No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) (16 page)

Your announcement had the desired effect; everyone is up in arms (pardon) over the fact you are now willing to openly deal with Focuses in a more direct manner.  I had to reassure several of the ‘rebellious’ Focuses, including Flo, that this is a good thing and why.  Most of them did not realize the Council was blackmailing you into being their mob enforcer.  One idea I passed along to them was the use of Arm charisma to get the attention of difficult Household non-Transforms; although nearly any Focus worthy of the name can discipline a Transform, their leverage is weaker with regard to Household non-Transforms, especially those Focuses with weak Focus charisma.  I hope you don’t mind, as you had said you were looking for quick non-lethal jobs you could do for us Focuses.

A warning: I received word from the Crows that the Crows of Oregon and Washington (State) are not cooperative with the Crows of California and Arizona.  They also passed along a rumor that Focus Fingleman deals with Crows (this may be slander).  In any event, I would recommend the exercise of extreme caution when working there.

Good luck!

Lori

Dear Shadow,

Thank you for your aid in my travels.  Although you cannot write to me at the moment, the introductory letters are making it easier to contact those Crows who are part of the letter writing circuit.  As you told me, there are several interlocking letter-writing groups, and I’ve been passing along your Post Office Box when talking to Crows unfamiliar with you.

I recently found quite a number of other Crow Gurus.  If you are already familiar with the ones I mention below, bear with me.  If you aren’t, they appear to be willing to make your acquaintance.  I passed your Post Office box to them, as well (and am enclosing theirs on a separate sheet).  I presented you as a teacher of art criticism and philosophy.

Vizul Lightning lives in Minneapolis, on what he terms the edge of civilization.  When I was in Philadelphia, Sinclair mentioned that Vizul lived in Boston, so his move must be recent.  Vizul teaches the creative arts, primarily writing and poetry.  I suspect an extensive overlap in the Crows you and Vizul know.  Vizul is a rather closed fellow, difficult to read, and quick with a retort.  He’s a new Guru and he requires the Crows he’s teaching to choose interesting new made-up names.  Vizul claims that everything between Minneapolis and Denver is Monster Territory, and ‘Guy Monsters’ are his name for Beast Men.  He is of the opinion there are about ten of them in the Dakotas and Montana (!!!), and they mostly stay away from Crows.  He has no idea how they get their élan.

Pokeweed is a Guru who lives near Oklahoma City and is an actual cowboy, although he prefers the term cowhand, his day job.  His group is rather small, five Crows, spread out through the southwest United States.  All of them have colorful historic names, such as Ranger, Wrangler and Carson City.  He teaches engineering, and if I weren’t already committed to the question of Transforms, I would love to study under him.  Of all things, he strongly encouraged me to look into something called microelectronics and another subject called computer programming, both of which he says look like good long term prospects for Crows.  I am iffy about this – electrical engineering takes more math than I understand – but he says any Crow with good dross sources can pick up the math needed for these specialties in just a few months.  His group used to number eight – he lost three Crows in the last year, two to unknown attacks and one to a Beast Man who sounds suspiciously like Enkidu.  On a strange note, he warned me about a Wandering Shade, who they suspect is an Arm(?!?), and who they fear is collecting and stabilizing Beast Men (who they call the Patriarchs).  Wandering Shade is the name the Odin Beast used for his Master, according to Tiamat, which arouses my suspicions.  However, this group was ignorant of the fact the Crow problems are occurring elsewhere in the country.

Zirkel is a teacher of Crows who is located in Las Vegas, although he says that up until about eighteen months ago, he lived in Denver.  He says Denver itself has gone evil.  Zirkel’s Crows are mystical in the extreme, many of them named after mountains of the western United States.  They all own pet snakes, to my utter amazement.  I spent some time with Zirkel, mostly outside of Las Vegas, in the desert.  He taught me to listen to the Aurora and how to smell Transforms.  I taught him my method of accessing the Dreaming.  He says I’m tapping into the pheromone flow, the wafting of chemical and electrical information across long distances.  Occum used the ‘pheromone flow’ name in his letters, so you may already know this.  Zirkel taps into this ‘pheromone flow’ via dross constructs and he’s itching to try my technique now that he knows of it.  He seems to think the brains of humans and especially Major Transforms are radio transmitters, and the brains of Major Transforms are special because they are also radio receivers.  When I asked him why normal scientists have not discovered this, he said it’s because the energy levels are so low, and not on one frequency or all frequencies, but on a small number of narrow frequencies.  He also explained the reason why buildings with large computers in them interfere with our metasense, and he says it’s because computers put out electromagnetic waves at something besides the normal 60 hz.  Funny, after all this time, to run into someone with a tangible and non-supernatural explanation for the metasense.  Doubly surprising, because he does believe there are likely aspects of our capabilities dealing with what he terms the ‘nearly supernatural aspects of quantum mechanics’.  In any event, I did learn to smell Transforms from a long way off.  An interesting skill, utterly useless near major population centers, where the scent of hundreds of thousands of people will overwhelm the smell of a few Transforms.  Also, this is a wind sensitive skill, and not at all precise.  We were somewhat downwind from San Francisco, and I was able to pick out the fact there were many Transforms there.  But that was about all.

If there are any west coast Gurus other than Chevalier, they avoided me or made sure I avoided them.  I met Chevalier before my trip out east, but now he’s avoiding me as well, though I do not understand why.

Regarding the song, most of my discoveries have been indistinct and mysterious.  I’m accumulating evidence that shows no unthinking beasts can be behind the song.  I did interview a Focus Network FBI agent (Special Agent Thomas Bates, currently working out of the FBI’s Los Angeles office) and picked up all the public and semi-public FBI knowledge about the events in question.  They are only familiar with the Transform end of things, and Special Agent Bates had already produced an interesting geographical workup on the events.

Next, I have an appointment to talk to the Crow who claims the Bakersfield Transform Research Complex.  Afterwards, I’m going to head east along the southern tier of the United States, Occum in Boston my final destination.  I’ll send you another letter as soon as possible.

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh

I miss you.  I worry about all of us.  SK got ambushed and shot at today here in San Francisco, for the first time in years, not counting my rescue.  The attack wasn’t by the cops or the Feds, but by a group of 9 hired guns.  The survivors thought a multinational corporation had hired them to take out a Transform spy.  The traceback turned up nothing, save the nearly unavoidable stench of too much talent for there not to be a Major Transform behind this.

None of us but SK could have lived through what she ran into today.  I need my mind back so much.  I want to be able to protect you.

Be ultra careful!

With love,

Carol

Chapter 6

The Conspiracy of Feminism, Homosexuality, Socialism, Communism, and Transformism in our everyday lives has conquered all advertising on TV, radio, and even the newspapers.  I realized this as I was driving today when I noticed it in vehicles.  Yes you read right, vehicles!  …and there’s nothing more radical than a private household owing a PUBLIC SCHOOL BUS for their own PRIVATE USE.  And they just happen to be TRANSFORMS.

“Hunter Activity Near Chicago and Media Responses”

Carol Hancock: May 23, 1968

I knocked on Keaton’s front door.  She didn’t answer, so I left a note and slunk back to my garage home and lay down to bleed through my bandages.  Fuck I had been stupid.  I had been stupid for far too long.  One of these times soon my stupidity would get me fucking killed.

I metasensed Keaton running back up the hill to her place, on lap who-knew-how-many of her run.  When she metasensed me she took a quick pass by the front door message drop and headed over to the garage.

“What the fuck happened?” she said, loud, smelling the blood before she saw me.

“Ma’am.  Security guards.”

“How bad?”

“Nothing I can’t heal from.”  I levered myself up.  She shook her head.  “Seven.”  Bullet wounds.

Keaton stalked over and slammed me down on my stomach.  She had the bandages off in an instant and started the usual half-assed operation in a moment.  “Seven!  Eight!  Four!” Pain ratings.

“Did you get the records?”

Here came the expected hell.  “No, ma’am.”  I paused, waiting for instructions, comments, accusations or flat out punishment.  Nothing.  Keaton continued to remove bullets.  “Eight!”

“Tell me the fucking story,” Keaton said, exasperated, after she finished her meatball surgery.

I told.  I had gotten into the Seattle AT&T offices and into their records room without anyone spotting me.  I was on the way out, doing the laundry cart shuffle with the records Keaton wanted, when someone triggered the building alarm.  I was positive it wasn’t me, but I also didn’t discount the possibility I had screwed something up.  I doubled back, heading toward my easy exit, as per Keaton’s instructions.  The security guards were one step ahead of me, though, with a shooting gallery set up at the top of the elevator shaft.  I ran through them anyway, collecting bullet wounds, and followed the exit plan by leaping to the next building, and the next, and then down and out.

Keaton paced.  “Crows.”  Just the mention of the word made me ache.  Not having Gilgamesh around was a constant sore that never healed.  Keaton’s use of him to bring me back to myself had worked far too well.

“Ma’am?”

“I’d been wondering what enemy Crow action would look like and I had plotted out several scenarios,” Keaton said.  “This fits one of them perfectly.”  She was developing a real dislike of the Crows as a group, Gilgamesh excepted.

I guessed this scotched my idea of taking Seattle as my territory.  I sort of liked the place.

“Ma’am, I screwed up.”  I didn’t finish the mission.  I feared going back would be suicide.

“Fuck the mission.  Neither of us can succeed alone when we’re going up against Major Transforms; that’s why we’re working on my overall plan.  I’ll get the goods on Focus Fingleman some other way.  What I’m most worried about is your lack of initiative.  Even as a student you would have found a way out without getting shot up.”  Pause.  Zing.  “Well, later student.  Your recovery seems to be stalled.”

“Yes, ma’am.  I’m bothered as well.”  I couldn’t plan on my feet worth shit.  I still couldn’t read or write.  I had a whole slew of crazy problems, and they all bothered the hell out of me.

She licked her lips.  “You’re scheming.  Good.  Fix me dinner and we’ll talk about it afterwards.”

Yah, I had an idea.  This mattered a lot to me.  This possibly meant my life.

I fixed a
good
dinner.

“What’s your idea?” Keaton asked.  Impatiently.  I gave her another slice of chocolate cheesecake.

“Ma’am,” I said.  “I’ve been thinking about the Transform research effort, and specifically the research about Arms.  There isn’t any.”

“There is, but not in the United States,” she said.  She leaned back in her easy chair.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, looking down respectfully.  “This might be a stupid idea on my part, and you might already have this covered.”

“Continue,” she said, waving her hand in the air.  If she had access to foreign research, this was news to me.  I didn’t ask for the specifics, and wouldn’t.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and then, carefully, and very controlled, “my idea is to recruit doctors who are involved in Transform research.  Directing them to work on Arm related research would be the long-term goal.  My short-term goal would be to get them to figure out what’s wrong with me, so my problems can be fixed.  I consider this vital to my survival.”

Keaton took a bite of cheesecake and waved me on.

“Ma’am, the mortality rate is stratospheric for Arm transformations.  Out of the eight Arm transformations in the US, only the two of us are still alive.”

“And if you don’t find a way to get yourself fixed up, it’s going to be seven out of eight,” Keaton said.

“Yes, ma’am, my point exactly.”

Keaton pulled on her short hair.  “At least your problems may have a solution.  I had to activate my dormant organization, which I sent underground after Philadelphia, just to keep track of the number of threats against me.  I’m beginning to think the leading first Focuses own more button men than the goddamned Sicilian mafia.”

All of which had my boss severely on edge and willing to jump down my throat at the least provocation.  Her willingness to be patient with me today was a major miracle. I would even be able to figure out why if I had perhaps a quarter more mind to do my thinking.

I pressed on with my haphazard presentation.  “There’s too much about Major Transforms that’s not known.  I went through withdrawal and came out a different Arm.  Why is this even possible?  Furthermore, there’s not a damned thing we can do about it if our bones start rotting, or our metasense gets sick, or some other bullshit crap happens.  We know Monster juice can make us sick.  What do we do when someone discovers some juice that’s worse than Monster juice?  How did the goddamned FBI find a way to preserve Monster juice to inject Zielinski when it’s supposed to decay within five minutes outside a Monster body?  Monster juice and everything associated with it is a vulnerability and we don’t even know why.”

I took a breath and reigned myself in.  I had gotten too intense, inviting trouble.  Keaton, however, didn’t look like trouble just now.  Her eyebrows were down and she had her business face on.  Something I said had touched a nerve.

“Go on.” Keaton leaned forward and her feet came down off the ottoman.

“My real fear is without access to Zielinski, the research community might come up with something vital to us and we’d never know it.”

“I’d know it,” Keaton said.  “But you’re right.  I could easily learn about any vital advances far too late.  My information channels suck Chimera dick.”  She paused.  “You’re offering up yourself as a test subject?”

“Yes, ma’am, but only if we control the doctors and researchers.  I’m not being a guinea pig for any damned random doctors or researchers.  I’d swear over half of the doctors in the CDC’s Detention Center were in one or another Focus’s back pocket.”

I stopped, then, and waited for her.  She sat back in her chair again and didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“So exactly what are you asking permission to do?” she said, eventually.

I sat back, myself.  I didn’t let myself sweat and I didn’t let myself shake.

“I want your permission to recruit Transform research specialists and set up a research institute working for us,” I said.

“Not good enough.  Exactly what do you plan?”

“I would start work immediately on recruiting researchers.  I expect the recruiting effort would take several months, because I want to do it carefully.  I plan on spending several days on each one, to allow me to get into their heads.”

“‘Get into their heads’?” she said. “You traveled with the hippies for too long.”

“Ma’am.”  The hippies and anti-war protesters were very good cover for me in my current state.  I guessed I must have wandered into their headspace.  At least I hadn’t shown up at Keaton’s with flowers in my hair and wearing patched up bell-bottomed blue jeans.  This time.

“What the hell gives you the idea that you, in your current condition, can figure out which researchers we need?”

“Ma’am, by talking to them.  With my instincts and magical thinking…”

“Stop,” Keaton said, leaning forward, almost meeting me nose to nose.  “Here’s a counter-proposal: break Hank out of jail and get him to run the place for us.  Perhaps he can put some work into fixing you before you go off and do this
magical
recruiting.”

I smiled, despite her sneer.  Yes!  “I wish I’d thought of that.”

“Exactly
my
point.  Okay, official orders time: break Zielinski out of jail, get him to fix you up and get yourself a real territory.  We’ll work out the details of this plan of yours after this is settled.”

Hot damn.  My flea-brained idea was going to fly.  Even with my brain resembling scrambled eggs I could still pull off shit like this.

Carol Hancock: May 25, 1968 – May 28, 1968

I perched well outside of the Adirondack Federal Correctional Facility in upstate New York, hidden near the top of a tree and memorizing license plate numbers.  The tree was a gorgeous old maple, in the back of a tiny brick house, with leaves just starting to bud and the ground still carrying the aura of winter grey.  Spring came late up here in the Adirondacks.  Around me, the air warmed nicely and no clouds graced the sky.  I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day.

The tiny home was one of several on this isolated road about a mile from the prison. The road and the houses were about twenty years old, built to house the staff at the prison.  Odd little houses, with toys and bicycles in the yards, strangely close to the huge prison. The prison lay just down the slope of a beautiful Adirondack valley, and the whole valley around me was vibrant with early spring green.

Gorgeous.

I didn’t understand why I memorized license plate numbers, except I was on the hunt, and the rule was, when hunting, gather information.  Therefore, I wrote down the license plate number of every car leaving the prison.  Instincts and rituals?  Yes, strange, but all very important to me now, when I worked alone.

I planned to recruit some help from the cluster of houses below me.  Another rule: when in doubt, recruit help.  I did have help, my drug addict turned secretary Frances, but I had left her behind in California.  She wasn’t up for adventures.  She had the reading and writing tricks down cold.  For me, matching license plate numbers wasn’t reading, it was pattern recognition.

Something in my subconscious thought this cluster of houses might be a good place to find people who knew something about the prison.  I had a recruit candidate picked out for my evening activities, a young man, single, and living alone.  No one would notice when I came for him.  What’s more, the car in the driveway matched one of the license plate numbers on my list of cars coming out of the prison.  The synchronicity seemed like a good omen to me.

When evening came, I slipped into his little brick home and we had a little discussion.  No one noticed, and what’s more, he turned out to be a guard at the prison.  My luck didn’t do me any good, though, because he suffered a complete mental breakdown on me.  I had to kill him.

Damn.

I quickly went on to my next best choice.  That was another rule.  When something goes wrong, either get a move on or clear out.  I couldn’t afford to clear out, so that meant
hurry
.  My new target turned out to be another man whose license plate appeared on my list.  He hadn’t been my first choice, because he had a family, but he would have to do now.

He did very well indeed.  He was a big, beefy guy, with a mean face and a taste for cruelty that appealed to something deep inside me.  I slipped up to the bedroom window of his house in time to see him finish beating his wife.  Then he flipped her over and screwed her.  The sex took no more than a few seconds.  Once he finished, he hit her a couple more times for good measure and left her to cry herself to sleep while he went out to the living room to drink beer and watch television.  I knew he would make a good recruit because of another rule I knew: no one really cared when nasty people vanished.  I admired his sexual efficiency.  He would have made a good Chimera.

I leaned my head against the brick wall of his house while I waited and hurt inside.  I missed having Keaton, Gilgamesh and even Frances around.  The problem was: I wanted to recruit this man, not his family.  I didn’t know an appropriate ritual for this, except to wait.  Something would happen.  An omen would appear to tell me what to do.  These days, when I worked alone, I lived in a world of magic, a world of rituals and rules.  Otherwise, nothing made sense to me.

I missed Gilgamesh so much.