Tara 3

Untitled Part 131

     Taylor Cane had to deal with Ed later, for now his attention was on Miko Kinnetta, bruised and bound to the floor. Taylor studied his situation. The chasm was a death fall and the only way to get to Miko was over it. Climbing along the side wall would be the best way, however, if another explosion occurred the jolt would throw him down into the metal chasm.

      "Miko! Can you hear me?"

      Miko turned his head. He swallowed and blood shot out one nostril. "Yes. I can hear you."

      "Is there any way for you to undo the cuff?"

     The walls began to rumble, then subsided.

     "I'll check and see." Miko let out a muted sigh. He coughed twice and blood sprayed up in a spurt from his mouth.

     From behind Taylor Cane came a cry that brought his ear drum to deafening levels.

     It sounded like panes of glass being fed into a tree shredder.

     He put both hands over his ears and keeled over. His face almost between his knees. 

     Up from the corridor crept a figure that had a mantis head and an everchanging formless body that hypnotized the onlooker with its color formations. Each swirling hue blending into the one beside it, then it curls around something that resembles legs and arms which at times seem to produce the faces of different people.

     Taylor Cane raised his Ilepta-stunner.

     The mantis figure stopped, it's colors brightening, and it bent backward moving like a cobra its arms bent outward almost touching either wall of the smashed and bent corridor.

     Then, Taylor found himself drifting, as if he had six shots of datizine and his head were floating with inebriated euphoria, the voices melted into his mind. It was uncomfortable and strange for him as the voices were not voices, but a clear method of communication and understanding which was completely new to him. With as much as Taylor Cane fought it the more it was able to seep its way in.

     "There is a new becoming and it is at hand. The elements of things around you will vanish and a new way of life will be known to you. Feel it and understand its purpose." The mantis figure's head seemed to pulsate in brightness as the meaning filtered down into Taylor's mind.

     He still did not drop the stunner. It remained poised in his hands, but the grip was weakening.

     Miko Kinnetta had found his cuff key. A small little flat carded device that slid into its slot on the center of the deputy's cuff, but this had been destroyed and the locking mechanism was unable to be deterred.

     He turned to shout for Taylor Cane's help, but he couldn't speak as to what he saw before him. His mouth was agape and his eyes bulging with fear and amazement.

     The rainbow mantis was almost directly on top of Taylor Cane, who stood there hopelessly holding his Ilepta-stunner.

     ._________.