With his feet planted well apart and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his bathrobe, Tommy was a pudgy Colossus of Rhodes standing guard at the door. "Could I…"

"What?"

"Nah, never mind."

"What?"

"It's nothing."

"What?" repeated Tachyon with rising irritation.

He sucked in a bushel's worth of air and let it out in a long breath. "Could I… brush your hair?"

Tach smiled, and for the first time she saw the effect a lovely woman could have on a man. The Ideal knew she had felt it often enough. But what power.

"I'd like that, Tommy."

She held out her hand, and as he crossed to her, he plucked a silver-backed brush from the dresser. It was such an oddly elegant thing to see in Tommy's broad soft hand. He settled cross-legged on the bed behind her. Tach fidgeted for several seconds until she found a position that would accommodate her belly and not cramp Illyana. Waves of sleepy contentment were washing off the baby, and it was about to put Tach to sleep.,

Tommy's hands moved through her hair, lifting and separating the silky strands. Occasionally a strand would catch on his skin, and the tug to her scalp was amazingly sensual and relaxing. The brush massaged her scalp and flowed softly through her hair. He was so gentle, there wasn't a single painful pull.

Tachyon was very aware of Tommy, but despite her exhaustion and the dreamy state induced by the brushing, there was still a shivering along all her nerves. Her skin seemed almost to crawl when Tommy approached too close. It hurt to say it. She could anticipate the hurt in his eyes, but she had to.

Planting a hand on the mattress, she cranked around until she could look him in the face. "Tommy, I can't have you sleep in this bed with me."

It was like a curtain drawing across his face. Hurt, anger, shame. "What?… You think I'd-"

"No, of course not. It's not you." The words lay like ground glass in the back of her throat. She prevaricated.

Perhaps if she were to sneak up on it, it could be said. "This body wasn't in this condition when I entered it."

"What are you trying to say to me?" Aggression laced each word, making it cut razor sharp.

"Tommy… I was… raped."

Saying the words released the floodgates of terror. Tach's fear and anguish struck the baby, and Illyana jerked away. The wild movement of the fetus pulled an involuntary groan from Tachyon.

Tommy's arms wrapped around her. Rocking her softly, he said. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So sorry"

The soothing words were murmured into the back of her head. Each syllable released with a tiny puff of warm air that feathered her hair and caressed her skin, but Tach flinched in Turtle's embrace, and the tears she should have been shedding jammed up somewhere in the middle of her chest. He missed her reaction. She could feel the panic rising. And she knew if she moved too quickly, if Tommy tightened his hold, if she tried to release the emotions that wrapped like steel bands about her chest, she would shatter into a million sparkling shards. When had flesh and bone been replaced with glass, Tach wondered?

Carefully she enunciated the words, trying to keep the shrill cry of terror from her voice. "You have to let go of me. Quickly!"

Water dancing on a hot skillet couldn't have moved faster. Tom's arms snapped away from her body like a trap opening, and he scooted on his rump to the foot of the bed. "I was only trying-"

"I know. It's not you, it's me. Please, Tom, don't look at me like that. I don't want to hurt you."

"Do you want to talk-"

"No."

"You brought it up."

"Only so you would let me go. So you would understand." Tommy got up from the bed. Laid the brush carefully back on the dresser. Dug his hands deep into his pockets. When he turned back, he was smiling. Injecting a note of lightness into his voice, he asked, "So, what's the drill?"

Tach followed his lead. She forced a smile and said, "First we sleep. Then we go to the clinic, and you establish my bona fides."

"Sounds good. I'll be on the couch if you need me."

She knew she had hurt him. She knew she couldn't do anything to alleviate his pain. "I do need you, Tommy," she managed to say as he was leaving. "And I'm glad you're here." She wasn't sure if he'd heard her.

Somewhere a distant woodpecker was chattering out its rapid-fire signature. Tachyon dug her cheek deeper into the down pillow, tried to block it out.

The bed shook ever so slightly. Tachyon reacted as if it had suddenly bucked. She spilled out of the bed and was running before her time, place, and situation had fully penetrated.

Artillery fire, automatic weapons. A raid! Get outside, find the guards, hide. Father! Papa! Daddy!

It was the sight of Tommy's solid form on the front porch that banished dreams and returned her to a sense of reality. But the gunfire continued, and the predawn sky was lit by the trails of tracer fire like peripatetic fireflies, muzzle flashes from the helicopter gunships. Tommy was in a red-and-bluestriped bathrobe, one hand dug deep into a pocket, the other cradling a coffee mug. A suburban homeowner calmly assessing the dawn of Armageddon.

Tachyon moved to his side and closed her hands around his upper arm. He looked down at her. They both knew, but there was a sense that someone had to say it.

Tommy spoke first. "The Rox. They're finally doing it." Almost inaudibly, Tach said, "My body's there."

"They're gonna kill everybody." He either hadn't heard or didn't think. Probably a little of both.

"Then you must take me there. You've got to take me there."

That penetrated. "You're nuts."

Dawn was beginning to paint the eastern sky with a leprous white light.

"Tommy, please."

The ace looked from her white, desperate face toward the battle raging to the north. It was almost full light now. Liberty was a tiny porcelain figure standing dauntless as the killers flashed past heading for Ellis Island. As they watched, a Huey, its steel belly packed with assault troops, choppered north toward the battle. Suddenly it began to pitch and yaw as if the pilot were drunk or mad. Rotor blades clawing at the air, it fell at an ever-steeper angle until it slammed into the upraised arm of the statue. For an instant the fireball obscured their view, then burning debris rained down, fiery outriders for the torch and arm, which had been sheared away by the impact. The arm spun once, almost lazily, until it plunged, torch first, into the black waters of the bay.

Liberty stood crippled and forlorn, her sides blacked from burning fuel, her fire extinguished, her message drowned in the polluted waters of the harbor.

Tommy pushed his cup at Tachyon. Walked down the steps and vanished into the jumble of dead cars. Minutes passed. Then the shell rose slowly over the mountains of junk. He was coming for her. Her steel knight.

The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat