All That We Are (The Commander Book 7)

by Randall Farmer

  “Ma’am,” I said, formal. I felt formal today. I was dressed as a man, in an Italian silk suit. The diamond studded gold cufflinks I had borrowed from a safety deposit box during a bank robbery; eventually I would sell them, but for now they were part of my wardrobe. I liked them. “So are we.”

  “Huh.” She shook her head. “Your reaction to your fuck ups is not appropriate.”

  “Ma’am? What fuck ups?” Yes, I was depressed, but over Gilgamesh’s leaving, not my fuck ups.

  “A blind monkey could have come up with better tactics for your approach to Arpeggio’s ranch,” Keaton said. She leaned over to where I sat near her at the end of her couch and got in my face. “You let your emotions do your thinking. That’s the danger of attachments, non-disposable lovers and close friends.”

  “Ma’am,” I said, growling back at her. “Do you think I don’t know? But that’s the way I work. It’s a tradeoff: over time, the benefit of my close alliances outweighs the detriments.”

  “Not my point. My point is that you need to have people around you to make those decisions for you, when you know you’re going to have a problem. You didn’t take a few moments to plan ahead. You should have had Tom with you.”

  Crap. I sat back, disgusted at myself. She was right. I should have realized I would end up in a conflict situation and taken Tom with me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She took me into her war room, a converted bedroom on the second floor, and ran through the Midlothian fight out on the table, showing me alternative fight tactics, their detriments and benefits. “What I would have done was send the thugs who survived the initial fusillade on a demonstration about a quarter mile out, in front of the ranch house, to draw away Shadow’s police guards. Then snuck in, with the Crow. That’s not the optimum tactic, given what we know now. The optimum tactic, in hindsight, would have been to hold in place and use your superior numbers and your superior aiming skills to take out the police guards before you moved in.” Beat. “However, what you chose was fucking amateur.

  “And your other problem is that you think it’s your fault that Gilgamesh left.”

  Damn her. She always did these swift subject changes, so she could better gauge my reactions. “Leaving me was his choice.”

  “That’s what you’re trying to tell yourself. I can feel your doubts.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I have doubts.”

  “I also think you’ve lost some of your old edge. When you figured out Echo was spying on the clean side of your operations, you should have called me and presented your case for leaving him alone.”

  I felt spun, verbally dizzy. “I… Okay, that’s correct, too. It’s because of my workload. When I have too much to do, I tend to do what I’m ordered instead of arguing the orders when they feel wrong.”

  “Fix that,” Keaton said, utterly intolerant. “You’re supposed to be challenging me, especially when my orders come with insufficient or changed data. So…which Crow are you going to pick as your new partner?”

  Damn her again. “Hephaestus.”

  “You going to sleep with him?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You done sleeping with Crows?”

  “No, ma’am. I just don’t find Hephaestus interesting at a personal level.”

  “I said ‘sleep with’, not ‘get into a relationship with’, Hancock.”

  I did the stone face routine to her jab.

  This would be a long session. Keaton had dozens of these socked away and we were going to be going over all of them, in excruciating detail.

  Boys and girls, don’t fuck up anywhere your Arm boss can see. You will pay.

  Gilgamesh: February 13, 1969 – February 14, 1969

  He had turned away last night because of Hera’s presence in Kali’s place, but here she was again. Gilgamesh came up to Kali’s doorway anyway, flashed his glow, and knocked on the door. He couldn’t put this confrontation off any longer.

  After a short discussion between Hera and Kali, Arm Bass came to the front door and opened it. The student Arm looked like a wreck, a post-modernist study in cuts, burn marks and absent fingernails. “This way, Crow Gilgamesh,” she said, formal. Anger and paranoia filled her mind.

  He came in, carefully masking his fierceness and keeping his distance from the student Arm. Bass leaned close to him anyway. “I don’t trust you,” she said, nearly inaudible. “If your crazy Crow antics cause Ma’am Keaton’s death, I swear I will hunt you down and flay you alive before killing you.”

  Panic hit and he almost fled. Instead, he hurried his pace, anxious to be far away from this particular Arm. Arm Bass was far more devoted to Kali than either Tiamat or Supergirl (the Crow name for Haggerty) had been; she nearly worshipped the older Arm, which, given the amount of abuse Arm Bass showed, spoke to some seriously warped psychology.

  “You’re supposed to call first,” Kali said, after he entered her living room. Her place was stark, with pale furniture and walls, and an excess of empty space.

  “Ma’am,” Gilgamesh said. “When you have a moment, I can explain.”

  “So this is a business visit?”

  He nodded. Kali flickered her eyes at Focus Biggioni, who sat impassively on a white couch, backed by four imposing male bodyguards. He nodded again in response; unless something had radically changed, none of his business had to be kept secret from Hera.

  “Have a seat.”

  He did, settling into a white formal chair with a stiff back and narrow wooden arms. Hera and Kali went back to their business, an evaluation of the people in Kali’s Detroit operations. He quickly figured out Kali had hired Hera to help her evaluate her people and uncover any ringers.

  “Ma’am,” he said, ten minutes later. “Mr. Yudelevich is suborned by Stalin.”

  “Stalin?” Focus Biggioni said.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Focus Adkins.”

  That actually brought a smile to the dour Focus’s face.

  “He checked out clean,” Keaton said. She looked at Hera. “Though you gave him a 3, meaning you thought something was wrong with him.” She turned back to Gilgamesh. “How do you know this, Crow?”

  “This gets into the details of what I wanted to talk to you about, ma’am,” Gilgamesh said. “In short, he visits Focus Adkins once a week, in a café located near her household; in the café, she says something and he changes his emotional state and gives her a report. His emotional state changes back after the report is finished.”

  “So the bitch has some juice tricks after all,” Keaton said.

  “Stacy, I think we need to hear Crow Gilgamesh’s report,” Focus Biggioni said. “If you don’t mind.” Save for her one smile, Hera was a cipher tonight, emotionally shuttered and perhaps entirely emotionless. He thought a moment and realized she used a nasty Focus trick: wielding her Focus charisma on herself. The only other Focuses he had ever seen use this trick were Lori and Focus Hargrove, and Hera appeared to be far better.

  “It might take a while,” Keaton said. “This is the first I’ve heard from Gilgamesh since he broke up with Carol.”

  He flushed with a sudden realization he had become the soap opera Crow. He was mortified.

  “I suspect his report is more important than what we’re doing,” Focus Biggioni said.

  Keaton shook her head. Thought. Repressed anger, then thought some more. “Fine.”

  “Ma’am Keaton, ma’am Biggioni,” he said. Keaton winced. “While kidnapped by Echo, I overheard a phone conversation of his, with Rogue Crow, indicating Rogue Crow had a Crow spy in Detroit. Knowing the Detroit Crows, I knew who the spy had to be. I also knew ma’am Keaton would want more than Crow proof of this, and I wanted more information on the Crow spy’s intentions. This is one of the reasons I came to Detroit.”

  “He’s dead,” Keaton predictably said.

  “Ma’am, he’s a fool, not an enemy,” Gilgamesh said. “If you choose to do so, I could talk him out of his espionage, though doing so might cost you some pocket change.”

&nb
sp; Kali sighed and turned to Hera. “He means that literally. The local Crows here barely have two dimes to rub together.” Hera shushed the Arm.

  “I also believe I could feed him false information to pass along to Rogue Crow. Let me show you my evidence.”

  He opened his backpack and brought out a copy of Watchmaker’s letter, all seven badly-typed pages of it. Kali and Hera shared the pages and read.

  “He’s mostly spying on Adkins, and my operations are only of minor interest to him,” Keaton said. “Son of a bitch! He knows how Adkins keeps in contact with her salt mine Focuses. Attack Focuses, in his terminology, which appears to be Adkins terminology as well.”

  “This is good corroboration,” Focus Biggioni said. “We needed that.”

  “How did you acquire this, Gilgamesh?” Keaton said.

  “Picked the lock on a post office drop box.” As taught to him by Tiamat. He didn’t need to explain.

  “Hmm. You’re hiding?” As to why he couldn’t call first.

  “I was, up to this point,” he said. “I had to reveal my glow to talk to you. Which brings me to the next reason I’m here, ma’am. I think it’s become clear Crow Newton’s ditched you. I’m here to offer myself up to be your Crow.”

  “For real, for public consumption, or both?”

  “Both.”

  “Accepted,” Keaton said. “You’re here to try and find evidence that Shadow isn’t Rogue Crow, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. And because I fear that if I’m wrong, I’m myself suborned in a way I can’t detect.”

  “You’d better hope you’re not, because I will take you down.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m counting on you to do so.”

  Hera’s emotional shuttering wasn’t perfect. For an instant, she radiated sympathy. A short instant.

  “Are you willing to help me keep tabs on the Detroit Focuses, especially Rickenbach?”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  Kali focused her predatory presence on him. “So, what’s your real reason for being here?”

  So much for keeping his mind blank, so her Arm mind-reading tricks would not work.

  “Ma’am, Detroit’s been a lure for me for a very long time, since I was working on identifying Crow Killer during Carol’s recovery. Nothing I’ve learned about Detroit has satisfied me so far: not Focus Rickenbach and her wedding, not Focus Adkins or the salt mine Focuses, not your moving here, and not Rogue Crow’s spy. I don’t even know if what’s bothering me is connected to our current problems.”

  Kali grimaced. “You need a phone.”

  “I wasn’t planning to sleep in the same place two nights in a row, ma’am.”

  “Paranoid. I approve. Are you willing to use pay phones to call my message service?” He nodded. “Then we’re set. I think I’ll take you up on your offer to feed bad information to Watchmaker. Next, I’d like the story of the Echo kidnapping from your point of view, if you would.”

  He knew Kali; she would be questioning him like this for hours. Hera knew the routine as well; she leaned back on the couch, relaxed, and settled in to watch the show.

  ---

  “You’re welcome to stay here if you want,” Focus Rickenbach said. Her voice was hushed. The dark chapel called for silence, and even the quietest voice seemed like an intrusion.

  He had signaled to her on her bodyguard-laden midnight patrol and she motioned for him to come and talk. It was nice to find a Focus he could treat like a Crow, save for the expected Focus lack of metasense range. They had slipped separately into the chapel of St. Luke’s, just down the block from where they met.

  So far, he had only told her the public story behind his visit.

  “I can’t, for many reasons,” Gilgamesh said. They sat in the rearmost pew of the silent chapel. Moonlight shone through the small stained glass window above the altar, casting multi-colored shadows too faint for any but Major Transform eyes to see. “For one thing, as a Crow, I don’t like being around other people when I’m resting. Ever since I transformed I’ve always hidden while I sleep.”

  “How about a visit for dinner?”

  “I could visit. Occasionally,” Gilgamesh said. The Clumsy Angel wanted to help him; the lives Crows lived disturbed her. “I heard” from Kali “that you had your visit with Focus Adkins. How did your visit go?”

  The Clumsy Angel exchanged a glance with Sylvie, who sat quietly with her Focus. Sylvie shrugged, bleary eyed.

  “I heard you got kidnapped and rescued recently,” Focus Rickenbach said. “I’ll trade.”

  He should have expected the Focus’s offer; Whisper, now in regular phone and letter contact with the Clumsy Angel, was a well-known blabbermouth. The Clumsy Angel was relentless in her desire to understand the world of Transforms. “I can’t tell you everything.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They found each other’s stories disturbing.

  ---

  “I was thinking ‘bout the questions you posed me a while back,” Watchmaker said. Gilgamesh had just finished a highly edited story about his kidnapping to Watchmaker, subtly laced with several nuggets of information Keaton wanted passed on to Rogue Crow, and now he hoped the tale would lure the older and reticent Crow into opening up. “Not that thinking’s easy for me, mind you. I’m just a simple Crow, yah know. Anyway, I got to thinking about your glow-masking trick. You ever taught your trick to anyone else?”

  “Mostly, other Crows aren’t interested.” They sat on the ground with their backs against the wall of the South Side Sandwich shop, keeping company with the garbage cans and hiding from the sunrise. The reek was spectacular.

  “Uh huh. Why would we need such a thing? Hiding the already hidden?” Watchmaker said. “Anyhoo, to the metasense your trick makes you seem to appear out of nowhere. Very disturbing. But I’ve seen this before.”

  “Where?”

  “Stalin. Well, not Her, if you catch my drift. Someone who got too close to Stalin’s tamed gristle dross, five days after Kali moved to Detroit.” Watchmaker spat and scratched at his chest. Fleas. “There I was, minding my own business, when pop! a Transform appeared out of nowhere, right inside of Stalin’s tamed dross. Couldn’t tell what kind of Transform. Thought he was one of those damned Beastly Men. Looked like he got caught, anyhoo.”

  “Some of the Beast Men know how to metasense mask,” Gilgamesh said. The Patriarchs, for one.

  “That’s what I thought to start with. Only now that I think about it, even discounting the interference Stalin’s tamed gristle dross causes, the victim wasn’t no Beastly Man. The glow wasn’t strong enough. I think now this might have been a Crow.”

  Newton, Gilgamesh realized. Newton was the only Crow who had ever expressed an interest in learning Gilgamesh’s method of glow-masking. Last time he met Newton, the Newt hadn’t mastered the trick, though, and had been grousing about the amount of time it took to learn and how hard it was for him to keep his thoughts quiet enough for the trick to work.

  That was the key to the trick. Think hidden, be hidden. Practice, practice, practice. As the Inferno house motto implied, a Crow’s thoughts created his reality, at least as far as his glow was concerned. Gilgamesh’s trick didn’t bend light, but it did make him more difficult to see. Often, people didn’t register him when they saw him.

  The trick didn’t work well on Arms. That helped the practice, as what fooled an Arm a little would fool anyone else a whole lot more.

  “Thank you,” Gilgamesh said. “I think he’s my missing Crow, Newton. What ever happened to him?”

  “Stalin’s still got him.”

  Gilgamesh let Watchmaker chatter on while he thought and weighed his feelings. To his utter annoyance, Newton’s capture still didn’t satisfy his unexplained need to be in Detroit.

  Earl Robert Sellers: February 16, 1969

  Earl Sellers charged in again, four legged biting snapping fury thundering through pine needles and muddy remnants of snow. Several sparrows shifted branches, offended
by the clamor he raised in what should have been a quiet winter morning. He barely managed to evade the snapping of Duke Hoskins’ larger claw. As the red passion of beast-form combat gathered around his mind, he bit off a chunk of Hoskins’ right leg, and backed off. The red passion didn’t take Earl Sellers, though. He had never kept his mind human so long into a beast-form combat before.

  The Duke charged him, wildly snapping his claws as he trotted forward, and coloring the muddy ground around him with blood. Duke Hoskins’ combat form was as always, the terrifying insane humanoid-legged two crustacean-armed land crab, brick red and armored. Well, armored everywhere but his legs. The Earl backed away and slid to his right, away from the scimitar of the Duke’s scissoring great claw. The wild claw chops told the story – the Duke had lost himself in the battle, letting his beastliness take over. At beast combat speed, Sellers understood for the first time how stupid their instinctive beast tactics were. Charge and fight. Charge and fight.

  Earl Sellers thought and planned now, not much of either, but with the aggressive care he had only experienced before when fighting in his man form. As a Noble Chimera, he could change from man to beast, and back, and even settle in intermediate forms. The shape change was the greatest benefit of being a Chimera, but it was slow and took almost ten hours, even with the full support of Crow Master Occum and their Noble household of élan-producing Commoner women. The Earl considered his metasense the second best gift of Chimerahood, while the other titled Nobles, Duke Jeremy Hoskins, Count Horace Knox and Sir Dowling, all considered Chimera healing to be much better.

  The Earl darted in, again, and endured a slice on his canine back from the Duke’s lesser fighting claw as he worried the Duke’s right leg, which now showed bone. The Duke scraped his claws and let loose his Terror, the normally frightening charisma attack of a Chimera, but the Earl ignored it, backing away quickly and circling with his usual four legged speed. Earl Sellers’ beast-form, his Chimera combat form, was a large black-furred dog, the same as he had used all the way back before Crow Master Occum had gentled him and he became the first Noble. When he had used the name ‘Rover’. Sellers bared his teeth in a growl and charged again, this time from behind the Duke, and this time, when he worried the Duke’s injured right leg, he pulled and twisted.