All Beasts Together (The Commander) (20 page)

“Yes,” Hank said.  “
It’s already been tested, for one prediction.  In Ann and Lori’s theory, Monsters are the evolutionary precursors of the female Major Transforms.  They predicted the development of a metacampus in some Monsters.”

“Oh,” Jim said.  “That
’s why we spent a bunch of time this year hunting down old Monsters.”  As one of the household bodyguards, he must have been involved in the hunts.  He looked at Einstein.  “From the shit-eating grin on your face, they must have found them.”

“Four so far,” Einstein said.  Whack – whack – catch went the super ball.

Hank nodded. “Each metacampus precursor has been in an old Monster with a high juice count.  All are slightly different from each other and from the metacampus of a Major Transform, but the implications are obvious.  The metacampus is an inevitable development of high juice levels in any Transform; the metacampus is an evolutionary adaptation originally evolved to manage high juice levels and do nothing else.  The evolution of Major Transforms and their capabilities came later.”

“How does this
tie in with the Major Transform infinite fountain of youth?” Jim asked.

Hank’s face fell.

“Uh oh,” Jim said.  “Doc, what is it?”

“Major Transform immortality is a myth,” Hank said.  “Just because they
appear young doesn’t mean they’ll stay young.  In nature, the higher the metabolic rate of a creature at any particular mass, the shorter their lifespan.  I expect someday soon researchers are going to discover reduced average lifespans in the Major Transforms, somewhat reduced for Focuses and Crows, and significantly reduced for Arms and Chimeras.  Not, by the way, counting mortality associated with the initial transformation.”

“Do they know?” Jim asked.  In specific, ‘does
the Focus
know?’

“I haven’t ever spoken to the Focus
on the subject, but it’s in the standard literature.”

Jim
stared at the floor, his face glum, trying not to think about the inevitable tragedy of Focuses dying of cancer.  Forrest and Einstein mirrored Jim’s dour face.

“Then again, who knows,” Hank said.  “
Maybe the research community is wrong.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  Hell, the Van Reijn theory has a hole big enough for even casual commentators to notice: the fertility issue.”

“Why does that cause problems for the Van Reijn theory?” Forrest said.

“The Van Reijn theory involves multigenerational Transform evolution.  This requires female Transforms to be fertile.  They aren’t.”

After that, they sat around looking glum, until Forrest brought up the upcoming football playoffs, and they were on to another topic.

Hank’s biggest fear about his training speed theories was that implementing them would require multiple Major Transforms.  If so, he wouldn’t be able to crack it here, and given his shaky status in Inferno he might not live long enough to get another chance.

Sky: December 14, 1967 – December 17, 1967

Sky adjusted his brassiere and looked at himself in the mirror
of his tiny ‘borrowed’ apartment.  Perfect.  This time everything would be perfect, with none of the hurried mess of the tournament.

Hennie had cornered him after he
escaped the bad dream sent by a certain you-know-who in Montreal.  At two o’clock in the morning, she told him in no uncertain terms to get back to the States and try again.  Hennie was his current Focus partner in Toronto, and although some might consider Henrietta Russell a ditz, the long-suffering Focus hid enough buried steel within her to get on his case for even thinking about quitting.  Or, in this particular instance, sit on his chest and glare hotly.  “You’re not hurt, panicked or even flustered.  You’re just embarrassed.  Get over it, Sky.  People are suffering in that horrible mutie mill Focus Abernathy is running and we need it shut down.”  Hennie and the Ontario local of the ISF were distraught because someone had grabbed two of their friends and incarcerated them in Focus Abernathy’s household.

He needed to talk to Focus Rizzari alone this time
, without her household around.  While back in Toronto he had received several letters from them, none positive.  Sadie’s letter contained over fifty percent expletives, Ann’s letter was a tear-stained missive stating it was no longer appropriate for her to correspond with him, and Tim’s letter chewed him up one side and down the other for not meeting Tim’s high standards of behavior.  Sky had sent an apologetic letter to Lori, expecting no reply.  Instead, the letter had been returned, the pages of the letter shredded with loving care into thin strips.

Well prepared, with a
good quality fake student ID, all dolled up as a woman, with all of his illusionary dross constructs in place, Sky decided he was ready to attend classes at Boston College.  In particular, one class, taught by Professor Lorraine Rizzari: Introduction to Microbiology.

He entered
Boston College with ease.  He attended class like any other student, attracting no notice.  He found an inconspicuous seat in the back of the auditorium style classroom.  Lori’s bodyguards were nowhere in sight, quite unobtrusive.  They weren’t likely to notice a student, him, going up to the professor after class and handing the professor a piece of paper.  Class was, well, dull.  Organelles, membranes, chromatin, chromosomes, yawn.  He couldn’t tell if Lori noticed him or not.  He wondered how much she kept track of her students at all.

After class, two of her students came up to her to ask questions about her lecture.  When they
finished he stepped forward.  “Professor,” he said, in his woman’s voice.  He handed Lori his prepared note, which covered only his assigned mission, professionally and utterly impersonally, signed by himself and every Focus in the Ontario ISF Local.  In return, she handed him a note, on a piece of paper he had noticed her writing on during her lecture.

You are an utter imbecile, Sky.  I don’t appreciate being stalked.  You had your chance, and you blew it.  Live with it.  P.S. one of my bodyguards is a cross-dresser and spotted you immediately.  He’s going to beat the crap out of you after you read this note.

He felt himself boosted off the floor and dragged out of Rizzari’s classroom by two strong Transforms just as he read the last line of the note.  They briskly dragged him around to the back of the building, out of sight of peering eyes.  He didn’t recognize either bodyguard, and, indeed, one of them, a slender Transform man, wore women’s clothes.

Rizzari had managed to
frown at him
during her lecture so he wouldn’t metasense her bodyguards’ approach.  In all his years as a mature Crow he had never been caught by a Focus’s charisma until he ran into Focus Rizzari.  He hadn’t thought it possible.  It shouldn’t have been if he had been paying attention.  This time he thought he had paid attention.  How in the heck did a Focus get good enough with her charisma to work it into a lecture on cell organelles?

The smaller Transform bodyguard threw Sky against
the brick wall and cocked his arm to swing at him.  Sky shook his head, rolled to the side, and left a stock dross construct meant for situations just like this, one he called ‘jumped by two assailants’.  His little trick worked and the two thugs started to fight each other.  They fell to the ground with a crash and rolled across the narrow walkway into the boxwoods on the other side, where they proceeded to pound each other enthusiastically.

Rizzari didn’t know squat about Crows, despite her reputation.  Did she think he had only one weapon in his arsenal, the skunking?  Skunking was such an overkill weapon
, and such an utter waste of dross, only young and panicky Crows made common use of it.  Nearly all Crows learned to modify the skunking attack after a few years and use it to less lethal effect.  Sky had quite a few little dross construct tricks, thousands of them, actually, and the high juice supported memory to remember every single one of them.  Crow Gurus wielded even more tricks; many of them could vanish from sight in the bright sun.

After a couple of minutes the two Transforms stopped fighting and turned to glare at him.  With his metasense he
picked up Lori on her way to join them.  She had read his note and hopefully was starting to think instead of react.  The cross-dresser bodyguard, still angry and now covered with bruises and bloody scratches, stepped forward to grab Sky again.  Sky sighed, froze the Transform’s legs and loosened the Transform’s bladder sphincter.  “You two seem to have never considered the possibility that all the Major Transforms have ways of defending themselves,” Sky said.  “You might want to surrender before things start to get real ugly.”

“Name’s Bill,” the bodyguard dressed as a man said
as he levered himself up and out of the bushes.  “We were just going to rough you up a bit to give you a little incentive to stop bothering the household.  If we wanted to stoop to your level we’d take out our weapons.  Shelly, behind you, already has.”

Shelly, behind him, had also unloaded her weapon.  Sky decided not to mention the fact he
had taken care of that problem while the two men had held him by the arms.  Lori’s fourth bodyguard, Eileen, stuck close to Lori.  He decided to leave her alone for now.

“Don’t worry about me,” Sky said.  “I’m not interested in fighting at all.  In fact, given your household is a hotbed of militant Transforms, you might want to consider hiring me to train your people how to defend yourselves against the gentler Crow arts of combat.  Your bodyguard cadre seems frightfully open to even the simplest Crow tricks.  There’s a lot I can teach you.  It is indeed possible for a prepared Transform to fight off my low end capabilities, and…”

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a habit of using ten words where one would suffice?” Lori said, as she stalked out the door and around the now much flatter bushes.

“Frequently.  It’s not that I find the sound of my own voice pleasing, as many have falsely claimed upon occasion, but that oneness with the immanence of the world requires one to be more relaxed when dealing with other people.  As we are still human despite our transformations, human society…”

Lori shook her head and skewered him with her gaze.  “How real is the information in this note, anyway?”

Ah, the good ol’ Focus lie detector trick.  He didn’t try to fight it off.  “Every word of my note is as true as I know it to be.”

Lori studied him, her face blank, a study in self-control.  “My office.  Now.  This is nothing to discuss in public.”

“With pleasure, Focus Rizzari.  To see the office of an actual Transform Professor will be…”

“Shut up,” Lori said.

Yes, indeed, time for a little quiet.  Ah, seeing Lori in action melted his heart, made him want to sweep her into his arms, despite his vow to keep their encounter strictly professional.  He followed Lori
down the walkway for several steps before he remembered his little ballistic precaution.  He undid it.

“God dammit!” Shelly said, trailing the group a good hundred and twenty feet back.  “The little cocksucker tricked me into unloading my weapon!  Boss, you don’t want anything to do with this creep.  He’s way too dangerous.”

“So am I,” Lori said, voice emotionless.  She turned to Sky as they entered the building to the east of the classroom building.  “Starting now, you keep your grubby meathooks off my people.  No more Crow tricks or you can kiss your mission goodbye.  Understand?”

He nodded.  At least until the next time they pulled a weapon on him or tried to paste him one.

Lori led him down a stairway and into the basement, where her office nestled right next to her lab.  Of all things, he smelled copious months-old Arm blood.  No dross, though.  Some Crow had cleaned the place out.  Not surprising, given the number of Crows in Boston.

“Ah,” he said when they reached her office, “
you deal in Arms as well.  Did you host Hancock or Keaton?  What did you do to her anyway, torture her?  Your lab reeks of Arm blood.”

Lori paled
and motioned to all four of her now unhappy bodyguards to get out of her office.  They got.  She took a big deep breath.

“Pleaseacceptmyapologyformisconstruingyourapproachtomypeopleaththetourney.”  That had to hurt.

“Accepted,” Sky said.

“After what I and my people have done to you, you still want to work with me?”  Rizzari said.  Sky nodded.  “You
’re nothing like what I expected out of a Crow.”

“There are Crows, and then there are
Crows
.”  Sky paused, editing out his usual continuation of ‘and then there is
me
’.  “The mistake is easy to make, given we Crows rarely directly speak of our personal capabilities in our letters.  Talking of sports, politics, religion and of course artwork is often only a cover for an implied discussion of the tricks I used on your people.”

Lori’s office was rather Spartan for Sky’s tastes. 
Computer printouts and pictures of cell parts decorated the walls.  A late model IBM Selectric with an actual clean dust cover dominated her desk.  The floor smelled of mold in the corners.  Not a picture of a human being in the place.

“I see,” Lori said.  “The relations between Focuses, at least in the United States,
are far more formal.  Even the chatter and small talk is formalized.”