Wildcards

Alligator, Bagabond explained, not human. In her mind the alligator became a man.

"Curiosity…" Bagabond spoke aloud for the first time since the rescue operation had commenced.

The black sent a picture of a black cat on its back with paws in the air.

Bagabond sat down beside the man. In a few minutes he began to move. Painfully he sat up. In the dim light filtering from above, he recognized Bagabond as the old woman he had seen the day before.

"Wha' happen? I remember ru

Bagabond shrugged and pointed at the beams from the roof-collapse behind him. By straining his eyes, he could see what looked like hundreds of pawprints on the floor and the walls around the cave-in. In the center of the devastation, Jack also saw the imprint of a monstrous tail.

"Christ, not again." Jack turned back to Bagabond. "When you got here, what did you see?"

She turned partly away from him, still silent. He saw her mouth quirk in a partial smile beneath the stringy hair. Was she mad?

"Merle. What am I going to do?" Jack was almost bowled over by the pair of black paws that struck his chest. "Easy, boy. You're the biggest kitty I've seen since I left the swamps." The black cat's eyes stared into his with an odd intensity. "What is it?"

"He wants to know how you do it." The old woman's voice did not match her appearance. It was young and held a touch of humor. "Be careful. You're spaced, just like you were coming out of Thorazine." She took his arm as he tried to stand.

When he was upright, she said, "You're not going to make it far like that." She began to take off her coat.

"Mon Dieu. Thanks." Feeling his skin flush, Jack shrugged into her green cloth coat and wrapped it around himself. It covered him from neck to knees, but left his arms bare.. from the elbows down.

"Where do you live?" Bagabond gazed at him without expression. Jack appreciated the kindness.

"Downtown. Down on Broadway near the City Hall station. Are we anywhere close to a train?" Jack was not used to being lost, and found that he disliked the feeling intensely.

In answer, Bagabond picked her way to the tu

"Your mistress, she is a little strange. No ofense," Jack said to the black cat. It paced him as he trailed the bag lady. The cat looked up at him, sniffed, and twitched his tail. "Who am I to talk, eh?"

Although Jack attempted to keep up with Bagabond, he quickly fell behind. Eventually, at the black's appeal, she returned and helped support the man, pulling his arm across her shoulders.

Jack finally recognized the tu

The subway pulled in, the last car covered with unusually bright graffiti. Bagabond hauled Jack toward the vividly decorated car. Jack had time to read some of the more coherent phrases covering the side.

Are you unusual? Did you feel the fire? Are you burning inside?

The flames devour us all, But never let us die; it never ends, forever in flame.

Jack thought some of the phrases changed as he watched, but that had to be an effect of his concussed brain. Bagabond pulled him inside. The doors closed, leaving some very angry transit customers outside.

"Stop?" Bagabond was nothing if not economical with her words, Jack thought.

"City Hall." Jack slumped and rested his head against the back of the seat, closing his eyes as the train rolled downtown. He did not notice that the seat molded itself around his body to support it while he slept. He failed to realize that the doors never again opened until they reached his stop.

The cats were not entirely happy with this subway ride. The calico was flatly terrified. Ears laid back, tail straight and fluffed out, she leaned into Bagabond's side. The black gingerly kneaded the floor of the car. The texture was only partially familiar. He wondered at the heat and the confusing scent all around him.

Bagabond tried to focus on the interior of the dark car. There were no sharp angles here. Dim shapes seemed to change form subtly in her peripheral vision. I've felt nothing like this, she thought, since the acid trip. She extended her consciousness beyond the cats and Jack. She couldn't define the who that she briefly contacted. But she felt the overwhelming comfort, the warmth, and the protectiveness that surrounded them here.

Cautiously she settled back in her seat and stroked the calico.

"This is it," said Jack.

He had recovered sufficiently to lead their small party through the City Hall station, beyond a bewildering succession of maintenance closets, and into another labyrinth of unused tu

"Wow, man." Bagabond flinched as she took in the opulent furnishings and decor. The immediate impression was of red velvet and claw-footed divans.

"You are younger than you look. That was my reaction too. Reminded me of Captain Nemo's stateroom…" "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

"Yeah, right. You saw it too. One of the first movies I ever saw over to the parish theater." They walked down the crimson-carpeted stairs flanked by gold stanchions and plush velvet ropes. Both cats ran ahead of them, the calico using the Victorian armchairs as hurdles. The electric light was augmented by flickering gas flames that gave the room an atmosphere out of the last century. The black cat trotted over the Persian carpets to the edge of the platform and looked back at the two humans.

"He wants to know what this is and what's behind that door." Bagabond steadied Jack as they moved slowly down the staircase. "You need to lie down."

"Soon enough. This is my home and behind the door is my bedroom. If we could head in that direction…" They started across the room. "This was the first subway in New York, built by a man named Alfred Beach back after the War Between the States. It only ran for two blocks. The Boss Tweed didn't want it so he shut it down, then they forgot about it. I found it a while after I started working for the Transit Authority-one of the benefits of the job. Don't know why it held up so well, but it's a good place for me. Just took a little cleaning up, is all." They had walked to the other end of the room and Jack reached out to turn the handles on the ornate cast-bronze door. The center circle swung open. "This used to be the entrance to the pneumatic tube."

"I didn't expect this." Bagabond was surprised to find that the interior of the tu

"All the comforts of home. Even my complete collection of Pogo books." Jack looked i

"Where's your iodine?" Bagabond looked around for a first aid kit.

"Don't use that stuff. Can you get me some of those?" Jack pointed up at the spiderwebs.

"You're kidding."

"Best poultice in the world. My grandma taught me that." When Bagabond turned back to him, he had pulled on a pair of shorts and had a shirt in his hand. She handed over the spiderwebs and helped him bandage the worst abrasions.