In this Night We Own (The Commander Book 6)

by Randall Farmer

  “Instincts. Magical thinking. I knew what Enkidu had done to me when he raped me and nearly killed me, and I knew I’d survived. I also remembered comments you and Ann made implying Focuses could survive as much damage as Arms. So I replicated what Enkidu did to me as best I could with the tools at hand.”

  A small smile skittered over Tina’s face. The Focus glared at her. “Okay. When you’re working at the instinct level, I need to expect extravagances,” Lori said. “With a little warning, and once my pregnancy’s finished, I can cope.”

  I needed to give something. For one thing, Gilgamesh twitched in a way that I knew I would hear about in private if I kept being the stiff backed Arm. For another, her comments echoed many of my thoughts from when I was adjusting to being an Arm. In addition, I was feeling frisky, both from the fact the Nobles thought they had to obtain my permission to get involved in the Cause’s fights, and because, ick, they too thought of me as The Commander. I had stature from this I didn’t possess before, extra strength for my conflict of wills with Biggioni, strength which I now believed I needed. As Keaton had intimated, the Noble boys were fun, though I did refrain from taking any of them to bed. Those boys were as naturally dominant as I was, and I foresaw bedroom issues with them. Big bedroom issues. “I don’t think you’re supposed to like it, Lori. There are going to be many times when these extravagances become necessary. Let us Arms handle this. Consider this a gift from us Arms to you Focuses.”

  Lori laughed. I didn’t join in. I didn’t think my comment was that funny.

  The conversation moved on to other extravagances, such as the pecan pie I served for dessert. Of which I took only a sliver, damn it. The Eissler diet was already showing some positive impact on my muscle problems, but desserts were going to be hard to give up completely. We talked about my meeting with the Nobles; they had given the same presentation to her, and she had gotten to meet Crow Occum. I was sorry I had missed the meeting, and whatever strange Crow mental help he had given her. I also talked about my organization in Houston, including how the Crows had turned my Crow cash barrel idea into the 1st Crow Savings and Loan (and how I was having to invest the excess money I was collecting). Lori talked about her life, the reborn rebellion, and her problems with the Young Focus League’s current leader, one Linda Cooley of Chicago.

  “When I lived in Chicago I classified her as a worthless Focus, a low-end dictator,” I said. “She’s a leader?”

  “When you arrived in Chicago she’d been a Focus less than six months,” Lori said. “All young Focuses struggle with problems because we’re all so different from each other and there’s nobody to tell us how to get our feet on the ground. Anyway, Cooley’s charisma came in soon after you left Chicago, and, yes, her charisma has made her a powerful leader as well as allowing her to change her household to the hedonist model. Unfortunately, she’s recently discovered how to use her charisma in a way to allow her to get high by overriding her drug immunities, and in her off hours she’s fallen back on her hippie ways. I’d been using the YFL as my backup support group, but with Linda high all the time the YFL’s mostly fallen apart.” Lori was disgusted at Cooley, Inferno’s extreme anti-drug stance showing through quite brightly.

  “Take it over and run the group yourself,” I said. Lori glared. “Okay, you’re already overbooked. How about the Rickenbach kid? Would a budding journalist work in that job?”

  “Perhaps later,” Lori said. “We don’t want to make her any more of a target than she already is.” She groused about the lack of quality in the current crop of young Focuses, as well as a small but puzzling fall off in the number of Focuses transforming in the last year, as compared to what her theory predicted. I repressed a yawn.

  “One issue I’ve been worrying about has to do with Sky and his new name for me,” I said. Anything for a subject change from Focus politics. “The Commander. When I was talking to Focus Caruthers, I realized this wasn’t just a bit of Crow nonsense. You Focuses know something about this Commander bullshit as well.” Or so I hoped. With Focuses, I knew to be wary of assumptions. I didn’t mention that the Nobles also used the same name for me, for which I naturally blamed Sky.

  Lori nodded. “I knew you were the Commander when we first met.”

  My stomach did the dipsy-doodle, surprised by Lori’s comment. “Fuuuck me,” I whispered, feeling much like my boss Arm did when the world served her a warm shit sandwich.

  “Don’t get hung up on the name, though,” Lori said. “The name is due to a bit of nasty politics I think I’ll let Tonya explain.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “Although most people who know of the, well, legend think of the Commander in supernatural terms, I don’t. To me it’s obvious: the legend represents a particular strain of American popular hero, embodied by George Washington, Ulysses S Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, just to name a few. Add in the Dreams we all share, and it makes sense that we were waiting for you.” Pause. “Or at least makes sense to me.”

  I wasn’t ready to move on to another subject. “What exactly is involved in this Commander archetype you all are trying to slot me into?”

  Lori smiled. “The Commander is supposed to be a military leader, a healer, and someone who overthrows the old order.”

  “Surely you’re joking. Patton wasn’t a healer, for one.”

  Lori shook her head. “This isn’t about the other people who’ve been popular heroes in the past, this is a description of what we need now.”

  I frowned, massively unhappy. “So there’s this premade slot, and everyone is trying to fit me into it because I’m at least close and some prophecy says we need it. What the hell is this going to do to my ability to make decisions for myself?”

  “This isn’t a prophecy, this is a legend, a gap. Someone the Transforms need.” She looked at me with a tilt of her head. “There’s power there.”

  Fuck! Of course there was power in this insanity. And because of this legend, you now embody our dreams of salvation. I turned away, not sure where my last thought came from. I realized now how this insanity was connected to some of the dreams I had been having since I transformed, the ones where I spoke before the giant throngs idolizing me. My immediate instinct was to run away and never stop running.

  Save for this little nagging voice inside reminding me that others were counting on me, especially a certain Focus from Montreal I had invited into my mind while incarcerated in the CDC. Hell, I hated responsibility I didn’t agree to ahead of time.

  “It appeals to me and it scares me,” I said, both humbled and terrified. “I’m not even the top Arm. I’ve done nothing to merit such confidence.” People would be crazy to trust me with their hopes and dreams. I was a sadistic murdering Arm! With plenty of screw ups in my ledger, and no guarantee there wouldn’t be plenty more.

  Lori nodded. “Many of the examples I mentioned served under others as well. Also, there’s nothing wrong with keeping this quiet until you’re ready to claim it, Carol. But the time is coming, soon, when by necessity you’ll be forced into the claim.”

  Shit.

  “You’re talking like I’m the only possible candidate. Isn’t there anybody else who qualifies?”

  “Conceivably yes. In practicality, not real likely. That’s a pretty rare collection of traits, after all, and military leadership and overthrowing the old order are pretty visible. If there was somebody else out there, we’d know. Plus, think about it. Even if there were another candidate for the spot, you wouldn’t want to let them have the role. This person is going to be an important Transform leader in your area of expertise. Do you really want to be following someone else’s vision of what we should be?”

  Do all the Transforms really want to be following my vision of what the world should be? Time for another subject change. “So, have you figured out if it’s a boy or a girl?” I said. “Have you settled on a name?”

  We talked about more mundane and domestic issues for hours, even after Hank showed up. The most amazing
surprise of the evening turned out to be the fact Hank hadn’t known that Lori was pregnant. Lori eventually mollified his high annoyance only after promising to turn over her research notes about her pregnancy.

  Everyone but Hank thought his antics endlessly amusing.

  Chapter 11

  Crows are innately conservative in their philosophy, because change is stressful.

  “The Life of Crows”

  Tonya Biggioni: December 10, 1968

  December in Houston was a cheat, weather that might be called early fall in Philadelphia. Too beautiful for Tonya, who wished for cold, dreary and ugly, to fit her mood of the day. Instead, the sky was bright blue, the air cooled by a crisp dry north breeze, and the temperature was in the mid-60s. She was disgusted.

  She didn’t much care for the stress, either. Far too many years had passed since she had left her bodyguards so far away. She had given each of them a long hug as she left, and dried Delia’s tears on her blouse on the way out. If things went bad, and she didn’t come out of this alive, they knew what to do. Contingency plans involving Focus Caruthers and Focus McWill, both of Tonya’s circle of Focuses, had already been arranged.

  A weasel-like thug who introduced himself as Ricky drove the car that picked her up from the motel. In the front seat beside him was a dangerous hungry-eyed man who aroused Tonya’s defensive instincts, introduced as Fred. The third man in the car, who shared the back seat with her, was a personable thug named Rikard. Rikard attempted to put her at ease. He spent the time spinning Texas yarns and complaining about the local Houston politics, which seemed dominated by real estate developers whose main game was fleecing oil barons of the money they should be watching over more carefully.

  Hancock’s house showed signs of recent work and was much larger than Tonya had anticipated. Most of the houses in the area where Hancock lived were suburban tract houses, but Hancock’s house squatted in an upscale enclave, nicer houses on larger lots. Old trees and well-established bushes hid her house from the road, and her yard sported several overturned patches of dirt indicative of recent construction. A large trash dumpster the size of a flatbed truck sat on the lot, filled to the brim with construction trash. Tonya repressed a growl – she had squeezed full households into houses smaller than this, if you included the recently finished additions. It just wasn’t fair.

  The thugs stopped the car in the driveway and Rikard let her out, before escorting her to the front door. Clearly following a script, he left her there, returned to the car, which then drove off.

  Tonya rang the doorbell, and waited. To her surprise, Tim Egins, one of Lori’s bodyguards, answered the door and escorted her in. When she saw who awaited her, she breathed a sigh of relief. In her abbreviated negotiations with Hancock, Tonya had tried to make sure that Stacy, Lori and Hank Zielinski were included in her interrogation. Carol hadn’t agreed.

  The group included Lori, Hank Zielinski, and another man, a skittish Transform Tonya marked as a Crow. Gilgamesh? Most likely. In addition, Terry, Tim and Tina were there, Lori’s favorite bodyguard trio. However, once Tonya entered the house, Lori’s bodyguards left, probably to take up distant guard outposts in Carol’s yard.

  Carol wasn’t present. Neither was Stacy. Thankfully, Sky wasn’t present.

  “Hi,” Tonya said, nervous. The living room was nicely furnished, but not exceptional, with comfortable chairs and walnut end tables. She turned to the Crow. “You must be Crow Gilgamesh. My name is Tonya Biggioni.”

  “Glad to meet you, Focus Biggioni.” The Crow looked her over with what Tonya decided was a detailed Crow-style metasense scan.

  “What’s next?”

  “Carol would like to talk to you in private before we get down to business,” Lori said. “You still want to do this?”

  Lori was uncomfortable. Good. This meant her months of work driving wedges between Carol and the rebel Focus still held. Lori’s discomfort, as well as her late stage pregnancy, might give her the edge she needed to survive if she couldn’t roll the Arm.

  “No. This is what I want,” Tonya said. Lori shrugged.

  “Third door on the left,” Lori said, a tremor in her voice. “Down the hall.”

  Here we go, Tonya thought. Hancock, like Keaton, would be difficult to roll. Tonya thought of the risks she took and her stomach clenched painfully tight.

  She walked down the richly appointed hall radiating false confidence. Not Adkins quality, she decided, with a mental sniff. She reached the door and knocked. She kept her metasense purposely reigned in.

  “Enter,” Hancock said. Her voice hadn’t changed from… Better not go there, Tonya reminded herself. Part of any successful use of charisma was the right attitude, and regardless of what she attempted to accomplish here, the CDC events were a mistake on her part.

  Tonya opened the door, hand threatening to tremble, palm damp. As she feared, a barely lit torture chamber awaited her. The room’s only light dimly illuminated a reinforced metal cot in the center of the room. Carol wasn’t visible, hidden in the darkness at the edges of the room. No Keaton. Tonya walked in and the door shut with tomblike finality.

  “On the bed,” the Arm said, from behind her. The predator, the same sort of stalked by the boogie-monster feeling Keaton gave off when aggravated. What Hancock had named the predator effect. Lust filled the Arm’s voice, the predatory lust for the kill. Yes, this was going to be bad. She noted how the restraints were arranged, and climbed on the bed facing the correct way. She lay down. Surrender. Submission. Weakness. No panic at the predator. Tonya had faced many predators before. She knew how not to panic.

  The restraints practically leapt around her ankles and wrists. The Arm had to be burning juice to move that quickly, quickly enough to be no more than a blur to Tonya’s eyes and make her tense up in fear. Damn. Submission. Think submission.

  “Why? Why are you here? Why did you agree to this? What’s the trick?” Carol said, from out of Tonya’s sight. Lions stalked the night, hunting.

  “I’m surrendering.”

  “I find this surrendering hard to believe.”

  Agony shot through Tonya, a stabbing pain in her shoulders. She had no idea what method of torture Hancock employed, something to do with pressure on nerves, but this was utter agony. Tonya screamed, and reacted in no other way.

  To think she had once thought of Arms as victims of Armenigar’s Syndrome. As failed Focuses.

  “Why?” the Arm said, the cough of a lion. Millions of years of primate instincts in Tonya implored her to react, take cover, and defend herself. Panic. Tonya fought her instincts, the predatory fear at the heart of an Arm’s charisma. She knew how.

  “Why don’t you care what I’m doing?”

  The decisive moment arrived, and the game was on.

  “I can’t be broken by pain,” Tonya said, her voice steady but not strong. Hancock knew little about Focuses, their strengths and their weaknesses. “I’ve been tortured before, by other Focuses. I’ll tell you about the episode, if you’re interested. To save you time, I’ve killed in cold blood, I’ve tortured others, I’ve…”

  “Enough.”

  Pain again, from her elbows. Tonya screamed. Eventually, the pain stopped.

  “I’m far less human than you are, Carol, years less human,” Tonya said. Now that the game had started she felt more confident, her voice stronger. “I don’t mind screaming, or having to scream. Screaming is catharsis.”

  Pain again, from her hands. Bones were broken. Tonya screamed. She envisioned Suzie Schrum slowly squeezed in a vice, blood pouring out her orifices. A good vision.

  “Keaton told me to fear you. Why?”

  Tonya told a truth. “At any point in time, if I choose to, I can kill you. You cannot stop me. If you have anything similar to Keaton’s skills, I would not survive the experience.” Not the real answer. Keaton knew all too well the potency of Tonya’s charisma.

  Hancock didn’t answer with words. Ribs cracking make a hideous noise, and of all the horro
rs Tonya had experienced, she had never heard the sound of her own ribs cracking. Tonya ignored the pain of each breath and spoke with her normal conversational voice. Self-control was the key. No Focus on the Council lacked the self-control to deal with situations like this.

  “I’ve taken my own life. Twice. Both were tests given to me by the first Focuses, to prove commitment. Whether they were physical events or mental illusions is beyond my ability to know. I have…”

  Agony from the ribs, overriding her conscious control, keeping her from breathing. Hancock squeezed her ribs. Hard. Okay, Tonya didn’t breathe.

  “Where is your vaunted power, now, bitch!” the Arm said, all predator now.

  “Under my control,” Tonya said. She had long ago learned how to talk without breathing, a useful trick when being tortured or disciplined. The pain actually helped her fight off the urge to cower and beg mercy from the predator. “Unless I choose to attack you, I will not. I have chosen to surrender to you, to give you the information and the satisfaction you desire.”

  A huge knife rammed through her chest, carefully missing her heart, aorta, and spine. The knife penetrated her left lung, but only a grazing blow, bisected a back rib, and stuck deep into the padding of the gurney. Tonya noted the internal bleeding with disgust, forcing her to spend effort to keep herself from falling into a healing trance, effort she would rather be expending on her charisma.

  “I am your worst nightmare!” Hot breath covered Tonya’s face and for the first time, Hancock appeared in her field of vision. Finally. Tonya hooked Hancock with her eyes and became one with the predator, despite her wounds.

  “Arrogant bitch!” Hancock said, snarling, deep, deep into the predator, inches from Tonya’s face.

  Tonya exerted her will through her charisma, her superhuman will forged through years of discipline. Free me from these restraints! You’ve won!