Jokers Wild

He left Caroline on the steps of the Jokertown clinic. The crowds opened up to let him through and then closed again after him. There wasn't a lot of time for sentimental gestures. Caroline. was dead now and beyond caring.

He levitated straight up into the sky. He floated there and cleared his mind and pictured Tachyon, in his effeminate clown suits and Day-Glo hair. You dead yet, Tachyon? he thought. Yo, Tachyon, do you read me?

Tachyon's thoughts filled his head. Finally! Where have you been? I've been trying to get through to you! There was some kind of wall of power around you!

I'm a little charged up tonight, Fortunato told him.

I have to see you. The image of a warehouse on the East River formed in his mind. Can you meet me here? It's desperately important. It's about the Astronomer.

Fortunato turned the picture of the warehouse inside out. The ship was inside. Shaped like a jewel-studded conch shell and bigger than most houses.

I know, Fortunato thought. I already know.

Tachyon was still weeping. An inexhaustible flow, Roulette thought wearily, followed by an irritated flash: What does he want from me?

"Stop it," she said, and her voice seemed to be coming from a long way off.

The alien caught his breath on a sob, lifted his blotchy, tear-stained face from his hands.

"Nobody cares. You can cry your soul out, but nobody will care."

"I loved you." His voice was a husky rasp in the shadows of the room.

"Always in the past tense." And the remark struck her as being unbearably humorous. She never noticed when the laughter became tears.

His hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her until the teeth chattered in her head and the crystal beads in her hair set a cold ringing. "Why? Why?" he shouted.

"He promised me revenge, and peace."

"The peace of the grave. The Astronomer destroys everything he touches. How many bodies must it take to convince you?" He was screaming into her face. "And now Baby, Baby," he groaned, thrusting her aside.

"And what about you, Doctor?" she cried. "What about a lifetime of bodies?" The demons began their play, and she clutched at her head whimpering. "My baby."

His mind met hers, but this time there was no blending of thoughts. The chaos of her mind rejected the meld.

"It's happening again," Tachyon cried in an anguished whisper. "I can't bear it. Not again. What should I do? Who can help me?"

He pulled her off the bed, and shoved her toward her clothes. "Get dressed. We must hurry, hurry. If I can reach Baby before the Astronomer does. Then, later… later I'll do what I can for you, my poor, poor darling."

Roulette, mechanically pulling on her dress and shoes and gathering up her purse, tried to concentrate, but Tachyon's nervous babblings raked across her nerves, destroying thought. She tried to shut him out.

"Personality deterioration," he mumbled from within the large walk-in closet. "It will be necessary to find the core, rebuild memory compartments." The litany continued like a schoolboy trying to cram for an exam. A hanger screeched across the rod.

Roulette moved swiftly, slid open the dresser drawer, removed the Magnum, secreted it in her purse. An instant later Tachyon, dragging a coat over his unbuttoned shirt, raced into the room, and caught her by the wrist.

She didn't resist. He was taking her to her master. And then she would deal with them both.

Before he could even see the place, Fortunato heard the screaming in his head. It was the noise of a squalling infant, but refined, purified, maddening. He put up a mental block against it just to keep his mind clear.

He flew in over a rundown block and saw the warehouse. It was surrounded by kids in black leather jackets, the last of the gangs that had run wild in the Cloisters. They had M16s and holstered. 357 Magnums, like twenty-first-century cowboys. As Fortunato came down at them from the sky they all leaned their heads back to look.

"Run!" Fortunato ordered them. "Run away!" They dropped their rifles and ran.

Fortunato hit the street by the entrance to the warehouse. Something inside hummed like a monstrous carrier wave. There was a single floodlight over the door, but Fortunato himself glowed like a small sun. In that light he saw Tachyon and Roulette ru

The Astronomer was already inside. His energy spoor covered the walls and leaked out into the street. Fortunato was reaching for the door when a thin cylinder of pink light punched through the wall next to him, then winked out. There was a sharp cracking noise as air imploded into the vacuum the laser left behind. Somebody inside the warehouse screamed. A second later the laser cut another hole a few yards away, and another. The noise was like ca

"I'm going in," Tachyon said. "He's hurting Baby."

"Baby," Fortunato said. "Christ."

"It's the name of his ship," Roulette said.

"I know," Fortunato said. "What's your part in this?"

"She's working for the Astronomer," Tachyon said. "She tried to kill me tonight."

Fortunato nearly laughed. So she wasn't freelance after all. Too bad she hadn't pulled it off. Fortunato jerked open the door and saw the Astronomer crawling into the side of the ship.

There was a body on the floor, a kid with a smoking black hole instead of a chest. In the corner were four others: a woman with a nurse's uniform and an M16, another woman in white, a man with a cat's face and long claws, and a plain Oriental woman who looked somehow familiar. The Cloisters, Fortunato thought. He'd seen her there and in the old Masonic temple in jokertown, just minutes before he'd blown it up. As he watched she became beautiful. Fascinating. He couldn't look away. He could feel the neurons in his brain misfiring.

"Stop it," he ordered. His brain cleared and she became plain and frightened again. The nurse raised the M16 and Fortunato melted it, the plastic stock turning to hot liquid in her hands.

"It's over," the Oriental said, "isn't it? We're not getting out of here."

"Not in that ship," Fortunato said.

"All the way from San Francisco for nothing," she said. "The door is still an option."

She looked hard to make sure he meant it, then ran for it. The others followed more slowly, not willing to turn their backs on Fortunato.

"Gresham?" Tachyon said. His voice warbled with anger and hurt. "Nurse Gresham?"

"What?" the nurse said.

"How could you? How could you betray my trust?"

"Oh, fuck off," Gresham said. "What do I care about your fucking trust?"

Tachyon put both hands to his head. His fingers pulled the flesh into a monster face. Fortunato wondered if he was going to combust. Instead Gresham's eyes rolled up in her head. She spun around once and slammed into the decaying wall next to the door.

"Jesus," Fortunato said. "Did you kill her?"

Tachyon shook his head. "No. She's not dead. Though she deserved it."

"Then you need to get her out of here," Fortunato said. "Both of you. While you still can. I'm going to split that ship like an oyster."

"No!" It was practically a scream. "You can't! I forbid it!"

"Don't get in my way, little man. The Astronomer is one of yours. It's your virus did this to him. I'm going to finish this. If you get in my way I'll kill you."

"Not the ship," Tachyon said. The little bastard really didn't know when to be scared. Fortunato had to give him that much. "She's alive. It's not her fault this is happening to her. You can't punish her for it."

"There's more at stake here than a goddamn piece of machinery."

Tachyon shook his head. "Not for me there isn't. And she's not a machine. If you try to harm her, you'll have to stop to fight me first. You can't afford that. The Astronomer will kill us all."