"What in the hell is going on down here?"

"Just another typical day in the charnel house." Concern replaced the anger. "What's wrong? What happened?" Tach made a weary gesture. Cody whirled on Troll. "Is he all right?"

"Physically. He's got a few acid burns. But she cut him… deep," Troll said.

Cody's hands closed on Tach's shoulders. "Talk to mel I get this bulletin over the fucking loudspeaker-this damn hysterical nurse screaming that you're being killed down here."

"Nothing so dramatic." Tach sighed and pushed to his feet. "Just another victim taking the author of her misery to task." Cody followed his gaze to the now supine joker. "When did she transform?" the woman asked.

"Jumped."

"Christ." A tiny shudder took her tall slender form. Tach understood. With the advent of the strange new wild card power, the sanctity of one's soul was now in jeopardy. A roaming gang of teenagers had suddenly developed the ability to trade bodies with any individual. And they used the power with the vicious playfulness of the very young-committing acts of brutality, atrocity, and humiliation before jumping back to their own bodies and leaving the victim to deal with the often tragic aftermath of a jumper's spree. Tach sighed again and swept the back of his hand across his eyes as if the action could somehow banish weariness. "I must now call Mr. Nesbitt and inform him his wife is herebut not the wife he recalls."

"Come to Jokertown and lose yourself," said Cody bitterly.

"It's no wonder we've been virtually abandoned by the nats. They're terrified. Hell, even I'm worried as I walk home at night. How long until some covetous joker decides she'd like my body?"

"Hush," cautioned Tachyon.

"I don't care if they hear. It's a dirty little joker secret. Some of them know how to get to these kids, and rather than tell us or the police, they'd rather take care of themselves first."

Tach looked sadly at the collection of protoplasmic nightmares that filled his emergency room. "Can you blame them?" Cody shuddered, and Tach caught a wisp of memory. Once Cody had come terrifyingly close to jokerdom. And Tach himself carried the wild card, twined in a loving, latent sleep about his genes. At any moment the virus could manifest and turn him into a hideous monster or grant him the blessing of death. He didn't even consider the third, golden option-that he would beat the odds and become one of the lucky few-an ace, blessed with metahuman powers.

"Not so easy to be righteous, is it?" he asked softly, and Cody blushed.

"In our dreams we're all heroes," the woman replied. "I would like to hope I'd be strong, tough it out-"

"And you probably would be. I'm the coward who could not face life as a joker."

"What are you doing tonight?"

"I had a date."

"Cancel it. I'll cook dinner." Tachyon stared at her. Then, surprisingly, the lashes dropped to veil the single eye. Gruffly she added, "Chris is going to a friend's… slumber party. I'm enjoying it. By next year, I'm convinced, such innocent pleasures will seem tame, and he'll be looking for girl action."

"Cody, you're babbling. Why?"

"You're the telepath. Figure it out!" And she left with an aggressive click of high heels.

Jay Ackroyd caught him on the steps of the clinic. Ackroyd was a moderately successful private detective who at times annoyed Tachyon worse than fleas and on occasion could actually be useful-due more to his ace power as a teleporter than any real brains was a secret opinion that Tach held. Jay was too glib, and Tach did not think it was a mask for a serious mind.

The minute the thought manifested, Tachyon felt guilty. After all, it was Jay who had saved the alien from an assassin a year and a half ago. The Takisian realized that some of his waspishness was due to Jay's having caught the alien doing a silly little hop-skip step up the stained concrete steps. "Get lucky last night?"

Tach's frowned deepened. Had he spent the evening with any one of his normal complement of female companions, he might have responded with the obligatory leer and nudge. But this was Cody. And though their passionate kissing last night had not lead through the bedroom door, Tach was beginning to nourish passionate hopes. What happened behind that bedroom door was no one's business. Tach frowned at the nondescript human in front of him.

"Did you come by just to annoy me, or has my money actually garnered a few results?"

"You think what I do is easy?"

"No, tedious-which is why I do not do it myself. Besides, I'm out of the law enforcement business. I tend to my clinic now, and-"

"-cultivate your garden," concluded Jay, startling Tachyon with his knowledge of Voltaire.

"By the ideal, you read," said Tach as they stepped through the front doors.

"Yeah, it impresses babes."

Tach nodded a friendly good morning to Mrs. Chicken Foot and crossed to the elevator. As they rode up the four floors to Tach's office, the alien could feel the human's mood sobering as he mentally marshaled the information he had obtained. Tach's good mood drained like water sucked into desert sand. In another, more impatient time, the Takisian would have yanked the knowledge from Jay's mind, but this was something he preferred to delay-forever if possible. Unfortunately an ostrichlike response to Blaise was dangerous.

In the office Jay lounged on the couch. Tachyon stood with his back to the room, gazing out the window at Jokertown laid out before him like a pustular sore on the body of Manhattan. Was it age or depression, or had the vista actually grown shabbier and dirtier over the past twenty-five years? "It's so ugly," Tachyon murmured.

"You just noticed?" Jay's tone offered no comfort. Tach turned to face him.

"Perhaps I have less stomach for it now"

"Then you better get a barf bag because what I've got to tell you doesn't qualify as pretty" Jay pulled out a notebook, flipped it open, and began to read. His voice had lost much of its joking edge. "Blaise is running with a jumper gang."

The desk chair was a welcome support to legs suddenly gone shaky. Tach longed to clasp his hands, but the plastic monstrosity at the end of his right arm offered no comfort. Instead, his left hand cupped his right elbow, both arms drawn protectively across his aching stomach.

"Ideal… now he's far too powerful."

"It gets better. He also has ties to the Shadow Fists…" Tach's head jerked up. Jay didn't miss the reaction. "Got friends there too?" asked Jay dryly. Tach mutely shook his head, waved to Ackroyd to continue. "Look, Tachyon, you haven't got a priest, and if you can't trust your private dick, who the hell can you trust?"

"No one," said Tachyon softly.

Jay watched him for a moment longer, then shrugged and resumed. "While running with the jumpers, your charming grandson has engaged in the usual round of fun-beatings, muggings, robberies, nights on the town courtesy of the victim's credit card." Jay hesitated.

Tach leapt on it, imperious and demanding. "What?"

"Everything seems to point to Blaise being the jumper who took over Ira Greenstein's body, and-"

"I know what happened to him." His tone was shrill. Tach regained control of his voice. "Ira has been my tailor for twenty years. How many other people whom I have patronized are in jeopardy?"

"You know Blaise better than I do."

"No, I only thought I did."

"The alien delinquent has graduated from brutality. He's in the big leagues now-murder. Couple of my sources say he blew away a small-time Shadow Fist soldier named Christian."

"Murder's not new to Blaise. He killed when he was in that revolutionary cell in France."

"No, he mind-controlled other people to kill. It's a big step to holding the gun yourself. I personally wouldn't know-I hate the fucking things-but for Blaise it's a turn-on. He kills for fun and kicks, and likes every moment of it. That was the one thing my informants agreed on. That, and that they were terrified of the little bastard."