“Sometimes she’ll get stubborn during a robbery. Or I’ll try and teach her something and she’ll criticize my teaching style. She’s flat-out unbelievable.”
“I’m surprised she’s still alive,” I said.
“Hunting’s still good out here,” Keaton said, some form of complex falsehood I decided to ignore. “I damned near killed her anyway. I went after her a hell of a lot harder than I ever went after you.”
Keaton had said she would do so, if she got another baby Arm. Looking at Haggerty, I believed it.
“What’s more,” Keaton said, “she’s worthless. She can’t cook for shit. You should see some of the things she tries to feed me. I don’t think this spoiled rotten baby-boomer hippie chick has ever held a broom or a scrub-brush in her life. A more useless excuse for an Arm is hard to imagine.”
Not so long ago Keaton used that term on me. An immense weight lifted from my shoulders…
Keaton shook her head. “So, about two weeks ago, she decided she could make it on her own, and she decided to run away. I knew immediately, of course. I let her get as far as the bus station before I hauled her back. Afterwards, I took her downstairs and took her apart for a couple of days.”
I always wondered what would have happened to me if I had tried to run. I was glad I never did. Being ‘taken apart for a couple of days’ rattled my memories and chilled my blood.
“Anyway,” Keaton went on, “that broke her pretty good. So, the next day, when I was out, she decided she still couldn’t take it anymore. This time she tried to kill herself. I came back and found her lying in the bathtub trying to cut her wrists with a kitchen knife. Only her wrists kept healing up, so she was still alive by the time I got there. God. An Arm can kill herself by cutting her wrists in a bathtub, but only because she’ll eventually starve to death.”
I thought about Haggerty in a bathtub trying to kill herself and I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. The image of her lying there trying to cut her wrists faster than they healed up was too ridiculous for anything else. I laughed, laughed harder, and finally roared. This was the funniest thing I had heard of in a long time.
Keaton watched me for a minute and then saw the humor in the situation. She started laughing herself. Long minutes passed before the laughter slowed and I could talk again.
“So what did you do, ma’am?” I said, still chortling.
“I brought her a better knife. I told her that if she wanted to kill herself, she should do a better job of it.”
The thought made me laugh again. Keaton didn’t laugh this time, and so I forced my own laughter to fade.
“After the tub episode, she broke completely,” Keaton said. “She quit fighting me and she’s been a hell of a lot easier to work with. There’s not a lot there any more, though.”
Uh huh. The Arm I met today wasn’t up to much of anything at all.
Keaton’s face changed back to being pensive.
“Come over to the couch. I want to talk to you.” I did so, pensive now myself. I knew the routine: interrogation. Examination of my deepest self. I briefly wondered what I had done to deserve this, before I buried my traitorous thoughts deep.
“What’s your personal opinion of Focus Laswell?” she said.
“Top ten percent Focus,” I said. “I’m not experienced enough to judge beyond a scale of one to ten. Her household has minimal combat experience.”
“I’m not asking about her household, Hancock,” she said, grimacing. Keaton stayed edgy. “How do you feel about her personally?”
“Nothing like with Focus Rizzari.”
We went on from there into my feelings about Lori, why I chose Houston over Boston, and into my dreams (which remained non-informative). She went into what little recruiting I had done, specifically, what criteria I used.
Keaton wasn’t sure about me and I knew why: while incarcerated I had invited the Madonna of Montreal into my dreams. She wondered what the invitation had done to me, and where my loyalties lay when I didn’t sit next to her with my tag reaffirmed. These questions worried me as much as they worried Keaton.
“After consummating your relationship with Gilgamesh, how did it change how you feel about him?” Keaton said.
“My desire to protect him increased,” I said. I was on firmer ground here. At least I thought I knew what was going on. “My instincts want me to treat him as a helpless lover. It’s worse when I’m out with him doing things; when I’m back home, alone, I realize this instinct will fade over time.”
“How much did your feelings for him influence your actions during the time he worked alone on his mission?”
“Early on? A lot. I grieved. Got distracted. Later? My sorrow receded to being a dull ache,” I said. Keaton sneered at me. Dependence on others was a weakness. “I hadn’t fully recovered, ma’am. After Sky cleared the bad juice out of me the sorrow still remained, but the sorrow became no more than any other pain to me, something I could put aside to concentrate on other activities.”
Keaton spat air. “In what, the ten minutes between when you got the crap ripped out of you and when you found Gilgamesh in your car?”
I rolled my eyes and made humbling submission gestures, in this case ending with my head bowed on her knee and her hand on my neck. “It was a good ten minutes.” Pause. “Save for the juice hunger.”
Keaton laughed.
I raised my head. “The bad juice made me lazy, ma’am. Mostly psychologically, but Zielinski’s convinced me the bad juice caused physical changes in my brain. Afterwards I became Arm-sharp again. Thinking faster. More in control of my own self.”
“Okay,” Keaton said. Her eyes glazed in thought for a couple of minutes. “You do feel easier to be around. Before, you felt a little greasy. Metaphorically.” She licked her lips. “Do you have any urge to tag Gilgamesh?”
“None at all,” I said. She studied my reactions for twenty seconds before making a decision.
She reached into a pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s the mailing address for the Madonna of Montreal.” It read 358 Rue Lahaie, Pont-Viau, Quebec. “Mail her. May you have better luck than I did understanding what she sends back to you.”
Henry Zielinski: July 1, 1968 – July 2, 1968
“Hey, Doc,” Tina said as he walked up onto the front porch, and gave him a soft punch in the shoulder. Zielinski wasn’t too surprised someone had invited the Focus to this meeting, but bodyguards from Charade, Flo’s household, gathered on the porch along with the Inferno bodyguards. He warmly greeted all the ones he knew, and they introduced him to the other two. They had all finished their advanced Transform training, which made him smile. He left Frances and Fred with the bodyguards, as per Carol’s orders. Tina opened the door for him and he entered Keaton’s house.
Once inside he took in the ambience of the elegant entryway. A Japanese flower arrangement on a single marble table. Keaton seemed to be doing a better job of maintaining her sanity; her home felt more pleasant than during his last visit. He still marveled at Keaton’s choice of stark appointments. Her techniques for compartmentalizing her life appeared to be working.
He followed the soft voices to the pale living room, where Sky entertained the two Focuses with what had to be a tall tale of a Chimera and an Arm playing ‘toss Sky over the tree’. “They just wanted me to shut up,” Sky said. He too had improved; his presence demanded attention and he spoke with firm authority. “Back then shutting me up took work.” Neither Keaton nor Carol was present.
“It’s always taken work,” Lori said. “Hey there, Doc!”
Doc. Well, this was different. Lori appeared composed. She didn’t get up and hug him like she normally did, though, just giving him a wave. The tension he felt over the phone was still evident.
Flo did bounce up and give him a hug. “Glad you made it, Henry.” The perky Focus wasn’t composed. She appeared horribly nervous. “You’ve met Sky?”
“Yes.”
She looked around the room
, concentrating, stopping in a corner. “This is Gilgamesh,” she said.
Yes, there he was, standing in a corner. He had been with them in the Houston fiasco, but never with them in person, apparently very Crow-like behavior.
Gilgamesh radiated Crow standoffishness to an unusual extent. He was a well-dressed six-footer with wild dark hair untamable without a dab of Brylcream. Which he hadn’t bothered with. He had male model good looks, and what Zielinski considered an intelligent face. “Glad to meet you, Dr. Henry Zielinski. I’m charged with passing along greetings from Crow Occum and his Noble charges, who thank you again for your help and who continue to hold you in highest regard.” Hmm. Well spoken, with a soft but unpanicked Crow whisper. Definitely intelligent.
“Thank you. I hope, later, to steal a moment of your time. I have some questions, if you’re agreeable.”
Gilgamesh nodded, not entirely happy.
“Oh, Doc, not business already,” Flo said.
“I believe the Good Doctor’s always doing business,” Sky said. “When he’s not disguised as a truck driver or an engineer, of course.”
Sky’s comment led into another set of stories, all about him. Hank found a quiet place to sit, right next to what appeared to be Keaton’s personal chair. The Arm had tagged her personal chair, he guessed, and found a way to give the chair itself enough ‘mine’ vibes even he picked up on the tag and knew not to sit in it.
He sat and studied the crowd, keeping his big mouth shut. He had expected Ann Chiron in a gathering like this, but no Ann. There was obvious tension between the Focus and Sky, which he had expected. There wasn’t any discernible tension between Sky and Gilgamesh, which surprised him. Of course, as talented Major Transforms, they could easily be hiding it from him. He certainly knew Sky could, when the mercurial Crow decided he wanted to. He sensed other tension; Focus Ackermann was wary of both the Crows and Focus Rizzari’s face turned into an icy mask whenever she glanced at Gilgamesh. If he hadn’t heard the story, he would think the Focus’s reaction was hatred; he knew this was just the Focus’s way to keep her tender emotions in check.
“Well, good news, midget. She passed and she’s still alive.” Keaton. Bantering. Somebody had made sure she was full up on juice for this meeting, hadn’t they? Hank turned and spotted Keaton, Ann Chiron and Carol coming in from the kitchen, where stairs led down to the basement. Ann wore Arm exercise gear, fully sweated out. She appeared to be half-terrified and sported a shiner and some bruises. The two Arms had done something to her. Why?
Oh. Inferno had demanded its own seat at the table, for today’s meeting. Keaton made the Inferno demand into a test. Typical Keaton.
Carol strode over to him and gave him the look. She wanted him to vacate his chair. He met her gaze and didn’t give in – he represented normal humanity and he had the right to sit at Keaton’s side. She didn’t say a word, but he had an uncomfortable feeling he had just pushed her within a hair of too far. She didn’t like any hint of challenge in front of Keaton. Fortunately, Keaton was watching Sky with unsettling intensity and hadn’t spotted the brief interaction, so Carol let it go. She pulled up another chair to sit on Keaton’s other side.
He had chosen Keaton’s left side. Stupid he wasn’t. It was one thing to argue with an order, it was another to occupy an Arm’s own place. “Ann, how are you doing?”
She glowered. “I’ll tell you the gory details later.” Both Focuses laughed, but neither Carol, Keaton, or Sky did. Keaton pulled her gaze from Sky to study the room.
Gilgamesh appeared on the couch to Carol’s right. Zielinski hadn’t seen him move. Interesting Crow, definitely interesting.
“Let’s get going,” Keaton said. “Based on the information you’ve collected I’m okaying this little exercise. Unless someone convinces me otherwise. Who wants to start?”
Nobody spoke up. “Okay. Let’s start working on the details.”
Zielinski took a sip of water. His presence here wasn’t really necessary, mostly to answer questions about how far a foreign Focus might push things, worst case. The incident with the police detectives still strained both Arms’ credulity, and Hank had to explain, again, about how Focus protective instincts and paranoid preparations often gave them what appeared to be a supernatural information conduit. “The only juice trick Focus Peshnak needed to use for this was her charisma, Ma’am Keaton,” he said. “Ma’am Hancock likely didn’t spot the other twenty or so wild goose chases Focus Peshnak likely also prompted.” Neither Focus appreciated his comments.
Both Flo and the Focus had agreed to personally participate in the attack, although Focus Ackermann wasn’t going to be involved in the combat. Keaton had her handling Focus politics and communications. “I can support the entire Transform contingent for a day, if I need to,” Lori said. “I think it’s important, symbolically, to have representative Transforms of all the Focuses in my rebellion involved in this effort.”
“Are you going to be doing the multiple tag trick, then?” Carol said. She ate a mini-quiche in one bite and winced. Haggerty had been hauling out an endless stream of reheated snacks, and Zielinski guessed those quiches had tasted better several weeks ago when Carol originally cooked them.
“No. I don’t know that one and I’m not going to do any experimentation along those lines for this,” Lori said. “However, I can do temporary tag overwrites. It’s functionally the same.”
“Not exactly,” Flo said. “The overwrite trick also drives the rest of us crazy when she does it. The trick does work, though.”
“Do you ever do anything in a standard fashion, Focus Rizzari?” Keaton said, exasperated. Exasperation appeared to be the standard emotion both Keaton and the Focus had for each other.
“No!” Flo, Sky and Ann said, together.
Heaven help them if Keaton turned on the Focuses. She was learning far too much about them. She and Carol noted his internal thoughts, which Keaton answered with a twitch of her lips.
“You’re in,” Keaton said. “Carol?”
“I think it would be a good idea, ma’am, if we get Focus Laswell involved in the actual fight. More people to help keep the Clinic Focuses out of the real fight, for one, and second, she signaled me she wanted help getting out from under Rogue Focus.”
“Tell me about this Focus Laswell,” Keaton said.
Carol and Lori did so, filling in the gaps in his minimal knowledge of Focus Laswell and piquing his interest. He suspected he wouldn’t meet her until this little affair was over, but she did sound like a Focus well worth knowing. Keaton agreed, reluctantly, assigning Carol and Gilgamesh the task of covertly contacting Focus Laswell, but stuck in an added step she would handle herself: getting permission from the West Region Focuses for the attack, via Focus Webb, the current West Region Council representative. Keaton would be going through her Network contact, Focus Rodriguez, for permission. It sounded like only a formality, which Keaton kept pressing today.
He also approved of them calling Focus Peshnak ‘Rogue Focus’ and Wandering Shade ‘Rogue Crow’. The terminology nicely delineated the scope of their operation, and why the rogue Major Transforms were appropriate targets, without triggering a discussion on the matter.
“I have a question,” Flo said. Keaton waved her hand in acquiescence. “What are we going to do with Rogue Focus afterwards?”
“You’re assuming we succeed,” Keaton said. Keaton was paranoid over a takedown of a single not-overwhelming Focus? Her slip got his attention. She thought more went on here than met the eye.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’re going to kill her,” Carol said. “What other possible outcome is there?”
Keaton didn’t say anything. She just leaned back and waited. Houston was Carol’s territory, or would be again later, thus this was Carol’s decision. Oh, and likely a test by Keaton, who still worried about unknown influences on Carol’s mind from the Madonna of Montreal.
The Focus shook her head, as did Flo, but Sky was the first to comment. �
�Ma’am, she’s a Focus. Focuses save lives. If we kill her, her Transforms die.”
“So?” To an Arm, dead Transforms were a resource, not a problem.
“I doubt they volunteered to be Rogue Focus’s Transforms,” Sky said. “They’re innocents.” Keaton studied Sky intently again as he talked, and Zielinski decided she wasn’t happy about how he had fooled her during the Hancock rescue. Carol followed Zielinski’s gaze on Keaton and her mouth twitched. She had also noticed Keaton’s reaction to Sky, and Keaton’s reaction bothered her. Zielinski hoped Keaton didn’t decide she needed to do more than study from a distance.
“Not all of them, if what Captive said was true,” Carol said. Captive, he knew, was the name the Arms had given to the normal Carol had kidnapped.
“How many volunteered?” Lori said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
“Four Transforms, all women, all fellow Czechs.”
“Those are her surviving Focus Attendants, then,” Flo said. She glanced at Lori. “Most Focuses never part with their attendants, so they’re not exactly volunteers.” Flo and the Focus exchanged dark looks. He sensed tension between them on this topic, but Zielinski had no idea why. “I agree with Sky. It’s wrong to kill Focuses.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Carol said. Her anger over the loss of her one-day-claimed territory was palpable enough for him to read.
“There are other methods of neutralizing her without killing her,” Lori said. She took a deep breath. “I have an idea about how to handle this.”
“Here we go,” Keaton said, sotto voice. She suspected she wouldn’t like whatever screwball idea Lori came up with. The older Arm gave Zielinski a sideways glance that read ‘getting me involved with this space cadet is your fault, understand’. He restrained the urge to gulp. Keaton polished off four deviled eggs and tapped her fingers on the edge of her chair.
The Focus’s demeanor grew colder, which Zielinski hadn’t thought possible. “Sell her to the first Focuses.” She glanced over at Ann, who nodded. “Although this goes against my household’s wishes, my suggestion for the proper first Focus to sell her to is Focus Fingleman, the West Region President.”
No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) Page 31