“Go to.”
The saw, and a hammer and chisel, did their jobs in Hank’s steady hands, and after a messy five minutes, he had the brain open, and blood dripping off the commandeered kitchen worktable down to the floor. Another two minutes passed before Hank let out a whistle.
“I’ve never seen this before,” he said, after Tonya came up.
Neither had she, though as far as autopsies went, this was the first she had participated in on a human. She had expected the gore to bother her, at least a little, but it didn’t. The Monsters she had seen autopsied must have been human enough inside to inure her. “Those are withdrawal scars,” she said, inspecting the bloody exposed brain. “But I’ve never seen them in a pattern like…wait.”
Goosebumps covered her body, in sudden fear. She closed her eyes and metasensed the captives. Yes. Dammit!
“Tonya?”
“A second,” she said, gathering her thoughts. Everything became clear to her: the Julius rebellion, Julius’ absurd number of male Transforms, and their previously unexplained charisma resistance. “Focus Schrum’s people metasense the same, but I’d never realized before why. This was done to them on purpose.”
“I don’t understand,” Hank said.
“Suzie’s people have similar scarring, at least as far as I can metasense. Unlike any other Focus I know of, she regularly punishes her people by taking them down into withdrawal for a few seconds. She says that if you do it right, you can change someone’s personality, and how they react to the juice, and she’s offered to teach me the trick several times. I’ve seen her do this.” Her withdrawal-dipping trick hadn’t been a pretty sight. Tonya thought herself a hard woman, but the day she saw Suzie Schrum do the withdrawal-dipping to one of her own people, Tonya had learned how soft she was.
“Directed withdrawal scarring,” Hank said, now radiating high anger and fear. She had never sensed him angry, before. Outwardly, he hid his emotions well.
“I turned down her offer, Hank,” Tonya said, quickly. “Human beings shouldn’t be able to do this to one another. It’s just wrong.”
Hank nodded. He paused, thinking, and slowly relaxing. “If we posit that directed withdrawal scarring can change a Transform, than this explains all the troubling aspects of the fight you described.” He wanted to wring his blood soaked hands together, but just as he was about to, he stopped. Too messy.
Tonya used her charisma to buoy Hank, who probably hadn’t stood this long since his injury. “I believe it does, but I’d like to hear your explanation to see if matches up with mine.”
“Her soldiers weren’t full members of her household, but people grabbed from Clinics to serve as shooters. Cannon fodder. Expendables. They are made to obey and fight by the withdrawal scarring. I can explain the charisma resistance the same way – by burning their empathy out of their minds. That’s how Focus charisma works, I strongly suspect, by engaging the hormonal and neural pathways associated with empathy.” He paused and took a deep breath, difficult with a corpse and open brain in front of them. “This is what Julius wants with her rebellion – freedom for Focuses to do this crap to their people. The only thing I can’t figure out is what drove her to this level of inhumanity.” She had never heard Hank open up before, on any topic of Transform morality. She had wondered where his limits were, or even if he had any. She was glad to find his limits near her own.
“Ignore the why,” Tonya said. “The ‘how’ here is critically important, something we can use. Stooping this low is a serious mistake on Julius’ part. Do you understand?”
Hank blinked, and turned to her. “It’s a political lever,” he said, as she said the exact same words.
“How do you feel about presenting this to the Council?” Tonya said. They had to act, and act fast. It wouldn’t take Julius and her crony Focuses long to figure out why the attack on Tonya’s place went wrong. Keaton, still not recovered and still not experienced enough to know how to escape from a multi-Focus manhunt, would have a life expectancy measured in weeks. Since Julius had escaped Tonya’s trap, Tonya’s life expectancy wasn’t much longer unless she could get the Council’s backing to do something to stop Julius. Next time, Julius would show up with several households of her South Region cronies and overwhelm Tonya and her people.
Using Keaton this way was only a one shot trick.
“Only if you agree to let me go, afterwards.”
“I can agree to that.”
Grilled Zielinski (1964)
Not even one of the South Region Focuses attended the emergency Focus Council meeting, though Focus Claunch did proxy her vote to Polly and send her condolences. Scary politics, and nerve-wracking.
Hank wondered what had been going through his mind to make him think that attending a Council meeting, especially on this subject, would be either sane, conducive to his health, helpful to his career, or even helpful to any of the Focuses he normally dealt with. None of whom were here.
Too many of the wrong sort of Focuses attended the meeting in the half-empty warehouse, three in particular who weren’t on the Council: Focuses Donna Fingleman, Suzie Schrum, and Wini Adkins. Both Fingleman and Adkins looked at him with unabashed hatred, while Suzie eyed him hungrily.
He should have come disguised. With a false name. He suspected Tonya’s charisma had gotten to him, and he hadn’t even noticed. Dammit, he had thought he was better than this.
He found himself standing while the Focuses sat in wooden folding chairs in an irregular circle around him. Various reheated snacks filled scattered card tables, but the odor of them was lost in the chemical smell of some sort of oil-based product in stacked drums that filled the other half of the warehouse.
“Dr. Zielinski, did you witness the attack?” Focus Keisterman asked. He turned to face her. She, the Council president, was a classic doctor and researcher hating Focus, one he had dealt with only once before. He had left the year-ago meeting shaking and vowing to stay out of Focus politics for good. The force of her gaze was powerful enough to make his hands shake, again, and his voice quaver.
“Parts of it,” he said. “I was in the next door building, helping defend the non-combatants.”
“From a wheelchair?” The Focuses tittered, sabotaging his control and making him doubt his own memories. Group Focus charisma. He wasn’t sure if any of these strong-willed Focuses understood the power of their group charisma, to him far more potent than a simple linear sum would indicate.
“I am familiar with firearms, madam President,” he said. “Nor am I psychologically thrown by combat.”
Focus Sanderson leaned over to Focus Elspeth and audibly whispered “Trust Tonya to drag one of her mad scientists into this mess.” Sanderson’s comment set off a whispered wave of Focus backbiting that Focus Keisterman had to glare into submission before she could continue.
“Did you by chance look outside, at the attackers?” Focus Keisterman said.
“I did.” He wanted to elaborate, but Focus Keisterman’s charisma wouldn’t let him.
She leaned forward, intent. “Did you get a count on them?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Now she let him elaborate. “Forty-four men and one woman. Thirty-eight Transform men; at the time, ma’am, I assumed several Focus households supported them. I did note that all of the thirty eight carried themselves strangely; walking with a physical carriage indicating low juice, but with a sharp awareness implying a far higher juice count.”
“This creepy old doc knows too much for a normal,” Focus Weiczokowski, the Midwest Region rep, said. According to Tonya, this was only Focus Weiczokowski’s second Council meeting. Her own boss, Focus Adkins, shushed her.
“You state your assertion with far greater confidence than I would expect from a man without a metasense,” Focus Keisterman said. “Do you ever make mistakes in identification?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He took a moment to wipe sweat from his brow with a handkerchief in his still-shaking right hand. The windowless warehouse bore f
ar too strong a resemblance to an oven. “I regularly miss Transforms, misidentifying them as normals. I should, then, amend my earlier statement to reflect that I identified at least thirty eight Transform men.”
“You don’t ever misidentify normals as Transforms?”
“Not for many years, ma’am.”
Focus Keisterman lowered her brows and leaned forward some more. “And after the combat started? Did you participate?”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t. I followed Focus Biggioni’s orders, and covered the doorway to the room once the shooting started. None of the attackers reached the row house where I was staying, so I did not need to f-f-f-further participate.” Dammit! Focuses in general didn’t like doctors, or researchers working on Transform Sickness, though at least in the East Region most Focuses considered him safe and helpful. He swore the Council’s group disapproval of him jumped every time he said anything about his irrelevant non-combat role in the fight.
Much more of this and he would fall apart. The problem, he realized, was his own arrogance, not Focus Biggioni’s charisma. She hadn’t even needed to push him to convince him to present to the Council, despite his better judgment. Arrogance, his own arrogance, had gotten to him again. He just couldn’t turn down a challenge of this nature. He flickered his eyes over to her, but she didn’t meet his gaze, instead sitting calm and regal. She knew this would take him down a peg or two.
“Thank you, Dr. Zielinski,” Focus Keisterman said, thankfully. She dismissed him from the questioning, but not from the room. He slipped out of the circle of Focuses while she turned to Focus Schrum. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“Unfortunately,” Focus Schrum said. He and Tonya had expected the fireworks to come from the fact Focus Julius had used a private trick of Focus Shrum’s, but, so far, none of the Council members appeared to care, although Focus Sanderson, the West Region representative, did look disgusted every time the withdrawal scarring issue came up. “I believe Focus Julius has made a grave mistake, and is flaunting Council Edict Two.”
Hank sank gratefully into a chair in the corner, with a brick wall to his right and a metal drum to his left. His legs were still trying to shake. “Two?” Focus Weiczokowski said. “I’m not familiar with Edict Two.”
“It forbids the temporary tagging of Transforms for purposes detrimental to the public relations of the Transform community,” Focus Keisterman said. “In plainer language, it forbids tagging a Transform for use as cannon fodder in some conflict, instead of for the purpose of bringing him into your household.”
“That’s even possible?” Focus Weiczokowski said, a ‘ewwwh’ reaction on her face.
Every other attending Focus save for Sanderson fidgeted in mild embarrassment. They were all hard enough to do such things.
“If you don’t mind, ma’am, I would like to propose that the disciplining of a first Focus for an activity forbidden since our underground days” post-Quarantine escape but before Kennedy’s pardon “should be undertaken by us, the other first Focuses,” Focus Adkins said, after turning to the Council President.
Focus Keisterman nodded. “I have no problems with your proposal. Anyone else?”
“I was looking forward to taking her down myself,” Tonya said. Showing no emotion. “However, I’m not going to speak or vote against such a proposal. I understand the reasoning involved.”
They voted, and made it so. This had the air of something agreed upon ahead of time, between the Council President and Focus Adkins.
“Polly, I’m going to request the Council fix an oversight, and forbid the new use of this technique,” Focus Schrum said. New use. Hank didn’t react, trying to hide his disgust at the realization the Council would be grandfathering in Focus Schrum’s use of directed withdrawal scarring.
Focus Keisterman smiled. “This sounds like a wonderful idea to me,” she said. “I think we should also forbid its teaching, or any form of dissemination of the information involved.” Focus Schrum thought for a moment, then nodded. “Discussion, anyone?”
---
“So, Tonya picked you to deal with me, eh?” Keaton said. After his return from the emergency Council meeting, Tonya convinced him to contact the Arm. He had agreed, for his own reasons. “She’s not as strong a Focus as I thought.”
“Oh, she’s plenty strong,” Hank said. “She’s a bit busy right now, though. She’s got a battle to fight.”
“And she wants my help. How cute.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “She’s offering to pay you in cash, or Clinic Transforms.” The latter was enough, by itself, to convince him Tonya hadn’t lost a bit of her hard edge, despite her grief over the loss of one of her household Transforms.
“Fuck,” Keaton said. She paced around the cheap hotel room, having fun with her crutch – she was regrowing her amputated leg, but it was a long way from being full sized – twirling around on her crutch at the end of each pace run. “I want a piece of that bitch Julius myself, so, yes, I’ll take the latter.”
Hank winced and turned away. “Ma’am. Tonya’s been assigned the task of running down Focus DeYoung, not Focus Julius.”
“What?” Keaton had him by his shirt collar, breathing heavily into his face, before he registered the start of her move. “Explain, dammit.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he said, shaking. This bouncing back and forth between Major Transforms had to stop. He was going to go hide in his office back at Harvard and never go out into the field again. If he survived this meeting.
He had promised himself this a half dozen times before, ever since Rose Desmond shot him. Perhaps this time he would follow through with his pledge. The humiliating Council meeting had rubbed his nose in his own weakness in a way he suspected would stick.
“Let me run down the events of the Council meeting,” he said. He gave the Arm his full attention, repeating as many of the details as he could remember, making sure he passed along all the information he knew about the withdrawal scarring. He wasn’t happy about the Council forbidding him to ever talk about the withdrawal scarring technique; although willing to keep it secret from academics, he wasn’t willing in the slightest to keep it a secret from Keaton. He ended with the discussion and vote that got Tonya assigned the task of running down DeYoung.
Keaton let go of his shirt collar and dropped him back into his wheelchair after he finished. “They’re insane!” She paused. “Here I’ve been worrying I might not be able to deal with the Focuses because they might be disgusted about my morality, and they’re fucking worse!” Pace, twirl. Pace, twirl. “They’re worse than the goddamned Mafia!” Of which she appeared to have ample experience.
“The Quarantine breakout made the Focuses hard, and they’ve never recovered,” Hank said. “The Focuses don’t want to deal with you so you can sit around and discuss knitting with them.”
“I know that. I just didn’t realize my most likely targets were going to be other Focuses.”
“I think this is a onetime thing,” Hank said. “At least, until the next rebellion.”
“Bullfuckingshit,” Keaton said. “You don’t need to do much reading between the lines to realize the major point of the fucking Council is to keep other Focuses in line.”
Hank shrugged. After what he experienced in the Council meeting, he could easily believe the Arm’s assertion. “All I can say is one time in front of the Council was enough for me. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I find you far easier to deal with than the leading Focuses.”
“Save for my little mental issues?” Keaton barked laughter. “They’re as hazardous to my long-term survival as they are to yours. If you ever come up with any way of fixing them, or even any ideas to try…”
“I wish I could, ma’am, but such things are well beyond the scientific understanding of Major Transforms,” Hank said. Dammit, he was shaking again.
“So, do you think Tonya’s going to ever let you out of her clutches?”
“Are you willing to help?”
/> “How serious are you?”
He took a breath to make sure he had his shaking under control for this discussion. “Tonya promised me she would let me go after the Council meeting, but then tacked on the need for me to have this meeting with you. I’ve decided I’m going to interpret her promise as meaning I’m free to go now, before she tacks on any other new tasks.” He paused. “With your permission, ma’am.” He carried his important stuff with him, in his doctor bag, which right now didn’t carry any doctoring equipment. His medical tools were replaceable; his passports, fake IDs, and research notes were not.
“Uh huh, you’re mine, not that bitch’s, glad you recognize the truth,” Keaton said. “I want you out of here, too, but leaving like this is going to annoy the crap out of her.”
“She’ll get over it,” Hank said. “Or not. I’ve learned my lesson, though. Tonya’s too much for me to handle, and I’m going to be staying as far away from her as I can.”
“Yah,” Keaton said. “I’m with you on that. I think Tonya and I are going to have a nice telephone-style relationship. I think I’ll take her up on her offer, though, just to keep her occupied and out of your hair. Do you want a lift to the train station, Hank?”
Yes! “I’d much appreciate it, ma’am.” He was going to get out of this mess alive. Thank God.
Commander’s Fall (1964)
“So tell me, oh great marvel of grousing, how the hell did you find where this bitch is hiding, anyway?” Keaton said. For safety sake, Tonya had only one bodyguard with her for this meeting, Clancy, a normal. She met with the Arm by the side of a two-lane country road bisecting endless cornfields, and Keaton was definitely in a mood. “Not only is this East Buttfuck, Indiana, but there’s no sign of any Transforms in the area.” This part of southeastern Indiana was as flat as any place Tonya had ever been and carpeted by fields of corn, with only the rare small copse of forest or occasional farm building breaking the monotony. The sun shone hot out of a cloudless sky, and not even the wind moved.
The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight Page 9