Penguins of Anarchy III: Edge of Disaster

Two

The prisoner who had tried to take Drake's lunch lay dead as Drake sat at a table in the prison cafeteria. Guards lined the walls, armed with assault rifles, prepared to eliminate anyone who tried to cause trouble or escape. One wrong move and all of the prisoners in the cafeteria would be dead.

But the guards cared little about strife between the inmates. They wouldn't move a muscle if one prisoner was killing another. And now a prisoner lay sprawled in the middle of the floor, his head bashed in, while his killer sat calmly at a table, eating the glop that the dead prisoner had tried to take from him. Drake knew full well that if he didn't defend himself and make himself feared by the other inmates, he would be dead before he got a chance to escape. He didn't want any of these prisoners to die, knowing that most of them were once honorable soldiers who were captured for resisting the Martial Alliance's invasion of their countries, but he knew that if his plan was going to work, he would have to stay alive at all costs.

"It's better to have friends than to strike out alone," Nekron had told him earlier that day, meaning that he wanted Drake to make some allies to make his impending escape easier. Security cameras were everywhere in the prison, sometimes hidden where no one could see them, so Nekron knew he would have to speak in code so that no one would suspect him. Drake knew that making friends would be wise, but seeing as he just killed a prisoner with his own flippers, he suspected that it might be harder than it would have been if he had just knocked him unconscious.

Drake was also getting restless about when the time for the prison break would be. Nekron hadn't told him outright, and if he had told him in some vague code during one of their chats, it had been too subtle for Drake to pick up on it. For all he knew, he might be still be stuck here for months. He tried to stay as healthy as possible, doing push- and pull-ups to keep himself strong so that he'd be ready to break out at a moment's notice. But it was still difficult to stay fully healthy, as he barely got anything to eat, and whatever the glop he did get to eat was, it had been rendered unrecognizable.

Drake struggled to keep the glop down as he glanced across the room, searching for some potential allies that might prove useful during the prison break. There was a very large white penguin who appeared to be quite strong, but Drake doubted that it would be easy to win him over. Several others appeared to be strong and relatively healthy, but the vast majority of the prisoners were skinny, weak, malnourished penguins that were now nothing but dead weight.

And Drake saw Felly sitting two tables across from him, knowing that she probably hated him even more than she hated Omniscion right now. He had done her very great harm by shooting Dreemo, but now at least Drake knew that Dreemo had survived, and that all could still go according to plan—if he played his cards right. He knew he had taken a bigger risk than he should have, but it was far too late to turn back now.

Perhaps Felly might be willing to help Drake if he told her that Dreemo was alive and that he had a plan for getting out—well, part of a plan, anyway. But Drake doubted that that information would give Felly the means to forgive him—he doubted he would ever be able to completely mend their relationship. Felly had trusted Drake like he was her own uncle, and now he had gone and done this. Either way, he knew he wasn't going anywhere without taking Felly with him. There was no option other than that she needed to be set free as well, even if she still didn't trust him.

So Drake had another part of his escape plan figured out: He would make an alliance with the strongest and healthiest of his fellow prisoners and try to make amends with Felly. Even if the latter didn't work out, he would still make sure she made it out of Alcatraz.

And then there was Nekron; Drake assumed that Nekron planned to escape along with him, but he wondered just how much he could trust him. Would Nekron double-cross him? Would he sell him out to Omniscion in order to be promoted? But that seemed risky, considering Drake was already in American captivity. He decided that Nekron was probably trustworthy.