Theodore soon found himself in an empty parking garage in
the downtown of the city. It had to be a heavy industry building for there to
be so many open levels in the garage. It was a dank, dark, nasty place and
apparently it suited Agent Tamilton well.
“Wake him up,” she barked.
Jax nodded and carefully administered a small hypo to the
unconscious form before them.
Six of Pat Tamilton's team formed a large semi-circle
around their prey. Far in the gloom in the direction of the open end of the
circle were two others of the team, waiting in the shadows.
Theodore stared at the form starting to squirm on the
ground. He was angry, furious. Especially at the quip about killing Anna, but
Theodore had a job to do. A job he had never even tried before, but was
definitely willing to give it his best.
“Wakey, wakey,” grinned Theodore as the Taik started to
stir.
“Where... where am I?”
“The short answer is 'in deep trouble,'” replied Theodore
as he got right down in his face. “Do you have a name?”
The Taik's eyes narrowed, “I remember you!” A parade of
expletives followed as he staggered to his feet. Threats of violence soon
laced the next round of verbal abuse.
“You couldn't take me before, what makes you think you can
take me now?” grinned Theodore,
trying
to be as sinister as possible.
Sinister was new to him...
The Taik's eyes flared with rage and he invoked a Live
Steel sword and thrust it directly at Theodore.
Theodore was glad he was so easy to bait, with the mind
clouded by the cocktail of sedatives the man was sloppy, very sloppy! With a
quick step he was clear of the lazy thrust and moved and kicked the man's legs
out from under him. They both crashed to the floor and Theodore reached out with
his left hand and grabbed the man's sword just below his own grip.
Theodore's fur flared as he worked to rip the sword from
the Taik's hand, not by brute force, but by willpower alone. The blade served
the man, but Live Steel could be made to serve anyone, anyone with the proper
control. The blade lashed out at Theodore's mind, it already had a master!
The blade seemed to burn in his hand and in his mind as he fought for control.
Control of a Highlander's most precious weapon. His mind turned a notch as he
challenged the Live Steel sword's notion of who was and wasn't a Highlander.
Live Steel served the Highlands... No... that wasn't quite true... They
didn't serve a place... they served an ideal...
He would murder Anna with
you... She's a human... She was taken in... She's a human... She was taken
in: she is a Highlander...
Theodore strained as he kept fighting at the
blade, it didn't want to let go of its old master, but that just made him try
harder.
The Taik suddenly screamed as he realized his sword was
gone, ripped from his very hand and now serving another.
“Karl Blackoak of the Western Pines,” announced Theodore
as he casually stood and approached Patricia Tamilton. “He murdered a man
there and then fled to the Altshea lands. Four others have fallen because of
him, one more on Afon in the Altshea lands and the other three on the
Eglesteiner colonies.”
“His sword told you that?” grinned Tamilton.
“Pretty much. Can't make out much more, unfortunately.
It would have been a lot harder if he hadn't murdered someone back home.”
“It looked pretty tough on you as it was,” replied
Tamilton.
“That... that was the first time I'd ever had to do that.
I'll be better for it next time...”
Karl screamed in rage and rushed Theodore only to have the
wind knocked out of him by a perfectly placed shot with a riot control round
from Jax.
“Can he raise his armor?” asked Agent Tamilton.
“No. The sword acts as the keystone for the rest of the
Live Steel. He's defenseless. But don't be savages. Stooping to his level is
beneath you.”
“Oh come, come!” grinned Tamilton. “After what he has
done and threatened to do, I figure removing a few teeth might help his
attitude.”
“The blood in his mouth will make him hard to understand,”
offered Jax matter-of-factly.
“Declaw the kitty?”
Theodore's fur spiked, “That... That is sick and wrong.”
“Well, maybe he'd like to tell us where to find his
boss...”
A burst of obscenities came as a reply.
“That's a 'no,'” observed Jax with a sinister grin.
“Shall I get the tools out of the car?”
“Please! Oh, Theodore, you can do that spot stasis thing
if he starts to bleed out too much, right?”
Theodore was shocked, “Um, yes ma'am. But we aren't going
there!”
“You may not be...”
“Be careful when hunting monsters...”
“Maybe I don't mind
being
a monster,” replied
Tamilton evenly.
Theodore snarled at Agent Tamilton and turned to Karl, “I
think she's crazy enough to do it...”
“The bitch will never get away with it...”
“We're in a parking garage underground. No one is around
and there are no cameras,” observed Theodore sympathetically. “I... I'm not
really one to defend you after what you said about Anna. But I'm not going to
be part of this crap, so I guess I'm just going to have to walk out and try to
find a taxi home...” He turned and started to leave.
“You can't leave me with her! She's an animal!”
Theodore cringed as he watched Jax carry a case back
towards Patricia Tamilton. “And you are a murderer. Maybe I should have just
killed you last night and saved us both the trouble... I'm going home... and
getting drunk...”
Screaming erupted as Jax approached Karl. Horrible filth
laden screaming until at last he blurted out, “Rothworth's Casino... one of the
penthouses... I don't know which!”
Theodore turned and looked back.
Karl started blubbering at Jax's feet and finally Pat
waved him clear. She walked forward and grinned, “Who's a good kitty! Oh,
who's a good kitty! Next time, try that without all the foul language and
we'll all be happier!” She grinned as she looked over her shoulder, “Jax, open
the case.”
Karl screamed as Jax opened the case with sinister glee
and dumped out... nothing... the case was empty. “Normally have my field
radios in that case,” grinned Pat. “Not that you knew that.”
Theodore was dumbstruck, “The whole thing was an act?”
Pat grinned, “Sorry, I thought that was obvious. I
usually get stuck playing 'good cop' and Jax gets to play 'bad cop.'” She
giggled lightly, “It was fun reversing roles, but Jax is still much better at
it that I. Hey, I'm mercenary and rude; I'm not a monster...”
Pat giggled and poked Theodore playfully as they drove
back to the federal transfer jail. “You did perfectly, smile!”
Theodore's stomach was still in a knot, “Ma'am, it may
have been all an act, but it still tore up my stomach. Don't do that to me
again.”
She nodded, “Fair enough. All you signed up for was
disarming him. Next time we have something like that, we'll remove you from
the loop.”
“Please!”
“You are a good and decent young man; I don't want my
nasty habits rubbing off on you,” she grinned. “I hadn't planned on doing any
of that here... but after your 'savages' comment...”
Theodore shuddered, “Me and my big mouth...”
“Hi! Busy?” grinned Agent Patricia Tamilton as she poked
her head in Theodore's dorm room.
“This is becoming a habit, ma'am,” he murmured. “I'm
finishing up homework, but it could wait. It all depends...”
“Nothing that would insult your delicate sense of
propriety,” she grinned.
“You are smiling
way
too much,” observed Theodore.
“Is this about Karl?”
“Nah, we're done with him and he's being deported to Afon
as we speak.”
“I thought deportations usually got tied up in courts for
weeks and things.”
“With his lawyer present, he claimed he came here to work
for the casino security.”
“Okay...”
“No work visa!”
“Surely it was more complicated than that!”
“Well yes... but it was a given that deportation was in
the cards. The question was Afon or the Eglesteiner colonies.”
“The Altshea Confederation on Afon doesn't have a death
penalty...”
“And there you have it!”
“Is this something that is going to piss off the DSS?”
Pat shrugged, “Wouldn't know. They still haven't reported
in yet...”
“You have someone stalling them...”
“Would I do that?” she asked as she batted her eyelashes.
Theodore just stared at her. “Yes. Yes, you would. So,
what do you want?”
“Um, watching the video of the train cars and things, you
jumped off a hundred meter high rail, smashed into the ground and just walked
away...”
“Yes. It's often referred to as an 'armor slam.' Live
Steel drags around its own inertial coordinate frame.”
“Well, it would have to, if you invoked it on two
different planets, the relative motions would be insane.”
“Well, then, nice that I don't have to explain that...”
“Toni did,” she interrupted.
Theodore sighed and articulated slowly and carefully,
“What do you want?”
“I need a distraction. A Highlander doing an armor slam
on someone's penthouse balcony would be both wonderful and ironic...”
“Someone's penthouse?” grinned Theodore. “Mr. Turpin's?”
“Well, you never did get to say 'goodbye' properly...”
“I'm in!”
“I'm in,” he had said. What in the world had he been
thinking? It was ten at night, the sun long since gone and he was standing on
the edge of a repulsar news craft almost half a kilometer above the ground.
The balcony in question was
only
a hundred and fifty meters below...
only! There was a big difference between jumping from a monorail to avoid
certain doom and jumping off the side of a repulsar craft because some stupid
crazy lady had talked him into it. “This isn't right.” Well, his comments
were far more colorful and far less complementary that that...
“Expect machine-gun fire almost immediately; that and a
herd of stun grenades. Keep your armor up!” came the bit of encouragement over
the com link.
Keep your armor up! No kidding!
Theodore just
resigned himself to an ulcer as he slowed his breathing and prepared for the
jump. Calm... stay calm...
“Go! Go! Go!” barked the ear bud.
Theodore pushed off without thinking. If he
had
been thinking, he wouldn't have pushed off! His Live Steel armor exploded
around him instantly. He tucked and rolled in the air as he lined himself on
his target. Dodge the swimming pool... And don't land
on
anyone! The
landing was far more graceful than he had expected. Granted only days earlier
he had pulled off the same stunt with a human family along for the ride. But
this time, it was all about presentation. His landing cracked the balcony
deck, but it was a credit to the designers (and building codes) that it held
and didn't crumble. All around Theodore people ran for cover, ran back deeper
into the apartment. He was glad his armor was up because when the stun
grenades went off, there were a lot of them! But the two goons still on the back
deck didn't catch enough of the crack or flash to be bothered. They had their
eyes on Theodore!
As expected, they opened up on Theodore, submachine guns
blazing. Not nearly as rough as the rifle caliber machine-guns he had stood
down at the space port half a year before. They were more of a nuisance than
anything else; his Live Steel armor and adrenaline made sure of that. What he
hadn't expected was a grenade launched round: it smacked into his armor, failed
to detonate and rolled into the swimming pool. The annoyed look on grenadier's
face was cut short as one of Tamilton's troopers hit the man with an
electrified tangle grenade. That was kind of uncool...
Theodore's eyes went wide as he saw a man step out of the
shadows with a handgun at the ready. Stepped out right behind one in
Tamilton's group. The pistol was all but at head level and Theodore had no
idea if he was getting ready to watch an execution or a hostage situation.
Neither suited his tastes.
Delicate sense of propriety...
that was
what Patricia had said. Theodore's sense of propriety ran rough, heavy of
violence as he lashed out at the gunman. With the practice demonstrated at
that fateful night of summer dance, a Live Steel arrow crashed through the
offending weapon. Pressing home, the arrow pinned the man's hand to his
shoulder as the arrow struck and held fast to the wall behind him.
Any confusion amongst the strike team was short lived as
the rest of the gunmen were quickly and expertly subdued. The only immediate
consternation of Theodore's action was they found they could not
break
the seemingly wooden arrow. With a bit of a grin they just yanked the man off
the wall, pulling the arrow clean through his hand and shoulder.
“Toni! Watch your damned six next time!” screamed Alicia
as she bound the wounded man's arms tightly. Only after searching him for more
weapons did she start to address the man's wounds.
“Turpin bolted,” blurted Jax. “He was in the elevator
coming up when we rushed the place.”
Patricia was beyond irate, “I was told the nest was full!
Jax, you with me!”
“Cops say he's in the parking garage.”
Patricia screamed and ranted as she reversed and ran back
to the edge of the balcony and looked over the side. “Don't fail me now little
brother...” She pulled out her binoculars as she cued her com link, “John, we
need everything you got on that car!”
“Understood, we'll do what we can. It's coming into the
clear: Brixton V, black with silver trim.”
She snarled as they all watched the vehicle in question
appear from beneath them and pull out onto the road. “Jax, can you get a shot
off? Don't care if you wing him, just don't put the car into a crowd or
anything...”
Theodore didn't catch any of the rest of the conversation,
he was too far away. And falling. Fast. He had never dropped his armor all
the way and that was a good thing. He had been nervous about a hundred and
fifty meter drop just minutes earlier, and now here he was on a three hundred
and fifty meter plunge without a second thought in his mind. There was one odd
thought: gravity was too slow. He should have jumped earlier. On the positive
side was the fact he'd land behind the fleeing car and not have to risk being
rammed on the heels of recovering from his fall.
Theodore snarled as he looked up from the smashed
pavement. The black luxury car was pulling away at high speed and was a
repulsar lift car: no wheels or tires to shoot out. That didn't mean he didn't
have a clear shot at the man inside. No, they needed to take him alive... time
to trash the repuslar coils.
Three arrows in blindingly fast repetition struck home
along the thin edge of the car on the left hand side. The fields collapsed
almost immediately and the car lurched as the left side quickly struck the
ground. The car pivoted and then flipped, crashing down on its roof, pinning
its occupant.
Theodore just stood in the street and growled, growled
something truly primeval and hateful as all around him the men and women of the
Sheriff’s department quickly closed and secured their prey. “College student
to crazy lady, I need a lift back to the dorms. I have class tomorrow,” barked
Theodore over the comlink.