Hi, guys, posted in haste, after returning from Oklahoma, by way of Houston, Texas. Will edit for sure, once my brain works, again. Edited! Thank you! :')
12
Trapped in a prison of anguish and pain, not at all certain quite where-
"You are not like them, Tanusha," she'd been told, upon waking once more. "You are a predator; born to rule, not to serve."
She'd come to her senses in a series of five linked chambers. Large and well furnished, each one opened into the next through a short passage, forming a ring. There were no windows or external doors. Only walls of dense, seemingly impenetrable dark stone; black, hard and grainy to the touch.
There was greenish-blue carpeting where that made sense, bathroom facilities, a thermal-spring wading pool and many warm light-crystals. These shed a sunny radiance like that of midafternoon back in… in… someplace she could almost remember.
He appeared quite often, joining the girl for most of her meals and occasional "lessons". He was older than she was. Much taller and stronger, too. Very handsome, in a way that wasn't quite right. Not like… other people she'd known, who'd loved her, in that vanished place she could not quite recall.
The man showed up without warning, whenever he chose; stepping from seemingly nowhere. Always, he tested her strength, and laughed when he found it wanting. At one meal, invisible servants uncovered a dish to reveal bland and lumpy grey mush. Reflexively, Tanusha made a face.
"Eww…!" she muttered, not very loudly. "Gross!"
The tall man smiled at her from across the table. His own plate was laden with something complex that smelt a lot better. Her supper stank of old onions and cigarette butts. Green eyes intent and hard, he leaned forward, saying,
"If your meal displeases you, Tanusha, you must re-cast it. Push aside my hold on your senses, and form whatever you wish to consume."
The girl had tried; to the point of headache and temporary blindness, she'd shoved herself at that plate of inedible mush, sometimes earning a brief flicker of peanut butter sandwich and chocolate milk, or pizza and soda. But never for more than an instant. Never long enough to taste what she'd "summoned".
So, day after day, Tanusha ate nothing but tiny bites; just enough to silence the cramping pain in her gut. "Lessons" continued, regardless. Many times, a small animal was brought. A kitten, mouse or shivering puppy, too young to do more than whimper and squirm. Tanusha's heart went out to the poor creatures, abandoned and helpless in this terrible place. She would have sheltered them, but the man laughed at her weakness, smashing the tiny things in front of her and daring Tanusha to stop him.
She couldn't, of course. Too young and feeble, herself, to do more than amuse her sneering captor. There was no escape for the girl. He could simply appear whenever he chose to. She was trapped by miles of unyielding black stone.
"I want to go home," the girl whispered, once that awful, taunting monster had left her, again. "Please, I just want to go home…"
Only, Tanusha could not even recall who she was crying for; just the faint memory of warmth, love and protection. Of training in… in… not destroying the weak but defending them. This place wasn't right, wasn't home, and she knew it. Someone, somewhere, had found and sheltered her. Maybe they'd do so again… unless Tanusha made her own way out and returned to them; those rough-voice-warm-embrace-up-in-the-sky people who'd loved her.
(And she knew they were looking. She knew it.)
One day, huddled on the carpeted floor of her sleeping room, Tanusha began trying to reason things out. Earlier, he had forced her to kill a terrified, broken-limbed kitten to end its suffering… then showed her that she herself, under his grip, had harmed the poor creature. Now, as tears slid unheeded from her scrunched-tight green eyes, Tanusha came to a few sharp conclusions.
First: she was not a young child. Couldn't be. Not with persistent ghost memories of a whole other life, somewhere safer.
Second: this place was not real. All that happened here was in her own head, somehow. Otherwise, how could food and air reach a chain of five linked and sealed caverns? There were no vents and no doors, and yet he came and went as he pleased. Maybe was watching her, now.
Third: he was trying to undo what she'd learnt somewhere else. To re-cast her, the way he'd said she could re-make her food. And if so… if her horrible prison was subject to will-power, then could she possibly fashion a door?
Biting her lip, the girl scrambled to her feet like a colt rising from fragrant straw. (Straw… colts… horses…home; for just a moment she'd seen faces, a farmhouse, and a giant machine, turning slowly in space. Could a door be opened to there?)
Tanusha squared her thin shoulders, breathing hard and pressing both small fists against her thighs. She had not killed a kitten or broken its legs, because there had been no kitten to kill. This was a place in her mind. She'd been locked here, by him.
Shaking her head, the girl sped to a cavern wall, feeling its rough stone beneath her small, moving hands.
"It's fake," she told herself. "It's not really here. It's just a block in my own head, and I will break through it"
Wished she had someone to call upon. Somebody's face and name to hold in her thoughts. Instead, there was nothing but dark, cold rock and her own burning need to escape.
"Get out of my head!" she whispered, pushing against that stone wall with both little hands. "I'm not like you, and I never will be. Get out, dammit!"
For a brief instant, that wall turned misty; like a network of weaving smoke and flashing pale lights. Almost, she fell right through it. Then, the wall suddenly hardened once more, closing around the struggling young girl like a tightly clenched fist.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Yokosuka, Japan-
Needless to say, he couldn't just leave. Even with Scott found and the hospital fully evacuated. Not while Kayo was still out there, somewhere; maybe hurt or imprisoned. His brother would have stayed, and Lee Taylor, too… Only, Scott needed medical help, while Lee had to drag him home in the Prototype.
Penny was exhausted, and trying to hide it. Didn't have Tracy-type stamina to keep her going for days on end. She'd offered to remain behind and help search, but didn't fight very hard when John told her no.
All of this left him stuck with Wayne Rigby, who he'd rather have palmed off on Lee or Penelope. John didn't trust the former Marine, who'd been the very last person with Kay. Couldn't come up with a good excuse to get rid of the guy besides: I don't like you. Didn't mean that he had to be gracious about it.
"Maybe you're telling the truth," said John, folding both arms across his chest. He was back in uniform, having picked up a spare blue environment suit from the Prototype, once Scott and Penny were safely aboard. (Parker, or course, would be flying FAB-1) "For your sake, I hope so. I'm not easy to hide from, Rigby, and I don't forget."
The gold utility sash had slipped from his hands, briefly, as he'd been fishing through the TB-5 resupply locker. Then, it was back; felt for, not seen, because he'd been keeping his eyes on Wayne Rigby.
The Marine nodded, once. He looked bleak and haunted, John thought. Like a man too busy kicking his own ass to worry what everyone else thought.
"Your sister's her own woman, Mister Tracy. She told me to wait in Thunderbird Shadow and give her a five-minute head start. I listened, mostly. Might have left a few seconds early, but by that time, she was out of my sight, with a big flock of birds in the way. I didn't catch up with her again till she called up to say that she'd found your brother and needed my help."
John frowned at the husky blond officer (well… former officer; like John and Scott's, his service state was now in dispute).
"Wait… Kayo said that she needed help? Exact words 'help me', or something like that?"
Rigby's blue eyes narrowed in thought. They were still standing in the Prototype's big, spartan crew quarters, hashing out what the heck to do next.
"Yes, sir… I think so. It's tough to remember exactly, because I was creeping along on an old wooden cross beam, at the time. I heard her yell, and I promised to hurry." (No reason to mention his fall, Rigby figured.)
He met the astronaut's sea-green eyes forthrightly, fighting the screaming need to go find Kayo now. John appeared troubled. Raked a gloved hand through his red-golden hair, musing,
"Hunh. Not like Kay to ask for help, ever. She's too proud for that. Might be safe to assume that by the time you arrived at the fortress basement, the switch had already been made."
"Then… we should go back there?" Wayne urged. "Start searching?"
But the tall, handsome Tracy shook his head, no.
"Think this thing out, Rigby. Who wants her, and why? If they let Scott go, chances are they already got what they needed from him… even if that was just luring more of us out here. But Kay… well, I dunno how much she's told you about herself..."
The Marine captain shrugged.
"Not a lot, Mr. Tracy. She, um… doesn't resemble the rest of you, but I didn't pry. It didn't matter to me, because I've never met anyone else like her, Sir, and…"
"John, Captain or Tracy. Not Sir," said the astronaut, starting to head for the hatch. "Sir's Dad or Uncle Lee." Then, "Tanusha's adopted. Tracy through love and acceptance, not birth. She has, uh… other family. Actually, there's more than just that. More than Tracys and Kyranos, out there. All of them what you'd call 'Specials'. Some of them scary-ass weird. Maybe the substitute Scott and Kayo were some of them… and maybe her other folks took a chance and tried to reclaim her, in all the confusion."
Rigby stuffed both hands in the pockets of his new, clean recruit uniform, fists balled up so hard that they hurt.
"Where do they reside, Mister Tracy?" he probed, employing every bit of self control he'd learnt in a hundred military court battles.
"Antarctica," said John, without hesitation, at first. Then, "I mean… we've been there with her to face them, I think."
Rigby didn't question the source of John's insight. Having experienced the same timeline shift as his clients, he knew all about rootless, orphaned memories. Said,
"Okay. So, our operating assumption is: she was switched out while I was distracted climbing down, and transported right then and there because these 'Kyranos' want her back. So, how do we track them down and find her?"
"Thunderbird Shadow," John told him. "Her Bird's fast, it has stealth capacity and we can reach it through the tunnel system, or else remote-fly it here. Remote-flying's faster."
"But, if she's down below somewhere, like your brother was, maybe still in a life-support tube…"
"Then, we're better off taking the catacombs. I've got a friend who can spread out and search as we go," finished John, resettling his golden uniform sash, which felt different, somehow. More constricting.
Didn't matter, because they had a goal and a game plan, now. They had hidden skills, a battle-computer ally and… most of all… Tanusha, who would not be sitting around like a princess in a tower, waiting for help. Knowing Kay, she'd meet them halfway, dragging her captors behind her. All they had to do was follow the noise of chaos and screams.
