Author's note:
Yes, it's been a while – it's been an odd few weeks lately. But here we are, another chapter, with (ahem) two Special Guest Stars in the Alice part of things…
Clarice Starling stood in the middle of the field and stared. The carnage that Alice and company had inflicted on this little Renaissance festival hung in mute display. The corpses swung in the air. Flies buzzed around their faces, lending medieval authenticity to their deaths.
Even so, those weren't the worst. That was easily the horror on the wheel. That made even Clarice, who had worked as a lab wretch under Jimmy Price, shudder. It solidified her determination to see Alice Pierpont back behind bars. Alice and all her little friends. No more of this insane-asylum bullshit; Alice was going to prison, where she should have been from the word go.
Josh was over examining the body of the dwarf with one of the forensics people. The brief, bright light of a camera lit the dwarf's battered features. Clarice wondered if they had a name for him yet. They hadn't found any ID on him.
More troublingly, there was no tape, either. That made no sense at all. They were trying to find out some way to figure out where the Homicidal Productions crew was going. It was tough going. They knew that they were headed west, from the general westerly trend of the killings. But their prey was canny enough to range north and south as they went. The computers were unable to correlate much. Alice and her crew favored the Interstates. Clarice was pretty sure of that. But they would move north and south by a couple hundred miles.
They also knew how to stay down reasonably well. Clarice's original hope that Alice might be cycling up and thus noticeable appeared to be fraying. No reports anywhere of someone meeting her opinion acting strangely. That meant that Chatiqua Miller had to have some kind of control of her. Maybe she had Alice on her meds.
Staring at the victims, Clarice found herself wondering if perhaps she had been bested. Disappointment weighed her stomach down with lead. Maybe chaos would win this one. Maybe she couldn't discern enough of a pattern to figure out where they would strike next. She couldn't put the entire US west of Ohio under martial law.
No, she told herself. It's just like Buffalo Bill. There was a time when we thought we'd never catch him. But we did. Luck will turn our way. Soon.
Josh finished up whatever he was doing with the dead dwarf and trotted over to her.
"Hey," he said morosely. "God, look at this."
Clarice nodded. "It's pretty bad," she said, staring at the braided horror on the wheel. "We'll get them, though. Somewhere along the line, they always make a mistake." I sure hope so, she added mentally.
"Where's the tape?" Josh asked. "They have to leave a tape. It's their signature." He looked around and shook his head. "Making the tape is practically their whole reason for doing this," he continued. "There's a tape somewhere."
"Let me see if one of the local boys has it," Clarice said, and ventured over to a knot of uniformed men glowering at the FBI teams that had come in and taken over their case. They eyed her calmly with no camaraderie. For a moment she found herself thinking of Potter and that poor sad girl…what had her name been? Kimberly Emberg, or something like that.
"Help you, ma'am?" one of the cops said.
Clarice smiled, a quick professional tense and release of her cheek muscles. "I'm Agent Clarice Starling with the FBI. The perps who committed this crime always tape the crimes. It's an active FBI case, that's why we're here. Was there a videocassette left here, maybe? Did any of your evidence techs find a tape here? It would've been left right out in the open."
The cop shook his head. "Naw," he said. "No tape."
From the back, another cop spoke up from where he lounged against his cruiser. "Yeah there was, but your friends in the FBI have it," he said.
Clarice's ears perked and her head tilted in a fashion that unconsciously imitated Dr. Hannibal Lecter. She took a step forward. "My friends in the FBI?" she asked.
An older, tired-looking cop stepped forward out of the glob of uniforms. "Yeah," he said.
Clarice pointed at Josh. "He has it?"
"Not him," the cop said. "The older guy. The one who was here before."
A thrum of excitement and nerves ran through Clarice's gut like a dog chasing a rabbit. "The older guy? Was there another FBI agent here before?"
"Yeah," the uniform yawned. "Didn't you know he was out here?"
Clarice shook her head.
"Older guy. Dark hair. Had a suit like his." He nodded at Josh. "He was here a couple hours before you guys came out and got the tape. Figured it was on its way back to Washington by now, myself. Oh, Christ, what did he say his name was?" His eyes rolled up as he tried to remember.
Josh gave Clarice a curious look. "There hasn't been anyone from the FBI out here except us," he murmured. "Do you think that means…" he trailed off.
"Friend," the cop said suddenly. "He said his name was Louis Friend."
Josh leaned forward, and a predatorial look she had never seen before crossed his face. "Agent Louis Friend," he mused. "Well, well, well."
"Is there a problem?" the cop asked.
Josh shook his head wordlessly and eyed Clarice calmly. She smiled again at the cop, quick jerk and relax of her face, and walked a bit so that they wouldn't hear them.
"So," Josh said calmly. "Dr. Lecter got the tape."
Clarice nodded. Why was it that Josh seemed happy about that? It wasn't good.
"Yeah," she said. "And the best hope we have of tracking them is through the tape. This sucks."
Josh shook his head and looked at her with a cold, calculating look on his face. For a moment he looked weirdly familiar. Then it hit her – that was how Crawford looked sometimes. Usually when he saw a chance to capture his prey. On Josh's face it seemed alien and spooky.
"The tape isn't the best way we have of tracking them," he said coolly. "They give us the tape. They know for a fact that we're going to analyze the shit out of it. If they do leave any kind of clue on it, it'll be accidental. So far none of the tapes have had any value in telling us where they're going to strike next. All we get are the vaguest hints of what they are going to do, and it's so vague that it's effectively worthless."
Clarice nodded. "Even so, if Dr. Lecter has the tape, then he's got anything we could have used."
Josh nodded and that cool smile crossed his face again. "If Dr. Lecter has the tape, then he's after his daughter," he added mildly. "And we know how to track him. You know how to track him. If we're lucky, we may be able to catch them both."
…
The jail did not realize at first that it was under new management. All the denizens of the jail, prisoners and guards alike, knew at first was that red lights were flashing and doors had closed and locked. Prisoners out on the rec yards were unable to get into the jail proper, back to their cells. Guards were unable to contact each other through the telephone system. This was because the telephone system had been shut down from the main control room. The main control room was now under the control of Alice and Colin.
But the souls locked within the jail did not know who their new rulers were or what they wanted. The prisoners were both pleased and annoyed. They were pleased by any break in the monotonous routine that ruled them normally. They were annoyed because wherever they were; they were locked down there and could not move about the jail with even the limited freedom they were normally allowed.
Alice Pierpont took some time to examine the monitors. It did not take long for her to realize that Cellblock B would be ideal for their purposes. She reviewed the people she would need to take out. A few guards. Fortunately, they were split up and armed only with cans of pepper spray. That could be dealt with.
So she headed out of the control room. Colin manned the control desk. He could see her from the monitors. As she strode down the hall, the doors opened as if by phantom hands and then slammed closed again.
She knew the layout of the place pretty well; she'd always been good at remembering things. She knew where she was going, too. According to Teek, they needed some guards to serve as disposable actors. They'd also need some extras, people who would be allowed the rare experience of surviving the production. There would be witnesses, but what the hey. They could live a little; it wasn't like they were that easy to find.
To walk through the halls of a prison containing hostile guards and possibly hostile prisoners would require a weapon. Fortunately, there were no guards between where she was and where she needed to go for now. Just in case, Alice had availed herself of the use of a fire axe kept in the control room. The sight of a woman in a suit strolling through the jail, axe in hand, served to cow those inmates and guards who shouted to her from behind the barred gates.
If that didn't work, she just ignored them. If that didn't work, she simply grinned at them and waved the axe around menacingly. Even though there was at least one gate between her and them, they usually shrank away. This was a lot of fun, when you came down to it.
Alice walked down the hall, her heels clicking on the concrete floor. Overhead was a sign marked Women's Wing. She found herself reminded of the asylum and stopped for a moment, unusually thoughtful. Then Colin must've seen her standing in front of the gate, as it opened with a loud crash. Alice stepped calmly onto another wing where women were held against their will.
There were a few guards here, but only one in the same pod with her. The others were safely behind gates where she would worry about them later. There were a lot of gates in here, now that she saw it. That one little button, and nobody could go anywhere.
The guard stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. He was tall, muscular, and looked extremely puzzled. Alice wondered if he usually worked on the women's cellblock. If so, was he the heartthrob of the block? From what she'd seen, the choices were pretty limited.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked.
Alice answered him without a word; she swung the axe full-force into his skull. Even in a fancy suit that restricted her motion, it smacked him above the eye and silenced his questions. A loud thunk echoed through the halls of the cellblock.
Now she had access to four cells. A few more extended down the hall, but the security gates locked them off. Boy, it would suck to be have a cell all the way at the other end, Alice thought. You'd have to open four gates before you could go anywhere.
In the first cell, on the left, there was a young girl with blonde hair and glasses. She stared uncertainly at Alice. Alice grinned merrily at her.
"Hi!" Alice said cheerfully.
"Um…hi," replied the girl.
"I'm Alice," Alice said perkily. "What's your name?"
"Michelle," the girl said cautiously. "Did you…did you just kill Officer Dodson?"
Alice adopted an expression of mock innocence. "Oh, noooo," she caroled. "I would never do that. I was just playing with him. Now I just want to ask you a few questions."
The girl swallowed, thought, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor, especially when one was in a prison cell and a woman with an axe stood outside the door.
"Okay," she said.
"What are you in for?" Alice asked chattily. "You look a little young to be in the county jail."
The girl sighed. "I had an argument with my mom," she said hedgingly. "And…well…one thing led to another."
Alice's eyebrows rose. "You poor thing. Really? I had an argument with my mom when I was about your age, about my perverted little brother. She slapped me in juvie for six months or so. But that's okay. Now he's serving thirty years in prison, and I'm out and about and having fuuuun, and all's well that ends well, right?"
"I guess so," the girl agreed.
"Listen, if your mom is anything like mine, let me give you some advice," Alice said, and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Kill her now, while you're a young juvenile, and you can get off with time in juvie."
Michelle eyed her suspiciously from behind her glasses. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. "Hey…what are you planning to do with that axe?"
Alice grinned and tossed the axe away. It landed with a metallic thud against the hard floor. "Nothing at all, Michelle dear Michelle," she said. "I promise you that if you do what I want, you will live your life until you're an old woman with gray hair and a cane, unless you anger someone else carrying an axe. Then I cannot be held responsible."
The young girl stared at her and raised an eyebrow.
"Hey," a voice came from the cell across the way. "What's going on here? Are you threatening my friend?"
Alice turned to see another girl in the cell across the way. This one's hair was cut close to her head, not shoulder-length like the first's. She eyed Alice suspiciously.
"Threatening her?" Alice trilled sweetly. "I never. And might I point out that you're in a cell there yourself, so it's not like there's much you can do about it even if I was. I've been in custody myself there, keed, and if you were planning on throwing water or something worse on me, then I shall become angry. And if I become angry, then I sometimes do things I later regret. Like going into your partner in crime's cell and not only threatening her with the axe but chopping her into messy little pieces with the axe, and then you'd be mad at me and I'd feel ever so guilty, so let's try to avoid that, hmmmm?"
The girl blinked.
"You're crazier than I am," she said slowly.
"Probably," Alice agreed chirpily. "What's your name?"
"Natalie," the girl answered suspiciously.
"Natalie. Natalie and Michelle. Partners in crime. What are you in for, Natalie?" Alice queried.
"I…er…I threw a chair at my principal," Natalie answered.
"A chair?" Alice seemed shocked. "That won't kill anyone. You need to get yourself some bigger ordnance next time. Try a fire extinguisher, they're big and heavy and you can find them in school. Anyways. I'll tell you what. I need you two for something, then I'll let you go free in exchange. Would you like that?"
The girls eyed each other from behind the bars of their respective cells.
"Free!" Alice stuck her thumbs under her armpits and flapped her arms. "Like a bird out of a cage. Free to go. Free to wander the earth and possibly kill people with axes and fire extinguishers, not chairs." This last was said with a pointed glare towards Natalie.
"Okay," Michelle said, but still eyed Alice mistrustfully.
"Great!" Alice said smartly. "I just have a few things to do. Including get you two dresses. The storeroom has jail dresses, doesn't it?"
Both girls scowled. "We don't wear dresses," Michelle said.
"You will now," Alice said.
The blonde girl shook her head violently. "No. No way. You can't make us. We have constitutional rights."
Alice sighed. "Oh, I can make you," she said, an unpleasant tone in her voice.
"No, you can't," Michelle avowed vehemently.
"Care to bet?" Alice asked. "Besides, it's for a movie." Her tone made it obvious that she felt that fact should overcome their objections.
"Then we don't want to be in a movie," Michelle averred, her chin stuck out defiantly.
"I'm mentally ill and violent," Alice explained. "Humor me. It's the best course of action. Really."
Neither girl spoke, but their refusal was apparent. Oh well. They would learn. Otherwise Alice would simply have to chop their legs off; odds were that would make the others more tractable to her wants and desires. She'd seen the costume Teek had picked out for her, and that would make these two freak. Besides, this was about art.
"Well, we'll discuss it when I get back," Alice said tactfully. She turned and headed back down the hall the way she had come. She had guards to kill and a set to get ready. Where was Teek, anyway? The heels of her shoes rapped firmly against the floor, receding as she left. Then, her voice came floating back through the cellblock.
"Yes-ah…ha-ha!" Clack-clack-clack went her heels in a quick staccato dance, and then a door slammed behind her, leaving the prisoners to wonder when she would be back and what she would want.
They stared at each other through the bars for a moment.
"She can't make us wear dresses," Natalie said. "It isn't right."
Michelle seemed doubtful. "I don't think she's right either. She killed Officer Dodson with an axe."
Silence rained down on the cellblock like an avalanche wrapped in foam.
In a few hours, they heard two sets of shoes approaching. The crazy white lady who had killed the officer was now followed by a crazy black lady and a crazy big guy. The crazy black lady had a double-barreled shotgun under her arm. The big guy had another. The doors of the girls' cells rumbled open.
"C'mon, girls," Alice Pierpont said merrily. "We're ready!"