Down And Dirty

There were a few nervous laughs from the people in the van. Elmo shifted uncomfortably. His hazardous-environment suit was scarcely able to contain his bulk, and he looked rather like an ill-stuffed sausage. They had cobbled together suits for Troll and Ernie out of four other suits. So far the seals were holding, but Tachyon winced every time he considered the expense. Video and Floater each had suits, and Tachyon wore his Network-designed spacesuit.

It was impossible to protect Slither. They had tried a helmet and air supply, but the air tanks kept sliding around on her serpent's body, pulling loose the hoses. Tach had ordered her to stay out of the fight. She would be a final line of defense if Croyd got past them.

… Surprisingly neat room. A tall, thin man lounged on the sofa reading Newsweek. Ultrapale skin, odd eyes, brown hair with white roots showing…

… Another man seated at the kitchen table playing solitaire. Wonderfully handsome, but an easily forgettable face for all that…

Bill Lockwood.

Tachyon read a soul-deep sense of gratitude and a determination to protect… Croyd!

He switched his focus to the albino. Sweat broke out on his upper lip and stung his eyes as he struggled to touch the mind. Sliding his hand through the clear bubble of the helmet, he wiped perspiration and tried again. Whirling darkness like a primordial black hole. It was a mind block, but one of the oddest he'd ever felt. He spent another twenty minutes trying to find a way over, under, around, or through it. Finally he reluctantly concluded that it was more like an immunity than an actual shield.

He explained the situation to his troops, then added, "So we just go in and thump on him. How hard can it be? And remember, if you're not suited, don't go into that room."

They piled out. With a wave he motioned Slither and Ernie toward the rear alley. Then he and Troll and Elmo headed up the steps to the front door. There were buzzers, but since the lock was broken off the outer door, they didn't serve much purpose. Cautiously they stepped inside and started climbing for the third floor.

Fortunately the suit masked the smells, but Tach could imagine them. He had made too many house calls to just such buildings. The stink of rancid grease. The sickly-sweet scent of human and animal wastes clinging in the corners of the stairwells. Sweat, fear, poverty, and hopelessness-they too left a smell. The walls were graffiti-covered, slogans and howls of outrage in several languages.

I'm in position.

Video flashed him another picture of the room. Nothing had changed.

Window? Tachyon asked his recon team.

Open. In this heat what do you expect? sent back Floater. Go in? asked Video.

Yes.

The alien motioned to Troll. The security chief took a grip on the knob, sucked in a breath, held it.

… The albino noticed Floater with Video riding piggyback on his shoulders, crawling in the window. He rose with blinding speed, uttered an oath, and drew a gun… "Now!" yelled Tachyon.

Troll forced the door. The lock broke with a scream of outraged metal and torn wood. Tach and Elmo tumbled into the room. The albino fired, and missed. Slither, disobeying or having completely forgotten her orders, came coiling up the fire escape like a hunting boa on a tree. She lashed out with her tufted tail and knocked the gun from the albino's hand.

"You fuckers!" Cards flew like frightened butterflies as the young man flung aside the table.

A right punch was coming in. Tachyon tried to deflect it with a quick outward block, but when his arm co

Croyd was trying to tie Slither into knots. Elmo waded in and was tossed contemptuously aside. He came back in, his arms driving like pistons. Ernie joined the fray. Floater was trying to scramble across the ceiling back to the window.

A sound like a side of beef hitting concrete. The pretty boy had landed a hit on Troll. The big joker doubled over. And Tachyon stared dismayed.

Thank you, Jesus, that he didn't hit rne! came the hysterical little thought.

Troll drove two hard left/right punches into Lockwood's gut.

Nothing!

Lockwood wound up and delivered a punch to Tachyon's head. The Network helmet withstood the blow, but the kinetic force threw the tiny alien across the room. He came up bruised and groaning against the far wall. Troll was raining punches on Lockwood. The young man gri

When a tree falls in the forest this is just how it sounds, thought Tach inanely as nine feet of joker went down like a poleaxed ox.

"Shit," commented Floater from overhead.

Tachyon reached out with a powerful imperative. Silver lines of power flowed out from him but failed to wrap like a net about the man's mind. Instead the power sank like a stone in quicksand.

SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!

The power washed back toward him, struck his shields, and passed right through.

Boomerang power, was Tachyon's last conscious thought.

He was dancing the most intricate and wonderful triple minor set, but there were no other men in the dance. Just him, and a long line of women. Blythe and Saaba and Dani and Angelface and M'orat, and Jane and Talli, and Roulette and Peregrine and Victoria and Zabb grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to cut in. Muttering and growling, Tach dug his cheek deeper into the pillow. The antiseptic smell and rough texture of the pillowcase infuriated him. I won't endure a bed like this. How dare they? The infernal cheek!

He forced up gummed lids, stared into Victoria Queen's frowning blue eyes.

Smiled up at her. "You dance divinely."

"Oh, wake up!" She jammed a needle into his arm.

"Ow!"

"Stimulant. Our hero. You finally meet someone with a superior mind-control power at positively the worst moment."

"He was not superior! That was my own power ricocheting back at me. Nothing else could have gotten past my-" He cut off, ashamed by his outraged justification, then continued in a chastised tone, "Did we get them?"

"No."

He dropped his face into his hands. "O ancestors, what a mess."

"Yes." She walked out.

Croyd escaped. And if Slither died? Another casualty of his failures.

The click of dainty hooves on tile. "What next, boss?"

"I commit suicide."

"Wrong answer."

"I go to the police."

"They'll freak," remarked the joker as he pulled tangles from his white mane.

"What choice do I have? I wanted to keep this secret, avoid panic, but Croyd now knows he's being hunted. He will go to ground. We must have manpower to find him. And this companion. Call Washington, have SCARE search their files for an ace with boomerang powers."

The Takisian rose stiffly from the bed. Winced as he explored a bruise on his elbow. Ran his hands through his tangled curls. "I handled this so badly."

"You couldn't know."

"How are the troops?" Fi

"Slither. She went into Black Queen reaction minutes after you went under."

"The incubation period…"

"Must be shortening."

"He's continuing to mutate the virus."

"So maybe it will mutate until it becomes nonviral?"

"I couldn't be so lucky. Everything I touch leads to death."

"Stop it! That's not true! We don't have time for you to feel guilty If anyone's at fault-I am. I let him leave."