<<< Tally Marks on a Prison Cell Wall, Black Tom's Time in Jail

[Black Tom]

February 2, 2011, time uncertain

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Black Tom Cassidy had been in the God forsaken prison cell for nearly a month, or as close as he could reckon to a month. He had been in Mutant Town on the hit squad to take out the deserter Rogue. He hated that it had to be done. Rogue was Mystique’s girl, in a way, in fact, much the same way that Terry had been his girl. Rogue had an interesting set of powers but it made her hard to get to know, If you catch my meanin’. She wasn’t hard on the eyes and at the bottom of the issue, it was a shame to have to do that. She had turned tail to join X-Factor and was probably feeding them information. Rogue had to be taken down. Only it didn’t turn out that way.

Unfortunately, there were plenty of X-Factor around to help her out. The Irishman went down hard in the scuffle but not before he caused plenty of collateral damage. He had been burned pretty badly and was taken into SHIELD custody when they descended from upon high. That was a bad thing about trying to pull jobs in New York. Those bastards were always looking down from their flying control center to stop any monkey business. Tom’s last waking thoughts were of a small army of agents surrounding his prone body and spraying him with restraint foam.

Cassidy awoke in a blank room. The walls were bare and the floors were spotless. It was completely nondescript. There were no windows and Tom could not tell where the door was because each wall was paneled, segmented. The tree man rose up from his lying position and charged one of the walls. He slammed his fist against it. His body was burned and damaged but he had his strength. Tom’s wooden hands hammered the walls without making a dent. He took a step back and pointed his fists at the wall. He was going to focus all of his energy into a blast and break his way out. When Tom tried his powers, nothing happened. Nothing at all. His powers had been nulled!

Black Tom reared his wooden head back and roared in rage. The walking tree rushed at the wall again and slammed his fists until he was worn out. He fell to the floor in exhaustion. “You bastards will be sorry. Magneto, Juggernaut, the whole fuckin’ Brotherhood is going to break this place down, brick by brick,” he sneered. “Just you wait.”

That had been the cycle every day, or as close as Tom could tell as it being every day. He would attack the walls and swear and curse his captors until he had worn his body out. Once, Tom was out for two days and SHIELD operatives came into his cell to check his vitals, or what vital signs they could read from a tree. He stirred awake with a few scientists in the room and lunged wildly at them. He was going to tear them in half! He was sprayed with restraint foam and pinned down. Tom was out for another day after that.

When he awoke there were thin vines extending from his body. They had snaked a few feet away looking for any purchase, a crack, anything to creep into. Tom’s body wanted to put down roots. Tom pulled his vines up and snapped them off his body. He did not want to settle in. That was like giving up! He would not be tormented by his condition! His body was driving him mad and the voices were not helping. He could swear they were getting louder and more frequent. He was picking up entire conversation. The Irishman would pace his cell like a caged animal. “Any day now. Any day now,” he said.

Tom did not know how long he had been in the undisclosed SHIELD prison or for how much longer he would be there. Tom only had the hope that they would break him out before he went completely mad.

[Black Tom]

Date: September 4, 2011
Time: afternoon

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Thomas Cassidy felt the sun on is face and the wind in his hair. It felt liberating and he hadn’t experienced something like that in a long time. He looked up to the sky and faced the sun. Through his eyelids he could make out the glowing orb in the pristine sky. There was a murmur of voices. The people around him were enjoying the beautiful day as well. It was a strange thing but Tom was enjoying the fact that everyone else was enjoying the day as well. The Irishman knew it sounded crazy, but for a moment he was reveling in the human condition. Then, as quickly as he could snap his fingers, Black Tom Cassidy was no longer in the sunshine.

Tom opened his eyes weakly and found that he was still in the blank room in the SHIELD facility. The sunlamps bathing him in artificial sunlight were a relatively new addition. When the SHIELD lab-techs had seen that Tom’s body was deteriorating, they had tried to restore his health through various means, including the sunlamps. There had even been a series of enriched soils for his treeform to use for nourishment. Nothing they tried had worked. Tom was haing those episodes more frequently. He was finding himself in in another place and experiencing sunshine. Sometimes he felt the chill of a night breeze but frequently there were voices. The voices remained even when Tom was aware of being in the blank cell.

When the Irishman opened his eyes there were two agents entering his cell; Hibbit and Pak. They were his constant companions and tormentors. When they showed their faces it was normally to tell Tom some sort of foul news. They had been the ones to report that Murder World had exploded. There was a showdown between SHIELD and seemingly thousands of Brotherhood members. For all his power Magneto decided to destroy the base and take as many Agents with the decrepit theme park. The Brotherhood moved house to some hidden Sanctuary, and they still hadn’t come to find Black Tom and pull him from his Hell. Why hasn’t a team come to liberate me? he often wondered. The news they had to share that day was different though. It was a brand new form of torture.

“Read the papers lately, Mick?” Hibbit asked.

“Don’t think so, it’s been a long time since he’s even seen sunlight,” Pak said. “But there is something that you might like to know.”

“What, yer mom is givin’ two-for-one blow-jobs?” Tom asked weakly sitting propped in the corner.

The Agents had gotten bolder in their torment with Tom’s deteriorating condition. They drew closer to him and even laughed at his threats and insults. “Nah, Tom, even better,” Pak said. “Some religious fucks calling themselves the Purifiers set a bomb and killed lots of mutants.”

“Next you’ll say the sun rose in the East. You feeble nobs are always killing mutants,” Tom replied.

“That’s not the best part,” Hibbit said with a wolfish smile. “They killed a bunch of kids. Set the bomb at a school in New York.”

Tom’s eyes widened slowly. “Doesn’t that little piece of trim you pulled a Bonnie and Clyde with go to school in New York?” Hibbit asked.

“No, man. She was blood. It wasn’t Bonnie and Clyde unless this sack fucked his family,” Pak added with a laugh.

Black Tom bolted up from his slouched position in the corner of the room. He roared with anger and stomped forward. Tom reached out for the two men but they were faster than he was in his weakened state. They were taunting him like sociopathic children teasing a starving dog. “Face it, Tommy. You’re in here but the world keeps turning,” Hibbit sneered.

“No!” Tom roared.

He reached out and smashed the sunlamps as the two agents exited the room. Tom had already destroyed three sets of lights and he was unlikely to get a new set. He didn’t care. It wasn’t true was it? Had the school been attacked? How many people had died? Was Terry one of them?

Tom slowly turned in a circle. He was sure there were cameras somewhere but he didn’t know where they were concealed. “Ye bastards best hope I never get out of here!” he swore. “Cause when I do, I’ll teach yer children that there are scarier things than the monsters under their bed.”

Terry wasn’t dead was she?

[Black Tom]

Date: September 25, 2011
Time: indeterminate

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Thomas Cassidy existed between two worlds and unfortunately it was becoming more difficult to determine to which he belonged. It had become that even more of his time was split between the two realities in a dissociative state. It was no longer only when he slept that he found himself in a place surrounded by fresh air and chatter. Sometimes it was nighttime and other times the sun was shining and he felt rain. The rest of the time Tom was confined in the featureless cell with the blank walls. There had been scorch marks from where he destroyed the sunlamps but they had been cleared away. That was part of the psychological brutality. He had no idea which side of the room was which.

The tree man had stopped trying to figure out anything about the visions and voices he was experiencing. At first he reckoned they were dreams in an attempt to put himself in a happier place. Only these dreams didn’t include anyone or anything from his past that made him happy. In the Other Place, Tom was free but he wasn’t free/. He was immobile but he could feel nature around him and oftentimes happy chatter could be heard. Tom stopped trying to make any sense of it because he could never tell when he would open his eyes and find that he was in his cell or in the outdoors.

Tom Cassidy was roused from sleep by his tormentors Hibbit and Pak. Tom was weak all the time now so he barely moved. They yelled at him until he stirred and opened his eyes. They were incredibly bold moving closer but he hadn’t moved in almost a week. Many tendrils had sprouted from his trunk-like body and tried to find purchase throughout the room. Tom was almost to the point of not caring. He wasn’t sure if Terry was still alive and it seemed that the rescue by the Brotherhood would probably not come.

“So how is our beautiful dreamer?” Hibbit asked.

“Feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed,” Pak added.

Black Tom shifted weakly and turned his eyes to face them. “What new pleasure do you bring today, boys? Don’t reckon you have an iron maiden large enough? Putting me limbs on the rack this evening?” he asked.

“Tommy-boy, why would we do that?” Hibbit asked. “We come with good news.”

Oi. Can’t wait to hear this.

“Remember those Purifiers? Well, turns out they got their hands on some new technology. Made themselves a nasty bunch of Sentinels and sicced them on New York,” Pak explained.

“Let me guess, lads. More mutants got blasted to ash, is that it?” Tom asked.

The two agents chuckled. “That’s part of it,” Hibbit said. “Lots of you freaks bit it but something happened before the attack. They put a mutant on trial. That Alex Summers boy.”

Black Tom knew who Alex Summers was. That was Havok of X-Factor. He had been there when Tom tried to kill Rogue and was eventually captured by SHIELD. Black Tom didn’t know why Alex had been put on trial and he didn’t care. It was a bit funny that one of the goodies was having to stand before the law. It was a nice touch of irony. “They put that girl in the witness box,” Pak said. “The girl you used to call daughter.”

That caught Tom’s attention. Terry hadn’t died in the attack on the mansion! Why had they put her in the witness box? What could she have to say about anything? Pak pulled a flat mP3 player from his pocket and turned the dial. A thin recording of a voice was produced. “What me father made me do has got nothing ter do with this, yer nosy bloody bitch! I ain’t the one on trial! Alex is a nice, decent bloke! So cut it out about me record as it ain’t got anythin ter do with him, or I’ll shove this –“

Tom Cassidy pushed up suddenly but he was weakened. He could not rise up fully. The two agents stepped back in a rush. They were using Terry again! Someone was using what she had done in her past to set her up, to set her up for a fall. Tom had brought Terry into the criminal world and almost ruined her future. He had sacrificed to get her out of the life and on the straight and narrow. Tom had been selfish but he never thought about ruining her life. Now his sins were falling on her head.

“Looks like daddy’s getting upset for his little girl,” Hibbit laughed.

Daddy? Terry had called Tom her father when she screamed in the court room. For a moment Tom was confused. He had confessed to Terry that she was Sean’s girl and not his. Why had she said that? For all that Tom had done was he that much more of a father to her than Sean had been? Tom Tom that was depressing. He had been utter shite as a dad. “I’m a right sorry bastard,” Tom said to himself.

Only his comment wasn’t to himself. Pak and Hibbit heard his confession and laughed at having found a new torment for their captive.