Just Call Me Cassandra

Frantic shuffling filled the lowly drab apartment, a flurry of clothes and other items hurriedly being thrust into medium sized travel cases arrayed on a grav-cart humming lightly in the middle of the room. Leanard Manfried, his thin frame darting from drawer to drawer to drawer to cabinets, thrusting as much of his things into the cases not caring about being neat and tidy as was his normal self.
No, this short notice move would not allow him the luxury of that. No, he had to move and fast before his cumbersome and dire past arrived to spark another hot fight. One was enough for the day, Lenny feeling his anger rising again.
Two cases full, he tossed them across the room towards the main door, thudding with muted thumps against the immobile inert figure of a burly thug lying unconscious just in the hallway. Served him right, he thought stopping to check his other prisoner, hovering just next to the bedroom door squirming lightly against the shimmering blue psionic field holding her fast.
“Why couldn’t you guys just get the hint and leave me alone,” snarled Lenny up at her.
Despite her current situation, Terri Harmond remained calm watching her target with a twinkle of humor in her brown eyes reflecting on his agitation and rage. Still quick to flee, she thought, but knew she needed to talk to him before he flittered out of the web again.
“L-L-Leeenny,” she guttered out against the straining fields grasp, “please, we, we need to talk.”
“Like hell!” shouted Lenny, diving back to his task.
“But, But, but Lenny…you’re the…only…one who can…do this.”
He whirled, stabbing a finger at her. “NO! I was not wanting to do this the first time this came up, and I am not going to repeat it again!”
Terri managed to sigh. “Lenny…please let me go…you…can…trust me.”
He smirked stepping back and looked her over again, a sleek overly attractive woman clad in dark brown pants, shirt and high boots. Lenny wanted to let her down, wanted to take her up his arms and plant a long overdue kiss on those luscious lips, but he knew her very well and knew she was not going to deviate from her job to apprehend him no matter what had passed between them.
“Trust you,” he quipped with a laugh, “Trust the woman still holding a Hyperdontric needle shive in her hand.”
Terri’s eyes fluttered down to look at the slim menacing weapon pressed in her right palm. “Lenny,” she continued, “We can’t operate without you. Magnus even realizes now how important you are to us.”
“Magnus!” Lenny gawked amazed by her comment. “That bastard is only interested in wealth, fame and other glories he’s imagining in his dull-witted mind! I warned him, but all I got was mockery. ‘Oh, don’t listen to this Cassandra, we can handle anything that appears.’, and here we are.”
She knew this to be true, but admittedly was not against all that success could achieve once the barrier had been squashed. Lenny could do this, but Lenny would not see things their way.
“We…need…you…Lenny,” Terri said.
“And I want to keep my freedom too, Ter,” he replied.
Lenny let out a frustrated cry, spinning on his heels closing up the last case on the cart. Her struggles returned, directing more of his psionic powers to keep her constrained.
“I’m not going to join up with you or Magnus again! I’m going to disappear, this time deep into the Galaxtium. I’m going to hide so deep, so dark no one will find—”
“Doctor…Robert’s—”
As if hit by a bolt, Lenny stopped sharply in his stance. There was a name he’d thought he would never hear mentioned again. His chest tightened, pain thought lost in the past gripping his stomach, sharp like a hot poker to the side.
“What about the Doc?” he said, slowly turning back around.
His field also reacted to the name increasing its grip on Terri, and she made several gasps trying to speak. Lenny eased his grip. After a few gulps of air, she gazed back down at him.
“—a message came through the veil. They’re alive in there, Lenny. The Doc, Briscoe, Janet.”
A gasp, Lenny’s eyes widening at that last name. “How, how do you know this?” he asked.
“A listening post has been set up outside the void. After you went rouge for the third time, Magnus’s actions finally caught the attention of the Authorities.”
Shocked, Lenny backed away stumbling into one of the room chairs. He was silent, staring out into space unsure what to do now. He had been working to get the Authorities involved, but on his side. The persecuted civilian trying to live a normal life harassed by an unscrupulous organization hell bent on abusing the gift god gave him.
Now, somehow even they had been turned against him. “What are they doing?” he finally asked, face flushed.
Good, he’s realizing the hopelessness of his situation, thought Terri. “Please, Lenny. You’re the best damn Psionic in the galaxy. Maybe even the strongest ever to come along. You got ‘a take the assignment. For them.”
“But you’re asking me to possibly unleash hell and fury on the rest of the galactic systems, Terri!”
His terror-stricken eyes locked on her; pupils constricted. “Don’t you remember what happened. Why our friends are there in the first place!”
“Because of you, Lenny,” she said in a firm tight tone.
“Yes, because of me!” Lenny shot to his feet, “Do you think I didn’t hear their cries, their, their pleas cascading across the circuit! It was surging at us, tearing the fabric of existence apart!”
A moan of despair brought Lenny down to his knees. “I had to do it, Terri… I had to—”
Terri heard the sobs, watched silently as Lenny clutched his face; body shaking with each breath. She sympathized with his feelings, forcing away her angry thoughts of how he abandoned that team to a fate they have yet to know. Was it suicide to ask him to pick up this assignment again…maybe, but all glories aside they had to try.
“We have better support now, Lenny,” she told him. “Big guns, larger ships, fleet ships!”
“Doubt that will help,” answered Lenny.
Terri felt some of his resolve had slipped away, noting the tired stance he took as he stood up again. If she could hit him with the Hypo, he’d collapse, and she’d have him tagged and restrained in moments. One of his brows narrowed, Lenny cut a quick glance in her direction. With a sharp crack of glass and metal, the shive in her hand became nothing but scrap. Clear brownish flecks of the syringe’s contents bubbled up drifting harmlessly in the roiling field.
Lenny pondered a bit longer, wondering if retrieving friends was worth risking the chaos that could follow. Moreover, getting these damn people off his back for good if things turned out. The government involved. Still not enough to guarantee things.
“I’m not sure this is a great idea, Terri.” He finally said, “I don’t—”
“What can I offer you?”
The question caught him, and he stepped back. “What?”
“What can I offer you?”
He thought again and then drew Terri down closer to the floor. There they stood eye to eye all the cards in his mind now on the table.
“Well…they can begin by—”
“I didn’t say them, Lenny. I said me.”
His eyelids blinked rapidly at this new surprise upping the game. “What about your Beau Brummel over there,” he finally said nodding to the inert form behind them.
Terri managed to frown. “Things can be taken care of, Lenny,” she said.
But can you be trusted to keep true to your word, doubted Lenny pondering this turn of events.