Part One

Tasìa noticed the creepy man staring at her as soon as she got on the bus. Odd that he picked her out of the crowd of workers with whom she tried to blend in with on their commute into the little city of Villa Marròn.

She affected the appearance of a hard-bitten worker going to a factory job, and Tasìa had thought herself to be quite convincing at it, until now.

Tasìa was honest in her personal evaluation. It took at least a little effort to pretty herself up and achieve any effect beyond average and plain in her appearance.

Which in Tasìa's current situation was quite fine with her. She needed to be able to get lost in the crowd. Usually, that was not a problem.

This guy though.

He was in his early forties - beer gut hanging over his black jeans, handlebar mustache, and a fixed glare at everything he watched, be it traffic light, donkey cart, a goose squalling at people passing by, or her.

She pegged him for an ex-cop. He was too far gone in the upkeep of his personal appearance to be currently serving on any force.

Also, too young to be retired on a full pension. Either his career ended in disgrace or - nevermind, she thought, now that she saw how he shuffled from one leg to the other with a prominent limp. In his case, it was definitely the latter possibility.

He was collecting disability.

Was he working now as a private investigator?

Ugly memories stirred in her gut.

Or worse, a bounty hunter?

She followed a small woman in her sixties to a seat in the middle of the bus. As they were waiting at the stop earlier, Tasìa took the time to have a conversation with the woman.

To any curious observer, Tasìa hoped that she would appear as someone familiar with the locals as if a rapport had been long established between them.

The last time she had lived in the town, just to the north of Villa Marròn, she cultivated an identity as Avellana, a bike courier.

In her few days returned, Tasìa recognized no one from her past, as of yet.

She tried to continue with their previous conversation, but the older woman was not interested.

Her mouth twitched impatiently as Tasìa spoke.

Around the older worker's eyes, the crow's feet grooved deep when she squinched back at Tasìa and then to the man.

The ex-cop stood in the front of the bus. His hands clutched at a pole.

Tasìa got the message. From the old worker's perspective, if that particular man was eyeing Tasìa, it was only because she was trouble.

Admittedly, an accurate enough assessment.

The neoPalm Personal Assistant vibrated in her pocket. On inspection, Tasìa saw that it was a message from Felicité.

She glanced back at the booth-sized restroom. It was unoccupied so she excused herself before walking back to it, deliberately and slowly.

Tasìa glanced up at the mirror set above the back door. The ex-cop was staring hard at the back of her head with a contemptuous snarl set upon his ugly lips.

As she closed the bathroom door, it came to her attention the enclosed space needed airing out. The window was jammed shut with thumb-sized rubber erasers pressed into them.

Tasìa unsheathed her stiletto blade and forced both of the erasers out. After lifting the window, she wedged the erasers against the edges to hold the window in place.

Climb out, then jump, and make a run for it, Tasìa considered as the air rapt against her.

It was obvious that the man was suspicious of her, but whether or not he was on to who she was was another matter.

If she did run for it, it would certainly remove any doubt of her culpability that he may still have.

Tasìa cleaned the toilet seat with a sanitized wipe before she sat down to pee.

The PA vibrated again. She decided to check it this time.

It wasn't the light banter that had been going back and forth between the two over the past few days after the escape. Those exchanges had been mostly celebratory.

Felicité made suggestions of what to do with her new found freedom.

This wasn't one of those exchanges.

One word in red, 'urgent!', marked a compressed folder.

Felicity headlined a text file for the batch -- T., you should see this.

Attached was a long video clip.

I haven't located the puzzle palace of the New Masters, but the tower has definitely become uninhabited.

I found this bouncing around in the traffic, though. This is some fucked-up footage from the cellar you told me about.

Tasìa ran the video file. Five armed men walked in front of the camera. Two of them appeared to be soldiers fully geared up, while the other three were most definitely spooks.

They were the closest substitute to an actual set of bright boys that Big Daddy had on hand. Understandably so, nuclear engineers were never on loan to mere prison security.

The spook that was serving as the leader narrated as he approached the hangar door at the end of the aqueduct maintenance tunnel.

She could now see his lapel badge.

The Commander began to speak.

"According to the map, on the other side of this door is the cellar of Tower Praxis."

The companion behind him, another spook, chuckled out loud.

The leader turned his head around and he furrowed his brows at the other man.

"Hermann, how about you letting us in on what you find to be so funny?"

"Tower Praxis? What kind of pretentious, bullshit name is that?"

"Hermann, you've been in the intelligence field for over a decade, and you are just now finding out that the things we do are a bit overwrought? But, more importantly, do you know what the word 'praxis' means?

"To be honest with you, it's a pretty sensible designation. Tower Praxis is where idealists used to get sent when they needed to be broken in or have their careers bounced. Does the seismic level fuck up known as Demona Heloïste mean anything to you?"

The back of Hermann's head tensed oddly as he answered in a contrite tone.

"All right, I'll keep my tongue planted firmly in-cheek. Just point me at the satellite and I'll do what I do."

"Hermann, have you ever disabled a nuclear-powered generator before in your life?"

From the look on his face, Tasìa could tell Hermann was going to spew out another sarcastic quip.

"I have never even seen one with my own eyes, but the YouTube instruction video made it look easy enough. Less complicated than matrix division. We'll be fine."

"Jesus Christ," the Commander muttered under his breath.

"Do you hear that," said a voice from behind the camera.

The sixth man. He held the camera so steady, Tasha had forgotten to count him as part of the squad, until now.

It was music from wooden pipes.

The Commander scowled deeply.

"Alright, open up that door. The sooner we get this fucked-up day over with the better."

The two other spooks complied, as the soldiers held their submachine guns in place to cover them.

The leader shined a light from his electric torch into the far left corner of the cellar where he expected to find the Muskovite satellite.

The room remained perfectly still. Including, the small woman who stood atop of the satellite with her head bowed down.

She raised her head and greeted them with a benevolent smile.

"Don't move," the Commander yelled.

She giggled back at him with a deeply throttled voice that exuded sheer caprice.

"This I learned from Om Anaghaya Namaha as he explained why he chose to remain un-Manifested."

The Infernal Madré lifted her arms up as she began a dance that told an old story. Her limbs moved in sway to music that came from another room close by.

The camera was fixed on the beautiful vision of the petite woman in her silken finery. The Commander could be seen in the right-hand corner of the video frame looking around at the others. Fear was set in his eyes.

Tasìa could not see them, but she assumed the men must have been mesmerized as she had been.

"You may find it ironic that I would celebrate the one who placed a bind upon my kind, myself, and my kin. But such is the Grand Scheme when you come to accept and thus perceive it."

"Lady, you have ten seconds to start climbing down from there."

"Commander Gonzaga, if you could have your men perforate this device I'm set upon with your guns, I would much appreciate it. You have no idea how much it would help my cause."

"All right, Hermann, ignore the batshit crazy bitch. Just do your job so we can get out of here."

The Commander's head suddenly jerked as he caught sight of something to his left.

"The fuck?"

There was a whispery volume of sound that grew louder and louder.

The camera turned around just as the man who held it was over-ran by hundreds of spiders. Each one of which was more than two feet in length.

Tasìa replayed the clip once more. She recalled how the Infernal Madré had her entirely entranced.

Tasìa recalled as well the night the Incubus came to her in her sleep. It pleaded for her to confront the Infernal Madré once more.

If Commander James Fucking Bond Gonzaga, accompanied by a small squad of professional operatives, could not handle that task how did the Incubus expect her to do it?

Tasìa closed the bathroom door behind her. She looked around just in time to see the ex-cop turn his gaze elsewhere.

The old woman had taken another seat beside someone else. The seat that they shared was now empty. It was the last available seat, as well.

Tasìa made her way back to it. She scooted to the window so she could watch the scenery pass by.

A few minutes later, and enrapt in rare idle time, she did not notice the ex-cop approaching until he was hovering over her.

Tasìa cursed herself. Damn. Every lesson from my profession and my bid in prison concerning situational awareness thrown out the window when I needed it the most.

He did not bother to speak. He just sat down beside her, uninvited. Tasìa glanced at him for a close-up assessment.

There was nothing professional about that leer in his eyes. The skin around his neck was flush red with expectation.

Tasìa tensed up. She knew what that meant from similar circumstances in her life.

Within mere seconds, her intuition proved correct.

He put a hand on her thigh just above her knee. Tasìa's heart sank as his hand slowly inched up her leg.

She could not afford to make a scene and have people recall her face.

Tasìa would just have to let him get his finger wet, and hope that would satiate his curiosity where he would then leave her alone.

She hoped that was the extent of his interest in her. Perhaps, she had misread his intentions. Perhaps, he wasn't after a bounty on her head, only what was between her legs.

She could shrug it off, after the fact, without ever giving it another thought. It would not have been the first time.

It was so meaningless to her it did not trigger her incontinence that occurred with true intimacy.

It sounded so easy to Tasìa as she made a cold calculation of it all, but deep in her gut, she knew better.

An anger started to grow inside her. A warm heat and an accompanying tingle spread just beneath her skin. Her vertebrae pulsed as if electrically charged and the back of her skull felt like it was on fire.

She felt this exact sequence of sensations like an ultra-tuned shot of adrenaline course through her body on other occasions over the last week. It was a most deadly feeling.

She wondered if the experiments on her as a baby premie and her subsequent treatment in the prison medical center had anything to do with what she was experiencing now.

Now, she was asking questions that had never occurred to her in transgressive occurrences in her past.

Tasìa wondered about the women he had felt up like this before. How many? Dozens? Hundreds?

If she did not stop him now, what of those who he would encounter later on, after she let him get away with doing this to her?

His hand was now cupped on the crotch of her trousers.

She looked up into his eyes. She smiled as she got his attention. It was to disarm him and to distract him.

He appeared confused. Certainly, what motivated him the most was the fear he inspired.

With her left hand she took out her stiletto; she hid it against the inside of her wrist.

Tasìa caught his gaze and her eyes went slowly down to the slight bulge in his pants. She let out a faint gasp sounding pleased at the sight of it.

Target acquired.

Her eyes went back to his. She raised her brow in a gentle arch. He licked his lips.

She reached over with her left hand in a hidden move of quick finesse. Two-thirds the way up his inner thigh, she slit open his baggy jeans with a downward flick.

Reaching her hand into the slit, Tasìa thrust the pointed tip of the stiletto into the man's penis. It pinched deep into the tendon connecting to his scrotum.

Without a single pause in motion, Tasìa flicked her wrist upward, curving the blade up in an encircled path.

She shredded the man's cock into two equal halves.

Tasìa returned the blade to its sheath.

As blood began to soak the ex-cop's crotch, Tasìa stood up and yelled.

"Good God, hombre! You just pissed all over yourself. I am not staying here, you dirty mother fucker."

The man was in shock. He tried to stand as he looked down.

Her motions were so quickly executed that he had no idea what had happened.

On his second attempt, with hands quivering beyond his control, he finally stood up to examine himself.

Indeed, it did look like piss given the black coloration of his jeans.

He then grabbed his crotch and the ex-cop gasped loudly.

As he leaned forward, Tasìa liberated his wallet.

A commotion commenced from the women workers. Some now saw his soiled pants and screamed at him in derision just as Tasìa had done.

The driver slowed down as he tried to peek through the mirror to see what was happening.

Tasìa took advantage of the chaos; she made her way off the bus through the bathroom window.