Double Solitaire

Chapter Four

The monastery nestled like a bamboo-and-rice-paper pearl in a setting of verdant green hills. Gnarled pines held poses against the pale blue sky like tortured, yet graceful, Kabuki dancers. As Tachyon trudged up the road toward the front gates, spume from a small waterfall was carried to her cheek by a short-lived puff of wind. Then the sleepy August heat returned. Crickets droned dully in the trees and bushes. Tach struggled to keep her eyes open. And her sense of misuse deepened. Fortunato would agree to a meeting at precisely the time she most desperately needed her afternoon nap.

A monk was waiting at the gate. In his dark robe he had seemed just another huddled root at the foot of a gigantic pine. Tach swallowed a gasp as he suddenly unfolded from his meditative pose and stood up.

The welcoming, toothless smile metamorphosed into a frown of confusion.

"I'm here to see Fortunato," said Tach slowly. She touched her breast. "I am Tachyon."

The monk brightened at the sound of her name, but then a distressed murmur of Japanese began. The little man's ears were large and stood out from his almost completely bald head like flaring mushrooms. Like semaphores they made it very clear that she was not entering the monastery, as the old man vigorously shook his head.

"Look, I am Tachyon. I know you were probably expecting a man, but I promise, your virtues are quite safe with me." The man was still shaking his head. Tach's patience snapped like a tightly wound guitar string. "Look! I've had a really difficult four days. I would have been here two days ago, except a moron at Tomlin wouldn't let me on the plane because my passport picture was a little out-of-date." She briefly covered her eyes with a hand, reliving the humiliation of the moment. "Like the wrong sex. And I'll tell you right now -- long airplane rides are hell on pregnant women." Communication was not occurring.

"And you're not understanding a word I am saying, are you? Maybe you'll understand this... if you do not let me through this gate, I'm going to... " Her voice trailed away as a plan bloomed.

Cupping her hands around her belly, she said, "Fortunato! I must see him!"

The old man's eyebrows began waggling as furiously as his ears. Panic was added to the jumble of emotions that warred for control of his face. He pointed to her stomach. Tach nodded. The old man opened the gate and indicated a pathway of carefully raked white sand. Tach started walking. And, soon reached a small bridge, which arched like a springing fawn across a tumbling white-water mountain stream. It was a startling design, however, for the bridge made a perfect ninety-degree turn in the center, then resumed its leap for the far side. Tach paused for a moment in the center of the turn, gripped the handrail, and stared down into the churning water. The water and the wind through the pines formed a harmony as delicate as a sigh. Dropping her head onto the backs of her folded hands, Tach simply listened and breathed for a long moment. This was a good place to be. But it could be delayed no longer. However lovely the setting, soothing the moment, it was not her place or her fortune to rest here. Fortunato had that luxury, she did not. Firmly she raised her head, squared her shoulders, and trying not to waddle, she walked off the bridge and into the heart of the Zen garden.

Fortunato was waiting on a stone bench set artistically before a small pagoda. The gravel of the path crunched beneath her feet, but the ace continued to read, not deigning to acknowledge her arrival. A thin thread of anger coiled like a worm in the center of her heart as Tachyon studied that long, spare face. There were more lines about the narrow, bitter mouth and the slanted oriental eyes, and his cocoa hair held a tinge of gray. The years were passing, and their passage had left a permanent record on Fortunato's face.

"Hello, Fortunato." The sound of her soft soprano brought his head up like a spooking horse. It has been a while."

They studied each other. Gray eyes locked with black. It didn't require a lot of imagination to see the line of fire arcing between them.

"Tachyon." And Fortunato's voice fairly purred with satisfaction.

"You're the first person to recognize me must be the telepathy."

"I've given all that up."

Her disbelief showed. "I'm sure."

"It's true." The ace set aside his book. "I just recognized the look in the eyes."

"Somehow, I do not think that is a compliment."

"Glad to see you haven't lost that rapierlike keenness and understanding." Tach remained silent. "Looks like you've got trouble."

"I've got trouble," acknowledged the alien.

The wind and the crickets replaced human conversation. It was capitulation, but Tach had to break the silence first.

"May I sit down? My back..." she added.

"Yeah, sure. Take a load off."

And then it became too much for the ace. The lines at either side of Fortunato's mouth deepened as he fought the grin, but it couldn't be controlled. White teeth dazzled against the dark skin. The smile became a laugh. Three sharp snorts of amusement. Pain shot from the hinge of Tachyon's jaw into her head as her teeth ground together. "I am so glad you find this a laughing matter. For me it is rather more serious," she declared in a voice gone shrill with anger.

"I think it's funny. What can I say?"

"You could show a little concern."

"Why? I didn't like you when you were the faggot from outer space. Why should I like you now that you're the brood mare from the Bronx?"

"That is an incredibly, insensitive and disgusting thing to say. I suppose that's the way you felt about Peregrine when she carried your child. You couldn't see the woman. Just the bloated, distended body. Sex is the only thing that's ever mattered to you. You haven't even seen your child, have you?" His silence answered her question.

"You're a fine one to be giving me a lecture on feminism. You weren't exactly Mr. Sensitive."

"I was never a pimp. And I would never have denied my child. But I don't know why I expected anything different from you. The Ideal granted you great and potent powers. But you never understood that with great power comes great responsibility. You've abandoned anyone who's ever had a claim upon you. Your mother, your women, your child... It is not the action of a grand seigneur."

"Yeah, because I'm not one. I'm a half-black, half-Jap bastard who fought for everything I ever had, and I didn't ask for any fucking favors."

Looking into those angry black eyes, Tachyon considered rather belatedly that when one comes seeking favors, one ought not get on one's high horse. She plaited a fold of her loose blouse. Pride was an unpalatable morsel to swallow. "I'm sorry" said Tach stiffly. "I should not have lectured you."

"That's one you've gotten right."

They stared at each other for a long moment. The hormonal shifts within Tachyon's borrowed body were causing a fire storm of emotions. Fury wrestled with despair, but even the traumas of pregnancy could not pierce the ice dam that held her tears. Something in Tach's arid stare rattled Fortunato. Uncomfortably he asked, "Aren't you going to bawl now? Every time I saw you, you were sniveling. Now at least you're the right gender to get away with it." Tach just stared at him. After a lengthy silence the ace asked, "Why the hell did you come here? You're a reminder of all the shit I left behind."

"How nice for you. Some of us cannot run away." Illyana kicked, and Tach's hand went instinctively to her belly. Closing her eyes, she twined her thoughts about the baby's. The emotions were like colored ribbons. She was softly smiling when she again opened her eyes. "It is a rare place where the only sensation is love."

"I can think of one other," said Fortunato, very dry.

"No, sex is far more complicated. It is warfare, and obligations, and games, and tests." Tach straightened resolutely and met Fortunato's frowning gaze. "I have come to you for help."

"I don't give abortions."

It was deliberately cruel. Tach was unmoved. "My body has been stolen from me. And I believe the thief has taken it to my home world. I must go after them. And for that I need you."

The receding hairline gave the ace a lot of forehead to furrow and knot as a frown of Jovian proportions crossed his brow. "I don't get it. As far as I know, you're the only person who owns a spaceship instead of a dog."

"How do you think they got off the world?"

Something flickered deep in Fortunato's eyes. It was gone before Tach could identify the emotion that drove it. "You really are fucked."

Tach dropped her gaze. "Will you help me?"

"I still don't see what I can do."

"It has been forty-four years since Jetboy failed over Manhattan. I have seen you all, treated most of you. You are the most powerful ace ever to live. I think your powers are sufficient to cross even light-years. Send a message to my family on Takis." It was more impassioned than she wanted, but desperation was beginning to chew at the edges of her fragile control.

"I don't have any powers. I had to give them up when I entered here."

"Your powers are intact. It's written in your DNA. You can play self-deluding games, but you are a wild card. You will die a wild card."

"You know how my power worked." Fortunato threw out his long arms, indicating the peaceful garden. "You see any way for me to awaken the Kundalini?"

The words had to crawl from a mouth gone desert dry. "Yes... use me."

"Jesus fucking Christ, you are desperate."

"You will never know how much," said Tach, so quietly that the ace had to lean in to hear her. His body odor was fresh, citrusy. Tach fought back vomit.

She had prayed it would not (but feared that it would) come to this. Like most aces Fortunato relied upon a psychological crutch to use his wildcard powers. Peregrine believed she could not fly without her wings. In fact they were useless -- she flew using an elaborate telekinetic power. Turtle's teke power would not work unless he was safely armored in his shell. And Fortunato could not use his awesome telepathy unless he had sex immediately before utilizing his powers. It had been an elaborate joke in Jokertown. "May I charge you up?" had become a euphemism for fucking.

Tachyon wondered if the fear was evident on her face. She toyed briefly with the notion of telling the ace that she had been raped. No, he would only think she was whining. There would be no sympathy from that quarter -- only disdain.

"Stand up." Startled, Tachyon obeyed. "Now, turn around." A long thin forefinger twirled in the air.

Tach pivoted slowly. His gaze seemed to have weight and substance. Heat licking across her face, down the length of her bare arms. The pale golden hairs on her forearms stood up.

"Now the hair,"

"What?" Her hand flew to the French braid that contained the heavy blond mane.

"Take it down."

The bow resisted her shaking fingers. She thought he would help her, but Fortunato sat, arms folded across his chest, his long legs stretched out before him, showing through the slit in his kimono. At last it came down, and she shook it loose from the braid. It formed a cloak across shoulders and breast.

"Now the blouse."

"Why are you doing this to me?" She felt like a limp and helpless victim. Visions of Blaise flashed about the corners of her consciousness. The first flickers of a conflagration that would destroy her with terror.

"I want to see what I'd be getting. I used to audition all my girls. You're very graceful. Hand movements are nice -- a little clumsy --"

"Fear has a way of doing that," shot back Tach, anger driving back the fear.

"You're afraid," Fortunato repeated as if the concept were a new one, the emotion unknown to him.

"Yes," was the curt reply.

"Why?"

"No, I won't give you that."

"You're about to offer me all of you. Why balk at a little confidence?"

"I am using you," Tach cried. Rage threw caution to the wolves.

"Thank you. That's what I was looking for... a little honesty, a little admission that this is all about you... precious you, wonderful you... you... you."

"I humbled myself and came to you for help. And if asking is not strong enough, then by the Ideal, I'll beg!"

"So start... I'm waiting."

"Damn you! How much groveling is required before you can grant me a simple favor?"

"I've given up my powers."

"I'll give them back to you! You've fucked me often enough psychologically and metaphorically. You may as well complete the goddamn cycle!"

Echoes of her shrill diatribe shattered against the mountain's side. The crickets fell silent. Fortunato's eyes narrowed to calculating slits. He studied her. Then slowly shook his head. "No... I don't think I want to do that."

"You bastard." Her voice was shaking as hard as her hands. A button twisted off as she tried to close her blouse. "Nothing matters to you but yourself. This is not just about me... about a lifetime trapped. Blaise is going to Takis. My people are going to suffer... perhaps die because you can't be bothered to help."

"Aliens," said Fortunato, edging the word with ice.

It threw Tachyon completely off stride. She faltered, gaped. "What?"

"Aliens. I don't give a rat's ass about the sufferings of faggots from outer space. Your people brought the wild card to Earth. What was the toll on Wild Card Day? Sixty thousand dead? Let this Blaise do his worst." Fortunato was talking to her back. A vise had closed around her chest as the guilt slammed home. Mental wails were coming from Illyana as she tried to absorb, understand, buffer against the fire storm of emotions that tore through her mother. It was almost a flashback. The peaceful garden became Central Park. The screams of the dying and the deformed. And the smell -- smoke and feces and vomit. Wild Card Day. September 15, 1946.

"Hey, Tachyon."

She kept walking.

"I'll give you this much -- Jube the Walrus isn't a joker. In fact, he's not even human."

That got her. Frowning, Tach turned back to face the ace. "You're mad."

"No. I'm the most powerful ace in the world, remember?"

"Even if it's true, how does that help? What in the fuck am I supposed to do with that?" Tachyon walked back to the bench, glared at the ace.

Fortunato stood and smoothed the folds of his kimono, glanced down into Tachyons bitter face, shrugged. "Hey, you're not my problem. It's not my responsibility to take care of you."

"Or anyone else." Tight and low the words had to fight their way past her lips.

"I thought you would have gotten that by now."

"Oh, yes, I got it. Now get this!"

It was an effort to keep her balance, but Tach managed, and watched with satisfaction as the toe of her shoe impacted squarely with Fortunato's crotch. He clutched himself and dropped, groaning, to his knees. The twilight bird song was punctuated with the sounds of gags and retching. Tach watched dispassionately as vomit and spittle decorated the grass.

"There must be a thousand women who wish they could have done that," said Tach pleasantly. "I'm glad it got to be me."

As she walked back across the bridge, Tach couldn't help reflecting how soothing the sounds of a Zen garden could be.

"You went to Japan for a day?" The customs officer was a hirsute individual with a five o'clock shadow at ten o'clock, and brows that looked like knotted bird nests. "And you've got no luggage?"

"Yes ... and yes."

The line behind Tachyon was becoming restive. The Japanese might be patient about queues back home, but not in New York. They wanted to reach the fleshpots of Manhattan and find a blond cutie -- rather like the one holding up the parade. Despite Tachyon's fecund condition she had been groped five times on the flight back to the States. The fifth assailant had earned himself a black eye.

Resigning herself to the necessity of explanations, Tach began, "I went to Japan solely for a meeting. You have my passport with a letter from Senator Kennedy. It should be apparent what has happened to me."

Cody was no doubt waiting beyond customs. It made Tach crazy to be so close to home, and to be stalled by an officious --

There were suddenly two men on either side of her. Dark suits, white shirts. Every thread of their polyester screamed federal cop.

"Dr. Tachyon, if you could come with us please."

She took one last longing look at the sliding doors cycling open and closed, disgorging people into freedom. The man on her left closed a hand around her upper arm. Resistance melted under the hot breath of fear.