TAG

By Caillech

This is the standard disclaimer. They don't belong to me. This story is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Paramount, UPN, or Pet Fly Productions.

Warning: This story contains corporal punishment.

~*~*~*~

Chapter 7

“First stop, Last Stop,” Jim informed the team cheerily as they piled into the hover-car.

The decree to delay the skate home had an immediate dampening effect and was met with disapproving groans all ‘round.

Before the foray into the Zone, they’d left the hover at the northern most edge of Last Stop, and each member of the team, most notably Blair, had assumed they’d just beeline toward Cascade.

The fishing side trip had been just the ticket to revive everyone’s tired spirits after the flurry of activity they’d been sucked into since the Synth had showed up unexpectedly on their doorstep just a week earlier. The last leg of the hike out of the Zone had been dabbled with ‘the one that got away’ stories and goofy renditions of favorite, at least for mocking appeal, marching songs, leaving them all relaxed and in zinging moods.

Blair fidgeted, and not just because his backside smarted as he squirmed into place sandwiched between Jim, who was behind the wheel, and Rafe, who took up his customary shotgun seat and started twiddling the controls of the com-unit, preparing to send a howdy to Simon to report in.

“Why?” he asked, sounding a tad cantankerous. “I thought you said we needed to chop-chop back to Cas.”

Jim’s sidelong glance was grimly amused. “I need to see if there’s anything that needs to be boxed up, what with all the tapping you freeloaded.”

Blair paled, crossed his arms, and hunched his shoulders. He squirmed some more. “Do you think my clutch slats will cover it?’ he asked in a low voice, referring to the packet of exchange slats he had tucked safely in his backpack “I’m not a booster,” he added defensively, his voice rising slightly as he slouched lower in his seat.

The tag sputtered between them and Jim’s look changed from amused to disbelieving. A sudden quiet descended inside the cramped confines of the hover.

“Not with a capital B anyway,” Blair added churlishly. He straightened up and shot a petulant glare at each occupant of the hover, blushing furiously. “I only tapped what I needed. You saw my dozer. It’s not like I was living high-dee-ho.”

“Blair,” Joel said softly, “No one here thinks you’re a booster. Things were skizzy.” He reached out from the back seat and squeezed Blair’s shoulder reassuringly.

The others nodded in agreement; giving Blair looks that made him feel stupid for assuming they’d thought less of him.

Blair smiled shyly, ducking his head. “Thanks guys,” he answered hoarsely.

Jim mussed Blair’s curls. “Don’t worry about it, Bait. If your slats fall short, I have enough stash.”

Blair choked back a remark, not liking the idea of Jim having to fork out for his thievery, especially as it had been before he’d known Jim and he felt as if it was justified at the time, but he acquiesced by elbowing Jim in the ribs.

Rafe dropped his comm.-link like a hot potato. “I ain’t foolin’, Bombshell,” he directed at Joel over his shoulder. “Simon’s madder ‘n a buzzed down guzzler. I am NOT repeating his bark.”

Joel waggled his fingers. “Gimme that,” he ordered.

Rafe obliged quickly, retrieving the link from the floor and tossing the gadget into Joel’s waiting hands. Then he settled back to let him handle Simon.

“The other tick-off for buzzing by Last Stop,” Jim went on, sounding amused once more, “is we need to howdy-do Maggie.” He shot a significant glance at Joel by way of the rearview mirror, silently directing him to be sure to convey that info to Simon without spilling too much over an open channel.

A deep flush colored Blair’s cheeks again. “Aw, man, do we have to? She’s probably iced over about me rabbiting without a hasta la vista or anything.”

“Probably,” Jim agreed. “But I have one hellava debrief for her from Jack, and I think you owe her a so-sorry and some thanks, and who knows? She might just want to give you,” Jim tugged on Blair’s hair, “a piece of her mind.”

“Great, just hunky, just what I need. Another grupper chewin’ my ear,” Blair mumbled amidst assorted snorts and good-natured digs from the others.

As it turned out, the meet up with Maggie wasn’t as bad as Blair’d feared.

It was worse.

Maggie gave him what-for using language that would get his mouth bubbled if he ever used it, Jim warned him later. The sweet little old helpless-hapless lady he’d grown so fond of over the past few months disappeared in an instant when the Panther team showed up with Blair in tow and Jim spouted the do-tell about his bolt for the Zone. Hiding behind Jim hadn’t saved him either, since Jim stepped aside, pulled Blair out to face the bebop, and let Maggie have at it.

Blair stood there, looking hangdog embarrassed, but putting up a brave front as Maggie tore into him. It was obvious to everyone but Blair that her tirade came from a deep-seated affection for the kid, rather than just plain orneriness… which was what he preferred to think under the circumstances.

But at the end of the very long lecture, followed up by a couple of swats to his behind, Maggie surprised Blair by pulling him into a hug, kissing the top of his head, and winding down with soft-voiced assurances and soothing platitudes, reverting once again to the Maggie he’d come to know.

“You really have your work cut out for you, Ellison,” she quipped as she slapped Blair’s cheek gently, one arm still wrapped around him. “’Tween the Tag, and the hoo-ha about the Zone, and the wattage in this youngun’s noggin,” she tapped Blair’s temple for emphasis, “you’ll be lucky what’s left of your hair doesn’t up and skeddadle.”

Blair laughed out loud, along with Maggie, as much from her remarks as from seeing the look on Jim’s face they garnered. H, Joel and Rafe found the comments funny too, but had enough sense to stifle their laughter.

Purposefully ignoring the insult to his hairline, Jim moved on to the next topic.

“I’ve got some no-tells from Jack to go over with Maggie, and then I have to figure out what’s owed on your dozer---,” Jim said, giving Blair a pointed look.

Maggie cut in sharply, “Nothin’s owed.” She gave Blair’s shoulder a hard squeeze. “Last thing we’d a needed was the Locals snoopin’ ‘round. I tidied everything up every week, and just you shut your trap,” she ordered, pointing a finger his way when Jim started to say something, “It was all figured into the ‘roll for this under-cov. Didn’t come outta my pocket.”

H guffawed uproariously at the point Maggie told Jim to shut his trap. Blair just watched, wide-eyed, his mouth opened slightly, doing his best not to smile.

Jim placed his hands on his hips, cocked his head, and narrowed his eyes, studying Maggie to determine if she was lying. She wasn’t.

“Does he do that a lot?” Maggie asked the team. She shook her shoulders and upper body, as if trying to dislodge bugs skittering across her skin.

“Not with us, he doesn’t,” Joel answered for them. “There’d be hell to pay, on all kinda levels.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim droned, sounding only mildly offended by the remark. Then he waved his hands in a shooing motion and suggested acerbically, “Why don’t you take the kidlets for a stroll, maybe get ‘em some s’cream if they’re good. Let me bore Maggie with Jack’s howdy?”

“Maybe Blair can show us some sights?” Rafe interjected happily, punching Blair on the upper arm in a brotherly manner. “Didn’t get to see much of this berg when we flitted in the other day. There must be something worth seein’ sides the innards of a grubby tav and his dozer.”

Blair perked up and started nodding his head vigorously. “We could go to Nobby’s. There’s supposed be this woman there who can---,”

Maggie was already shaking her head just as vigorously as Blair was nodding. “You’re underage, way underage, and I’m not so sure he ain’t either,” she advised for Jim’s benefit while indicating Rafe with an arched brow.

Rafe’s affronted look did nothing to dissuade either Jim or Joel’s naysay to Blair’s proposal. Maggie’s less than subtle observation told them all they needed to know about Nobby’s and what it offered in way of entertainment.

“We’ll just find a nice quiet funner, maybe with some swings, and I’ll make sure the boys behave,” Joel said in a sugary-sweet voice that Rafe knew better than to argue with. He smiled innocuously as Blair and Rafe grumbled about his choice of how to pass the time while waiting for Jim to finish his business with Maggie. He ignored their protests and motioned them to precede him, herding them off.

“What about me?” H groused dejectedly as he looked around questioningly, begging for someone to give the okay for him to go to Nobby’s, not even caring what the hell it was. Getting no response, he threw his arms up in the air and loped along behind the others, muttering, “I ain’t underage.”

Blair tried to waylay the team once or twice as he spotted an arcade here or a point of dubious interest there. But Joel kept them on track, herding by way of a backside wallop when needed, and they soon came to a small plaza brimming with food vendors, shops, and as Joel had promised earlier, a funner complete with a recently refurbished jungle gym…and swings.

~*~*~

“Ho-lee Jehosaphat,” Maggie commented after sitting quietly through Jim’s debrief from Jack. “After all these years, the Zone is really gonna open up, you reckon, huh? Hardly seems possible.”

Jim rubbed the back of his neck and nodded in agreement.

“Hopefully we’ll know in a day or two if Naomi and Jack were able to put things in motion. I’d like to get Blair tucked away safe and sound up in Cas before any official announcements spill.”

“That’d be wise,” Maggie agreed and then leveled an unreadable look at Jim. “That old hound Jack’s really got his innards kinked over Blair’s mom? He was supposed to be on a mission you know.”

Jim snorted and gave an honest answer.

“I’ve known Jack for years. He’s a good man, a friend. I’d trust him with my life. Stacked on that, I’m a Sentinel. From the sound of it, when the under-cov went a little skivvy he nav’d best he could, and came up rosy.”

Maggie’s face softened. She squinted at Jim, shading her eyes from the sun, and nodded.

“Yeah, that sounds like Jack.”

“How’d you and the Bait get tangled?” Jim asked and added dryly, “It couldn’t’ve been a fluke.”

Maggie hooted with an infectious laugh, making Jim smile.

“Before Jack first made his dive into the Zone, we’d found a spot where you could see across two layers of the shield clear and free. We arranged a day and time, twice a month. I’d go out there and when he could manage, he showed up too. We had an eagle-eye system worked up, and he’d keep me up to date on his progress. But after he wormed his way into the Inner Circle, it got iffy to keep up on his part. I’d still wander out there, but he only showed up maybe one time out of six. Imagine my surprise, when outta nowhere a few months back, he drops the whole Chosen gig on me. He wanted me to hover and hawk, since Blair refused to skeddadle like his momma wanted him to. He sent him to me with a song ‘n dance about me being a follower of the Guiding Light that got left behind, pining for news and feel-goods about what I was missing, blah, blah, you get the drift.”

Jim rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Blair bought it?”

“Hook, line and sinker, he did.” Maggie said solemnly before cracking a smile. “And then proceeded to point out to me the error of my ways. I let him convince me, since it seemed the best way to gain his trust. And it worked to everyone’s advantage.”

“So all the tapping, and the knock and come on ins that Blair and Daphne skinnied up?”

“Just hide ‘n seek; didn’t matter how Blair twanked it, it was bogus to start with. The only real intel going in and out was what Jack gave Blair to give me and what I gave Blair to take back, only he thought it was just me keeping up the lost soul act for the Hand’s benefit and---,”

Jim held up his hands in surrender, chuckling as he cut Maggie off, “Enough, I get the vid.”

~*~*~

Blair sat on a swing with his arms wrapped around the chains, dragging his feet in the dirt as he let the momentum of his body weight sway him lazily. His head lolled back and he had his eyes closed against the sunlight. Rafe was on a swing nearby, doing the same. They’re toyed briefly with the idea of sneaking off down one of the side streets to where Blair thought there might be sights of a more interesting variety, but Joel was keeping a watchful eye and they finally decided neither wanted to chance the full-on walloping Joel’s body language promised if they strayed.

“What’s Cascade like?”

The question was directed at Rafe although Blair never opened his eyes or turned toward him.

It was a simple enough question, but Rafe gave it some thought before answering. He knew what it was like to have spent years within the restrictions of the Free Zone. He’d been lucky that Joel had found him so soon and taken him in, but adjusting to life outside had been challenging for him. Blair had so far only been exposed to the seediest sections of Last Stop, and under less than favorable circumstances.

“Old Cas is a void, a complete armpit. The Gully is the worst part; where all the runners are, the bottom of the heap. Lots of cheap thrills and every down and dirty illegal conniving swillin’ anyone could ever dream up. If Jim ever gets even the slightest twitch that you’re even thinking about thinking about as much as checking out the fringe, much less gully-stumping, you can kiss your sitting privileges good-bye for a long, long, long time.”

Blair planted his feet in the dirt, stopping the swing. He sat up straight and looked at Rafe, taking interest.

“Besides that first time, when you ended up in the Gully on accounta that no good trader, you ever go in?”

Rafe shrugged and grimaced.

“Sure. Not stumpin’. But the fringe? Yeah. All the kids do, sooner or later. You know, to prove you’re in tight, that kinda thing. If you get away with it? It’s fun, no two ways about it. But if you get caught?” Rafe hissed in a sharp breath between gritted teeth and shook his head, remembering all too well the paddling he’d gotten when his third foray to Mamasita’s landed him in a net.

Rafe’s cheeks reddened and Blair blinked owlishly.

“Right,” Blair whispered. “Old Cas. Off limits. Got it.”

“I only go in now with the team, and only on Badge business.”

“So? New Cascade?” Blair prompted, switching gears and brightening hopefully.

“New Cas is all right. Biggest city in the Northwest Territory, trade center for dozens of outliers and still rough ‘round the edges. Busy port, both for sea and air-hover from pretty near everywhere west of the Zone. But there’s schools, libraries, ‘zeums, arcades twice’s big as this one,” Rafe waggled a hand outward, taking in their immediate surroundings, “not to mention lots of girls your age who you don’t have to go through a matcher to meet. Plenty to do without getting into trouble.”

The last was said with pronounced emphasis and a knowing wink.

Blair pulled in a deep breath and let it out as an expressive, not-quite groan. “Oh man.” He chewed his lip and frowned at Rafe. “Just how strict do you think Jim’s gonna be?” he asked apprehensively.

Rafe shrugged as if he didn’t have a clue, but his next words contradicted the action.

“Based on how he’s taken to you, and not just the sentinel guide over-do, I wouldn’t count on too much free-wheeling.”

Blair didn’t bite back the groan this time and let his head drop in dramatic ‘my life is over’ dangle.

H had gone off on his own earlier when he’d caught sight of a gunnery, to check out what types of weapons the Col-Nev-Uta Confederation was peddling of late, as well as to give himself at least the illusory feeling of not being part of Joel’s keeper duty. He returned at this point, joining Joel just as his com unit pinged with a re-group from Jim.

Joel whistled shrilly, holding an arm up and twirling a forefinger in the air in a beckoning motion, and they set off to rejoin Jim.

~*~*~

Saying goodbye to Maggie proved harder than Blair thought it would. The realization hit him suddenly that she’d been a lifeline that’d kept him from feeling totally isolated in unfamiliar territory and under bizarre circumstances. Jim sensed a subtle shift in the tag’s harmonics and moved to stand next to Blair, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll howdy, we’ll vid,” Maggie assured after cupping Blair’s face and kissing his cheeks soundly. “That is if you find time, what with all the glossy newf’d stuff that’ll being goin’ on with all the recent to-do’s.” She chided Blair with a rough-throated chuckle, but her eyes glistened with the threat of tears.

“You know I will Maggie,” Blair promised, his own voice tight and sincere, walking backwards as Jim ushered him to the hover-car.

Blair nagged for a seat in back, next to a window, and the team rearranged themselves to accommodate the request. For a change, Rafe eagerly gave up his front seat spot in order to sit next to Blair. Joel quickly snagged the vacancy, leaving H muttering once again, crammed in the back with the other two.

Blair hung out the window, waving, for as long as Maggie was in sight.

They stopped briefly to replenish supplies and grab a meal at a dash-fast, and then Jim veered the hover up into the restricted air lanes and steered north on track to Cascade. Rafe leaned in close to Blair every now and then to point out landmarks or answer a question about a town or settlement that came into view below.

Jim felt the tag sputter and buzz warmly as Blair relaxed, letting the disquiet of departing Last Stop and the farewells with Maggie slip slowly away.

~*~*~

H tried to remain grumpy, just on principle, but couldn’t keep up the act in the face of Blair’s zest and was soon eyeball-deep in disagreeing with Rafe’s do-tells or adding his own half-slat’s worth to whatever the two youngsters were yattering about.

When the three were engrossed in a vid-game Rafe pulled from under the seat, Jim questioned Joel about what Simon had had to say.

“The boss as iced as Twist is making out?”

“You know how he likes to think he can still give the youngsters the jitteries,” Joel responded.

They both snorted, picturing Rafe lobbing the com-link at Joel as if it were rad-slicked.

“Bluster and fluster mostly,” Joel continued. He glanced to the back seat quickly, and then lowered his voice. “He’s in the fire. We mad-dashed down to Last Stop and it didn’t go unnoticed. We were picked up on more than one gawker. He’s been bombarded with what’s going on’s. You know how he is about dancin’ and paperwork.”

Jim nodded, smirking as he pictured Simon in one of his moods. “That it?”

Joel lowered his head, turned toward Jim, and shrugged nonchalantly.

Jim’s low-throated growl turned into an anxious question. “What else?”

“You lit up a few shield-detects when you zappered your way through the shield. It’s too much of a co-inky dink that we make an unannounced dash outside our jurisdiction to Last Stop just before the fireworks start popping in the same vicinity to go unnoticed.”

Jim nodded, looking grim, and added a few thoughts.

“And once the jabber of Ezekiel’s demise lets loose and the new who’s who in the Zone is broadcast it’s not gonna take long for two and two’s to start fluttering about our skate and that we came back with an extra trooper.”

“Who just happens to be the son of the Zone’s new head honcho,” Joel finished for him.

“So Simon wants our butts back home,” Jim stated. “Okay, makes sense. He’ll need to establish that our skate was a Sentinel affair, and that the rest was fate yanking us.”

Joel raised one eyebrow and the eye beneath it twinkled. “That’s why he’s the boss,” he interjected happily. “There’s enough witnesses to the Synth showing up when he did to toss a blanket on that. And Simon surely grumped about it, but he crossed all his T’s on the 10-6-what’s it’s and S-G-4 dot whatever’s to cover it. But, yeah, the sooner he can produce the guide that started the fracas, the better.”

The tag jittered a little just as Jim became aware that the chatter from the back died down. The hover wasn’t so big that the conversation, though quiet, hadn’t spilled over and the mention of Ezekiel, the Zone, and the Synth had drawn the attention of the other three. He looked over his shoulder and gave Blair a heartening smile.

“It’ll be okay Bait,” he guaranteed with a boost through the tag. “You’ll see. Things’ll be frazzly for a bit, with getting all the legits tied down, but it’ll work out fine.”

Blair returned the smile, remembering his earlier chat with Rafe on the swings. He leaned hard into Rafe, shoving him up against H and tapped the game with feigned irritation.

“It’s still your turn, what’re you waiting for?” he complained with a good-natured whine.

“All right, all right, hold your bronc’s,” Rafe answered as he pushed back and resumed playing.

The fact that there’d been no mention about finding a way to undo the tag didn’t seem to matter in the least.

Joel slept most of the rest of the day in order to take over driving during the night. They stopped toward late evening when the sun settled low on the horizon, casting bands of gold and amber across the darkening landscape.

They stretched and ate and Jim gave Blair a few half-hearted wallops in lieu of the remaining spankings he’d had coming. Blair made a show of rubbing his butt, eliciting good-natured ribbing for both him and Jim.

“Getting soft already?” Joel directed at Jim once they were on the way again and everyone in the back was asleep.

Jim’s eyes were closed but he wasn’t asleep. He shrugged and answered with a snorted, “Right.” Then he shrugged again and said, “I told him we’re going to start with a clean slate.” He shifted position, hunkering down and crossing his arms loosely. He set his senses on Blair, listening to the rhythm of his breathing. “Judging by his track record so far, I’ve got a feeling the reprieve could prove to be temporary.”

Joel laughed and nodded his head knowingly as Jim drifted off.

~*~*~

Just before dawn, about an hour out from Cascade, Jim woke suddenly, sensing a change in the atmosphere. Tiny shockwaves rippled through the tag, waking Blair at the same time.

“What?” Blair whispered sleepily. “Wassup?” He roused himself from the slumped position he’d been in and rubbed at his eyes.

Jim didn’t answer him; instead he loudly barked an order for everyone to wake up.

“Twister band,” he said by way of explanation when he had their attention.

“Damn,” H swore for all of them. “Where? How bad?”

“Moving this way from the southeast,” Jim snapped. “I’ll know more when I can get a better look-see.” He pointed out a settlement directly ahead in the distance, a few miles away. Joel banked the hover and began the descent.

Rafe didn’t wait for the hover to land; he stretched his entire body across the seatback and grabbed the com-link. He started flipping switches and rattled off a scripted set of directives. Jim flattened himself against the door as much as possible to get out of the way.

They set down on the edge of the settlement, just outside the gawk-tower. Once on the ground, Jim exited the hover quickly and took a few steps away. He trained his senses on the southeast.

Blair hopped out and stood next to him, not sure what he was supposed to say or do. He looked off in the direction Jim’s gaze was pointed. He couldn’t see much of anything except the inky blackness of night.

Several people ran out to meet them, shouting and waving, having picked up Rafe’s warning signals.

Joel showed their idents and gave them the jabber, pointing to Jim who’d now been joined by Rafe.

“Four to six, almost ready to drop and roll,” Jim said in precise clipped tones. “Chopping at level jade. Rotation at triple-set. We’ve got breakneck momentum building.”

Blair heard Rafe relaying the information into the com-link and loudly enough to be heard by everyone nearby as Jim stated it, but had no idea what it meant. And then the tag buzzed and Blair felt, and then saw, what Jim was sensing.

Dense, low hanging clouds, in an oddly deep shade of green, were rolling ominously toward them. They weren’t like anything he’d ever seen before. There was movement within the clouds with swirling and criss-crossing layers of vapor and electricity.

The settlement began to light up, sirens began to blare, and a flurry of activity commenced as the settlers hustled to designated shelters.

The wind picked up suddenly, gusting to gale-force in an instant. And then the first bank of clouds seemed to split from the rest, and two funnels dropped down to the ground. As the first hit, it spun and rolled into what looked like a mammoth tumbleweed. It rumbled toward the settlement followed by its sister tornado.

“Blair!” Jim shouted as he spun him around and pushed him toward the hover. “Get in and stay put!” He shoved Blair into the hover, and waved his hand in the air, motioning team signals to the others, who scattered in different directions, each with a pre-determined and well-rehearsed purpose.

“I wanna come! I can help you!” Blair protested loudly and with fierce determination.

“No! No how!” Jim ordered sternly, pointing a finger at Blair. “We’ll be back in three,” he hollered through the wind. “We’ll take the hover up above it! Stay put!” And with that, he slammed the door and took off after the others.

Blair slapped the palm of his hand against the window and yelled, “Jim!” The tag crackled and spit and Blair felt woozy. He watched as the strange twister bore down, looking to hit the settlement head-on at the edge furthest from where they’d landed. He glanced back to the southeast and saw that two more of the twister sets had dropped from the cloud, each veering off the course set by the first so that they’d hit in succession along the settlement’s entire border. Another was forming in the clouds, and from what Jim had said, there were probably more.

Jim disappeared from sight, dashing into the settlement at about the point the third twister was headed. “Jim!” Blair yelled again, sounding frantic to his own ears. The tag was buzzing again, erratically. Blair wasn’t sure how to interpret what he was feeling through it, though it did seem to be trying to assure him Jim was all right. And then the first twisters slammed into the settlement with an ear-splitting bang and he was out of the hover racing toward where he’d last seen Jim.

Three minutes later, to the second, H, Rafe, Joel and Jim converged on the hover, out of breath and wheezing. They yanked the doors open, ready to jump in and take off.

“Where’s Blair?” Joel shouted. His eyes were as wide as the others’ at seeing the empty hover.

Jim turned toward the settlement and focused all his senses and tuned into the link through the tag.

“Damn,” he growled. “Damn it! He went after me!” He barked at Joel, “Get in and take off!”

“But Jim---,” Joel started to protest, along with the others.

“No time!” Jim shouted as he sprinted off, calling back over his shoulder, “Take off!”

The second twister set slammed into the settlement as the hover maneuvered upward. Dust and debris whirled through the air, but Joel had already sped well above it.

Jim bent low and protected his face with his forearm as he raced toward the settlement. He knew exactly where Blair was, just as surely as he’d known from that first moment the tag had engaged and he’d tracked him to Last Stop.

The third twister set was only a few hundred yards away and bearing down when Jim spotted Blair dashing between two buildings, calling for him. He started yelling too, but realized quickly that Blair wasn’t going to hear him above the din of the warning sirens and the shrill wailing of the twisters’ winds.

And then the tag hummed and warmed. Blair halted and spun around. He saw Jim and pelted toward him. As they met, Jim snagged him by the arm and yanked hard, pulling him along as he turned sharply, heading out of the path of the oncoming twisters.

“There’s more comin’!” Blair shouted over the noise enveloping him. He tried to point over his shoulder, but the movement slowed them, so Jim yanked harder and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

“I know!” Jim answered hoarsely. “Keep moving! We’ve got to outrun them!”

They ran hard and fast for at least fifteen minutes. Blair’s lungs hurt and his leg muscles burned, but Jim kept urging him on. And then they were staggering up a hillside, and Jim finally allowed them to stop.

Blair bent forward, and rested his hands on his knees, gasping for air. His hair was whipping wildly, dangling around his head and shoulders. He gulped and gulped and soon he was able to breathe normally. He straightened slowly and the sight that greeted him made him suck in a breath, shocked.

The twister sets were still on the ground, five of them, side by side. They churned across the settlement, the leading tumbler creasing deep gouges in the earth in a zig-zag pattern, followed by its funneled twin twister, spinning destruction by leveling buildings and crop fields, and scattering livestock in all directions.

“Wow,” Blair whispered, almost reverently, “would you look at that?”

Jim stood rigidly, his hands on his hips, breathing heavily, but not out of breath like Blair had been. He surveyed the area below them, watching the twister band closely for any sign of a change of direction or more spin-offs.

“Is everyone safe?” Blair wondered aloud. “Did they make it to shelter?”

Jim nodded, not taking his sight, or any of his senses, off the twister band. “Yes, I think so.”

“What would’ve happened if you hadn’t sensed it?”

“It might’ve been worse. It built up fast, out of nowhere. They don’t have a sentinel, lost her a few months back,” Jim said jutting his chin toward the settlement. “The detection system probably wouldn’t’ve latched onto it in time to save everyone.”

“Wow,” Blair said again, this time in awe of Jim’s abilities as well as his calm authority.

They continued to watch as the twisters finally played out, leaving about a third of the settlement untouched. They just suddenly stopped, spun and whirled, making a furious racket and then drew back up into the cloudbank. About a dozen lightening strikes sputtered briefly, filling the air with the odor of burned ozone. And then the clouds broke up and scattered slowly leaving a blanket of fading stars in the dawn sky.

Then Jim turned to face Blair, and the fury in his eyes pretty much matched that of the twister storm they’d just witnessed. Blair’s hand went to his throat, expecting the collar to start tightening. But then Jim’s eyes quieted and his features mellowed.

“I told you to stay put in the hover,” Jim admonished in a soft, calm voice. “The tag told you the same thing, didn’t it?” His hands were still on his hips and he loomed over Blair, not leaving much room for contradiction.

“I, um,” Blair started, wanting to obfuscate his way out of the predicament he was in. “I wasn’t sure. I wanted to help. One of those twisty-ball things was headed right where you’d gone.”

“I knew what I was doing. We all did. We’re trained for this. We’ve seen it before. Your job was to do what you were told.”

Jim didn’t sound angry during the brief lecture, just tired, and maybe a bit disappointed, which seemed to be a lot harder for Blair to handle than if Jim had just blasted him thoroughly.

Blair dropped his gaze and hugged his arms to his middle. “I endangered the whole team, didn’t I?” He took a deep breath and continued before Jim could scold him further. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Jim took a deep, calming breath. He stepped next to Blair and before he could say or do anything else, the tag sizzled and then Blair slammed up against him, burying his face against Jim’s chest, and hugging Jim’s middle instead of his own.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s all right,” Jim soothed as he rubbed Blair’s back. He snapped the com-link off his belt with one hand, and spoke into it over Blair’s head, sending a yoo-hoo to Joel letting him know where they were and that they were both unharmed.

“I don’t even know what I think I could’ve done. I was mad that you left me and scared you weren’t coming back, and---,” Blair sputtered to a stop with a sharp intake of breath.

Jim shook his head as he hugged Blair tighter and then cuffed the back of his head lightly.

“When are you going to spank me”? Blair asked in a shaky voice. “You are going to, aren’t you?” he added in a hesitant but resigned voice.

“Yes,” Jim replied succinctly. “But I think it’ll keep ‘til we get home, don’t you?”

Blair’s head didn’t leave Jim’s chest as he nodded.

The rest of the morning and most of the afternoon was busy and chaotic as the Panther team pitched in as best they could with clean up. Additional help arrived swiftly from nearby settlements and New Cascade. Jim was needed to help locate a few missing citizens who were unaccounted for at the shelters. He found them quickly enough, huddled together under a collapsed store where’d they taken refuge and which the brunt of the storm’s force had fortunately bypassed.

Blair stuck close to Jim the entire time, being extra careful to do exactly as told in order to avoid any possibility of re-building the spankings he had coming count he’d finally managed to whittle down to zero up until a very short while ago.

Once the team had done what they could and finished up with all the official do-tells, they piled into the hover and headed out on the final leg of the trip home.

Everyone took their usual seats, which left Blair in the back between H and Joel. Rafe reported in and gave their ETA.

Blair extracted Daphne’s travel-pac from its pocket in his sleeve. He fitted the earpiece between the hoops in his ears and waited for the soft chime that let him know the interface was established. It felt as if it’d been ages since he’d linked with Daphne.

‘Daf? You sizzlin’?’

‘Yes Blair I am here. Sizzling.’

Jim snorted, cocked his head and shook it. “It kinda tickles when you two do that,” he said. He shifted so that he could look over his shoulder at Blair and still keep an eye on their heading. “Tell her I say hi.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Blair agreed and gave Daf the howdy.

‘Greetings Jim.’

“Daf says hi,” Blair relayed with a chuckle.

‘Get comfy, Daf, I’ve got a few more you won’t believe’s to dazzle you with. And, oh hey, when we’re comfied in Jim’s dozer I need you to---,’

He broke off the thought and spoke to Jim. “Hey Jim? You have a brainiac ‘let at your dozer?”

“Sure, it’s---,” Jim began, but was instantly cut off.

“Spiffic!” Blair blurted, then went back to Daf.

‘Find me everything you can about twister bands, oh, and the settlements of the Olympic Federated Territory. Zero in on the Northwest Quadrant. Whatever you can snaggle about social structure, how they were formed, cultural makeup, customs, you get the vid, ditto me?’

‘Ditto Blair.’

Blair spent the rest of the ride to Cascade filling Daphne in on Maggie and the twister band storm, while the others went through their skate wind-down routines.

~*~*~

It was early evening when they reached the Olympic Territorial headquarters and their arrival created more than its usual amount of hoopla, with everyone anxious to hear the do-tells of the Panther squadron’s latest skate, starting with a chance to see Ellison’s tagged guide, all the way through their un-auth’d foray into the Zone, and right up to the early morning run-in with a twister band.

Simon had taken up his customary spot, leaning against the doorframe of his office, as the team entered the common room. He was chomping at the bit to get at them, but figured there’d be no point until they’d run the gauntlet first.

H was immediately set upon by a young woman who grabbed him by his shirtfront, pulled him in for kiss and then started dragging him away. At the same time a boisterous group jostled Joel and Rafe companionably, hassling them for the jabber.

Jim was tired and wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hot shower and down a few cold brews. He caught Simon’s eye and decided not to delay the inevitable. He let out with a high-pitched whistle, causing everyone to come to a dead halt and turn toward him.

Being the closet to Jim, Blair ducked in surprise, plugged his ears with his fingertips and fidgeted, aware that he was suddenly the center of attention.

Jim clapped his hands lightly and announced to the room, “Okay people listen up. This,” he tapped Blair on the shoulder, “is my guide, Blair Sandburg. And you’ll all get a chance to gawk and poke once Simon has finished chewing us out.” He signaled for the others with a round ‘em up motion of his hands, and the Panther squad, grumbling and muttering, traipsed past Simon and into his office. Jim and Blair were last in line. Jim waved Simon ahead of them, and then ushered Blair in.

Taking his cue from the subdued stance of the others, Blair licked his lips nervously and shuffled his feet, waiting for someone else to be the first to say or do something.

Simon sauntered to his desk and leaned his backside up against it. He folded his arms across his chest and gave the team a slow-simmering, assessing look, settling his gaze at last on Blair.

“So you’re the little pipsqueak that’s turned the entire Olympic Territorial Police force on its ear, and caused a near to redemption con-sarned cross-federation kerfluffle?” he boomed.

Blair gulped; his eyes grew saucer-wide, and he nodded slowly.

Jim stepped in front of Blair, his ingrained sentinel protectiveness fusing with the tag between him and his guide, and at the same time H, Rafe and Joel closed in around him, coming to his defense before Jim could say a word.

“Come on, Simon, it wasn’t his fault.”

“He never asked for any of this.”

“We cracked the regs, not him.”

Simon’s arched eyebrows were the only change in his somber demeanor as he let the Panthers have their say, which continued with whole-hearted enthusiasm for several minutes.

Jim relaxed and backed down, as amusement at the goings-on danced across his face.

“All right,” Simon buckled at last, accepting that he was outnumbered for the moment. He found himself filled with an enormous sense of relief that his team had returned in fine fettle and little worse for the wear for all they’d been through. “Enough.” He tilted his head and gave them all a pained, long-suffering look.

“Sandburg is it?” he directed at Blair with the same withering look.

“Yes sir,” Blair answered quickly. “Um, Blair.”

Still looking at him, Simon pointed to a chair and said, “Sit.”

“Yes sir,” Blair said again. “I’d just like to---,”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Simon admonished, shaking his head. “Sit,” he reiterated. “S5P James Ellison,” he went on in a slow, precise, formal tone of voice, “and his team here are going to give me the jabber from this mud-fuddled skate. And then you’re all gonna run along and play nice with all the other Badges while I song and dance my way through the fuss and bobble all this has caused. And then,” he paused and his eyes narrowed menacingly, “my life,” making it very clear that’s what mattered most at this moment, “will return to normal.” He knew better than to believe it, but it sure felt good to say it.

~*~*~

A short while later the Panther team, fresh from the showers, converged on the station’s rec hall. They were greeted this time with well-meaning cheers and scattered applause.

Jim was ready to chuck all the hoo-ha and go home to his loft in the garrison, but knew he needed to make an appearance with his guide and go through the rigmarole of introducing Blair and showing him off. He heaved a huge mental sigh at the thought of no end to the do-tells that’d be demanded of him.

Blair seemed cowed at first, but it didn’t last long at all with Jim and the others there to bolster him. Just about everyone in the hall paraded by to say howdy and listen in to whoever was having a go at spouting the jabber. In no time he was laughing and story-swapping like he’d been a fixture for some time.

He found it amazingly easy to pinpoint who were sentinels and guides before Jim had a chance to introduce him all ‘round, and said so to Jim.

Jim thought about that for a bit and then said he figured it was most likely due to the fact that since he knew who was who Blair was picking up on it through the tag.

“A sentinel can detect another sentinel without at hitch,” he went on, low voiced so only Blair could hear. “We can literally sense each other, like with Ezekiel. But if you know what to look for, a sentinel usually acq’s a few dead-gives in the way he stands, or moves, stuff like that.”

Blair’s head was bobbing, as he took in what Jim was saying. “What about guides?” he asked quietly, noticing with some embarrassment that more than one of them put a hand to his or her throat at the sight of the collar on his neck.

“There are no instinctive guide tell-tales that either sentinels or other guides can sense, no matter what the folklore says,” Jim answered. “When there’s a pair up, then it’s usually easy to spot a guide. But it’s acq’d dead-gives again, the way they stick together, work together and what-not. Of course, even that isn’t always true-blue. Joel and Rafe have been mistaken for an S-G pair more than once by non S-G’s.”

Blair laughed at that, recalling his own misconception about his new friends.

Simon joined them then, looking and acting a lot less intimidating than he had earlier.

“You two all right?” he asked with genuine concern as he took a seat. “Been a long week.”

Blair smiled at him. “Yeah. Yes sir. Thanks.”

Jim nodded thoughtfully as he absent-mindedly futzed with the tag-bracelet on his wrist.

“You’ve got a mandatory two week downer, standard for a new S-G pair,” Simon stated in his best CO voice. “And the week you’ve got coming from the last skate. Might be more while we wait for you to tidy your legits with the kid and we know more from the Zone. ”

Simon’s gruff tone softened and he said to Blair, “You mom sounds like quite a lady, kid. I’m sure everything’ll fly.”

Blair’s chest tightened at the mention of Naomi and he nodded wordlessly, not trusting his voice not to crack if he answered. He hadn’t had much time to fret over what was going on in the Zone with all that had happened since they’d left, and he started to feel a little guilty. But then the tag hummed softly and he felt reassured.

Simon slapped his palms against the tabletop and stood, abruptly bringing the short chat to a close.

“You two look like something Crazy Ike’d drag in outta the waybeyond out in Cascade Valley,” he chided. “Take the kid home, Jim, we’ll re-group tomorrow.”

“You got it, boss,” Jim answered as he stood and motioned for Blair to get up too.

“Aw, do we have to?’ Blair complained. “I just got here and H said he was gonna show me how to play space diamonds,” he said grumpily as he pointed to the corner of the rec hall with a bank of vid-games. “And Rafe said there’s a---,”

“Not anymore tonight, Bait,” Jim interrupted. “I’m tired and we need to get you stowed at my place. Our place,” he amended.

Blair grinned, liking the sound of that and he reluctantly said his good nights.

Simon had turned to leave, but spun back around as he remembered something he’d forgot to mention. “Hey Jim. I yoo-hoo’d Jack Kelso over in R-D. He’s unfurling a few tentacles; said he might know someone who might know someone. About the tag. With a good bunny-paw squeeze you could be rid of it before your downer even has a chance to start.”

Blair felt a weird jolt along the tag’s neural pathways, causing him to shudder briefly with the intensity of it. It came as shock to him that maybe undoing the tag wasn’t what he wanted at all.

And then he looked at Jim, expecting to see a flood of relief on his face.

But Jim was staring at Simon with what Blair was sure was the same dumbfounded look he wore on his own face.

~*~*~

“This is nice,” Blair said, standing in the middle of Jim’s dozer. He glanced around, taking in the layout. He nodded appreciatively at the airiness of it, with the wall of floor to ceiling windows and skylights in both the kitchen and upper sleeping area making it seem bigger than it really was. Of course, that could also be due to the spartan furnishings and almost complete lack of decorative touches.

Jim grinned, reading Blair’s true thoughts both through the tag and by the expression on his face. “I don’t do much but sleep here a few times a month,” Jim explained. “Doesn’t mean we can’t spiff it up any way you’d like.”

“That’d be icy,” Blair agreed readily, nodding some more. “So? Now what?” he ventured uneasily.

Jim didn’t need the tag to understand Blair’s sudden hesitation.

“Tell you what, Bait,” he said. “Toss your gear in that room.” He pointed to a curtained off area next to a short hallway tucked under the loft. “The ‘fresher’s down that hall. When you’re set come back here.” He pointed to the floor at his feet. “We’ll take care of what needs doing, then we’ll call it a night. Anything else can wait ‘til morning.”

“’K, right,” Blair replied, sounding relieved and apprehensive all in one breath. He gave Jim a funny sort of look; one Jim couldn’t read even with the tag buzzing away.

Blair returned a few minutes later, still fidgety.

“What you did this morning scared the shit out of me,” Jim began without preamble in a hard tone of voice. “You were told to stay put for three minutes. Three minutes. There’s going to be times when I need to do things, when I need to focus my senses on something other than you or the tag, and when that happens, I need you to do exactly as you’re told.”

Blair looked a little pale, awfully young, and terrible contrite as he shifted from one foot to the other. But he didn’t take his eyes off Jim.

Jim schooled his features and took a deep breath “All right. Bend over,” he instructed, indicating a small wooden table.

Blair stepped up to the table and noticed things had been hastily shoved to one side. A paddle was lying on the table and he wondered where it’d come from and why Jim had it, but didn’t think it was in his best interest at the moment to ask.

Apparently Jim didn’t think so either, and made no attempt to explain when he picked it up. Blair stretched across the tabletop and grabbed the far edge with both hands, gripping it tightly.

In the short time he’d known Jim, and all the times he’d been spanked, one thing Blair knew he could expect was that Jim wouldn’t drag things out. And this time was no exception. The short, stern lecture that had been dealt was the longest delaying tactic Jim had ever used.

The first swat of the paddle across the seat of his pants brought Blair to his toes. He gripped the table tighter and scrunched his face in anticipation. Jim’s left hand rested on the small of his back, holding him in place and his right hand paddled his butt with a flurry of fast, hard smacks.

After a few minutes his backside was hot, sore, and stinging and though he tried to hold back, Blair was soon pleading with Jim to stop. And he was immensely grateful that his pants weren’t around his ankles; he didn’t even want to think what the paddle might feel like on bare skin.

Jim stopped paddling, but didn’t let Blair up right away. The paddle still rested on his butt as Jim asked, “Are we clear on this?”

“Crystal. Yes. See-through. Detangled.” Blair answered hastily, as his head shook in agreement and his bottom wiggled in an attempt to get Jim to remove the paddle.

“Good.” Jim landed three more hearty swats and then let Blair up.

“Ma-aaaan,” Blair whimpered as he danced in place and rubbed his butt. He looked up at Jim through tangled curls and asked hopefully, “Clean slate?”

“You betcha, Bait,” Jim answered and then gave him a quick hug and playful noogie before helping him get settled in for the night.

~*~*~

The next few days were filled with all the necessary paperwork for Jim to make Blair a claimed juvenile under his guardianship. There were also med-checks, school-level checks, S-G registrations and testing, and rounds and rounds of debriefing in regard to the changes going on within the Zone. The mandatory down time Simon had ordered apparently was some sort of tease.

But after those first hectic days things did calm down, allowing Jim time to give Blair the premium-slat show-round of New Cascade, the Territorial Police grounds and garrison, and some of the surrounding area.

And every time they returned to the loft, they seemed to have acquired something or other at one of the stops along the way during the day and soon the place was filling up with books and strange looking knick-knacks, trinkets, and wall hangings.

Blair spent a lot of his spare time in his room, fiddling with Daphne’s programming and going rabid-crazy over the amount of information he was able to suck from the up to the nano-second quality comp-lets Jim’s status as a Badge allowed. He had a special project of some sort that he didn’t let Jim in on. And that was fine with Jim as long as the tag kept up its happy go lucky drone.

And then one day, after a particularly long session at the station going over all the details of his clip-dash into the Zone for yet another set of neighboring Con-Fed digno’s, Jim trudged back to the loft, wanting nothing more than to wind down with a frosty beer and be assaulted with Blair’s endless blather about his day.

He stepped through the door and froze.

A woman stood in front of him. She was tall with long graceful arms and legs; fair-skinned with hazel-green eyes, a flawless complexion, and shimmery red hair that tumbled in loose waves across her shoulders and over her overly-endowed breasts.

Her completely naked breasts.

Jim’s mouth worked silently for a moment, not sure what to say to her. And then he realized he wasn’t sensing any body heat, or hearing a heartbeat.

And then the woman flickered in a jittery flash.

His bottom jaw seemed to come unhinged and dropped open and then just he just stood there, slack-jawed and at a loss for words.

He was staring at a hologram. Of a naked woman. Of a naked woman who had the most interesting, and exaggerated, physical attributes he’d ever seen.

“Hello Jim.”

Daphne’s sultry voice filled the air between them, slightly out of sync with the movement of her lips.

“How was your day.”

Jim’s first reaction was to correct her flattened mode of speech and tell her that a question had a sort of lilt at the end of it. But then he did a quick double take, shaking off the impulse.

He’d taken on way more than he’d been ready for in the short time since the Synth had shown up just a couple of weeks earlier and thrown his life out of whack. And he thought he’d acquitted himself quite well under the circumstances.

But there was no way in the Almighty’s scorched-earth rebirth that he was ready to deal with a hormone-creased overly rambunctious teenage boy.

“Blair!” he hollered in a deep-throated, hoarse bellow laced with there’s no way I’m going to put up with this at the end of a long hard day. “Get your butt out here!”

End Chapter 7