The Tiger's Cage
by: Zeng Li
Author's Note: Story takes place during the events of "Pyramid of Darkness", which canonically is the first appearance of Xamot and Tomax, and so presumably is the first time the Joes encounter them.
He went off to his prison cell, smirking the whole way. He'd given the Joes quite a good line to chew on as he was escorted below decks to the carrier's brig. The message had been delivered to the only one capable of receiving it, and now all he had to do was wait.
Tomax offered no further resistance despite the large security detail accompanying him and his captor. Half an ocean away, his escape from G.I. Joe was already in progress.
Roadblock's dark, stern face just sneered as he shoved the Cobra agent into the awaiting cell. He leveled his rifle at Tomax while MP's removed the hand cuffs and replaced them with shackles chained to the floor. The Crimson Guard Commander just grinned, torturing his Joe counterpart with the look that things were not over yet. They didn't need a psychic link to read each other's thoughts merely from the look in their eyes.
The MP's backed off and exited the cell. Roadblock kept his gun raised as he backed out as well, and even a while longer once the bars were slid shut and locked into place.
Tomax raised his hands as high as the chains would allow him. He cocked his head to one side. "Really, now. Just where do you think I'm going?" he asked the man outside the bars.
Roadblock just growled and stomped off, the MP's staying behind to guard the prisoner.
There was no more to say. The guards wouldn't want to hear anything, and they didn't need to hear anything. A prisoner's first duty was to escape, and it didn't have to be said that Tomax was already working on a plan. That plan consisted entirely of doing nothing. Doing something was Xamot's job, and Tomax knew full well that it was a job in progress. The quieter he was, the less anyone would turn their attention to him, and thus the less they would worry about him.
That part of the plan became unraveled in an instant.
He looked up when a shadow crossed his cell from outside the bars. It was too small to be the snarling Roadblock. He looked up and saw the army-green clad figure of a woman he'd met briefly while they were topside. He shifted a slight crooked grin at her.
"Do not feed the tiger, my dear," he said softly.
"Excuse me?" the woman asked, her fisted hands settling on her hips. As she turned her head, her face became illuminated even more.
"It's just that you're looking at me like you're observing a tiger in a zoo," Tomax replied, his baritone voice gliding with barely an echo off the metal walls. "To be honest, through the eyes of the tiger, it's very flattering."
Lady Jaye laughed as if to dismiss his poetic remark as yet another vain male attempt to woo a member of the opposite gender. Women regularly fended off men talking in such ways to the point that the routine became a bore.
"What's the matter? Aren't you the least bit curious?" Tomax asked, rattling his chains as if to remind her that he was in no position to harm, or act indecently, towards her. The MP's on either side of the cell remained in attentive stance, gazing down the corridor as if not listening to the prisoner at all.
"Curious about what?" Lady Jaye folded her arms across her chest, continuing to scrutinize the Cobra agent. She radiated curiosity despite trying to show no interest in the prisoner at all. His grip wasn't with his hands, the hold not having to be material in nature. He already had her, and he knew it.
"It's just the way you're looking at me." Tomax grunted, trying to shift his position seated on the terrible excuse for a bed. It was more like a scaled-up sized serving tray, cold and metal and as unceremoniously chained to the wall as his wrist cuffs were. "It's almost as if you can see…"
"See what?" Lady Jaye could subtly feel threads in her subconscious, as all people do from time to time when interacting with others. Most often, the feeling went ignored, but a trained G.I. Joe agent was more wise. Still, there was a genetic program in all people that just the right shifts in the energy flow could pick the lock to. Given the choice between continuing the conversation and turning and walking away, the female Joe remained standing outside his cell.
Tomax shrugged. "You see a tiger in a cage."
"More like a SNAKE."
"Ah, yes. This whole 'Cobra' thing," Tomax shifted his head in the direction of his uniform insignia. "To be honest, it would not have been my first choice. After all, the only snakes you see at a circus are the ones in wicker baskets, being lured out by a bikini-clad snake charmer. She controls the snake. The tiger, on the other hand, is in the center ring under the big top, is he not?"
"Performing tricks as the trainer with the whip in his hand commands," Lady Jaye added, feeling triumphant in disarming any crafty analogies he might be trying to illustrate.
"Ah," Tomax's eyes lit up. "A very observant one. But…the difference is that the tiger allows himself to be controlled by his handlers because there is a reward in it for him. A nice, big, juicy piece of meat. Just his own little part of the world he gets in exchange for his momentary cooperation."
Lady Jaye just laughed, softly and with the tone of 'nice try, pal' rather than acting as if she'd missed the meaning in what he was saying. He was clever, but she'd never let on that he was. "Well, I can have the mess hall bring you down a nice raw hunk of bison if that's what you want," she said, continuing efforts to play the authoritative role.
"If you do that, then you acknowledge that I am a tiger. Why, just a moment ago, you observed that I am apparently a 'snake'. Is it that you think we're all the same in Cobra? Slithering at the feet of a commander whose face is always hidden behind a mask? Soldiers who, likewise, hide behind masks of their own?"
"You have a twin brother, don't you?" Lady Jaye asked, her focused expression indicating she already knew the answer. "One who feels what you feel?"
"Only some of the time. In fact, right now, neither of us are feeling the effects of anything happening to the other right now."
The female Joe's eyes just shifted, darting sideways as she inclined her head slightly. "But earlier…you were very clever and you pulled a good one on us. I know what you meant now. …Making our pursuit of you 'so physical' when you tried to escape."
"I wasn't trying to escape," he said, sniggering slightly. "I haven't gotten my reward yet. Though I must admit that my 'reward' is more than anything your reputed mess hall can carve up. Some tigers don't have an appetite for cattle or bison, you know."
Lady Jaye was rapidly growing tired of the prisoner's playing with her mind. Hesitantly, she threw back what was to be one more reply before deserting the pointless conversation. "Okay," she played. "So if you don't have an appetite for beef, what do you eat?"
Tomax lowered his head, a crooked smile rising up on one side of his lips, his eyes burning their way across the cell and through the bars. "Why, some tigers eat…snakes."
THE END
Written by "Zeng Li", © 2008 using characters from G.I. Joe owned by entities such as Sunbow, Hasbro, and what ever other corporate hands are in the pot. Characters used with gratitude to their creator, but without permission. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and no money is made off of its existence. ("turkwithglasses" is the writing journal of "Zeng Li".)