inevitably going to be attacked, and we will fight. What I ask in exchange for my help is that you fight beside us when the time comes."
He read Meadows's hesitation and, stifled his own feelings of disappointed anger and I thought you would be different. "I know it's a big step. Asking you to cut yourself off completely from the nat world. But it's really a fait accompli, isn't it, Doctor? The straight world's rejected you. It's hunting you like a vicious animal. Do you really have anything left to lose?"
"No," Meadows said quietly. "Like, I guess not." He raised his head. "I'm with you, man."
Bloat giggled happily. "Marvelous! And now I have something--"
"Just one thing. When I get Sprout back, I have to find out what's happened to Tachyon. If he's in trouble, my friends and I will have to get him out. Then I'll, like, be happy to help you."
Uh-oh, Bloat thought. He switched in mid-sentence. "-something to ask you. What do you think of Hieronymous Bosch?"
Meadows's eyes lit. " I love him, man. He's my favorite. Him and M.C. Escher. And, uh, Peter Max."
When Mark had left, Kafka said, "You should have told him to go to Blaise for help hunting Tachyon. It would have been amusing."
Bloat's jellyfish sides heaved. The black ran glistening down. "I need them both," he said. "I need all the help I can get."
"You toyed with the notion of telling him, though, didn't you? About Tachyon."
"Blaise is-he's like a force of nature. I don't dare challenge him. He'll destroy us all. It's all I can do to get him to keep a lid on his taste for atrocity, and that's only here on my island."
Kafka produced clicking sounds with his chitinous joints. "Someday, Kafka. Someday we'll face down the nats and win. Then maybe Mark Meadows will hear a few things that'll raise his eyebrows. And then maybe Jumpin' Jack Flash will burn pretty Blaise fucking Andrieux down to a cinder. Someday."
"We're all secure here," K.C. Strange said. "Bloat's people are keeping the gawkers away."
Mark swallowed, nodded convulsively. He didn't look up from his work. "Ready in a minute, man. Don't rush me." The metal table was rickety, its washers rattling at every random gust that bulled its way into the fiberboard shack. The light from the alcohol lamp was thin and thready as a dying woman's pulse. Conditions were not ideal. But Mark in his way was an artist, who knew how to work around the limitations of his surroundings and his media. And this was a familiar task, even after so many months he didn't care to count. In the doing of it, he was even able to take a certain shelter: from thought, from demands the world and he laid upon him that he realized he in all likelihood could not fulfill. K. C. sat down and drew her knees under her chin. Her eyes glowed like coins in the lamplight as she watched Mark measure powder into glittering mounds of color.
Something passed behind Mark's eyes. His hand faltered, but none of the precious powder fell from the scoop. Even Bloat had only been able to obtain a fraction of the substances Mark needed. Enough to summon two of his friends for perhaps an hour apiece. Not necessarily the two he would have chosen.
He let his hand rest on the cold thin-gauge tabletop, suddenly uncertain. "I think there's something wrong with Tach," he said.
K. C. shifted her weight with a mouse rustle.
"This isn't like him. He'd never give up the clinic. He's stronger than he was back in the Forties. The clinic made him strong. It gave him something to live for."
"Fucking give it up!" Her voice rang like brass knucks on a steel surgical table. "He's ditched you. He's ditched the jokers and you and every fucking body. Sometimes people just turn their back and walk away from you, capisc'?"
He lowered his head and shut his eyes in pain. Instantly she was by his side, hand on arm. "I'm sorry, babe," she said. "I've gotten some pretty rough licks from life. Made me pretty cynical, okay? I don't have to lay it off on you."
"No," Mark said. "No, it's okay. I still cant believe he's abandoned me. I think something's happened to him."
Her nails dug into his arm. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing." The word fell to the tabletop with scarcely more sound than a drop of sweat. "Not now. I hope he's okay."
"I'll do