Melinda Snodgrass - Double solitaire

“Holy Christ!” Zappa’s voice distant and above her.

Both the men dropped to their knees next to her. The male heat washed off them in waves. She could smell the stale cigarette smoke on von Herzenhagen’s breath. He gripped her shoulders, and Tach began screaming, a thin, tearing sound shattering off the brick was.

“Don’t hurt me! Ancestors, please don’t hurt me!”

“Then tell us what we want to know,” von Herzenhagen said.

“Jesus shit, Phil,” Zappa snapped. “She’s… he’s scared to death.”

“Tell me!”

“There are… caverns… miles and miles… of them. Please, please, don’t hurt me,” Tach whimpered. She had curled into a fetal position, arms folded protectively across Illyana.

With a forefinger Zappa pushed up her sleeves, lightly touched the bandages. “Phil, lay off her now, okay?”

The slamming of the door was the reply.

The accommodations were nicer than the Rox, but it was still a cell. The window gave her a view of Ellis Island, and Tachyon wondered if that was deliberate. She whiled away the hours watching military aircraft cut the skies over New York Harbor.

The sun went down, and the castle glittered with lights. Like stars peeking through massed thunderclouds. An Ab screamed past and disturbed from their rest a flock of winged creatures; they exploded off one of the tower battlements like wind-torn smoke.

Which would win in the coming conflagration? Tach wondered. Fantasy or technology? Oh, Teddy, they are going to destroy you and your poor little fairy-tale kingdom.

She half expected a reply. For months she and the joker governor of the Rox had maintained first a dream, and then a true telepathic communication. He had loved her and wooed her and finally found the strength to help engineer her escape. Too bad the freedom had lasted only five days. A lot of people had died to secure that brief interlude.

Gathering her feeble powers, Tach actually did reach out and mind-search for the Outcast. The telepathic signal seemed to be reflected back to her. The increase in Bloat’s powers had closed his mind as well as his kingdom to her. And, realistically, what could he do to aid her this time, this mammoth mountain of oozing flesh topped with the head and torso of a nineteen-year-old boy?

With a sigh Tach abandoned the view and returned to her bed. They at least kept her supplied with books, newspapers, a television. The drawback was she could count the passing days in the changing dates. She read until sleep dragged at her lids, then snapped out the light and fell headlong into what she hoped would be a night of forgetfulness.

The snick of the lock brought her bolt upright, bile clawing at the back of her throat. Moonlight glinted off the soldier’s belt buckle. This was it then. They had come. Blaise. Rape…

A shadowy form darted past the guard, carrying something. Tach screamed, shrill and desperate. Light exploded in her eyes, leaving floating red dots imprinted on the retina.

“Shit, Tachy, shut up! They’ll have my nuts!” A harsh whisper. A familiar voice. Digger Downs. Sleazy reporter for a sleazy rag called Aces.

Tach raked back her hair with a trembling hand. Climbed up off the floor. Air trickled back into lungs, and Tach tried to stop shaking. Digger snapped another picture.

“God, this is great. Could you turn sideways?

Humiliation gnawed at Tach’s guts like a frenzied animal, and she wanted to kill something. “So who’s the father? Inquiring minds want to know.” Digger grinned at her, the smile deepening as he saw her hands closing into fists. “Can’t make me pour brandy over my head now, can you, Tachy? So, how’s it feel?”

It surprised her, how fast she moved despite her ungainly bulk. The back of the metal chair slid easily into her hands.

“Goddamn you!” Three quick steps, heft, swing. “You son of a bitch!” Bring the chair down firmly on the top of the head.

“Owwww!” Digger’s camera went flying. Tach had to give the reporter points for doggedness. He went scrabbling on hands and knees across the floor for the fallen camera. Tach whacked him again, hard, across the back this time. “Shit!”

“You could have helped me. Instead you shame and humiliate me!” The word spiraled into a shriek as Tach flung the chair at him.

Digger recovered the camera, scrambled to his feet, and went barreling for the door with Tach running awkwardly after him. The guard was in a panic at the noise and uproar. The wad of bills peeping coyly from his shirt pocket wasn’t enough to get busted for. He stiff-armed Tachyon, his palm taking her hard in the chest. The blow knocked her to the floor. She was on her back, legs open, belly thrust aggressively for the ceiling. Digger took a final picture.

“Even better than a profile,” he said.

The door slammed shut.

“I am an American citizen. You cannot hold me without cause. I demand that I be released.” Tach was discovering that stiff speeches delivered in soprano voices don’t have much impact.

The office was a thrown-together affair. Metal desk, a very nice leather executive’s chair, filing cabinets of three different colors. Headquarters of an army on the move, thought Tachyon.

Von Herzenhagen didn’t respond. He just stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray on his desk and swiveled his chair to face a filing cabinet. He began rooting through the files while Zappa said, “You’re a necessary resource during this crisis.”

“What resource? I have no powers to assist you. I have told you all that I know about the situation on the Rox. You have to let me go.” Silence. “There are laws in this country, and you are breaking them.”

Von Herzenhagen emitted a sound of satisfaction and swiveled back to face Tachyon and Zappa. He was holding a piece of computer printout. With a snap of the wrist he unfolded it. It was a very long piece of paper. Offered it to Tachyon.

The heading read, KELLY ANN JENKINS. Under it was an impressive array of charges. Accessory to armed robbery. Accessory to kidnapping. Accessory to assault and battery. Accessory to murder. It was quite a rap sheet.

Tach tossed it back onto the desk with a disdainful flick of the fingers. “So? What has this to do with me?”

“You are Kelly Ann Jenkins,” von Herzenhagen said.

“Fascinating. And I thought I was here because I am Dr. Tachyon.”

“Fingerprints say you’re Kelly Ann Jenkins.” Von Herzenhagen smiled from the teeth out. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands, Doctor. Now be a good boy, and maybe we won’t put you in the county jail. Inmates are very hostile toward jumpers. You won’t like your treatment there, and sometimes the guards are just a little slow responding to screams.”

Tach stared down into that round, pink face and felt the walls of her prison close even tighter about her.

French braiding was every bit as hard as it looked – harder. Tachyon was trying to while away the long hours by mastering this esoteric skill, and so far was failing miserably. It made her crazy that as accomplished a surgeon and violinist as herself could not plait dead protein.

As she frowned into the mirror, a retina-searing flare of golden light suddenly filled the room, reflecting off the glass.

Explosion! Big one! The first panicked reaction was to dive for cover. Then she saw him hovering outside the barred window.

“Starshine!” Tach cried, and ran for that fantastic figure in its formfitting yellow costume, green trunks, boots, and gloves, a sunburst blazing on his massive chest.

He turned an ireful green eye upon her. “Well, I see that muckraking little excuse for a journalist was correct. But why he feels he must utilize his talents in this kind of cheap sensationalism.