Scorpio

Chapter I

Harsh, white-blue light glared down at the small, Spartan, windowless cell. White-washed cinderblock walls pressed in around a table that stood in the middle of hawk-eyed, gleaming linoleum tiles. At the table sat a solitary figure, busy filling in a pencil sketch with innumerable, patient hatched and cross-hatched strokes. A chrome-gray pencil scratched against the paper. The hand guiding the metallic pencil was marred at the wrist by an inflamed, newly healed scar. Similar angry welts and jagged scars ran up the whole length of the arm and disappeared into the shadowy recesses of a plain white hospital gown.

The sketch artist worked feverishly—arms free to rotate the paper and correct the placement of a line with the picture upside down—eyes free to glance at the stony-faced sentinel standing guard in the opposite corner and motionlessly holding a large rifle upright as if both gun and man had been hewn out of the same unsympathetic slab of industrial concrete—but legs not free to stand on account of the cold, steel manacles gripping two bare ankles.

The repetitive sloughing of pencil lead against paper stopped. The pencil was laid down beside the picture. A head bent over the table surface, and a mouth blew gently over loose grains of graphite. Charcoal-colored dust skimmed the sheet of paper and dissipated into the air, twinkling briefly before extinguishing like nano-sized stars on the verge of death.

Two hands rested beside their handiwork, a partially completed picture. Surreptitiously, a lean pinky reached out and flicked the side of the metal pencil, sending it rolling over the edge of the desk and clattering to the floor. The pencil reversed direction when it landed and came to a stop next to one of the front chair legs.

"Sorry, let me get that," a frigid but smooth voice muttered.

The guard didn't blink.

The incarcerated sketch artist bent over at the waist and grabbed the pencil. As the hand closed around the thin cylinder, it shortened and morphed into a three-inch-long, titanium scorpion. Quickly, the hand passed the scorpion's claws over the shackles pinioning the artist's ankles to the chair legs. Barely audible sizzles of electromagnetic energy fizzed out into muted static. A hand squeezed the scorpion.

Less than three seconds after first diving beneath the table, the artist reemerged, one hand grasping the errant metal pencil. The unmoving guard looked disinterested. Fingers flexed, stretching in preparation for another long session of recalling to life a memory by nothing more than the clipped strokes of a finely sharpened pencil that—strangely—never dulled.

Monotonous labor resumed. A pencil caressed the page. Its owner waited.

The guard stared into blank space lying beyond the Earthly blankness of the cell. How many hours had it been already? He tried to remember. Boy, these godd—— artists sure take their lousy a—— time...

Minutes ticked by in the room flooded with everlasting white light.

A wispy breeze ruffled the back of the artist's robe. Under the table, bare toes twitched.

The guard blinked.

The breeze skidded around the room, gathering force as it slid along the bare stone walls.

The guard heard a whistle. A gust of air swept down his uniform. He craned his neck to look up at the air vent in the ceiling.

The whistle intensified into a howl.

Baffled, the guard continued to stare at the ventilation and wrinkled his brows.

The artist tucked the pencil behind one ear. Once there, it bent of its own accord and transformed back into a scorpion. An armored tail wrapped around the tissue connecting the ear to the side of the head. Two pincher claws reached out from underneath the earlobe.