him. In that last few years he had come to realize, to acknowledge, that for his beloved "Uncle George" he had never been more than a means to an end, and he'd been a kind of revolutionary mascot to the terrorist cells who raised him before that, before his accursed grandfather stumbled across him. K.C. of all the people he'd known gave a fuck for him._
Maybe that was why he kept her around in spite of her mouth. She was cute. But with his shoulders and attitude and sculpted looks, most of all with his power, he could have cute any time, any way.
He let out a long sobbing breath. "It's him. He's come for my grandfather."
"Who?"
"Him. He's cut his hair, he dresses differently, but it is him. I can smell him. I can feel his mind. He is here to rescue Tachyon."
"Don't be ridiculous."
He shot her a hot-eyed look, which she ignored. "Nobody knows about Tachyon except us-and Bloat, because he knows everything that goes down on the Rox. But Bloat's got a bigger hard-on for the straights than we do. He'd never spill."
"It doesn't matter," said Blaise. "He is an ace. He has his ways."
"Now go back to the beginning and tell me just who this he is."
"Mark Meadows," he said in a voice that rang with adolescent Sturm and Drang. "Captain Trips."
"Mark Meadows?" She laughed. "You're working up a sweat for nothing, lover boy. Why, I met him yesterday. He's just a harmless old--who did you say he was?"
"Captain Trips. The ace who has the friends. Jumpin' Jack Flash, Starshine, Moonchild-I am not sure how many more. He was one of Grandfather's best friends." He looked up at her with a face drawn like a Greco martyr's. "I must stop him. He will destroy us."
K.C. laughed. Blaise's face froze. She ruled his hair. Her fingers did a better job than the wind. As she teased and tickled his scalp, he relaxed slightly, knew again why he tolerated her.
He also knew that one day he would pay her back for each and every impertinence, with interest. But he was learning to defer gratification, sometimes. Grandpere would be so proud.
"Relax. He's just a harmless old geezer."
"He's an ace, I tell you-"
She laughed again. "He may have been a big ace, babe. He's nothing now, capisc'? When I tripped over him, he was in the process of getting his skinny butt kicked by Tyrone and Foureyes and company. Righteous dweebs. They were about to stomp his brains out through his big beaky nose until a little tiny teenage girl with a toy knife turned up to the rescue." She squatted beside him and played with the braided tail that hung down the back of Blaise's bombardier's jacket. "Some ace, huh?"
He shook his head clear with a flip of irritation. "He is undercover. He has to hide his powers. You never lived underground. You would not know"
"No, hey, I just lived out on the streets since I was twelve years old, I wouldn't know anything about that, and anyway I'm just a girl."
"That's right."
She reared back, ready to spit at him like a cobra. At the last instant before she said something he would have to destroy her for, he showed his teeth in a feral gin. She blinked, grinned back, hung her hands around his neck, and shook her head. "You son of a bitch."
This is our game, he thought, smiling complacently. I push her to see how far she pushes back. She pushes back to see how far I'll go.
And the stakes are her life. Wouldn't that surprise her? He remembered Mark, then, and lost his taste for games. He pushed her arms off his neck, only half roughly, and started to stand. "Enough of this, cheri."
"Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty"
He shook his head sharply, like a ferret with a mouse. She took the hint. "Your Mark Meadows has played a foolish game and lost. It's time to take from him the price="
"Andrieux."
He looked up. Mustelina and Andiron stood there. Mustelina cradled an AKM assault rifle in her furry paws-not one of the semiautomatics the liberals were so spastic about, but a real assault rifle, full auto as issued to a Baltic conscript with the Warsaw Pact in Poland, who had sold it for a lid. Andiron wasn't armed. He just tapped his blunt greenishblack forearms together gently with a ringing like weights dropped cn a carpeted gym floor.
Blaise snapped upright, heels together, and performed a