Crossover Earth '98
IN THE HOLDING TANK
The dull gray steel bars did not exist. The cinderblock walls, painted in chipped institutional green, did not exist. The half-dozen sullen petty criminals standing or sitting around the holding cell barely existed. One of them, a Pakistani street vendor, had come close to a deeper form of nonexistence when he asked Dennis for a smoke fifteen minutes ago. Now he huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around his bruised chest, and glared at Dennis out of eyes swollen nearly shut. Dennis paced back and forth before the bars like -- well, not like an animal. A caged animal usually appears calm, or curious, or bored. Rarely do you see one as incandescently furious as Dennis was. Rage was written in his stiff-legged strides, the iron bar of his spine, the jerky way his hands moved in the air. If the bars had a throat, he would have cut it.
It was no consolation to know that in a way, he was partly free. He, one of his copies, When they had started talking about throwing him in the holding tank, Dennis had had the sense to ask for a trip to the bathroom. In the stall with a cop waiting outside, he closed his eyes, focused himself, and pushed all space out of his mind -- in particular, that cumbersome rule about how nothing could be in two places at once. Dennis was, now. Even as he ranged the holding tank, he was also back at his apartment, filling a gym bag: his Wayward costume, a couple thick and hard-to-explain stacks of twenties, several knives and other weapons of a sort not especially legal in this fine city, and of course the dimensional lance, folded into a tiny metal square. Anything that would give the cops an excuse to hang further charges on him, in other words. This Dennis worked quickly and quietly, one ear cocked toward the front door. Once he had collected what he needed, he knew a place across town where he could get a room ... and wait for himself to get out of jail. He scowled often and muttered under his breath. It was an outrage, an offense against the natural order, that he should be imprisoned anywhere.
And the worst thing was, the Dennis in the tank thought, he was not truly imprisoned. He could have revoked his own presence with a thought and passed between the bars like a breath of air. He could have collapsed the entire city to a single point in his mind and shifted his consciousness to the observatory of the Empire State Building, or a bench in Central Park, or anywhere but a goddamn twenty-by-thirty cell in the basement of the goddamn Criminal Courts Building. But if he did that, the jig would be well and truly up. He had to stay on this side of the bars, play the innocent citizen put upon by bumbling police, and wait for them to let ... him ... go. Just thinking the words made Dennis choke with rage. He didn’t need anyone’s permission to go where he wanted. He’d like to see them try and stop him. He’d ... The bars were trembling, looking less like much-handled steel and more like low-quality fog. The cinderblocks rippled as space began to draw in on itself. A couple of the punks who shared the tank with him were staring, and Dennis knew that he had started to fade around the edges. Veins stood out on his temples and his fingernails bit into the palms of his hands as he swallowed his anger and made the here, the veil of maya, harden around him again. With a strangled yell, he spun on the ball of one foot, the other whipping around in a decapitating kick, snapped back into an offensive stance, and started punching the air as if it were an enemy, fast and steady and with his rage behind every blow, left, right, left, right, leftrightleftrightleftright ... The punks found something else to look at fast, but Dennis had already forgotten them.
Remember this, he told himself: Fire Grauel and get a real lawyer, one who can fight a bullshit no-evidence charge like this and win. He had an ironclad alibi -- two unimpeachable witnesses putting him forty blocks away at the time of the crime -- against the word of one snotnosed rookie cop who thought Dennis was Wayward but had no proof at all ... and he was still in the tank. What the hell was that? The newspapers were right, the cops really were out of control in this town. Better yet, he thought, get a lawyer who can sue the NYPfuckingD for false arrest and bankrupt the city ... But even as Dennis thought this, he knew it would be stupid. No way could anyone in his position take on the cops directly. They’d be all over him like white on rice. And anyway, who cared about the NYPD? No, what he really wanted was that shithead Hewes. This was twice the cop had crossed him up, which was two times too many. Hewes needed taking care of. Him and that UN guy, whatever his name was. They’d get theirs soon enough. And it was that thought, more than anything, that cooled his anger ... as the wait went on.