Nancy turned away and nodded, a pout on her face.
---
“I smelled your shampoo and soap in front of Wendy’s place,” Keaton said. The Arm was in a mood, enough to make Gail stand with a straight rigid backed posture as she listened to her over the telephone. “You’re involved. How?”
“I’d rather not say over the telephone,” Gail said. Truthfully, she had expected this phone call yesterday. Her tummy rumbled in hunger, the aroma of over-breaded Swiss steak filling the air a half hour before dinnertime.
“Are you willing to come here and talk?” Or do I need to come over and drag you out by your hair? Gail heard Keaton not say.
“Sure. I need food, first, though. It’s been one of those days. Uh, ‘here’ is Wendy’s old place?”
“Yes.” The Arm sighed. “Just my luck to be stuck with a high-metabolism Focus.” Click.
Damn. Gail hadn’t thought this one through, but with Wendy gone, this left Gail as the Arm’s number one Focus contact in Detroit. From Keaton’s perspective, Gail was now her number one possession.
That would make life interesting, now wouldn’t it?
“Don’t volunteer Nancy’s existence,” Gail said to Anita. This was something her household president needed to be involved in. Anita wasn’t happy with her involvement, but she needed to learn. Sylvie would hold down the household, with Van, and their number one job was to keep track of Nancy. Kurt, Vic and Valerie were Gail’s bodyguards. “I’m going to do the Focus trick and forget she exists for a while.” The trick wouldn’t hold up through a torture session or an angry Arm interrogation, but should be just fine for normal circumstances.
They meandered across the meaner sections of Detroit, Gail with her window rolled down and waving to her acquaintances. Most of near north Detroit knew who she was – the crazy hippie Focus who liked to help people. Several of them also knew of her work with Kurt’s ‘side business’ and knew her household wasn’t one to cross.
“Hold!” Gail said, a hundred yards from the now burned out entrance to Wendy’s old place. “Keaton’s here, as well as, hell, four mature Arms and two student Arms.” Arms Haggerty, Hancock, Rayburn, and Sibrian. They all metasensed as in an excessively growly mood, which for Arms was saying something.
“And you’re going in there, Gail?” Anita said, after the car’s brakes squeaked the car to a stop with a bouncing lurch.
“Not unless pressed.” She didn’t want any damned juice-hungry student Arms around her people. “Out of the car. Let’s see if Arm Keaton recognizes the problem and comes over to us.”
She did, along with Arm Haggerty. Gail was surprised to see Haggerty working with Keaton. A year and a month ago Arm Haggerty had challenged Arm Keaton after Haggerty returned as a hero from some crazy fight in Europe, where Haggerty had killed the great enemy of the European Transforms, the Purifier. Haggerty lost the challenge and ended up serving Arm Keaton for a year, helping her teach the student Arms. That ended last month, after which Arm Haggerty dropped Arm Keaton’s tag and stalked off. Today, their emotions radiated tension, but not toward each other.
“So you don’t want to have some fun and dominate my students, Gail?” Keaton said, chuckling. “Or are you afraid you wouldn’t be able to drop them before they juice sucked your people?”
Dealing with Keaton meant being polite but forceful. Except, of course, for when the Arm demanded a submission display. Knowing the difference was one of the hazards of dealing with Arms. “Killing them out of hand for twitching toward my people might perhaps be taken as impolite,” Gail said, with an artistic sniff. She had dropped frisky student Arms several times before, but never with her Transforms around. She had never killed anyone before, either, but she suspected she might not be able to hold back her temper in this situation…and student Arms were so easy to take down. Just tag them and take their juice.
Keaton laughed. “I have the Commander riding herd on them. So, what the fuck happened to Wendy?” The latter the Arm said fiercely enough to get Gail’s people to back off. Gail supported them with her charisma and barely kept them from fleeing in terror.
“Ma’am. I only know what I experienced, and what Wendy told me.” Keaton stalked up to Gail and backed her up against the side of her car. “She told me to tell you that it wasn’t your fault.”
“What. Happened.”
“Something. What Wendy said, and she wasn’t telling me everything and may have been lying, was that the Arm pet harassment never stopped, and had been getting worse recently. She said Joyce Miller told her that she was now officially no longer supported by the Focus Network, but I don’t believe that was the final straw.”
“Wendy didn’t say where she was going?” Keaton’s breath smelled like raw meat. She didn’t back off, and kept pressing Gail. Gail tuned her charisma to ‘I pledge to be as helpful as I possibly can’, and in that, she didn’t lie.
“No.” Over the years, Gail had grown used to Keaton’s forceful style, and she no longer shivered in terror every time they talked. Keaton didn’t mind; apparently, Gail didn’t give off the touchy possessive Focus vibes the other Focuses did and which Keaton thought of as dominance displays. Or so Keaton said. Much of what the Arm said turned out to be a story to cover something far deeper, so Gail didn’t take this for granted when she dealt with the other Arms. “Only there’s only one real answer, ma’am – the West Region. The Focuses out there aren’t as much under the thumb of the first Focuses as they are in the Midwest, East and South regions. They did a much better job at pushing back at the Arm pet nonsense than we did.”
Gail flickered her eyes over to the impassive Arm Haggerty. “There’s more going on here than meets the eye, Gail,” Haggerty said. “We suspect active enemy activity.” Arm Haggerty had a juice trick allowing her to make friends with people. The trick didn’t work on Gail, but Gail remained friendly with the tall Arm anyway. This annoyed Haggerty, and she couldn’t figure out Gail in the slightest.
“I need to run through your memories of your last meeting with Wendy,” Keaton said.
“Oh?” Now Gail shivered. “I thought we agreed not to use that trick except in emergencies.” The last time they did it Gail ended up putting Buddy Attendale in an arm-lock and shoving his face in the carpet because he annoyed her too much. Keaton spent an entire ten minutes in Gail’s household’s nursery cooing at babies.
“She was mine, and they drove her off,” Keaton said. She didn’t have to say ‘and I’m going to make them pay’.
“Okay, but if you end up gossiping with Tricia about bar pickups again, don’t blame me.”
“I’ve gotten better.”
So have I, Gail didn’t say. That would have been an inappropriate dominance display.
“Amy here is going to listen and analyze.” Gail nodded. Arm Haggerty’s analysis trances were a bit on the strange side, but they were useful. Gail turned to her people.
“I won’t be able to support you with my charisma, so get ready.” Anita blanched and grabbed hold of Kurt with a tight grip. Kurt took a deep breath and checked his weapon to make sure the safety was on. Around Arms, unless they told you otherwise, you assumed they, and not your bodyguards, were protecting you. Bodyguards needed to keep their weapons holstered and their safeties on, because being around Arms often made people twitch at the most inopportune moments. “Anita, you’ve never seen this, so be warned, things are going to get strange.” Anita paused before nodding.
Gail knelt, the only way for the short Arm to get eye to eye with her that didn’t leave both of them with aching necks afterwards. She ignored the gritty Hamtramck street attempting to carve little divots into her knees through her jeans. Keaton squatted down and did her trance-inducing trick, and Gail let her, and in turn opened up her juice powered memory trick.
Keaton pushed and Gail recited. As with all the other times she and Keaton had done this trick, Gail re-experienced the events in more vivid detail and with more attention to her surroundings than when sh
e had experienced them the first time. And, as before, there were moments when Gail’s voice came from Keaton, and vice versa. Those moments bothered Arm Haggerty more than they bothered Anita, of course. Why? Because Haggerty was a pussy, afraid of her own shadow, and someone who thought of the unknown as such a dangerous threat that she needed to write it down in her little black book to be investigated later.
The last had to be a Keaton thought.
“…and she introduced me to someone I used charisma to forget, and…”
“That isn’t useful, Gail.”
“Household secrets, yah know.”
“It’s relevant.”
“I agree, but I made an agreement.”
“We’ll discuss this later.”
“Fine by me. Then…”
They continued, and as Keaton drew out her memories Gail realized she had witnessed a post-combat cleanup. While Keaton pulled out the memories, Gail metasensed Hancock using the other Arms as props, moving them back and forth, in what Gail recognized as some form of crime scene reconstruction.
“This is a contest?” Gail asked. The words came out of Keaton’s mouth in Gail’s voice, Keaton being a perfect voice mimic.
“Uh huh, a contest to see which method works faster, Amy’s analysis or Carol’s juice trace reconstruction. Those two have gotten into contests recently,” Keaton said. The words came out of Gail’s mouth in a rough approximation of Keaton’s voice. “Which turns out to be metaphorically connected to this series of events, but I’m not sure how, yet.” The latter was a slip on Keaton’s part, as she rarely revealed her mystical side around anyone except Gail.
“Let’s start again from when you went back inside the compound to talk to Wendy about your ‘household secret’,” Keaton said. “You saw some recent bullet holes in the stack of Chevy hoods, out of your peripheral vision, didn’t you?” Gail rolled the memory skein back.
“Yes, eleven low caliber…”
A squack from the walkie Keaton was carrying interrupted them. “Ma’am, you would not believe what’s coming toward you now. I don’t believe this is a coincidence.” The voice was Gilgamesh’s.
“Fuck,” Keaton said. “Break!”
Gail blinked and fell out of the trance; as she recovered, she missed Gilgamesh’s comment about what was coming toward them. Something about the universal prize patrol spitting out a big one and screwy natural metasense shields. She stood, found Haggerty in her personal space, ear cocked to listen to Keaton talking on the horn with Gilgamesh. Gail growled in annoyance at the pushy Arm. Haggerty gave ground but growled back, knives appearing in her hands.
“Come on, you two, no infighting in a hot situation,” Keaton said. Gail swore Keaton had just used Gail’s charisma on the two of them.
Haggerty looked at Keaton, then back at Gail, and then relaxed and put away her knives. “I need a vacation, which this damned quest doesn’t count as.”
Shit! Haggerty’s the Arm sucked into Nancy’s quest! Gail stepped forward and gently put her finger on the walkie’s call button. Thankfully, Keaton let her (or, Gail suspected, Keaton gave ground to herself). “Gilgamesh, get yourself down here and join my bodyguard crew,” Gail said. “I think we’re going to need your insights, and you might need our protection.”
“That’s a good idea, Focus Rickenbach,” Gilgamesh said. Gail smiled. It was nice having Gilgamesh in the same part of the country again. Chicago wasn’t too far away, and even a part time Crow was better than no Crow at all.
Amy froze for a second, as did Gail. Something unique had just popped into her metasense, roughly four hundred feet away. In a car. The impossible Transform had been hidden from Arm Haggerty until now.
Haggerty vanished from sight and ran off, now using her metasense shields to become little more than a vague shadow in Gail’s metasense.
“We’re being played,” Keaton said.
“But by who?” Gail said.
“You stay here and hide yourselves. Get Gilgamesh to help. I’ve got a disaster to manage.” As Keaton spoke, and walked away, Gilgamesh appeared out of nowhere, disguised as Van – interesting social commentary here, a stray Keaton thought said in Gail’s head – and took his place among Gail’s people.
“Anita, say hello to Gilgamesh.” Her household president hadn’t noticed Gilgamesh’s arrival. Gail kept Anita from panicking.
Gail suspected things were about to get chaotic.
Dan Freeman: October 8, 1971
“Dammit, which of these fucking expressways are we supposed to take, anyway?”
“I-375.”
“I-375 was two exits ago.”
“I think that was I-375 south.”
Matt’s comment didn’t make sense. I thought we had missed the exit, somehow. I hated big city driving, and so Matt drove again. I had spelled him part way through Ohio, despite the illegalities. We used a four year old map of Michigan to navigate with, and the map sucked, because of all the construction. Map mistakes, as well. Expressways renamed. Expressways marked as under construction old enough to have grooves dug into their surfaces from the studded snow tires. Expressways marked as proposed all new and built and in the wrong place. None of the two digit interstates save I-94 were finished inside of Detroit. My map showed I-75 going through town, but no longer. No, dammit, that wasn’t right. There was an I-75 north on the map in the same place that the road sign said I-375 south.
In the confusion, we missed our exit.
“Exit here,” I said. Hamtramck sat only a few miles away. We could drive there by the surface roads. This one, Conant Drive, headed in the proper direction. Besides, it was dusk, with no flashlight or working car interior lights, and the tiny state-map version of Detroit showed none of these roads. Matt, white knuckled and sweaty, took us off I-94 and down to Conant.
I didn’t like desolate big cities after dark, and I spent my time double and triple checking that the doors were all locked. As we drove to the northwest on Conant, the scenery rapidly went downhill. Poor. Hadn’t there been race riots in Detroit several years ago? I mean, this Focus had to be white, right? They wouldn’t send me to a black Focus, would they? Hell, I grew up in an all-white town, and I never even met any blacks until I got drafted. Everyone in the army seemed to be able to read ‘prejudiced white idiot’ on my forehead. Gimme a few years, and I’m sure I would have grown out of the problem.
The damned TS, though, didn’t give me the years I needed.
I gawked out the window some more, shook my head, and we drove farther. I had lived with rural poverty all my life, but never anything like this. Block after block of half demolished worksites, boarded up storefronts, houses with every opening boarded up with cheap plywood. Burned out husks of buildings. People on the street, as suspicious of me as I remained of them. Perhaps more so. Abandoned factories and warehouses. Graffiti on everything.
“Damn, this is ba-ad, Dan. This place give me the creeps,” Matt said.
“Mann lives in Hamtramck, which sounds like an entire suburb filled with Polacks. Can’t be this bad.”
The desolation improved a little when Hamtramck appeared on our left. The suburb’s city-houses sat all in a row, on narrow lots, houses from before the Great Depression. The clinic’s card file listed the Mann residence address and nearest cross streets, and the rent-a-doc at the clinic swore up and down their information was current, updated monthly. They had sent several Transforms to Focus Mann over the past few years; she was some sorta prodigy for a Focus, with an ever-growing household. No problems, ever. She had even put in an informal request for veterans.
We found the first cross street and Matt turned left. Here, over half the shops still possessed their windows and most of the houses appeared inhabited. I saw my first white person, an old lady pushing a little hand cart with a couple of bags of groceries on it. Nobody paid any attention to her, so the place would be okay. Or so I prayed.
“I wouldn’t want to live here,” Matt said. Pause. “Ever.”
“Well
, college boy, I’m not sure I get a choice. Getting used to a place like this can’t be as hard as getting used to being a Transform.” Not that I even noticed being a Transform. That, of course, was the big mumbo jumbo of the Goldilocks – everything was just right. Your handy-dandy stand-alone boring normal ol’ Transform with nothing special about them. Save for the laws of Indiana, Michigan and the fucking United States itself; they all classified me as a male Transform, too dangerous to be out in the community by myself because I could go into withdrawal and turn into a brain-sucking rotting skin long-clawed psycho killer.
So, a Focus household for me.
There. On the left they hadn’t torn down the street sign like they had on the right, and it said ‘Garfield’, the second cross street from the clinic’s information. “Turn here,” I said.
“Which way?”
“Right. Try right.” I peered at street names and house numbers. “We’re looking for Milton Street. If we don’t find it soon, we need to go back the other way.”
Matt caught it first. “Milton Street. Hey, Goldie, this isn’t a residential neighborhood.” He turned left.
Goldie? Bastard. I peered through the window and saw a warehouse, three one-room businesses, a junkyard, a small packaging place, and then another junkyard. We had crossed a zoning law line or something. The street numbers appeared to be a couple hundred off.
“Gotta turn around, Matt. The numbers are going the wrong way.” We needed 341 Milton, we were in the 200s and going down.
Matt did an inexpert doughnut and headed back. Something thumped on the car roof, hard, making my nerves twitch. When we crossed Garfield, the next car going up Garfield toot-toot-tooted their horn at us, the people in the car giving us the bird, gesturing at the roof of Matt’s car. Strange. I felt uneasy even thinking about it.
Something Transform inside me barked at me like mad.
I checked numbers, and said “Whoh.” Matt brought the car to a stop, and whistled. 341 Milton no longer existed. The street number was marked on the remnants of an outer wall in spray paint.
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