Beasts Ascendant: The Chronicles of the Cause, Parts One and Two

by Randall Farmer

  “What are you going to do with us?” Gwen said, the woman who ran the place, with her husband Tim. She tried to step forward, but Autumn Maybray knocked her back against the wall with a snap of her forearm. “You can’t…”

  “I’m sending you to a new Focus,” Gail said. “New Focuses transform all the time, and some are naturally inclined to strictness. My first choice is Focus Strup, currently in Nashville. Unlike Focus Minton, who transformed as a teen, Strup was thirty-eight when she transformed, and a head waitress besides. She won’t take any lip from the likes of you.”

  That settled that, and Gilgamesh carried Focus Minton out of the reeking closet that had served as her home for the past several years – save when her people decided she deserved punishment and chained her in the basement – and took her to the car. He carefully explained that he wouldn’t be staying with her. Focus Minton stared with wide eyes and didn’t say a word.

  ---

  “So, I guess I’m being enslaved again, this time by much rougher Transforms,” Focus Minton said. She sat with her thin legs curled up in front of her and her arms around her knees, looking small in the large chair. Gilgamesh had needed to call in Gail to help fix up Focus Minton. Gilgamesh and Gail sat with their backs against the wall in the main Inferno common room in the Branton, while, using shared metasenses, they attempted to undo the years of damage Focus Minton suffered in her dross-infested closet.

  “No,” Sadie Tucker said, with a kindly voice. She sat next to the Focus in a normal sized chair that looked like it belonged at a dining room table. The poet had taken an instant liking to the young Focus. The rest of the Inferno leadership team approved, and gave Sadie the responsibility for looking out for the newly freed captive. “We want to train you.” She tilted her head sideways and gave Focus Minton a half grin. “Really!”

  “What happens after I’m trained?”

  “You go put together a household of your choice,” Sadie said.

  “So what’s with the doctor, here? He’s not much of a Transform.”

  “Him?” Sadie looked at Zielinski, who shrugged. “He’ll make sure you don’t suffer any medical maladies after your liberation. He’s been treating Focuses for what, fifteen odd years now?”

  “Very odd years,” Zielinski said. “Though I only transformed recently, on last Christmas day.” Not even a month ago.

  “But you said your household is going to tag me.”

  Zielinski and Sadie nodded. “Yes, though it’s not what you think,” Sadie said. “The tagging is a way of ensuring harmony between us. Also, a way to test some ideas we’ve been banging around our household for years.”

  Focus Minton didn’t appear convinced. She squirmed in her chair and avoided their eyes. “How is this done?”

  Sadie turned to Gail and Gilgamesh. Zielinski’s gaze followed and, seeing Gail, he went all Arm stone-faced. He hadn’t realized she was still around. Fancy that. Gail smiled. “They tagged me as an experiment. It worked, but I turned it off after three hours because Inferno’s not really my household.”

  “What’s this going to do to me?” Focus Minton asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gail said. “I can only say what it did to me, which was to give me the urge to be a hyper-aggressive Focus bitch with a stick up my butt.” Focus Minton reddened. “In my case, coals to Newcastle and all that.”

  “So that’s why you dropped the tag,” Sadie said, empathizing with Gail for once. “I didn’t know.”

  “That’s because she wouldn’t tell us, being a hyper-aggressive Focus Bitch with a stick up her ass,” Ann Chiron said. Everyone in the room laughed, even Focus Minton. Ann stood in a far corner of the room, alone and vigilant. Ostensibly, she tagged along as a bodyguard. Gail doubted anyone had told Focus Minton that Ann was Inferno’s real head of household, and ran things by delegating the day-to-day leadership to Connie. They never told anybody. Figuring out this secret was one of the Inferno intelligence tests that in their minds separated the wheat from the chaff.

  The real reason Chiron bothered to show up was to make sure Gail didn’t interfere.

  Gail hoped Inferno lived up to their word. Focus Minton was an innocent twenty-three year old Focus, one of the young ones eaten alive by a household of fully adult, nasty and willful Transforms. The Inferno tag might even give her a spine. Eventually.

  “Can I tag the Inferno Transforms as normal?” Focus Minton hesitated for a moment. “Move juice on my own?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said, smiling her pretty smile, her only pretty feature. Sadie was a published poet, good with words, words that felt wise and were wise. Not a fighter, not a genius, but someone flowing with creativity and empathy. “I have no doubt that you’ll prosper, Focus Minton. I won’t lie to you and say this will be easy, as what your household did to you left scars that will be painful to heal. However, we promise to treat you as Transforms should treat their Focus, with love.”

  Focus Minton wrung her bony hands together. She was all bony sticks and skin, practically a walking corpse. Gail had cornered Zielinski an hour ago and asked him what was wrong with Focus Minton, and whether he could fix her. He told Gail that they were taking care of the worst, the dross poisoning, and he would be able to fix the next worst, which turned out to be vitamin deficiencies. Having Transforms who would love her would do the rest, Gail suspected. The only question was whether Inferno would be able to love Focus Minton without needing for her to be wounded.

  “It’s been so long since I had any hope,” Focus Minton said. “I’m not sure I could cope with Transforms who love me. I’m not sure I believe in love anymore.”

  Sadie looked over to Ann with a question on her face, something Gail guessed they had talked about earlier. Ann nodded, and turned to Focus Minton. “I’ve been personally entrusted with one of our house treasures,” Ann said. “I’ve often found it gives me hope and reminds me to love. You need to touch it, Focus Minton, and see. You too, Hank.”

  Zielinski furrowed his white eyebrows. Ann bent over and picked up the gun case she always carried with her, ever since Lori went north. She opened it up to reveal the Eskimo Spear. Gail didn’t realize they still kept it in a shielded container. That was stupid. The Spear needed to react to the Transform community as it changed. Even as Gail thought about the Spear, she sensed the dross object singing to her ‘they come!’, the Eskimo Spear’s never ending warning about the Hunters.

  “I touched it before,” Zielinski said. Gail knew the story, about how Lori and Ann dared him to touch it, before he transformed. He hadn’t believed such a thing could exist, or could affect non-Transforms. Wrong as usual, he saw the vision trapped inside it and perhaps dialed his evil back by one part in a thousand.

  “Not as a Transform,” Ann said.

  “Is this safe? It’s a weapon, isn’t it?” Focus Minton said.

  “We don’t know what it is, actually,” Ann said. “Transforms made this in the past, over a thousand years ago, and it’s our only tangible proof that Transform Sickness isn’t new to our age. The vision you’ll see is what gives us hope that Transform Sickness is survivable. When the doubts of the darkest nights creep in, when it seems that Transform Sickness is going to destroy us, the vision this ancient relic of the past provides gives me strength.” She took the Eskimo Spear in her hands, smiled, and turned to both Zielinski and Focus Minton. “Here. Both of you. Touch it with me.”

  Zielinski did so, and hesitantly, after he didn’t keel over, so did Focus Minton.

  Touched by a Focus, and with Gail and Gilgamesh available for raw power, the vision within the Eskimo Spear sprang out to cover the room, visible to all. The spear showed them an orderly arctic camp, and the Eskimo tribe responsible. In the front sat a dozen tribal elders, haggard and worn by time. Behind them stood the sixty or so leading citizens, the mature adult leaders of the tribe. Behind them stood and crouched hundreds more, the ones who were led and cherished by the rest. With Gail and Gilgamesh to power the Spear, the illusion became far more v
ivid and real than normal. With them here, anyone with a metasense could tell that this was a tribe of Transforms, including the many children of the Transforms.

  Even Zielinski teared up at the vision. Focus Minton didn’t tear up, instead radiating wonder. Sadie put her hand on Zielinski’s, and they both touched Focus Minton’s elbow, so Focus Minton could feel their strength and support. Gail smiled; if Sadie pulled tricks like that often enough, Zielinski might even learn to love a Focus for the first time in his misbegotten life.

  Focus Minton let go of the spear. “After your household tags me, will you let me Dream, Sadie?” Focus Minton said, her voice a bare whisper, her eyes downcast.

  Interesting. Focus Minton was supposed to be completely without talent of any variety. Talent in the Dreaming would explain Focus Patterson’s interest in her, and could also cause Inferno some nasty problems later. Hunters went after Focuses with the capability to work in the Dreaming, and Tim Egins, one of the Inferno leaders, was convinced this was why the Hunters had targeted Focus Elspeth in specific.

  “Oh, you’re one of the Focuses who Dream?” Sadie said. “No, I won’t pry, I know that none of the Major Transforms who Dream ever want to talk about it. We would never interfere with that, Focus Minton. You’ll still be able to speak to your Dream friends.”

  “Thank you,” Focus Minton said, the barest hint of a smile on her face. “Call me Mimi. All my Dream friends do.”

  Escaping Inferno (1/21/73)

  Gail stood in the 5th floor elevator lobby of the Branton, alone. The lobby’s windows looked out over the front parking circle, where in the Branton’s former existence as a hotel, bellhops unloaded the guests’ luggage and valets took cars to the parking garage. Today, semi-trucks. Inferno’s day to leave.

  The elevator door dinged behind Gail, and Sylvie walked out, steaming mad. She came over to stand beside Gail. “You could have charisma-ed him, you know.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I felt your fight all the way up here.” Sylvie and Kurt’s fight with Van. Given that she just watched Van climb in the fifth car in the entourage behind the moving vans, she knew they hadn’t won.

  “The fucking idiot,” Sylvie said. “Are you going to divorce the bastard, or should I find someone to run him over in a dark alley?”

  “I want him back,” Gail said, to which Sylvie muttered something about Gail’s eternal softhearted foolishness. “I want him back after he apologizes for being a jerk.” She missed him already. She waited as Daisy ran over to the fifth car and got in with Van. Zielinski, that bastard, followed Daisy, much more slowly. “Inferno can keep Zielinski, though.”

  Sylvie chuckled. “If only we hadn’t gotten Arm Haggerty’s research materials, Hank would still be slaving away for you on the juice music project, Van would still be writing his Arm book, and Daisy would still be doing her faux PhD thesis for Hank on the four respiratory states of Transforms.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Gail said. Pinning this all on Haggerty was almost conspiracy-theory insane. How could one person, even if the person was a brilliant Arm, have figured out how much trouble a load of research materials would cause? At best she had dropped them off to distract Gail and keep Gail out of her hair. Right? “I would have needed to move Zielinski to a different project anyway, according to Carol.”

  “I’m still not sure I understand what you were doing when you matched up Inferno with Focus Pitre, Gail. Why the crap are you helping them at all?”

  “Because I’m a nice modern Focus, not a backstabbing first Focus,” Gail said. She was. However, she liked Inferno and the Inferno people a lot better when they weren’t her people. “Focus Pitre’s on a suicide watch. She was never a political leader of the firsts, and she’s helped the Transform community for years, serving as the California Network rep.” What Keaton did to her was unconscionable, and something Gail had talked about to Tonya several times. Tonya promised Gail she would make Stacy understand her error, and eventually make restitution. “Besides, without a Crow in the house, it’s going to take two Focuses to support Inferno. Given their unrealistic expectations for attracting a household Crow, they’re going to need lots of help.”

  “I guess it’s probably a good thing I’m not a Focus,” Sylvie said. “I would have untagged them and left them to rot.” The elevator dinged behind them, and nobody stepped out.

  “So is this official business, Dan?” Nobody else could do this trick besides Gail, who had taught it to the Courtier. She had been appalled to learn that none of the Focuses Dan dealt with were willing to admit that he could learn Major Transform tricks, and certainly wouldn’t ever consider teaching them to him. I mean, he was just a Transform…

  “Yes,” Dan said, becoming visible and startling Sylvie.

  “You shouldn’t do that!” Sylvie said. She instinctively drew on Dan.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Your theories need a little work, Gail. This is the third time I failed to successfully use a Crow and Focus trick together.” The mature Crow trick that kept people from drawing on them when they surprised people had been the one that failed. He learned that one from Gilgamesh.

  “Noted,” she said. “You found something?”

  “I picked up the man’s scent,” he said. He walked over, giving Sylvie the eye, until Sylvie put away her pistol. “I think you may need to adjust your hypothesis about what’s going on, as he doesn’t appear to be in the massive throng of Transforms associated with your student Focuses.” Dan paused. “I think he may be masquerading as a Crow.”

  Gail clenched her jaw and didn’t bark, even though she wanted to. From a Focus’s perspective, the Crow habit of accepting anyone who metasensed as a Crow as a real Crow was far too open to Major Transform game playing. Add in mature Crow tricks such as juice structure spoofing, and the whole ‘loner Crow’ social system was nothing more than a giant hole in the defenses of anyone who dealt with the Crows. Gilgamesh wouldn’t admit it yet, but Gail slowly and carefully leaned on him over this issue. Her darling Crow partner possessed far too much empathy for the more downtrodden Crows.

  “Be careful,” Gail said. “Senior Crows often masquerade as pathetic Crows, and senior Crows are dangerous.” She liked Dan. She liked having him tagged and working within her household. She had a big weakness for heroes in general, which she suspected Arm Haggerty had taken full advantage of in their last meeting. “You’re sitting on something else, aren’t you?”

  Dan nodded. “Correct as always, Gail. I wasn’t bringing it up because you might take it wrong.” He paused. Gail motioned for him to continue. “I managed to learn the juice music notes, although ‘learning’ might be a bit too strong a term. ‘Cunningly copied’ might be better. Only I did it by emulating Focus Frasier, not you.”

  Gail chuckled. “Take it wrong? Not at all. Now that I think about it, it makes sense that your loaning tricks work better when you’re dealing with our more instinctive types.”

  Sylvie stopped in place, almost off balance, lost in inspiration and thought. “Gail,” she said, whispering. “The Courtier trick isn’t borrowing, it’s duplicating, via superorganism linkage and amplification. What Dan’s doing is what all top-end Transforms will be doing once we properly master the superorganism crap.”

  Gail slumped. She glowered in silence as the Inferno entourage rolled out of the driveway, turned left on Masterson Drive, and drove off. Van had been right; the superorganism tech was as big as he predicted it would be, and they were as close to cracking its mysteries as he suspected. She should have told the crew researching it to keep experimenting with her to see if they could fix the ‘household tagging a Focus’ problem they found when they tagged her.

  “I believe you’re right, Sylvie,” Gail said. Now Sylvie slumped, likely because Van just won his last argument with Sylvie in abstentia.

  He was still a jerk, though.

  Lessons (1/22/73)

  “I can’t get this,” Focus Rachel Hanneman said, eyes downcast. Gail wanted to pound her head on t
he table in frustration. Hanneman learned the juice music notes without too many problems, but couldn’t manage to turn them into the simplest juice pattern, even with a score right in front of her. Why Esther Weiczokowski thought this Focus would be a good candidate for juice music training was beyond Gail.

  Gail groaned and rubbed her abdomen, where little junior was two and a half months along. Pregnancy hormones and Rachel dim-bulb Hanneman didn’t do good things to her temper.

  They practiced today in the Littleside gym, which was a gym by only a loose definition of the word. Their normal classroom was too small for real juice pattern practice. The gym was big and tall, but the floor was rough concrete covered with a layer of sawdust, and the area above head level was a maze of ropes, poles, rings, and other paraphernalia. What little normal gym equipment lived here fit tidily in one rather small corner, near the door. Although made for Arms, the area was perfect for any Major Transform’s heavy workout. Currently, only Gail and Arm Naylor used the place. The Count’s Barony, along with Ellen, had moved to a junky rental next to a frozen over park two miles away from Littleside. They needed more room for their less intense running-based exercise. Gail, who still preferred nearly any other form of exercise to running, wished them all the luck in the world.

  With the Arm workout paraphernalia pushed to the side, the ‘gym’ made the perfect juice music laboratory. Ellen and Tillie Martin, who had learned this pattern on the first and second tries respectively, sat at one of the card tables set up to the side of the room, and studied sheets of Zielinski diagrams. The point of today’s training was to show her students how to create juice patterns directly from a Zielinski diagram.

  If only life was so simple.

  After Gail’s groan, Rachel the Exceedingly Slow turned away and began to sob. Rachel’s four bodyguards were in no better shape, from hours of being subject to Hanneman’s botched attempts at emotional manipulation. The juice pattern was bone simple – calm a tagged Transform – supposedly a reward for the hard work of the last week. Mostly, Hanneman’s juice patterns didn’t do anything, but when they did? Ugly.