“People call me the Madonna of Montreal,” Annie said. “I’m a Focus.”
“Oh, you. I’m Nancy. Nancy Racshke. I normally live in Peterborough, where I’m working with the Provincial Transform Agency. They’re attempting to find a way to make me into a useful Transform.”
This was real, Annie realized, and not a hallucination. She recognized the name of Focus Sport Racshke from a recent government report. Focus Sport Racshke had transformed late last year; she couldn’t move juice in a normal fashion, but she instead could touch a Transform and convert their juice to dross. On the poor Transform, which wasn’t good for them at all. A sufficiently bold Crow might be able to use Racshke, but none had stepped forward. The Provincials warehoused Racshke, in the hope that over time her skills would improve, at least so she didn’t leave the Transforms she tended doused in dross and far worse off than before.
“When did this start?” Annie said.
“Early in the morning of March 11th of this year. I awoke from a bad dream with this compulsion to go north. The farther I go, the less control I have over myself. I used to be able to stop and rest. No longer.”
Annie’s heart sank. Arm had delivered the skull to her in the pre-dawn hours of March 11th. This was Annie’s fault, she realized. She had triggered an impossible auroral display with the skull that night, after damping the juice effects Arm had triggered by putting a drop of her – Arm’s – blood in each of the eye sockets.
“I’m going to see if I can get you rescued,” Annie said. “I can promise I’ll try, but I don’t know if I can succeed.”
“Thanks.”
Annie spent the next week on the telephone, trying to wheedle any sort of help. At night she would check in with Nancy; every night Nancy grew more under the control of the whatever. Annie did manage to convince various authorities to at least listen to her, but none of them were willing to help. The Provincial Transform Authorities in Peterborough considered Nancy AWOL, and didn’t believe Annie’s story about Nancy being compelled. Annie didn’t have the resources to hire a private airplane to search for Nancy, nor even a good search area to start in. Nancy had been walking for almost three weeks, day and night. She might be anywhere within nearly a thousand square kilometers of frozen real estate.
Annie sent off a coded letter to Erica, telling her about the discovery that the Dreaming could be used for real communication and asking Erica to look into this, and warning her of potential problems. She hadn’t taken long to figure out that even this new incarnation of the Dreaming wasn’t an accurate method of communication; the tundra scenes around Nancy held little detail, and were recycled from Annie’s memories. She did wonder if anything Nancy said had been at all real.
“I can sense it, now,” Nancy said, through the Dreaming. “It’s close.”
Annie metasensed something, close to Nancy in the real world, but distant from Annie, and also outside of Annie’s metasense range from Nancy.
Each step farther Nancy took, the Dreaming vision around Annie grew dimmer. She tried to stop the process, to stop Nancy’s forward progress, anything. She used juice patterns, tags and her Focus charisma. Nothing worked. Annie kept attempting things, one after the other, until the Dreaming vision around Nancy vanished, and Annie found herself tossed back into her Dream vineyard.
No matter what she tried, she couldn’t re-establish contact.
“…and that’s the whole sordid tale,” Annie said. She rarely talked on the phone to other Major Transforms, but the ordeal left her all stretched out, and worn and weak. Her normal Dreaming work had suffered greatly.
“Amazing,” Focus Rizzari said. The more Annie dealt with Lori, the more she trusted her, and the more she hoped the young Focus would grow the hell up someday. This was only the second time she had talked to Focus Rizzari on the phone, and given Lori’s awful straits the first time, she doubted the young Focus remembered. “Do you have any ideas about what to do, next? Is there anything I can do?” Annie sensed Lori’s happiness through the phone, glad to hear directly from the Madonna of Montreal.
“I’m stumped,” Annie said. “I’m also afraid that Focus Sport Racshke died, consumed by whatever compelled her to go north.”
“No, she’s alive,” Lori said. “She’s somewhere within about a hundred mile area of the Quebec – Labrador border, north of Lobstick Lake.”
“You found her with your map trick? Do you think you might be able to lead people there?”
Lori sighed. “Not quickly, and I don’t have the time. I’m already in hot water about the time I spent working on the Hancock rescue.” She paused. “Besides, this is dangerous. What if this thing grabbed me? My entire household could end up dead.”
“I know,” Annie said. “I have the same issues holding me back. This is just wrong, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
“I’ll give this some thought, and talk to Sky about it. He might have some ideas.”
“Just keep him from going on his own,” Annie said, practically a shout. Sky wouldn’t be able to resist.
“Good point. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell him.”
That night, when Annie slept, and she entered the Dreaming, Erica Eissler appeared. Her old friend began to dance; then would stop, cut herself, and dance some more. Intrigued, Annie watched closely. This was new.
Erica flashed, then appeared, different. More herself. She waved her hands in an intricate pattern, and waited for Annie to respond.
Oh.
Sign language.
Within an hour, Annie had mastered the ‘appear as yourself’ trick, and learned enough sign language to communicate, somewhat, with Erica.
“Welcome to the real world of Transforms,” Erica signed. “I’m scared. Any interest in exploring this together?”
“Of course,” Annie signed back. “This is what I do.”
Author’s Afterward
Thanks to Randy and Margaret Scheers, Michelle and Karl Stembol, Gary and Judy Williams, Maurice Gehin, and as always my wife, Marjorie Farmer. Without their help this document would have never been made.
As stated earlier, The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio 5 is a companion piece to my novel “A Method Truly Sublime”. Some of the pieces in here are here for completeness, others for fun, and they all serve to flesh out the story.
You can find out more information about the world of the Transforms and other stories published by this author on http://majortransform.com.
The Commander series continues with “No Sorrow Like Separation” (Book Five of ‘The Commander’), “The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Six”, and “No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor’s Tales Folio Seven)”.
Randall Allen Farmer
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