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Legal disclaimer: I do not own the Biker Mice From Mars or the Swatkats, they are the property of their respective owners, and I make no profit from this material. This was written solely for the enjoyment of other Biker Mice From Mars and Swatkats fans. Talon and Reno Astera, Tzuka Ryudo and Nick Gordon are my original creations and are my exclusive property. All rights are reserved.

***

Hearing the clank of the heavy door at the end of the cellblock, Talon got her back against the wall and contracted her pupils as the faint light cut through the absolute blackness of her cell. Greasepit’s heavy laughter bounced off the concrete walls, and his outline blocked the square of light in the door that was the only illumination.

"I brought ya some company, kitty-kitty. Mr. Limburger thinks you’re probably hungry to enough to eat him raw. Dunno how you’re gonna kill him, tho… or maybe ya ain’t." Another guffaw reverberated down the hall as the cell door swung open and a limp body was tossed in.

"See ya later, kitty-kitty! Maybe’ll you’ll be ready for dessert by then."

The slamming of the cellblock door plunged the tiny box of a room back into the stygian darkness, and Throttle fought to pull himself upright.

"I dunno what you are, but you’re not taking me without a fight!" He pulled himself to his knees, his ears alert for any sound in the darkness.

A low, melodious chuckle came out of the silence. "You poor thing. You didn’t look like you could fight your way out of a wet paper bag at the moment. And while I’m certainly not a vegetarian, I much prefer not to have a speaking acquaintance with my entrée."

Throttle sat back down on the floor, too startled by that voice and too badly battered by Limburger’s goons to do much else. That voice… kind, friendly, intelligent, witty, rich with subdued emotion, and soft and smooth as silk on his ears. The loveliest voice he’d ever heard, and he couldn’t see so much as an outline of the girl behind it. Oh, yes, it was definitely a girl…

"I commend your taste in enemies. You’ve have to look pretty hard to find something nastier than a Plutarkian, and under a very damp rock."

Throttle laughed involuntarily, then choked it off in a gasp of pain as the movement caused his bruised and aching ribs to shoot lancing pains through his chest. He was dead sure one or two ribs were broken.

"Nova, but they made a mess of you." The concern and worry in that voice sounded as if the owner was biting her lip in frustration. "Look, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but would you just let me help you? Please? I can feel you hurting all the way over here."

Deciding a Plutarkian probably wasn’t bright enough to think of placing a plant in the cell, Throttle gave in to his instincts and gasped, "Knock yourself out, babe."

A soft clicking on the floor alerted him to her approach, and his keen Martian sense of smell caught a spicy-sweet scent. A hand touched his shoulder lightly, then slid very gently down his arm to grasp his hand. A warm shoulder tucked itself under his armpit, and he felt a body press against his side.

"There’s a shelf bolted to the wall for a bed, about five feet ahead of you, slightly to your left. On three, we stand up and walk over there, ok?"

He nodded, then realizing of course she couldn’t see him, said, "Ready."

"One, two, three…"

Throttle heaved himself to his feet, feeling the body beside him lift and steady him with surprising strength. The few steps cost him heavily in pain, and when his knee bumped against the edge of the promised shelf, he would have collapsed on it but instead was lowered gently down. The warm body moved away and he had to stifle an urge to reach out and assure himself she was still there. Two hands lifted his feet onto the shelf, and he let himself slide back against the glass-steel wall to lie full-length on the wooden platform.

"Don’t believe in comfort, do they?" Throttle wisecracked, trying to triangulate where she was by ear.

"We won’t be leaving a tip for the maid, trust me." The voice was coming from by his head, and he turned, his cybernetic eyes trying to pierce the gloom. Nothing. Even bionic eyes had to have some light.

A rustle next to him sounded like cloth, but he was startled when something covered over him. He started to tense, but that same small hand came out of the darkness and touched his forehead.

"It’s all right, it’s just my coat. You’re freezing. Your fur’s like…" the voice died away. "Fur?" Her hand touched his face delicately, fingertips exploring the contours of his face with exquisite care. "Oh, my… what are you, my damaged friend?"

Throttle, dizzy with pain, started to answer, but his reply was choked off by a fresh spasm of agony as his broken ribs stabbed cruelly into his side.

"Oh, Nova! Look, I can help you a little if you let me. Will you?"

Barely able to remain conscious, he croaked out a yes and then did pass out.

***

Throttle woke up slowly, fighting the urge to lapse back into unconsciousness, and wincing with anticipated pain, took stock of his situation. It was darker than deep space in here, not a gleam of light anywhere. He was lying flat on his back on a very hard surface, with something covering him, as he was warm underneath it. His head wasn’t resting on anything hard, in fact, it was resting on something soft and warm. He didn’t hurt nearly as much, either, the stabbing pain in his ribs had been reduced to a dull throbbing ache, and the rest of his bruises and contusions were only sore. Trying to remember what had happened, he recalled the ambush, the beating he’d taken in stubborn silence, and Greasepit’s laugh as he threw him into the cell. Then nothing but blackness and the loveliest voice… and kind hands in the darkness, reaching out and supporting him.

He reached up with a hand, trying to touch what his head was resting on and his questing fingers encountered fur, thick and velvety soft.

"You’re awake." The voice of his dreams sounded very tired, compared to what he remembered. Snatching his hand back, Throttle blushed furiously, but that newly familiar hand reached out of the darkness and stroked his forehead gently.

"Take it easy. I’ve got your head in my lap. I didn’t have anything else to use for a pillow, and you needed my coat to cover you. How do you feel?"

"Better," he said, glad for the lack of light as his hot blushes died away. "Much better." Gradually it penetrated Throttle’s dazed brain that while he felt lousy, he didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as he should have. The broken ribs in his chest felt as if they had been healing for a week.

"Good." The hand continued to stroke his forehead, caressing the fur around his antenna and soothing away the last of the sick dizziness in his head. "I exercised a little talent of mine on you. I couldn’t heal your wounds completely, I’m too weak, but I knitted your three broken ribs back together and took care of that concussion you had. The rest of you is going to have to do it the old-fashioned way, I’m afraid. I’m dead out of healing energy."

Throttle’s jaw tightened as he recalled Greasepit’s final comment. "How long have they been starving you?"

A sigh wafted past his antenna, and he turned his head toward where he knew she had to be.

"I’m not sure. Three or four days, I think. It’s hard to tell how long I’ve been down here."

He reached up and caught the little hand touching him, feeling again the softness of the fur under his fingers. Twining his fingers around hers, he said sincerely, "Thanks for helping me… who are you?" Caressing the plush fur of the slim, delicate paw, he asked a little lower, "What are you?"

A soft laugh answered him. "My name’s Talon. Call me Tally, all my friends do. What’s yours? And I asked you what you were first, remember?"

"I’m Throttle. My bros and I are from Mars."

"You’re a Martian mouse? I thought you must be, with the antenna, but there are so few left now…" and her other hand began stroking his antenna, then paused and was removed. "Do you want to sit up?"

"No." His flat answer sounded a bit terse, so he continued, "Don’t stop, huh, darlin’? My thick skull doesn’t hurt so bad when you do that."

Another soft laugh, but that other hand came back, caressing the contours of his face again. He hadn’t let his grip on her left paw slip for a second.

"Your turn," he encouraged, trying not to let the sudden surge of interest in his reply sound too obvious.

"I’m a kat, k-a-t, a feline-based species from very, very far away. As in another dimension far away."

She lapsed into silence for a moment, her slim fingers never ceasing in their gentle, steady caresses. For someone who was barely this side of walking-wounded, he was awfully aware of his unknown cellmate’s warmth and softness and that lovely scent she exuded. Caught without something to say, but wanting to hear her voice, Throttle joked, "It’s not such a bad one here, if you don’t count the Plutarkians."

"They do take annoying, disgusting and smelly to a new low, don’t they?" She said nothing further, but the hand shifted to rub behind his ears and his mouth opened a little in pleasure at the touch.

"Your hand’s cold," he said suddenly, feeling the tiny paw clasped in his finally beginning to warm.

"The cell’s decorator should be commended. It does cold and damp to a T. I haven’t been warm in days."

Clamping his fingers around her hand, he started to sit up, then changed his mind as he realized what he was about to propose to a strange girl who might take exception to it.

"You’re squirmy all of a sudden," Talon crooned in amusement. It was the suppressed humor in her voice that decided him.

"Hold still, babe," he instructed, sitting up and catching at the covering over him. He loosened his grip on the hand he held, but only to slide it up her arm, feeling that same silky softness under the damp chill clinging to it. Letting his fingers follow the curve of her shoulder, he followed it up to her neck, then down her spine. She trembled a little, but remained still. Pulling her closer to him, he slid his other arm under her legs, picking her up and cradling her in his lap. He lay back down, with her tucked between him and the wall, and drew the coat over them both.

Throttle was dismayed to feel except where his head had been resting on her lap, she was chilled right to the bone. He locked his arms around her and she shivered violently as his warmth seeped into her icy body. Throttle could feel the velvety softness of the fur on her shoulders and arms as he held her, and a head settled on his shoulder as her hand reached up to touch his face. She was very small, pressed against him, standing she wouldn’t reach his shoulder. He’d always liked tall, athletic types before, but he was learning there was a lot to be said for someone you could wrap yourself right around…

. "Throttle…" she breathed, and he was flat-out stunned to hear the same tone of longing in her voice that he was afraid she had heard in his. "This is insane, but would you mind if I kissed you? Maybe just once?"

Not daring not to answer that one, he whispered, "No," letting the arm supporting her tip her head back as she cuddled closer, and as he bent his head down he felt her warm breath against his face before her soft lips touched his mouth. The gentle touch traveled across his face, pressing light kisses on him as she delighted in the taste and texture of his fur. Her free hand slid down his arm and explored the hard muscles there, then worked its way back up under his leather vest to press against his chest. When she brushed the crest of his nipple and the gold ring there, he gasped and let his tail curl up and caress her leg as his strong fingers worked their own way up under her shirt and dug into the stiff muscles in her back.

A sound Throttle identified after a moment as a throaty purr vibrated against his chest. Talon curled up half on him, and pressed her lips against his cheek "Thanks for the vital warmth," Talon said, feeling ligaments and tendons unknot and start to thaw for the first time in days.

"Thanks for the spot-fix on my bod." Throttle kept rubbing her back, trying to get her blood circulating again, and Talon stretched against him, wishing she could crawl right inside his clothes.

"How’d you do that, anyway?" His question rumbled under her ear as he spoke.

"Heal you, you mean? It’s not hard if you know how. It’s an extension of your life-energy to another. One of my clan-brothers taught me."

"That’s some clan you got there."

"You don’t know the half of it. Wait’ll you meet my brother Reno. Now there’s trouble on two paws."

Throttle laughed. "Lookin’ forward to it. Sounds like he’d fit right in with my bros."

"Tell me about them," she asked, letting one hand stroke his whiskers.

"That’d take a while."

Talon felt his smile under her claw-tip, and she chuckled a little wryly. "I think we have time."

"Got me there." Pulling her closer, his hand stroked the back of her head and was distracted for a moment. Touching the smooth curves and twists under his fingers, he traced the coils, and realized her hair was braided in long braids and wound around her head.

"How long is your hair?" he asked curiously. The heavy strands were wound half a dozen times completely around her head, encircling it like a crown.

"Down to my ankles, unbound. It’s a pain in the tail in a lot of ways, but my family is horribly sentimental about it, so I keep it long." A casual shrug felt odd with her tucked into his shoulder, and he twitched as it tickled.

Talon didn’t miss that twitch. "Ticklish, are we?" Her free hand nipped in and tickled just under his ribs. Throttle squirmed frantically and turned the tables, using his access to her back to catch her around the waist. Talon yelped faintly and offered, "Truce? Truce, please?" Throttle actually contemplated saying no for a second, considering how very pleasant that little squirm had been, but caved in when she dared another kiss.

"Truce," he assented. He pulled her coat back over them, sitting up a little to tuck it in firmly around her. Lying back down, Throttle drew Talon back into his arms slowly, letting her snuggle up as close to him as possible. Their cell was rapidly getting colder, and he guessed night had fallen outside. This close to a Chicago winter, the temperature could drop fast, even for someone used to a Martian winter.

"So tell me about your brothers. And how you ended up here." Talon had managed to get right inside his leather vest, and her velvety fur was wonderfully downy against his bare chest. He’d passed a lot of worse nights in Plutarkian prison cells.

"Lemme start with my bros, Modo and Vinnie. Or as he’ll tell you, Vincent Van Wham, the Velocity Atrocity."

Talon giggled. "Oh, Nova! Let me guess. We are talking a complete egomaniac here."

"Total. With the mouth to back it up, and to give him credit, the guts and loyalty too. Then there’s Modo…"

Talon could hear the affection and trust as he talked about them, and it lulled her out of the wire-tight tension that had been her only defense for the past four days. Throttle felt her breathing steady out and slow, and dropped his voice lower, hoping to coax her to sleep for a few hours. When her soft purr died away, he cradled her close and set himself to listen patiently for the cellblock door. Talon had guarded his sleep, and he intended to return the favor.

***

Dr. Karbunkle watched as his Supreme Cheesiness, Lawrence Lactavius Limburger, paced nervously about his plushly appointed office.

"You’ve really gone off the deep end this time, you sniveling scientific sycophant. Holding an ILEA? Do you know what they did to the last idiot who tried to interfere with one of their field agents? I heard they cut his throat and tossed him into a black hole’s event horizon. It’ll probably take him a hundred millennia to bleed to death, and he’ll be awake and conscious for every second." The hulk of Limburger’s body shuddered violently, ripples chasing themselves across his body to crash on the other side. "You’ve got to be out of your pathetic little macroencephalic brain. She’s poison!"

"Not to worry, your Glorious Glutinosity, as long as that psionic suppressor’s around her neck, she’s completely helpless. It’s one of their own rogue telepath units. Even she can’t break out of it." Karbunkle rubbed his hands together gleefully. "I knew it would be worth while to snatch one of those wretched mice. ILEA agents are famous for getting involved in these little intersystem disputes outside their jurisdiction. The agent involved is always formally reprimanded by the Alliance Council, but that doesn’t do the smoking rubble they left behind much good. But, if we can break her mind and get her to enter the situation on our side, even the Alliance Council won’t decide against us."

Limburger slobbered greedily as he chuckled, imagining the look on all his fellow Plutarkians’ faces if he succeeded in outwitting the Inter-Dimensional corps. It would get him the Supreme Chairman’s seat in a second. Even that fat Supreme Commander would have to step down for him, Lawrence Limburger, and revenge for a thousand slights and insults would be all his. Turning to Karbunkle, he barked, "Get going, you little insect, how are you going to get through to her mind?"

Karbunkle scurried over to an immense square of black metal planted squarely in the middle of the lab floor, bristling with readouts and power conduits. He patted a control console lovingly. "This is how, your Yogurty Smoothness. A sensory-deprivation tank. A long enough time in one of these and anyone’s brain turns to…. hmmn, well, yogurt. There won’t be enough left of her mind to begin to disagree with us. She’ll be our perfect puppet."

"Let’s hope so, because if this goes wrong there won’t be enough left of us to mop up with a wet rag. Who do we start with, the cat or the mouse?"

Karbunkle glared in turn at the console. "I bought it on the black market, your Whipped Creaminess. It came with an instruction manual, but unfortunately I don’t read Lesser Acturian. It’s taken me a little while to figure out, but I understand it now. We can start immediately if you like."

"I do. Greasepit!" Limburger’s bellow brought the oily, thick-witted person of his favorite lackey. "Fetch me the cat and the mouse. And make sure they’re secure! We don’t want them getting loose. Now that I think of it, just gas the cell and drag them up here. Let’s not take any… unnecessary chances."

***

Throttle shook Talon awake quietly. "Talon, wake up. I smell knockout gas..."

Talon sat up and her head swam as she did. "Hell, you’re right." She reached for Throttle and instead slumped over his already unconscious body.

***

Greasepit lumbered into the room, the limp forms of Talon and Throttle slung over his shoulders.

"Here de is, Boss."

Limburger rubbed his hands in gloating appreciation. "Splendid, you walking oil slick. Shackle the mouse to the wall, and dump the cat into the tank."

Karbunkle piped up, "and if she’s wearing anything gold or silver, get it off. It will throw off the machine’s sensors."

Greasepit slammed Throttle up against a wall, snapping cuffs attached to sturdy Plutarkain glass-steel chains around his wrists, letting him dangle limply from them as he snapped the ankle shackles into place. Limburger had learned from grim experience never to give a Martian mouse even the slightest advantage. They were far too likely to turn it against their captors. Conquering the Earth/Mars system had proved a much more expensive proposition that had been anticipated, and if it hadn’t been the pet plan of the Supreme Chairman, the whole project would have been abandoned long ago on cost-overruns.

Greasepit dumped the small kat on Karbunkle’s workbench, and checked her over casually, pulling a silver necklace off the limp body, and stripping off her empty gun belt. Karbunkle came over with a hypodermic needle and stuck her arm coldly, pumping the hypodermic empty into her bicep.

"Ok, Boss, she’s all set."

"Dump her in then, you idiot!"

"Ya don’t gots ta shout." Greasepit mumbled resentfully, but grabbed Talon by the shoulder with one meaty hand, and tossed her into the massive airlock-type door set in the side of the black metal cube.

"What is that thing?" Throttle hauled himself up by the chains shackled to his wrists and tried to focus his light-overloaded eyes on the scene in front of him. He was just in time to catch Greasepit bounce a body off the back of the inside of the cube as the huge door swung shut.

"Limburger, you lousy stinkfish, what are you doing to her?"

Limburger turned to face him, saying smarmily, "My dear mouse, I am destroying her mind. That’s a sensory deprivation chamber. A few days in that and she won’t have enough of her mind left to disagree with anything. She’ll be my little pet. Everything I say, she’ll do. Including destroy your miserable little planet as well as this wretched hunk of rock." He steepled his fingers together and smirked at Throttle, who snarled and jerked at his chains reflexively. Limburger stepped back, instinctive apprehension warring with his urge to gloat.

"On second thought, I don’t know if I feel like listening to you for the next three days either. Karbunkle!"

Karbunkle came to his version of quivering attention, rubbing his thin hands together as he groveled. "Yes, your Chunky Blue Cheesiness?"

"Didn’t you say the cube would handle up to four prisoners at a time?" Limburger flipped a pudgy hand toward the cube.

Karbunkle looked like he would have wagged a tail if he’d had one. "Certainly, the cube has multiple settings," he turned a coldly clinical eye toward Throttle, "and it might be interesting to see how the cybernetic eyes I installed in this one react to absolute darkness. Would you like me to set the machine for two?"

"Immediately!" He threw a glance of thinly disguised nervousness at the cube. "No screw-ups this time, Karbunkle. We can’t afford it."

The insectile scientist prudently picked up a stun-stick off the workbench and shocked the mouse nearly senseless before stripping him of earrings, studded glove, leather wristband and shades, then sticking him with a second hypodermic. Throttle felt the fluorescent lights overload his cybernetic retinas, the optic nerves fuzzing with static and scan lines chasing themselves across his rapidly dimming vision. Greasepit clicked the shackles on him open, and try as he might, Throttle’s shocked muscles couldn’t respond. As the cube door swung open again, he caught a glimpse of a white shape on the floor, then he hit the wall with stunning force, and everything did go black.

Throttle had no idea when he regained consciousness, the formless blackness around him could have been the inside of his own mind as easily as Karbunkle’s newest toy; but when his hand brushed something in the emptiness, he grabbed at it with the desperation of a drowning swimmer. His fingers closed around what felt like rope, and as he tugged on it experimentally, he realized it was one of Talon’s braids, pulled loose from its coil around her head. He wrenched his body around clumsily, struggling against the weird heavy pressure holding him immobile in midair, as his disconnected senses frantically tried to tell him he was falling endlessly.

"Talon?" he tried to say her name, but nothing came out of his mouth, and in spite of himself, Throttle dizzily wondered if he really was still unconscious. But the braid in his hand was gradually coming closer as he pulled steadily against the strange force holding him, and with a sudden lurch, Talon’s body fell against him. Grabbing at her instinctively, he felt his hand clamp around a small ankle, and the world around him tilted topsy-turvy as his inner ear tried to figure out which way was up. Keeping a hand clamped around her ankle, he ran his other hand up her leg, encountering something it took his disoriented brain a ridiculously long time to realize was a tail, but the rush of embarrassment cleared his head.

He managed to get Talon manhandled back into the same position they’d been lying in back in their cell, hoping she would be less likely to panic when she woke in this formless, bottomless hell, and clamped his arms around her in a death grip. Worrying about her having taken the raw edge off his own terror, Throttle tried to say her name again, but as he heard his voice in his own head, the air around him seemed to suck up the sound.

Talon stirred slightly, and her body went rigid and her claws dug into his back as she woke to the absolute blackness and tried to scream. Clasping her, trying desperately to figure out a way to tell her he was a friend, he grabbed her hand and put it over his face, and as her sharp nails started to rip into his flesh, the claws retracted, and her fingers felt over his face as they had that first time. Her arms clamped tight around his chest and she burrowed against him, her legs locking around his waist and his tail wrapping around them both, binding them tightly together. After an unknowable time later, their mutual shivering calmed, and Throttle felt her body pull itself a little higher into his embrace. Talon’s soft lips pressed against his cheek, and to his relief he felt her say against his fur, "Throttle…"

He tried to say her name, and felt that same deadness swallow up the sound. She shook her head, and sliding a hand up against his chest, pulled his head down and pressed her cheek against his lips.

"Can you hear me?" he asked, the soft fur under his mouth warming with his breath, and to his delight she pressed her lips against his neck and cried, "Yes!"

"How are we doing this?" His mouth moved against her cheek, and Talon felt herself shiver, this time with relief to be able to hear his voice again. Disciplining her rapidly steadying mind, Talon said rather indistinctly against his throat, "Bone conduction. The way astronauts talk in space by touching helmets. We must be in a sonic deadening field. Are you all right?"

"A little banged-up again, but nothing worse. You, babe?"

"I’m alright now," and her grip on him tightened a fraction. Throttle, reading her reactions from her body language as she lay in his arms, instinctively pulled her closer in reassurance.

"Where are we? This isn’t our cell. I remember being gassed… then nothing ‘til I woke up here."

Throttle shifted her slightly against his side, cradling her so he could press his lips against her forehead without kinking his neck, and after a moment of squirming in his arms, Talon got herself to where they could both talk without strain.

"Karbunkle’s got a new toy." Throttle said in disgust, his breath ruffling Talon’s hair. "Limburger called it a sensory deprivation tank. He’s got both of us in here to wipe our brains clean."

"Sensory deprivation tank?" Talon’s mind ratcheted automatically through the tech of a hundred worlds and a match beeped red in her memory circuits. "Big black cube with funny controls? Like they were meant to be used by tentacles instead of hands?"

"I didn’t get a look at the controls, but it was a big black cube."

"Nova, this is an Acturian sensory deprivation tank! That idiot! This isn’t a torture device, this is a piece of medical equipment. He doesn’t even know how to run this thing."

Throttle frowned, and asked her, "Medical equipment? What could you need a sensory deprivation tank to cure?"

"Acturian photosensitivity sickness. Acturians are a race of evolved cephalopods from a water world, very similar to Earth-type squid. They communicate through pulses of light transmitted through their skin, but they’re very vulnerable to a bacterial infection that causes their skin to become hypersensitive to any form of external stimuli. They die from sensory overload unless you get them into one of these tanks and keep them there until the disease runs its course. There’s always a glut of them on the black market after there’s an outbreak of the disease in the Arcturus system. It flares up every dozen Martian years or so. Sort of the equivalent of Earth influenza or Martian sand-fever."

"And Karbunkle doesn’t know how to use it?"

"He can’t, or we wouldn’t have been able to reach each other. He must have the diagnostic controls set to read for two bodies, but he left the antigravity field set for one. Otherwise the field would have held us far enough apart we could never have touched. As it was, we must have just floated around in the field until we bumped into each other. What a moron!"

Throttle nodded, agreeing, "For an evil genius, he can be a real dimwit at times. We’ve used it against him a coupla times."

"Under the circumstances, I’m glad I overestimated him," Talon’s teeth bared against his neck and Throttle smiled against her face, nuzzling her ear. Deprived of every sense save touch and taste, he was finding himself helplessly greedy to glut those two remaining senses with Talon’s enticing nearness. He muttered with difficulty, "I can stop if you want," but his hands kept exploring the contours of her body with the same insatiable abandon her mouth was tasting the contours of his face with.

"Don’t you dare," she breathed against his lips, and Throttle kissed her hungrily, the sweetness of her mouth driving him to abandon his attempts to speak and devour her kisses ravenously.

***

Day Two: At some point Throttle drifted out of unconsciousness, or sleep, it was impossible to tell, and focused his wandering mind on Talon’s voice against his cheek as she shook him.

"Throttle, stay with me, don’t you leave me alone in here!" He jerked himself awake at the tightly suppressed fear in her voice, not quite hidden by her sharp worry for him.

"Never, babe." Throttle stroked her face in the absolute darkness, tracing the curves of her features with his fingers again. He knew every fraction of her by touch, better than he had ever known anyone in his entire life, and he had never seen her. Even so, he could spend a hundred years caressing her and still not be satisfied; and as Throttle pulled her against him, his mouth warm and hungry on hers, he forgot even the formless void around him as Talon responded ardently.

***

Day Four: "Talon?" Throttle’s rumbling voice vibrated against her skull, and his teeth nibbled the edge of her ear, making her shudder in half-remembered pleasure.

"Yes?" His fur was so warm under her hands when she caressed him, as they fell endlessly in blackness, she disconnectedly wondered why she couldn’t see him glow red in her infrared vision.

"I needed to hear you. Need to touch you…" Their conversations had passed beyond intimate to surreal long ago, and as Talon felt his tail tighten around her waist and his fingers began setting her skin on fire again, she decided if this was hell, hell was tolerable as long as you had someone like Throttle beside you… and inside you…

***

"Man, we gotta find him!" Vinnie’s loud complaints didn’t disguise the worry in his voice. "That fat flounder Limburger’s had Throttle for a week now! Who knows what the heck’s he’s doing to him!"

"We know, Vinnie," Charley’s voice was sharp with worry too, but unlike him she was thinking furiously. "Ok, we know Limburger has Throttle stashed somewhere other than his tower, ‘cause it’s still under construction from the last time we blew it up."

"WE blew it up? Hey, I blew…"

"Shut up, Vinnie." Charley and Modo barked in unison, and Charley continued, "Karbunkle hasn’t been seen for a week either, so it’s a safe bet, wherever he is, Throttle is."

Three bikes were parked on the rise above Limburger tower, construction trucks parked everywhere below them and piles of materials scattered on the muddy ground around the nearly complete structure. They had been keeping a weary vigil for days now, but Limburger had remained holed up, going nowhere, and everyone was starting get nervous at the length of time their friend had been in Plutarkian hands.

"So what would it mean if Karbunkle’s come back in an ol’ flatbed truck, with something big on it under a tarp?" Vinnie asked smugly, peering down the road through the heads-up display on his helmet screen, as Karbunkle leaned out the passenger side and yelled impatiently at the construction workers to clear him a road into the parking garage.

"It means we have ourselves a look under that tarp." Modo’s bike roared and took off as he said it, Vinnie right behind him and Charley riding Throttle’s black classic, a necessary precaution after the group had been forced to outrun two motorcycle cops who tried to pull over the bike driving itself. Sneaking up proved to be less of a problem than Charley had feared, they simply stashed the bikes in a copse of trees and hopped an overloaded construction truck trundling down the road to the tower. Hiding among the crates until the truck parked next to several others, they slipped through the cluster of vehicles and dashed down the ramp into the parking level. Ducking behind a concrete support pillar, the trio scanned the gloom of the parking garage and Charley clamped a hand over Vinnie’s mouth as he spotted the flatbed, parked near the freight elevators.

"Don’t make a sound, you twit," she hissed irritably, all her attention focused on the truck. "The truck’s empty, so whatever it was, they’ve moved it. Up the freight elevators." Charley skirted the lighted area carefully, and as she got up near the elevators, her hunch proved correct. Both elevators were parked on an upper floor.

"Fifth floor." She chewed her lip. "The elevators and stairwells have to have video cameras…"

"But maybe not the elevator shafts?" Modo pressed the buttons for the subbasement on both service elevators, waited until they passed, then, grunting a little with the effort, pried the doors of one elevator open.

"Hold onto me tight, sweetheart," Vinnie’s tail whipped around Charley’s waist as he and Modo grabbed the elevator cables and began to climb. Charley shut her eyes tight and clamped her arms around Vinnie’s neck. He choked slightly and gulped, "Not that tight," as he pulled them higher.

***

Throttle was pacing the confines of his cell like a caged tiger. Karbunkle had pulled him out of the sensory deprivation tank nearly a full day ago to concentrate his attention on Talon, disgusted with their continued defiance and stolid refusal to break, and the thought of her in there alone was driving him mad.

For the past six days, six days they’d been in there, he knew now; the only thing that had kept him from losing his mind in that endless hell-pit was Talon’s lithe body in his arms, her soft voice resonating through him, and the thrilling electricity of her kisses. His memories of being in there after the first few hours were disjointed and confused, but he would remember the feel of her soft fur and lean muscle under his hands until he died, and maybe after. His disconnected senses couldn’t tell what had been real, what had been dream, and what had been nightmare while he was in that sensory deprivation tank, but the dreams he did remember having about Tally made him redden even as he wanted to linger longingly over the memory. The thought of his lovely new friend alone, cold and shivering without him, falling forever in pitch blackness, made him want to howl in rage and slam his fists uselessly against the cell’s glass-steel walls.

"Tally." He breathed her name and seemed to hear a faint echo of her voice in his mind. "Hang on, babe." Where were his bros? Karbunkle had gassed him again before moving them all only a few hours ago; he was positive he was in a different cell than he and Talon had been in originally, and the faint sounds of construction made him sure he was in Limburger’s tower. Why the heck hadn’t Modo and Vinnie torn the place apart looking for him? The fact they hadn’t was making him worry about them almost as much as he was worried about Talon. Closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the glass-steel walls, he tried uselessly to send her his strength, and that strange, half-familiar feeling of her in his mind increased. What had really happened to them in there? He was sure there was something he wasn’t remembering, but his memories refused to settle into anything even approaching coherence.

"Hurry, bros, or it’s gonna be too late," he whispered futilely.

***

Modo and Vinnie swung themselves through the elevator door Modo had pried open while half-hanging from the elevator cables, and if Charley hadn’t already been dry-mouthed with staunchly repressed fear at the drop below them, she would have been terrified at the risk he was taking. She let her grip on Vinnie’s neck slip, and felt the solid floor underneath her feet with a rush of relief. Giving herself a quick mental shake, she peered cautiously up and down the corridor. It was deserted, and Charley’s eyes flared at the sight of a tightly locked and barred door halfway down the hallway. She pointed, and Modo and Vinnie slunk down the hallway with her. Vinnie took a hasty look at the lock, and pulling a flare from his bandoleer, burned through it quickly. Modo opened it cautiously and he grinned in relief as he saw his tan-furred bro leaning against the wall of his cell.

"Vinnie, Charley, go stand watch at the ends of the corridor, I’ll get him out." The pair nodded and split up, moving silently down the hall as he slipped into the room.

"Hey, bro. Time to check outta this hotel."

Throttle’s head snapped up and the naked fear in his face made Modo’s heart turn to ice.

"Modo!" Throttle strangled the triumphant yell he wanted to give and instead whispered frantically. "Get me outta here! We’ve got to get to Talon!"

Modo set his arm cannon to burning through the exterior lock on the cell and asked hastily, "Who’s Talon?"

"A friend," he replied briefly, and as the lock gave and Modo’s shoulder forced the cell door open Throttle streaked through it and was out in the corridor before Modo had time to blink. Bolting after him, Modo wondered wildly who on Earth could have inspired such desperate fear in his reserved brother. Throttle immediately began trying all the doors on the floor and Vinnie and Charley, stationed at the ends of the corridor, stared worriedly at him. Modo shrugged helplessly at them and followed Throttle, who yanked open the last door on the left and let out a low growl as he hurtled through it.

Just behind him, Modo skidded to a halt at the sight of the enormous black metal cube planted squarely in the center of what had to be Karbunkle’s new lab. Karbunkle and Greasepit, both standing in front of a control console, stared back at him in surprise, and as Greasepit’s arm reached for his gun, Modo fired first, blowing a hole in the console behind them. As sparks and shrapnel flew everywhere, Karbunkle scuttled quickly through a second door in the back of the long room. Greasepit’s lackluster gaze fastened on Throttle, who was flipping switches on the cube’s control panel, and he turned his gun on the cube and opened fire. Modo lunged for Throttle and was barely in time to yank him out of the way of the shot.

The bolt of energy hit the cube and it reacted immediately. Energy currents sparked and began shorting out every electrical circuit, and the control panel blew with an explosion that filled the room with acrid, reeking smoke. Two more wild shots from Greasepit in the smoke both hit the cube, and a second explosion ripped half of it apart from the inside out. Throttle screamed that strange name again, threw himself at the cube’s interior and began tearing pieces of wreckage away. Completely lost but trusting his bro, Modo leaped to his side and began hauling twisted pieces of metal out of the way, and as the two of them lifted a heavy panel away, it revealed a smoldering red and blue-clad form lying motionless underneath.

Throttle keened his grief and dropped to his knees beside the small, still body, gathering it up in his arms gently. Looking on the face of his strange, unlikely friend for the first time, Throttle was struck to the heart as enormous eyes of emerald green opened in a dainty, elfin face of smoke-stained creamy white fur.

Throttle looked into those cat-slit green eyes and the world stopped. Just stopped, dead in time, and one single second stretched for an eternity... bottomless pools of still green water, the rich green of a pine forest, the pure streaks of green a Martian sunrise had, he could have spent a lifetime seeing a thousand shades of life in those lucent eyes.

She was hurt, how badly he couldn’t tell, her body was burned everywhere with half-melted scraps of plastic and metal from the explosion, and she was covered with dirty smoke and spattered blood. As he gathered her up in his arms, his hand brushed her shoulders and she arched and cried out in pain. His heart bled at causing her more suffering, but all hell was about to break loose and they had no time to waste. As he bolted past Karbunkle’s workbench, Throttle’s eye caught something familiar lying on it, and he swept up his missing gear with a quick tail-lash as he ran by. Modo flanked him as he ran out into the corridor, and Charley, down at the end of the hallway near the fire stairs, gestured urgently for them to follow her. She pulled the fire door shut behind them and jammed the latch with a fragment of iron railing cut loose with one of Vinnie’s flares.

"I’ve jammed the fire doors from the inside from here to the first floor, get moving!"

They pelted after her and as they ran pell-mell down the stairs, Charley gasped out, "Vinnie’s holding the other end of the stairway and the bikes are on the way. We just have to reach the ground floor!" Both nodded and Modo shot out a surveillance camera as they dashed by. Vinnie was standing at the lower fire door leading out into the front lobby, exchanging fire with several of Limburger’s lack-witted goons. But as they skidded to a halt beside him, a roar of engines outside heralded the arrival of three extremely pissed-off cyberbikes. A hail of firepower that blew smoking holes in the walls sent the thugs pinning them down scattering for cover, and the four of them dashed through the front lobby and Modo raised his metal arm and blew open the front doors with a shattering explosion.

The rest darted through the aperture he left behind, and their motorcycles screamed up beside them, Throttle’s with its engine revving in glee at the sight of its missing rider. Feeling better than he had in days at the sight of his bike, Throttle threw a leg over the seat and wrapped his tail around Tally, dumping the bundle of gear in her lap as he cradled her against him. Vinnie and Modo raked the front of the building with shots as they pulled away, and Vinnie’s wild triumphant victory cry made Limburger, crouched under his desk on the top floor, groan as he tried to estimate how much it was going to cost him to repair his tower this time.

As the bikes raced up the road and out of Limburger’s sight, Throttle waved to his bros and they pulled over onto the same low hill Modo, Charley and Vinnie had been watching from earlier. Throttle let the bike stop and eased the death grip he had on his new friend as he reached down with a tentative hand and turned Tally’s face toward him.

"Are you ok? They didn’t…"

Talon looked up at him and the words stuck fast in his throat. "I’ll be all right. Thank you for coming for me."

Throttle forced himself to answer her, and out of the corner of his eye he caught Modo’s grin at his tongue-tied state. "Don’t thank me, Tally, thank my bros… and sis. They broke me out."

Talon slid down from his bike and Throttle had to dig his hands into his thighs to keep from pulling her back into his arms. He picked up his recovered gear and donned it to give himself something to do, returning his shades to his face while breathing a sigh of relief as his fuzzy vision cleared. As he untangled a strange silver necklace from his earrings and leather glove, he stuck it absently into a vest pocket. Talon walked slightly unsteadily over to Vinnie’s bike and offered a hand to him, saying simply, "Thank you." Vinnie stared down at her, discommoded by her quiet presence, and then his hand came up and closed around hers.

"You’re welcome, ma’am," he said awkwardly. Charley clasped fingers with her briefly, and smiled in response to her thanks. An odd sort of current seemed to pass through both women as they touched hands, and for just a second, identical smiles were mirrored in their faces. Tally turned to Modo and she wavered woozily as she stood in front of him, and he put out a worried hand to steady her.

"Thanks twice."

Modo, always the softy of the group, looked at the tiny, kitten-like figure standing in front of him and chuckled internally as he realized his overdeveloped protective streak had already extended to cover Throttle’s new friend. "Anything for a lady, ma’am," he responded, his giant paw dwarfing her tiny one.

She cocked her head at him. "In that case, could I get you to do something for me, big guy?"

Modo looked down at the petite figure in vague surprise. "Sure, ma’am, whadda need?"

Her fingers clamped around the metal collar on her neck, loathing in her voice. "Get this damned psionic suppressor OFF ME!"

Modo stared sharply at her, took a closer look at the collar around her neck. "Lemme see." He cupped her head in his big hands and tipped her neck sideways, then wedged the tip of his arm cannon under the collar, ran the power down to almost nil, and slowly burned through the metal and circuitry. After a minute the collar shorted out as he burned through it, and gripping the two severed ends, he heaved, pulling it apart enough for Talon to get her neck through the gap. Taking it from his hands, she tossed it into the air and a bolt of bright blue energy from her hand disintegrated it to dust. Talon stared down at her hands, and that same strange blue fire danced over her palms.

She reeled and would have fallen if Modo hadn’t caught her handily. "Easy, sweetheart. You need some rest."

Throttle’s tail snapped out and lifted her gently on to the back of his bike. "Let’s go home."

"But we haven’t destroyed Limburger’s building!" Vinnie protested.

Talon gave him an amused look, her psionic equilibrium restored to her with the collar gone. "Is that customary?"

"It’s not an adventure if we don’t destroy the building." Vinnie actually looked hurt, and Modo and Charley rolled their eyes in disgust.

"It’s my first time…" Tally trailed off. "Can I destroy it this time? Pleeease?" She clasped her hands under her chin and batted her lashes in jest.

All four looked at her slightly incredulously, and shrugged assent. Vinnie, nonplussed, said, "Sure, if you want."

"Thanks." She hopped off the bike and took a few steps away. Grounding herself in the magnetic field of the planet beneath her, Talon dropped into a fighter’s stance and let the two weeks’ worth of suppressed psionic power inside her mind strain free, with a silent whimper of relief at the release of the horrendous pressure in her head. The mice and Charley stared at her in blank astonishment as she began to glow.

Focusing her attention on the building, she wound the power inside her into a lance of pure force, and poured enough raw psionic energy into it to power Chi-town for a week. Bracing herself against the backlash, she chanted five syllables, priming the power to the cadence of the syllables and channeling it through her body. As she cried out, "Ka-me-ha-me-ha," throwing her hands out in front of her, the massed power blasted through her in a beam of white-hot energy, splitting the air with a tortured scream. A beam of light the size of a truck blew completely through the building, and it shivered for a moment, cut completely in half; then with a deafening roar, blew itself apart, the top floor of the building soaring into the air and landing with a satisfying crunch upside-down on Limburger’s new limo.

The Biker Mice gaped at her, astounded at the nearly complete destruction she had wreaked with a single blow.

"Thanks for the lesson, Master Roshi," she muttered under her breath, and blew a fond mental kiss across the cosmos to her absent mentor. Shaking out her wrists, Talon grinned lopsidedly at the flattened building, and slung a leg back over Throttle’s bike. "You’re right, Vinnie, that’s fun. I feel much better." Throttle’s tail wound around her cautiously, and he could feel the remnants of power zinging through her body and crackling off her fur.

"I’m glad you’re on our side, babe," he commented idly, a smile playing around the corners of his habitual serious expression, bemused by her blithe indifference to their open-mouthed amazement.

"You should be," Tally grinned, and her fangs gleamed sharp and white in her face, streaked with blood, sweat, dirt and smoke. She was filthy and her clothes hung on her in tatters, her fur was matted and sticky with blood, his and hers, but Throttle thought with an internal start she was still a thousand times more beautiful than he’d ever dreamed of in the pitch dark of their cell.

Seeming to catch his thought, Talon looked down at herself and shuddered as the screaming adrenalin high that had been sustaining her against her myriad injuries began to crash. "Nova. I want a shower. I’m filthy enough for three kats." She looked at Throttle a little uncertainly. "Do I know you well enough after being tortured for a week together to borrow your shower?"

"It’s my shower, and you’re welcome to it, girlfriend. We can even scrounge up some clean clothes for you." Charley grinned at her, and Talon returned the look with one of pure, simple gratitude. "Thanks again…" She cocked an eyebrow in encouragement.

"I’m Charley." She put a hand on Vinnie’s shoulder and introduced him. "This is Vinnie, and the big guy’s Modo. Apparently you and Throttle have already met."

"Nothing like a friendship started in a Plutarkian prison cell." Talon glanced down at the raw, bloody weals decorating her wrists and ankles and her face lost a little of its carefree delight. She rubbed the torn, broken flesh, peeled another fragment of half-melted plastic off her arm, hissing at the burn underneath, and tried not to think about the numb spot on her shoulders where she’d had to completely shut down the pain receptors to be able to move.

Modo took a minute to really look at her for the first time, and as he catalogued the grim evidence of her stay decorating her body like bloody graffiti, his face went angrily stony, and he growled, "Let’s go home."

Talon smiled wearily, reading his anger at her brutal treatment in his face, and made a mental note of the true soft-heart in the little family she had landed so unexpectedly in the middle of. As the mice started up their bikes and took off, she locked her arms around Throttle loosely, buried her face in his leather-clad back and shivered silently all the way back to the garage. He said nothing, but his tail remained wound around her waist the whole way, and a gloved hand reached down and covered hers comfortingly.

When they reached the Last Chance, there was just enough fading light to see. Talon looked up, reading the sign on the building, and she laughed in spite of her battered body and mind.

"What?" Charley asked curiously.

"A good omen." She grinned at Charley, and pointed to the sign. "I like the name of your garage."

Charley smiled back, an odd, feminine-compatriot grin none of the mice had seen before, and climbed off Vinnie’s bike, stretching out a hand to her. Talon took it unhesitatingly, and the pair walked hand-in-hand into the building, the mice staring after them with the impression that somehow they’d missed something important right there. Charley led her through the garage bay, pointing out things as she led her up the steps to her apartment above. Talon breathed another whimper of relief as the door to Charley’s bedroom closed behind her.

"I really don’t know you, Charley, but I don’t think I can do this myself…"

Charley squeezed her hand as she let it go. "Don’t sweat it, girlfriend. I’ve patched up plenty of strangers in my time, and I wasn’t about to let those ham-handed mice do it. Peel."

Talon shucked her remaining tattered remnants of clothing without further comment, and Charley sucked in her breath at the actual extent of the blast injuries to her. Charley spread an old blanket over the bed, and Talon sprawled out gratefully. As Charley began peeling burned scraps of melted plastic off her singed fur, trying to be gentle, Talon asked, in the tone of someone trying very hard to divert their attention, "So how’d you meet the trouble-triplets? And call me Tally. All my friends do."

Charley, remembering how she tried to part Throttle’s hair with a lug-wrench the first time she saw him, picked up the topic willingly, her tale of meeting the Biker Mice for the first time actually managing to deflect some of the discomfort Talon was enduring with forced stoicism. As she checked the rest of her wounds, Charley decided all but two could get away with being cleaned and dressed, but the gash running down her left shin would absolutely need stitching if it was going to heal properly, and she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about the vicious weals striped across Tally’s shoulders. Charley was afraid there was shrapnel in those gashes, but the thought of digging it out made her want to be sick. She patted Talon on the shoulder gingerly and told her, "Go scrub all those clean, then I’ll bandage them for you. Don’t be afraid to use all the hot water. You’re gonna have to get all that grit out of those gashes. I’ll find you something to wear."

Measuring Talon’s height against her and making a guess at her size, Charley went to rummage through the back of her closet for outgrown things. As small as Talon was, a few things she’d saved for sentimental reasons from her teenage years would probably come close to fitting. Tossing out a tank top and a pair of cutoffs, that wouldn’t rub against the bandages Talon was going to be sporting over practically her entire body, she hunted up a couple of extra towels and a wide-toothed comb for Talon’s long braids, then left the whole mess on the bathroom counter, after carefully rolling up the bloody blanket and the gruesome relics of Talon’s injuries inside it.

Trotting out of the bedroom for the first-aid kit, she passed the bros sitting at the kitchen table, and all three blanched under their fur at the bloodstained blanket in her hands.

"How is she?" Throttle couldn’t take his eyes off the splashes of rust-red, and horribly bothered by the whole thing, Charley stuffed the rolled-up blanket into the trash, not wanting to ever see it again.

"Not as bad as she could be, I guess, but her leg needs stitching, bad, and her back… I’m gonna have to call my Mom. I can’t do the kind of work she needs." Charley picked up the phone and tapped out a number, missing the flash of pain behind his shades.

Charley crossed her fingers that her mother would be home, and breathed a sigh of relief when the phone was picked up with a brisk, "Davidson residence."

"Hi, Mom."

"Charlene! How are you, dear? Is everything all right?"

"The guys and I are all fine, Mom, but we’ve got a new friend who needs your needlework skills, thanks to a certain stinkfish we all know and hate. Can you come over right away and take a look at her?"

"Her? It’s a girl?"

"Er, well, not a human, but yeah, a girl."

Her mother’s voice took on a tone of fond amusement. "Such friends you have, my dear. I’ll be right over. Have any of you eaten supper?"

"No."

"Send the boys out for garlic bread and I’ll bring lasagna. See you soon, dear."

Charley hung up the phone. "Mom’s coming over and she’s bringing lasagna. She says you need to go out and pick up garlic bread."

Modo stood, picking Vinnie up by the scruff of the neck. "We’ll go. You two wait for her."

Charley tossed him a twenty. "Get some milk, too. And hit the drugstore for some more sterile rolled gauze. We’re gonna need more than what’s in the kit to patch Tally up."

Recalling Charley had restocked the first-aid kit less than a month ago, all three mice flinched. Modo stuffed the bill in his pocket and led a subdued Vinnie out.

"How badly hurt is she?"

Charley flipped the oven on to heat, and dropped into a chair beside Throttle, assessing the worry and concern in his voice. "I honestly don’t know. Her wrists and ankles will heal, and the blisters down her legs and arms from the molten plastic aren’t all that bad, but her leg’s a mess, and her back…" Charley had to close her eyes and swallow at the memory of the vivid, black-edged stripes crisscrossing Talon’s snowy shoulders. The very fur was crisped from red-hot wires burning into her flesh as the tank had exploded, and Charley was queasily certain her mother was going to have to open up a number of those gashes and pull lengths of metal wire out. "I just don’t know, Throttle. You’re gonna have to ask Mom once she’s had a look at her."

They sat unspeaking for a while, listening to the shower run, and when the rumble of Modo and Vinnie’s bikes returned, the two mice walked in with Charley’s mother between them, having arrived at the same time.

Charley took the lasagna pan from her mother’s hands, sliding it into the already-warmed oven, then all but crawled into her mother’s arms for a hug. Her mother’s arms tightened around her and stroked her hair with a very gentle hand. After a minute, Charley pulled herself up and smiled at her mom gratefully.

"Thanks, Mom."

"That’s what mothers are for, dear." She looked up as they all heard the shower stop running. "Shall we tend to your friend?" Charley nodded, and picked up the bag from the drugstore and the first-aid kit. They walked through the bedroom into Charley’s bathroom together, and all three mice heard her mother gasp, "Dear God, child!" as she got her first good look at Talon’s ruined back. They were still waiting a very long hour later, an hour punctuated by muffled cries of pain and once by the reappearance of Mom Davidson, her face white and drawn and her hands red to the wrists with blood, who had to lean on Vinnie for a long minute until the color came back into her face. But after that minute, she shook herself and walked back in the bedroom grimly.

Finally, Charley walked out with a tray in her hands, long threads of bloodstained wire piled on it. There had to be a dozen of them, of varying lengths. She was white as paper too, but she nodded to Throttle as she came out.

"Mom needs your eyes," she said faintly, dumping the mess into the trash, pulling the bag out and tying it shut. Vinnie took it from her hands without comment and carried it out, and Throttle paled under his fur again and went into the bedroom. Talon was sprawled on her stomach, her face hidden in the masses of her damp hair, another blanket draped over her lower half, her bare shoulders a mass of red, the fur soaked with blood. Mom Davidson was sitting on the edge of the bed, wiping her hands dry on a towel, and she looked up at him wearily.

"The poor child finally passed out from the pain," she said exhaustedly, "and believe me, it was a mercy. Can those bionic eyes of yours detect metal?"

"Some." He looked down at Talon’s unconscious body, and a black rage burned in his heart at the sight.

"Check and see if I got all that wire out of her shoulders. I don’t dare leave any in there, they’ll get infected. I’m afraid some of them are already."

Throttle sat down on Tally’s other side and pulled off his shades, letting his cybernetic eyes fine-scan for the lines of silver that would mark more of the wires in her back. He shook his head. "Nothing, you got ‘em all."

"Thank God. I don’t know if I could take much more of this. Such a lovely girl…" Her hand stroked the damp waves of Talon’s hair. "I don’t think I ever realized how rough your enemies play. I knew what they did to you, but I didn’t let myself think about what it meant…" She trailed off helplessly and buried her face in her hands. Throttle came over and sat down behind her, letting her lean on him as she wept, his hand holding Tally’s fingers with exquisite care. The sound of her sobs brought Vinnie, Modo and Charley to the bedroom door, and their eyes fixed on the scene, unable to do or say anything to help. Pulling herself together, Mom D. gestured for Charley to hand her the gauze, wiping her face dry with her sleeve.

"We might as well do this while she’s still unconscious. Give me the needle, dear, and we’ll sew up her leg." Pulling the blanket back to expose her ankle and shin, the long gash in her slender calf made Modo growl and clench his fists angrily. Unable to bear the sight of such a small figure bearing such terrible wounds, he walked outside and put a metal fist through the concrete wall behind the garage. It bore a few other dents where he’d had to blow off some steam before, but this time he’d punched right through to the other side. Throttle came out a second later, and put his nuke knucks through beside it, leaving a second crumbling hole.

"I’m gonna make that lousy stinkfish pay for this one." Modo’s angry growl promised slow death for Limburger.

"We’re going to," Throttle corrected. His eyes were red with rage, and he was sick with guilt that he hadn’t been able to help Tally. All that time, and not once had she given in; not once had she let Limburger and Karbunkle break her will. All that time… six days they’d been in there together, and for one more endless day she’d been in there alone. It was the thought of her floating all alone in that dark, formless, soundless hell that broke him. A tear ran down his face, and one short, sharp sob ripped from his throat before he locked his emotions back down.

"Don’t." Modo took him by the shoulders and shook him a little, his one eye sad but wise. "Don’t shut it up inside you." Throttle threw back his head and howled his helpless fury and wrath to the night, the sound echoing over the city. Every person who heard twitched in visceral fear at the red rage in that scream. He slumped back, wrung out from worry and guilt, and Modo looked him over for a minute before nodding to himself and leading the younger mouse back inside. Mom D. was bandaging Talon’s back, and Charley was winding another roll of clean gauze around her leg.

"She should eat something, as much as I’d like to let her sleep."

"Be careful what you feed her," Throttle leaned on the doorframe, his face unreadable. "They didn’t feed us the whole week we were in there, and Talon mentioned once they’d starved her for a good 3 or 4 days before that. Karbunkle stuck us with something before he threw us into the sensory dep tank, otherwise we’d have died of thirst. It seems to have worn off, though, I’m hungry and thirsty again."

Mom D. had transcended being sickened by anything they said, and thought for a moment, all her mother’s attention and energy fixed on helping Talon, with none to spare for horror.

"Some warm broth. Charley?" Charley nodded, the same quiet determination in her face, and for a second mother and daughter seemed two sides of a mirror.

Modo had to smile at the scene. "You’re gonna be a great mother someday, Charley-girl."

"’Course, I had the best teacher," she riposted, punching him gently in the ribs on her way to the kitchen.

Mom D. stood up, her years sitting a little heavily this late at night. "One more thing. I don’t want her left alone. She has to sleep on her stomach, but her respiration’s so low it’s risky. Someone should stay with her."

Modo nodded. "We’ll do shifts. You should get some sleep, ma’am."

Charley’s mother punched him gently too, as she gathered up the rest of the first-aid kit and checked Talon’s breathing one last time. "Just call me Mom, dear, all of Charley’s friends always have. I’ll be offended if you don’t."

Modo just grinned, and beckoned her to precede him. Throttle sat down at the head of the bed and picked up Talon’s hand again, and settled himself to watch.

***