Keaton and Lori both fell to the ground by the cabana.
“Are they hurt?” Ann asked Sky. Sky metasensed.
“They’re okay.” He shivered. Both Keaton and Lori now leaked Monster juice, but Lori would be fine once he spent a few quiet hours alone with her to clean her up. Keaton would have to deal with her own problems.
The two of them recovered to the point where they could talk in but a moment. Unfortunately. Sky, however, wanted a several hour recovery period and a back massage. Lori and Keaton at least had the maturity to be embarrassed. “So you can’t just go to a clinic and grab a Transform?” Keaton said, sitting on the decking and leaning against a low garden wall. “Temporary tagging, as Tonya calls it.”
“She’s done that? Disgusting,” Lori said. She leaned against the cabana wall and rubbed her head. “Normal Focuses can’t do such things. Once I tag a Transform, I normally can’t let him go unless another Focus can pick him up. It’s as difficult as, as, as…suicide. Cold blooded murder of an innocent. Releasing a temporary tag has got to hurt the Transform, too.”
Keaton laughed, cold and harsh. “Well, I guess Tonya is more sadistic than I gave her credit for.” Sky winced again. Keaton actually approved of Biggioni’s appalling trick.
“I guess I’m going to have to learn,” Lori said. “Don’t expect me to be able to run them around like Tonya can with the juice zombie routine of hers, either.”
“Useless,” Keaton said, exasperated. “What can you do?”
“Hope you have some time, because it’s a long list,” Lori said. “The first thing you need to know about is juice signaling. I can pass messages through my juice link to my Transforms….” Keaton’s eyes lit up like searchlights and Sky knew Lori had, in her appalling rough fashion, won over the Arm.
Keaton and Lori stood facing each other, crouched in martial arts stances. They approached each other at Major Transform speed, limbs whirling. Lori flew out, about thirty feet, and landed on her feet. She rushed back in, and the limbs whirled again. Again Lori flew out, and again landed unharmed. Sky’s face turned red as he watched. He hadn’t known how much Lori had been holding back on him when they sparred.
“So,” Ann asked, after the Arm and Focus had finished their bout, a half hour later. “If you don’t mind me asking, which of you won? I couldn’t tell.”
Keaton smiled sardonically. She was putting effort into being polite. “I won the fight. She won the battle.”
Ann furrowed her eyebrows.
“I wagered pipsqueak here that if she fought me for real, she would end up in traction.”
Ann nodded. “Never wager with the Focus. The Focus always wins.”
Hemph, Sky thought. No she doesn’t.
“I couldn’t do anything to her,” Lori said, wiping sweat from her face with a towel. “I’ve had more luck fighting brick walls. Only Keaton is rather quick for a brick wall.”
“Huh,” Keaton said. “A brick wall fighting a greased rubber ball.” She tossed her own towel over a chair and pointed at Tim. “You. Next.” Sky read Tim’s reaction in his heartbeat and his wide eyes and Keaton likely did as well. She smiled her sardonic smile again. “For you, I’ll hold back.”
“Four. If they’re all as good as Tim.” The rumor mill said the now vanished doctor had given Lori’s Transforms some advanced training. He had done a good job.
Lori nodded. “Sam, Tim, Tina and Eileen. Don’t let Sam’s looks fool you. He’s a gymnast type like I am. Don’t count on him to put people down. Tina and Eileen are whackers like Tim. Normals won’t stand a chance.”
“Hancock told me your Transforms were good. I didn’t expect better than human.” Grudging respect, but respect.
“They’ve put a lot of work into their improvements. My Inferno Transforms don’t believe they’re holding up their end of the bargain with me, and by extension, the other Major Transforms. This gives them the necessary incentive to improve. Also, they’ve all benefitted from your friend Henry Zielinski’s new advanced techniques. That last extra bit of ‘better than human’ comes from his discoveries. I think the other Focuses spend too much time sneering at their Transforms to understand what a treasure they possess.”
Ah, the doctor acquires a name, Sky thought.
“Huh,” Keaton said with a nod. “You even sound like Zielinski. Too long winded.”
The agreement made, Keaton said she had some personal anger issues to confront, and went and reduced the cabana by the pool to kindling. In all the chaos and tension, she hadn’t noticed Sky was a Crow. Yet.
Tonya Biggioni: March 24, 1968
Delia caught Tonya as Tonya stopped by her office to pick up some papers to work on over breakfast. Delia stood in the door to her own office with a phone in her hand and a frown on her face. The phone was the new one, attached to the second phone line they just had installed. Too expensive, but too much business passed through Tonya’s household for just one phone line.
“Who is it?” Tonya quietly mouthed. Delia shrugged, holding the phone by the tips of her index finger and thumb, a sign she considered the phone call a potential problem.
Tonya didn’t have time for this. She needed to be on the road within a half hour if she expected to make it to the CDC by noon. She already knew she wouldn’t get the warm breakfast she had counted on. She put her cup of cocoa down on Delia’s desk. “Hello?” Delia left Tonya alone in the office and shut the door behind her.
“You’re making a mistake, Focus Biggioni.” The voice was male and soft, the phone call a local one, not long distance. Tonya didn’t recognize the voice, but she had a good ear for phone circuits.
“To whom am I speaking?”
“You may call me Shadow.” Tonya blinked, and thought furiously. Shadow? What sort of a name was ‘Shadow’? Why did the name ring a bell? “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t presume to bother someone of your importance, but I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that what you’re doing in Virginia threatens us all.”
In Virginia? Holy cow, this stranger was talking about breaking the Arm! He had Tonya’s instant attention. She sat down in Delia’s desk chair and gripped the handset tightly. “Who or what do you represent, Shadow? What’s your concern in this matter?”
“My concern is for all Transforms, Focus Biggioni. I represent no one but myself, though there are many like me who listen to my advice. Your chosen course of action, following so closely upon the recent events in Chicago, threatens to destroy your Network.”
“Why?” How in heaven’s name did this person, this stranger, know about the Network?
“Careful, Focus Biggioni. One more bump by your elbow, and your cup of cocoa will go flying,” the voice said, still quiet and calm.
With a start, Tonya checked both of her elbows. Her right elbow had, indeed, bumped her cocoa cup to the edge of the desk, about a third over the edge. How had he…
“Crap!” Tonya said, standing and stepping back from the desk, holding the phone handset like a snake, far away from her body. In a moment she mastered her surprise and put the phone back to her ear. “You’re a Crow.” That’s why the name sounded familiar. His name sounded very much like the bizarre modern Crow names she had heard from Rizzari: Sky, Occum, Sinclair, Gilgamesh, and Vizul Lightning.
“Yes. And you are a Focus. We Crows have suffered many deaths in the past few months, though not as many as you Housebound have suffered among the Transforms you protect. None of these deaths came from the Arms. We happen to find the Arms amusing and dangerous. But not dangerous to us, or as far as we can tell, to you and yours.”
Tonya paused, tried to think. The words would not come. Mornings were not her best time of day, especially early mornings before sunrise. “Are you trying to tell me Hancock and Keaton haven’t been poaching tagged Transforms? Who is, then?”
“Your terminology confuses me, but I believe that is indeed what I’m trying to tell you. No, Focus Biggioni, I don’t know who hunts your people. If I knew, I could do something, or at le
ast tell a story to some people who might do something. However, without proof, I can’t do any of this. All I can do is talk to you on the telephone.”
“What is your proof that Hancock hasn’t been doing this killing?”
“One of us watches Hancock from a distance, in the same way I watch you now.”
“What kind of proof is that? Can I talk to this person? In person?”
“It is Crow proof, Focus Biggioni. Not much, on your terms, but all we have. I can ask the person involved if he might be able to talk to you, but he’s a specialist in Arms and has had his share of problems with Focuses. I’m afraid the stress might be too much for him, even to talk to you on the telephone. Even I find this stressful because of your importance.”
Tonya shook her head. This didn’t make any sense. Not at all. “I don’t understand. What’s the danger to the Network, anyway?”
“Focus Biggioni, the Network is the association of you and your Focuses with various friendly people who want to help. What will be the attraction if you, a leading Focus, cause an Arm, a friend of your Network, to be forced to name names and point fingers at Network members who’ve had to skirt the law to survive? Shall we not all be forced to stand alone? The people you’re helping, the Government, aren’t our friends and must be handled far more carefully than you have been. You must stop this idiocy, now, before it’s too late.” Shadow hung up.
She knew of the name Shadow, she realized. Shadow of New York, supposedly an underworld mobster in New York City, a Network member in long standing. A person who had provided reams of strange information over the years, information he had supposedly gathered through his mob connections. Hell! We have Crows in our Network and we can’t even admit they exist!
Her cocoa had grown cold.
---
“Tonya, it’s me, Lori.” Pause. “Rizzari.”
Tonya wanted to scream. After the phone call from Shadow, she had been discussing options with Marty and Delia in the car for hours. She had insisted they stop for a second mid-morning breakfast to kill the tension and calm her mind.
They picked the first decent breakfast diner they could find. All went well until the waiter informed her that she had a phone call. Tonya had left half a stack of waffles on her plate for this?
“How did you find me here?” She found Rizzari nearly impossible to deal with under normal circumstances. Stunts like this, however…
“You have your tricks, I have mine.” Lori, deadpan. Scary. There was always something artistic or intellectual or philosophical in her demeanor. Rarely deadpan. “Say, Tonya, I think we have some problems.”
“What sort of problems?” Tonya sat down in the tiny phone booth, glad she was not a large woman. The seat was a tiny triangular thing, not even wide enough for her miniscule bottom. She pulled the door closed, for privacy.
“Two. Minimum,” Lori said, quantifying things. “First, Focus Helen Nubbor reported this morning that one of her female Transforms got snatched, with the same MO as the other recent disappearances: signs of a fight, no vehicle tread marks, no visible footprints, minimal blood, no gunshots.”
“One of Hancock’s specials. Not to worry, she’s scheduled to break this afternoon. We’ll find out all about it.” Tonya suspected this wasn’t the answer Rizzari wanted, and as usual, they would soon get into another of their overly polite disagreements. She wasn’t sure her headache could stand another stressful overly polite disagreement.
“I don’t think so, unless you’re letting Hancock out in the family supersonic jet.” A typical smartass Lori comment, full of blood and thunder but lacking in meaning. Tonya readied to pounce, but Lori filled in the details. “The attack occurred at approximately 11:20 yesterday evening, Eastern Standard time, 8:20 local time. I’ve been on the lookout for something like this and caught the news going through the Network. The report won’t get to your desk for a few days.”
Dear Jesus. Tonya’s eyes began to tear, heart pounding wildly. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “The snatcher could be Keaton,” she said, quiet. It wasn’t. She knew Keaton, Keaton’s MO. None of the snatches had Keaton’s MO.
“That’s the other thing I wanted to speak to you about. Keaton showed up here last night. In fact, a Crow I’d never met before predicted her arrival several days ago, and he was right.”
“What did Keaton want?”
“Let’s see. She wants your head on a platter if Hancock talks, so if you could do something about that, I would say I even owe you one. She’s bargained with Ann and I for six hours of science lessons she assures us she has the background to understand. We’ve also been recruited to help her on a minor little adventure. Oh, and Tonyaaaaa…”
“Yes.” She hated Lori-land. Lori-land was like some godforsaken Roadrunner cartoon where anvils flew with abandon and coyotes zoomed by with rocket packs shaped like fireworks. Dealing with Lori often meant dealing with Lori-land. Nothing else in the world was like it. How Lori managed to run a top of the line household while spending all her time in Lori-land was a major mystery. On top of that, space cadet Lori had enough political pull with her screwy charisma to have caused Tonya endless grief over the years. Tonya knew that there might come a point when this conversation made sense to her. Nothing yet, though.
Lori barreled on. “What in holy Hannah gives you the right to get on me about my dealings with Hancock when Keaton is a flaming walking lunatic straight out of an abnormal psych textbook! She’s camped out in the remains of my pool cabana, driving my people insane, she’s practically killed me, what, four times in the last six hours, and she’s demanding that I go with her, personally, on this idiotic snatch and grab rescue in the CDC she’s in the process of planning out. I can’t take dealing with her, Tonya! She’s a sadistic round the bend nutter butter whack job from aich eee double toothpicks, and if I can’t get her a volunteer Transform or two to serve as her walking juice supply she’s going to do the vampire suck routine on my bodyguards dammitall Tonya get me the crap out of this mess, already! Keaton is supposed to be your problem, not mine!”
Ah, Lori-land. Gotta love it. Like the nursery rhyme, when Lori was good, she was very very good, but when Lori was bad, she was horrid. When the going got rough, Lori got wacky, hyper and very strange.
Eventually, through Lori’s ramblings and demands for the nearest Clinic with an available Transform, Tonya realized what Lori had actually said.
First, Keaton was on her way to Virginia.
Second, she would break Hancock out of the CDC’s Detention Center.
Third, the breakout would take a few days, as Keaton seemed to be working on making the attempt something besides a suicide mission.
Fourth, Tonya had screwed up badly. Hancock wasn’t the one behind the tagged Transform snatches and killings. Rizzari’s information had corroborated the information Shadow provided.
Fifth, Tonya needed to be near the CDC and away from her household, because Keaton would want a piece of her hide. She didn’t want a hostile Keaton confrontation anywhere near her household.
Tonya relented and gave Lori the Clinic information she needed, hoping against hope this was all some sort of strange mind game of Lori’s, Keaton was not at Lori’s house, and all hell was not about to fall down upon her.
Chapter 10
In 1967 it is estimated that 40 Crows transformed in the United States and that of those fewer than 30 survived for a year after their transformation.
“Understanding Transform Sickness as a Disease”
Henry Zielinski: March 24, 1968
“Bentwyler, what the hell are you doing over here this morning.” Zielinski, in his Bentwyler costume, recognized the voice wafting down the cold institutional hallway. Special Agent McIntyre.
Shit. He had made one pass on the interior of the CDC’s Detention Center already and was working on his second pass, taking more notes and trying to finish Keaton’s request to figure out the place’s sight lines. He didn’t meet McIntyre’s eyes.
&
nbsp; “Sir,” he said, mimicking Bentwyler’s overly deferential voice as best as possible.
McIntyre smiled. “Oh, you. I’d wondered how long it would take you to figure out a way to get in here. Won’t do you any good, though, Doc. They’re not letting anyone visit Hancock, not even me.” McIntyre recognized him right through his disguise. The FBI Agent took Zielinski’s elbow and started walking him back to the entrance. McIntyre sounded utterly disgusted.
“This is unfortunate. I’m afraid they are misjudging how close Hancock is to withdrawal,” Zielinski said. “She’s going to need juice sooner than they realize.”
McIntyre snorted and bent his head down to Zielinski’s ear level. “This situation’s fucked in so many ways I can’t even keep track of the FUBARs anymore,” he said. “The bureaucrats in charge aren’t listening to anyone with Arm experience and the crazy Focus bitch, Biggioni, has convinced all of them she knows all the answers.”
Now this sounded interesting. Zielinski grunted encouragement as McIntyre hit the button for the elevator.
“Nobody above field agent level is listening to us about the fact Hancock is different than Keaton. They all have this preconceived notion the Arms are interchangeable and identical, nothing more than psychopathic killers. I understand Hancock, though; she’s got the killer personality of a special ops soldier. She’s sane, or at least as sane as any special ops soldier can get. We should be able to do business with her.”
“I’ve been saying the same for over a year and nobody’s been listening to me either,” Zielinski said. Especially not one Focus Biggioni.
The elevator arrived and McIntyre guided Zielinski to it, not letting go of his arm. “There’s another problem, bad enough I’m pulling my people out ASAP: we had an incursion yesterday. Doc, what does this sound like to you? Midafternoon, a short heavy black clad person pole-vaults a shadow covered area of the outer fence, taking a second pole along for the ride. Said person scouts out the inner fence but gets tripped up by, well, one of our secrets, gets shot at and hit, but lives to run away, pole vaults over the outer fence, and makes a clean getaway.”
A Method Truly Sublime (The Commander) Page 22