🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part Three.]

  Star sighed as she took off her coat and fumbled with her purse. Traffic
was abysmal, of course, with this rain and attendant hazards, not to
mention her own state of mind.  It still angered her no end, as she
recalled that sanctimonious twit and his gilded words.  At the same time
she couldn't escape the twinge of guilt she felt.  Making a scene at Jean's
funeral was distasteful, but what had been said was more so. 'Miko probably
didn't need it either, she supposed.  Star shook her head and pulled out
the key card for the room, unlocking and opening the door to darkness.  No
lights, no sound, no Reba.  She smiled at that and shook her head again,
this time in amusement. Probably ignoring the medic's advice and scouting
the clubs after all. She looked about and spotted a small note on the cheap
table in the corner of the "kitchen" area of the room.

  Someone named Himiko called and asked if you could stop by the
  studio tonight about nine.  Said it had something to do with the
  school.  Went to the Mall.  Be back soon.

                - Reba

  Star frowned at that and reached into her purse.  A few button presses
later, she sighed.  The battery of the phone was fine, but there came no
answer from the house.  She glanced at the clock; just time enough to make
it back to the studio.  Finding a pen, she scrawled a quick note off to the
youthful tech, symbol-signed it, and grabbed her coat again.
***
   Angellica looked at the mirror behind the service desk with detached
amusement.  Very little was angelic or perfect in the bedraggled mess that
she appraised.  Waiting patiently for the clerk to finish with the person
in front of her, she halfheartedly tried to detangle one of the bigger
snarls.  Finally, the customer finished and she moved up.

   "Good evening.  I need to make arrangements to extend my stay another
night.  Plans have been changed a bit."  She almost frowned as her own
words hit home.  Good or ill, it didn't matter which, it meant that things
were most definitely not the same anymore.  But perhaps she could look more
to the good than the bad this time.

   The clerk nodded and typed into his display.  "Yes miss, we can do that
for up to three more nights..... oh, we also have a message for you."

   Angellica tensed for a moment, a feeling of foreboding chilling her back
more than did the seeping rainwater.  "From whom?"

   "A Ms. Renaulle called and said that she needed to talk with you and
another at the studio at nine.  She left no return number."

   "I already have it, thank you," said Angellica quietly. A quick glance
at her watch allowed her to plan the time in between:  a quick cleanup, a
new umbrella, and fighting a half-hour's traffic would make things tight,
but doable.  She hurried to her room.
***
  Angellica walked into the studio and fumbled for a light. After a moment
she made contact with the switch - only slightly lower than it should have
been - and cast light over the darkened room. A small tea warmer was
steaming in the chilly air on a table by the wall, folded note  attached
and taped to the metal appliance. Angellica breathed in deeply, savouring
the air that was laced with the delicate aroma of tea before reaching out
to pluck the note from the table and scan it, leaning over the warmer to
catch more of the heady scent.

   I'm sorry, but there was a slight emergency.  Will be here
   as quickly as I can, made tea for you two while waiting.
   Be back soon.

                                                        - 'Miko

  "Two," murmured Angellica, pouring a cup of tea from the electric
decanter. "I wonder who."
  The door behind creaked a bit as Star entered.  She shivered slightly and
closed the umbrella scattering near frozen droplets onto the mat. Noting
Angellica, she turned around and locked the door. "Hello, Angie. Message
from 'Miko?"
  Angellica turned halfway, pouring another cup of tea which she held out
to the sodden woman. "So it seems," she said. "Minor emergency... I hope
nothing else has gone wrong."
  Star took the cup gratefully.  "I hope not; today was enough of a mess as
it was."  She paused.  "'Miko... made the tea?"
  Angellica nodded, sipping at the flavourful, unadulterated Oolong.
"That's what the note said, yes."
  Star took a tentative sip, and blinked.  "I guess she made it with us in
mind.  Her tastes in tea hadn't changed to my knowledge."
  "Not even Jean could change her sweet tooth?" asked Angellica, with a
small smile. "The tea's excellent... she's gotten much better at preparing
it."
  Star shook her head.  "They declared a truce on that subject."  She
smiled in recollection.  "Jean would make the tea, and be sure that the
sugar bowl was there for 'Miko."   And look at it with much supposed
sufferance, she recalled.  Another "fault" to the "perfect" man.
  Angellica smiled. "That's so very much like him. Hmm... did he ever stop
wincing at the third spoonful?"
  Star grinned a bit, her hair tousling slightly as she shook it in
negation.  "No, but then again she did start making that the last one..."
She sipped again.  "... besides, I think he'd rather suffer the sugar than
have her critique his cooking."
  "They certainly made compromise into an art form, didn't they?"
  Star nodded, closing her eyes as she recalled.  "Eventually.  I just hope
to do as well..." Star blinked as what she said penetrated. Swift, Star,
she chided.  Remind her of her loss as well.
  Angellica smiled faintly, taking another sip of tea. "Of course you will,
Chelsea... "
  Star leaned against the wall.  The subject was broached, it was time to
either ask more now or bury the subject forever.  And enough had been
buried as it was.  "What was he like, Angie?", she asked softly.
  "Roger?"
   Star nodded, holding the tea in her hand.
   Angellica paused, watching the steam from her tea trace patterns in the
air. After a long contemplation, she spoke. "How do you describe someone
with whom you could share everything? Someone who knew when you needed to
be held... or when you needed a moment alone? How do I talk about someone
who knew me in his heart better than I knew myself?"
  Star nodded absently to herself.  "Or can't put it in words."  She let
her gaze wander across the floor aimlessly, her attention suddenly snapping
to focus on one point: a heel mark, muddy and slightly scuffed in the
finish.  The diamonds and groove indentations made it quite plain to Star
that they weren't from any dress shoes... and the floor was close to
spotless.
  Angellica sighed and sipped her tea. "I just don--
  "Angie."  Star's voice sliced curtly through her friend's comment.
  Angellica blinked at the interruption. "What is it?"
  Star looked about carefully, her eyes scanning the room.  She whispered
quietly to her companion. "I don't think we're alone."
  Angellica rubbed her eyes as her vision began to blur. The day seemed to
be catching up with her. "What do you mean?" she asked, yawning.
  "I--- mean."  Star blinked as her own vision started to blur.  A
momentary surge of adrenaline from panic cleared them briefly. "The
tea...."  She reached about as her swords reacted to her panic and appeared
in small flashes of light along with her uniform.
  Angellica opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She
toppled to the floor, her limbs turning to unresponsive lead. As Star
turned toward her fallen friend she heard the squeak of the door. Fumbling
with the heavy sabers, her last view was of some men in black.... and their
muddied boots.
***
     Jack Wynn's first clue that things were amiss was the sight of Shard
floating at high speed into his house, passing through the glass of his
window. Jack blinked at the football-sized crystal which buzzed about his
head, its inner glow bright and radiating trace amounts of heat.
     "Shard?" asked Jack in some confusion, looking at the buzzing crystal.
"Shard, what's wrong? Why aren't you with Angellica in Toronto?"
     In reply Shard touched its mind to Jack's, opening a conduit between
them. The experience, as always, caused the man to shudder slightly and
draw away from the alien thoughts possessed by Shard. He had no idea how
Angellica could stand to remain constantly linked to the bizarre crystal's
mind, nor how she could make sense of the images and incomprehensible
pictographs that constituted its only form of communication across the
flesh-mineral line of division. Taking a deep breath, Jack allowed his
entire body to relax while Shard slowly filled the mind with mental
sketches. Struggling to hold onto something with which he could identify,
the man gasped at the foreign thought-shapes which swam about in his brain.
He felt as a man drowning, not in water but in the unknown and the
unknowable, pulled under by that which he could not understand. Then like a
life preserver tossed about by a vast and uncaring sea, a single
recognisable thought appears within the mental morass: Angellica. With an
immense mental wrench, Jack grasped the thought and pulled it to him, using
it like a lever to manhandle the rest into focus. Blinking twice as he
opened his mind, Jack looked at Shard's pulsating form.
     "What's that, Shard?" he asked. "You say Angellica's fallen down the well?"
     Shard hovered in front of Jack's face for a long moment before
accelerating forward to bap him lightly on the forehead. Jack rubbed the
sore spot and took the crystal's meaning as 'try again'.
     "Angellica's... gone somewhere else. Somewhere deep... no. Somewhere
that's dark... dark... dark but not dark. Someplace you can't... someplace
that you can't see? Someplace that you can't see her mind! Somewhere that
you can't reach her?"
     Images filled Jack's mind again, this time tinged with a positive
sensation. In its own way, Shard was telling Jack that he got a cookie for
his guess.
     "Do you know where, Shard?"
     Again impressions filled Jack's thoughts, this time negative. The
crystal did not know where its friend was. Jack stood and walked to his
bedroom, unashamedly pulling his red Alternator costume on in front of
Shard. The crystal, he knew, was so completely alien that Jack felt no
decency taboos were broken in its presence, especially while a mutual
friend's time might be running out. Wiping a lint ball from the yellow oval
that graced the front of his red tunic, Jack stepped out into the hall.
     "Let's go to where you last saw her, Shard," said Jack, as the
crystal's telekinetic field surrounded him, preparing to transport both.
"If we're lucky, we'll find a clue to where she was taken."
     And Jack was absolutely certain that Angellica had been taken. The
thought that she would part company from Shard's mind was so ludicrous as
to almost make him laugh to consider it. For whatever reason that they had,
the two had never voluntarily been apart since their meeting. Crass jokes
by outsiders had often been made about the significance of this devotion,
but this very allegiance might have been the only thing which could have
tipped Jack off to his friend's trouble.
     Airborne, man and crystal streaked across the night sky toward
Toronto, both minds occupied with troubled thoughts over the same lost
soul.
***
   Reba yawned as she came in, and looked about blearily: no sign of Star.
She grinned a bit and ducked in.  So the show was packed, the lines were
long, and then they turned her away as being sold out.  At least she had...
demos.  Reba looked at the cassettes and sighed.  Face it, she chided
herself, you aren't sure if you're upset or not over missing that show.
Images of a crimson diamond came crashing through her thoughts, unbidden
nor wanted.  She blinked, shuddered, and looked about.  Taking a deep
breath, Reba pushed the memory back under the rug in her mind.  Tossing her
pack at her bed, she watched it bounce and land on the opposite end of
Star's.  She rolled her eyes for a second, then checked the note on the
table.

    Got the note.  Hurrying out, don't wait for me.

                                     - *

    "Well, that's one less thing to worry about," muttered Reba. "'Course
that means I'm stuck here again.  More movie channel I guess. Or...  hmmm,
didn't SEE a sign saying the pool closes...."  She crossed the room to
retreive her bookbag and blinked.  Star's overcoat was being crumpled by
her bag.  She sighed and grabbed her bag.  After thinking about it for a
second, she picked up the overcoat as well.
    "Man, in this weather?  Star MUST have been in a ...hurry....oh
Hell<tm>."  Reba looked below the overcoat, dropped it, and pulled out her
own cellphone from her pocket.  Ten rings later, she cut the connection and
cursed.  No answer from Star at all.  She looked again at the empty
scabbards.  The odds of things being all right were shot. Grabbing her own
coat, she pulled out the address listing Star gave her earlier qand just
prayed a taxi would show up soon.
***
This work copyright to Chris Angelini and James Rinehart, all rights
reserved 1996, as outlined in the Superguy FAQ. Koala!