to replace the candle, I was about to give up and call it the day, when a familiar voice rang inside my head.

"Please don't give up, Simon. Don't let this monster win."

It was one of the things that Alister's ghost said to me, when I was alone and lost, sitting at the docks and contemplating ending my own miserable life.

Alister...

I took a deep breath and looked at the paper in front of me again. Alister was right. If I gave up now, it would be another win for Mordecai, and that was something I wasn't going to let him have that pleasure. I had to show him! I had to show that monster that Simon King is a force to be reckoned with.

Then, suddenly, something clicked.

"Simon," I muttered. The twins looked at me, so I explained. "No, I mean my name. Mordecai was obsessed with me for years, so much so that he's now in New York, most likely because he chased after me here. So... what if my name was the key?"

As soon as I said it, I could feel the disgust rising within me. Rut was going to say something, but he wrote my name on a page and began to work on the first block of letters. I didn't say anything as he kept working and then, slowly, he looked up. "It looks like you were right," he said. "These letters make a sentence now. I can read it."

My stomach turned. This was the first time in years I had concrete proof he was still obsessed over me. It was also enough that Rut looked concerned.

"I didn't want to believe it," Rut said with a frown, "but this proves it. He is clearly still thinking of you."

"He's planning on killing me," I said. "And if we don't figure this out, he'll actually pull it off." And I wasn't going to let that happen. Not in a million years.

Without delay, we got back to work on the rest of the papers. It was going to be a very long night.