Down And Dirty

VII

When Snotman grew ill, Croyd snapped the lock on the door behind him, letting him into the dusty ruin of a small two-room apartment whose owner was obviously using the place to store damaged furniture. He located a threadbare couch on which the glistening joker sprawled, quivering. He rinsed a jelly jar he found near a basin in the next room and took him a drink of water. Sweeping aside a mess of ancient drug paraphernalia, Croyd seated himself on a small cracked bench as the other sipped.

"You been sick?" Croyd asked him.

"No. I mean, I always feel like I've got a cold, but this is different. I feel sort of like I did a long time ago, when it all started."

Croyd covered the shivering joker with a pile of curtains he found in a corner, then seated himself again.

"Finish telling me what happened," Snotman said after a time.

"Oh, yeah."

Croyd popped a methamphet and a dex and continued his tale. When Snotman passed out, Croyd did not notice. He kept talking until he realized that Snotman's skin had gone dry. Then he grew still and watched, for the man's features seemed slowly to be rearranging themselves. Even speeded, Croyd was able to spot the onset of a wild card attack. But even speeded, this did not quite make sense. Snotman was already a joker, and Croyd had never heard of anyone himself excluded-coming down with it a second time.

He shook his head, rose and paced, stepped outside. It was afternoon now, and he was hungry again. It took him a few moments to spot the new shift that had taken over surveillance of his quarters. He decided against disposing of them. The most sensible thing to do, he guessed, would be to go and get a bite to eat, then come back and keep an eye on the now-transforming Snotman through his crisis, one way or the other. Then clear out, go deeper underground.

In the distance a siren wailed. Another Red Cross helicopter came and went, low, from the southeast, heading uptown. Memories of that first mad Wild Card Day swam in his head, and Croyd decided that perhaps he'd better acquire a new pad even before he ate. He knew just the sleaze-bin, not too far away, where he could get in off the streets and no questions asked, provided they had a vacancy-which was generally the case. He detoured to check it out.

Like a mating call, another siren answered the first, from the opposite direction. Croyd waved at the man who hung upside down by his feet from a lamppost, but the fellow took offense or grew frightened and flew away.

From somewhere he heard a loudspeaker mentioning his name, probably saying terrible things about him.

His fingers tightened on the fender of a parked car. The metal squealed as he pulled at it, tearing a wide strip loose. He turned then, bending it, folding it, blood dripping from a tear in his hand. He would find that speaker and destroy it, whether it was high on a buildingside or the top of a cop car. He would stop them from talking about him. He would…

That would give him away, though-he realized in a moment's clarity-to his enemies, who could be anybody. Anybody except the guy with the wild card virus, and Snotman couldn't be anybody's enemy just now. Croyd hurled the piece of metal across the street, then threw back his head and began to howl. Things were getting complicated again. And nasty. He needed something to calm his nerves.

He plunged his bloody hand into his pocket, withdrew a fistful of pills, and gulped them without looking to see what they were. He had to get presentable to go and get a room.

He ran his fingers through his hair, brushed off his clothes, began walking at a normal pace. It wasn't far.

Blood Ties

V

The man wrapped a webbed hand about Tachyon's wrist, indicated for a pad, and scrawled out, How long you think I got?

"A few days."

Tachyon noticed Tina Mixon's wince. He knew that she considered his frankness to border on brutality, but he didn't believe in lying to people. A man needed time to prepare himself for death. And these humans with their delicate sensibilities. They either wouldn't talk about death, or they shrouded it in euphemisms. On the other hand, they were not in the least backward about dealing out death.

The hiss of the respirator was loud in the room as the man laboriously wrote, if you could find that woman.

"She's vanished, Mr. Grogan. I'm sorry, Use powers. Find her!"

Tachyon bowed his head and recalled the scene (only three days ago? It seemed an eternity) that had met his disbelieving gaze. He had responded to word of a riot on the third floor. He had run into the ward, then frozen and stared down at the water washing over the tops of his shoes.

There must have been sixty people in a room designed for ten. Soaked and bedraggled jokers clung like survivors of a shipwreck to the beds. Orderlies disgruntledly slopped mops across the flooded floor. A sandy-haired man stood on one of the beds babbling hysterically while a pair of women jokers pawed at his knees and added their shrill cries to the general pandemonium-

"A fucking vision. A fucking golden vision. And look at me!" screamed the sandy-haired man. "Look at me!"

"Why does it have to be a woman?" wailed a woman. "Maybe you got her power. Fuck me. FUCK ME!"

Tachy had ruthlessly mind-controlled her. And the babbling man, and anyone else who had seemed likely to make trouble. The remaining jokers had stared at him like targets at a county turkey shoot.

They were less intimidated now.

Like this pathetic blackmail from a dying man.

"I'm sorry," Tachyon said again to Grogan, and left the room.

And stumbled into a lurking pack of jokers. "Good morning."

"What's good about it," growled a big joker with a mouthful of cilia in place of teeth. It made his diction mushy, and Tachyon had to strain to understand him.

"You're alive, Mr. Konopka, which is more than many unluckier ones can claim," the alien snapped. He pulled off his stethoscope and jerked it between his hands.

"You call this livin'?" said a woman. " I look like a monster, my husband's left me, I lost my job-"

"Everyone's got a story," said Tachyon shortly, heading down the hall. They followed him.

Konopka stepped in front of the Takisian and stopped him with a hard jab to the small alien's chest.

"What are you doing to find that woman?"

For a long moment Tachyon warred with conflicting emotions: to placate them with a soothing lie, or be damned to them; and tell them the truth.

The joker gave him another jab with a forefinger tipped with a long, sharp nail. "Huh? Huh? Answer up-"

Tach ran out of patience. "I'm doing precisely nothing to find that woman."

"You motherfucker, I'm gonna kill you." Konopka drew back a fist.

Another man cried, "You don't care about us!"

Tachyon whirled on him, seized him by the shoulders. "No! That's not true. Xuan, I care more than you can conceive. But I must also care for Jane. Look at you." He raked the crowd with a lilac-eyed glance. "You're like hunting animals."

"That girl can cure us. You gotta find her." The anger drained from Xuan, replaced with a humble pleading. Konopka jerked the alien around to face him. "You owe it to us, Tachyon, because you made us what we are, and you can't do fuck to cure us!" There were shouts of agreement.

Tachyon glanced to the nurses' station, where Tina was dithering over the switchboard. He gave an infinitesimal shake of the head. All this situation needed was the arrival of security.,

"All of you return to your rooms."

"No brush off, Tachyon!"

"Listen to me," he pleaded. "That girl is a person, a human being. Not a fucking machine designed to cure jokers. You would have killed her three days ago. Consider the terrible dilemma with which she is faced. Think of her too and not only of yourselves. How can I trust you when I can't even trust myself to do what is right and proper by Jane?"

Finn had popped out of an elevator and now stood with a foreleg upraised as if ready to paw the linoleum floor. With a low murmur the crowd began to disperse. All except Konopka. He gathered up a handful of the burgundy satin coat and lifted Tach's feet from the floor. Finn cantered daintily forward, whirled on his slender forelegs, and landed a kick square in the center of Konopka's ass. With a roar the joker dropped Tachyon and spun to face this new attack.

"Cut it out!" yelled Finn. "And get the hell back to your room." Konopkds fist lashed out. Finn danced back, but four legs are less dexterous than two. The blow landed.

"Nat ass-kisser!"

Tachyon dropped Konopka snoring to the floor.

"Why didn't you do that a long time ago?" asked Finn, rubbing at his reddening cheek.

"Possibly because I'm tired of victimizing them." Tachyon whirled, his long-tailed coat rustling around him. Finn had to trot to keep pace.

"It's not your fault."

"Which part of this mess? The creation of the virus? No, not entirely my fault. The fact that Croyd's become a carrier? Again, probably beyond my control. The fact that Jane has become the most hunted person in Jokertown? Maybe not. But she is my responsibility, and I've got to find her and protect her if I can." Tachyon slammed his fist into the elevator wall, breaking the skin across his knuckles.

Finn lifted his hand and blotted at the welling blood with a handkerchief. "Relax, we'll find her."

"Will we?" Tachyon licked reflectively at the blood. "More to the point, should we?"

"Ha! I blast you with my killer mind-attack. And I make it! You lose another life." Tachyon tossed the tiny cardboard marker into the discard pile. "And I can really do that too." Blaise's eyes glittered in the lamplight. "I bet if I worked hard I could kill with my mind."

Polyakov glanced up from his newspaper. "It's not a talent to cultivate."

"Can you do it?"

"Drop it, Blaise."

"Can you?"

"I said drop it."

The small, round chin hardened, the lips narrowing into a mulish line. "Maybe I'll just have to practice on somebody since you won't-"

Tachyon came across the dining table and landed a slap that knocked the boy out of his chair.

"Tachyon!" bellowed the Russian.

"Blaise! Blaise! I'm sorry. So sorry. Are you all right?" Aghast, he gathered the child into his arms. "Oh, Ideal, forgive me."

The boy swung wildly, striking Tach above the eye. His esper ability poured off him in shuddering silver waves as he struggled to break his elder's shields. Tachyon quieted Blaise with a lick of his power.

"Listen to me. I'm horribly tired, and under a lot of stress. I know that's not an adequate excuse, but I offer it as an explanation. I don't want you to learn to kill. It does something to your soul because you are so closely linked with your victim. It's not like make-believe." He gestured back toward the abandoned Talisman game. "You have to burrow deep, tear away layer after layer of the person's mind before you can kill."

"Have you done it?" Blaise muttered around a swelling lip.

"Yes, and it haunts me to this day." Polyakov stepped to the alien's side and rested a hand on his shoulder. "I weighed Rabdan's life against the life of the Earth. He had to die, it was necessary but…" He hugged the child close. "You must learn to be kind, Blaise. Don t even joke about practicing on the humans. Our original sin was treating them as laboratory animals. Don't you-"

The trill of the phone interrupted him. "Doctor. This is Jane."

"Jane, where-"

"No, no questions. Just listen. I have an address and a telephone number for Croyd. Only one. I heard the ads. I guess I can understand why you have to find, him."

"Jane, I'm sorry I didn't help you before."

"It's okay. I was pretty strung out. You're not going to hurt him, are you? He's been a friend. I hate to think I'm betraying him, but…"

"More people will die if you don't. You're right to tell me."

"Okay. He's got an apartment on Eldridge. Three twentythree Eldridge. Third floor. Five five five, four four nine one."

"Thank you, Jane, thank you so much. My dear child, we must " But he was talking to the buzz of a disconnected line.

He replaced the receiver and stood face-to-face with a nasty moral dilemma. if… when they captured Croyd, and if he awoke in a new form minus the carrier power, well and good. But if this mutation carried over, then the decisions became harder. To keep the man in isolation for the rest of his life?

Or to kill him…

… A woman lying back among pillows and tangled sheets. A sheen of sweat across her dark breasts and belly. The moisture-matted hair of her mons-

The three-dimensional picture fragmented and vanished. Sorry, squeaked Video in Tachyon's mind. We got the wrong apartment.

Wait, that might be Croyd.

He reached out and touched the woman's mind. It wasn't Croyd.

Floater and Video resumed their slow crawl across the back wall of the apartment building.

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 connected with Lockwood's, it stopped as if caught in a vise. Tach gasped. Troll, grunting with irritation, let loose with a wide, slow haymaker. His enormous fist slammed into Lockwood's jaw. No reaction. Tach and Troll stepped back, alarmed.

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 grinned and hammered in a series of hits that drove Troll across the room. The big joker stood swaying, arms over his helmeted head. Lockwood kicked him hard in the groin, then brought both hands down on the back of Troll's neck.

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.