The Spotted Tail

Lunch was more peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Afterwards, Garon bought out a tiny computer.

“I’ll need to create a security badge for you. To do so, I need some information,” he said, clicking away on the keyboard.

“Okay, name is Paxine Annitta Cushing. Age twelve, I mean age twenty-one. Gotta make you older. Birthday ….Yes, I know that too. Now we have to change the year. Okay, let us take that and transfer it over here,” he said, not needing her assistance at all. He already knew everything about her.

His fingers flew over the keyboard. Then he hooked up a small printer. It spit out a laminated security badge with her name on it.

“Maravilhoso,” he said in Portuguese.

“Wonderful,” she said in English.

“Exactly. Now the invitation.”

Paxine felt a wave of excitement. The Gala Ball. Oh, but… What was she going to wear? She didn’t have anything at home that was fancy enough for a Ball. And could she even go home?

Garon seemed unaware of her dilemma while he tapped away on the computer, glancing at her new security card to make sure he duplicated the information correctly. The printer shook to life, printing out an invitation to the Gala Ball.

“Paxine Cushing and Guest,” she said, reading aloud.

“That’s how I’m going to get into the Gala Ball. As your guest.” He rose and disappearing into the bedroom.

“I got something for you to hold your…” he said, showing a little white cloth pouch with straps. “This should fit under your shirt. Put your valuables in there. This badge and invitation for starters.”

He reached into one of his own pockets and pulled out a cash card. “Here, add this just in case you need money.”

“Can I get a cube with this new ID?” She looked at the ID with awe.

“You need more than an ID for a cube,” he said, glancing at the clock in the kitchen “Goodness time does fly.”

“It’s only four.”

“Early dinner and early to bed.” He set a pan of water to boil on the stove. While he waited, he sat at the table, seeming to be tired from their training.

The apartment didn’t have much in it. The cabinets had the barest of pans and dishes. Paxine figured the food supply was also limited. Cereal for breakfast. Peanut butter and jam for lunch. Pasta for dinner. She had to remember she was on the run, so to speak. Besides, the Tails ate the same food day after day.

Dinner was quick. She put away the last plate while Garon wiped the table. Tache and Shaloonya turned in unison, staring at a wall.

Through Tache’s ears, she heard four separate car doors from the front of the building. Then there were three more from the back. Shaloonya’s ears flinched with each door and Paxine knew Garon was hearing the same.

No one said a word. Paxine grabbed her backpack and Garon grabbed his computer. With great care, he let them out of the apartment, closing the door without a sound. The hall was empty, but there was the faint noise of music and television leaking out from the other apartments. Paxine expected Garon to head down the stairs, but he headed up one flight, to the door of the nearest apartment.

Garon picked the lock. An elderly couple sat watching television with the volume up so loud, that Garon didn’t need to be quiet when he shut the door. He led her down the hall, into a bedroom, closing the door behind them. There was a single window, facing a window in the next building. However the next building, although close, was far from within reach, and they were five floors up.

Garon opened the window, and to her surprise, picked up Shaloonya, tossing her over to the other window. She landed with ease onto the window ledge, stood on her hind legs, and pushed up with her front. The window opened a few inches. Then she put her head and shoulders under the window, pushing it open further, and disappearing inside.

He picked up Tache next, and to her horror, tossed him out the window. His toss was as good as his first, and Tache landed on the ledge and disappeared inside. Paxine swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to do that to her was he?

Garon patted his pockets until he found the right one, pulling out a large hook on a string. He twirled the hook, tossing it out the window into the other, giving it a tug to make sure the hook caught. He eased out of the window, jumping across to the other window, and then easing himself into the room using the hook and string to steady him.

Paxine knew she couldn’t jump that far, expecting Garon to throw her the string and hook, but there was no string in his hands when he leaned out the window. Was he expecting her to jump and catch his hands?

She put a leg over the window and leaned. His hands were still a few feet away. She was going to have to jump, putting both feet on the window ledge.

He nodded, showing her he was ready. She pushed off the ledge, aiming for his hands. For a moment, she felt herself free fall, then warm, dry hands firmly caught her hands. There she hung, stretched between the two windows, one foot stuck, keeping her from swinging over to Garon.

“My foot’s caught,” she said, trying to twist it loose.

There was a hard pull to her leg. Was Garon trying to pull her leg off? Her heart skipped a beat. Garon wasn’t pulling. There was a man holding her foot, trying to pull her out of Garon’s grasp.

Paxine kicked once with her free foot, withdrawing it as quick as she could when she felt the man try to grab it.

What was she going to do? Her ring. She could touch the ring on him, zap him and get free…but let a hand go? Five floors up? She couldn’t even see the ground since the evening sun failed to light up the alley. There was no way she was going to let go of Garon.

The man pulled her foot hard and Garon pulled back. She felt like a clothesline stretched tight. Panic tightened in her chest and she felt Garon’s hands slip. He renewed his grip, leaning further out of the window, putting himself dangerously close to falling out.

Tache.

She thought she heard someone scream his name.

Tache.

Four paws ran across her body. A scream rattled the windows. She felt herself fall.

Wham.

Her shoes slammed into the side of the building, but Garon still held her hands. He hauled her up through the window. But she felt like she was still falling.

“Tache,” she said, finding that she was the one screaming his name. Garon slammed shut the window, grabbing her hand, dragging her out of the vacant apartment.

“Tache,” Paxine said again, only to find Garon’s hand covering her mouth.

She felt herself propelled along, following Shaloonya who led the way down the hallway and then up the stairs, back down a hallway and down what felt like a dozen stairs cases. Nothing made sense. Where were they going?

Tears streamed down her cheek, blinding her. Garon pushed her stumbling along by her shoulder as if she was a reluctant child.

She didn’t understand. Tache. He had fallen. Why wasn’t Garon going back for him? Where was he taking her? Where were they?

They entered yet another building. Eerie footsteps echoed around them.

Tache.

Tache was gone.

She hurt.

The echoing footsteps faded when Garon steered her out onto an old train platform. The city, instead of tearing it down, built around it. The platform ended at the door of another building. He headed for that door, but then stopped midway across the platform. A man came out, pointing a gun at them.

“You’re too predictable,” the man said, laughing and walking toward them with a cocky bounce to his step. He looked pleased.

“Now would be a good time,” Garon said.

Paxine thought that was a strange thing to say. And to who?

“Now would be a good time for what?” the man said, still smiling and pleased with himself.

“There are only two of us,” Garon said.

Paxine couldn’t understand why Garon was being so strange. She didn’t think it was wise to confuse a man who had a gun aimed at you.

“So?” The man did seem confused.

“There should be four,” Garon said as if teaching a child math.

The man stared, but Paxine’s mind cleared, and she understood, sort of. Where was Shaloonya?

There was movement out of the corner of her eye. Garon looked away toward the old tracks. It was the tactic her grandma taught her when Tache checked her food. The man with the gun followed Garon’s gaze.

A blur hit the man’s hand and another blur rolled into his feet. Garon pulled out a box and aimed it at the man. The man was unconscious when he hit the ground.

Garon hurried over to the man and rummaged through his pockets, removing weapons. Paxine found she couldn’t move. There was Tache, standing now by the tracks, keeping watch. She wanted to run and hold him. All this training and she had forgotten to reach out to him to know where and how he was. In a time of crisis, she had forgotten to use the chain on her ankle. She reached out to him now and felt him very much alive, alert, and unhurt from his plunge down five stories.

She joined Garon, feeling numb and stupid. Her only pain was her toes from her feet slamming into the building.

“Someone will be along shortly to pick him up,” Garon said, fastening a blinking button onto the man. He squeezing Paxine’s hand to reassure her, leading her back out the way they came and onto the street.

The dinner crowd filled the streets with the last of the rush hour. Restaurants were busy, venting their delicious smells out onto the street. She felt some comfort being within the crowd, still dazed with what just happened.

A few blocks later, Garon released her hand. Tache urged her to slow down. She felt uncomfortable while Garon went on ahead, disappearing into the crowd. There were shops and restaurant windows along the walk so she pretended to window shop, pretending her mom wasn’t too far away. No matter what she pretended, she was still in an unfamiliar area, surrounded by strangers. Scary.

Paxine found herself walking faster, wanting to run, but Tache urged her to slow down. There was a restaurant. All its doors and windows were open. She stopped to watch people eat. No one seemed to notice her, so she pretended she was invisible, continuing down the street. She reached out to Tache for comfort and he was pleased with her pace, guiding her into the door of another restaurant.

There was a foyer with the choice of going straight through another door into the restaurant, or going up a flight of stairs. Tache directed her up the stairs, leading to a banquet hall. At the far end of the hall, Garon was just sitting down at a table.

“Are you okay?” he said, looking tired.

“I-I think so. Nothing hurts. Well, maybe my toes,” she said, checking the deep scuff marks on the toes of her shoes where they hit the building. “I-I hurt and thought I lost Tache, but…I was just scared.”

“Both of us. They found us too quickly. That’s not good.” However, he didn’t look worried about it.

“How?”

“They were scanning apartments and looking for apartments that were vacant but had people. Simple really,” he said matter-of-fact.

“They… they knew where you would run to,” She gave a worried, looking around as if another gun toting man was about to barge through the doorway.

“Oh,” he said with a blush as if modest. “I did that on purpose. Had to give Tache time to catch up with us. We back tracked a little and let them get wind of us. They are the ones who are so predictable.” He chuckled looking pleased with himself as if he had performed some sort of clever trick.

“Will they find us again?”

“Probably, but they won’t look here,” he said with confidence.

“Why not?” She wondered why no one would look here or find them just as easily in the apartment.

“Too many people here and I hate this restaurant. The governor owns it and security is strict.” He looked totally serious.

“We just walked right in,” she said, looking dubious.

“Exactly. They’re secure against the wrong things. We don’t have any guns on us. We don’t have any traceable tracking devices, recorders, or such. All the things they’re strict about, we don’t have. They’ll never know we’re here.” He leaned on the table with a yawn.

“How long are we going to be here?”

“Just for the night. We have places to go tomorrow.” He looked like he would fall asleep at the table.

“Okay.” She felt Tache getting further and further away. “Where’s Tache going?”

“Shaloonya and he are tracking a couple of guys. They’ll be gone all night.” Garon yawned again.

“Tache fell. How did he…”

“Ask him.” Garon closed his eyes.

Tache, she thought, how did you….? An image formed before she could complete her thought. Tache had attacked the man, biting and scratching. The man released his hold on her, flinging Tache away toward the building on the other side. Tache used his momentum toward the building to push off to a window ledge on the other building, one floor below, jumping again, zigzagging between buildings and window ledges, controlling his descent, until he landed in a trash bin. Her heart beat fast all over again

The door of the restaurant opened, causing her to jump, but it was just customers coming and going. Then the door closed one last time with a solid click. The lights dimmed. For an hour, there were still sounds from below while the staff cleaned and readied the restaurant for the next day. Then there was one last slam of a door and silence.

Paxine couldn’t understand why she was lying on the floor of a bus. It shook. The floor was hard. It was uncomfortable. She just wanted to sleep. The bus stopped. Someone shook her shoulder. It must be her stop.

“Wakey wakey. Time for breakfast,” Garon said, shaking her shoulder.

She felt startled to find herself on the floor of the banquet hall.

“Breakfast,” he said again, helping her up.

She stretched the kinks out of her body, following him to the back of the banquet area. Stairs led down to the kitchen. There were no locked doors.

“Strict security?” she said, letting sarcasm in her voice.

“Not in the kitchen. Only in the main restaurant area,” he said in explanation.

“Yeah, right.” She was thinking security was rather lacking. “Where’s the restroom?”

“Take a step out that door and look, but don’t go into the main area of the restaurant.” He was looking through the kitchen.

“I see the restroom. It’s in the same hallway. Is that safe?” she said.

He nodded.

The light in the restroom turned on when she entered, scaring her. The reflection in the mirror that stared back at her scared her a second time. Her hair was wild and her clothes rumpled. She finger combed her hair and smoothed out her clothes the best she could.

When she returned to the kitchen, it now smelled of frying eggs. Toast popped up. Garon slid an egg onto a piece of toast and handed it to her.

“No dishes, except the pan,” he said with a wink.

He finished his egg sandwich, then took his turn in the restroom.

Paxine snuck a peek in the huge refrigerator for something to drink. There was a rack of puddings. She slurped one down. To hide what she did, she washed the bowl and made sure her face was clean by the time he was back.

“Hum. Pudding,” he said with a glint in his eye.

Paxine tried to look like she didn’t know what he meant.

“I had one too,” he said with a wink, leading her back up the stairs into the banquet hall.

She expected to head down the stairs they had come originally, but he led her away to another set of stairs. These stairs led down and out into the street. The doors locked only against people trying to come in, not out. No one paid any attention to them as they joined the early commute crowd.

Paxine reached out to Tache, finding him still far away, but to her relief, Garon was leading her in that direction. She felt good having a full belly and knowing Tache was getting closer. The early morning walk felt good, until she noticed…

“We’re going around the block,” Paxine said, “for the second time.”

Garon smiled, but didn’t answer. He was humming.

“Why…”

Garon interrupted her, putting a finger to his lips. She felt frustrated. They weren’t going anywhere. This wasn’t getting her closer to Tache.

“But…” she said, being more demanding.

Garon interrupted her again, stepping off the curb, heading across the street toward a car. A man, standing next to the car, opened the back door.

“Garon….” she said, alarmed.