An Age Without A Name

by Randall Farmer

  He crawled. The bottom of the drainage ditch was soggy, and mud clung to him as he dragged himself forward. The shouting got louder, and police sirens howled close. He didn’t have anything to fear from them, he hoped. Wait, no, Rose carried weapons, she was an Arm. She couldn’t afford to be arrested. Feet. Van’s feet, muddy. Rose healed the normal. She couldn’t heal Sidney or Daisy because they were too dead. He pulled on her tag, she turned to look at him, her entire face bloody, and her body covered with mud. He waved his head, showing her the arm in his teeth.

  Rose grabbed Van’s arm and turned back to Van. Healing.

  “Cover me,” she said. The words echoed in his head, reverberating with the screams and the sound of gunfire.

  With what? Fred couldn’t talk. He didn’t know why, but it had something to do with the hole in his chest. He stuck his head up above the edge of the ditch and saw a flicker of movement. Their attackers flitted from bush to fence to trash pile, using cover to creep closer to them. They were Transforms. The attackers’ Crow-like metasense shielding didn’t work very well, and likely worked a lot better when they didn’t need to move. One of them was down, wounded by Cuccaro’s people. Hell, the attackers went after Cuccaro’s people as well. The Focus was down. Hit? No, not hit. She went nuts and lost it, insane, after one of her Transforms got shot out from under her. Her household was no longer a place of refuge. Cuccaro’s people were panicking, shooting at anything that moved. Webberly should have forced a tag on the Focus, damn it. Just a normal Focus, not particularly willing to relocate temporarily to San Jose.

  Whap! Mud sprayed his rear, accompanied by a short white-hot jolt of pain. Heavy caliber weapon again, from their real attackers. Cuccaro’s people only used normal weapons, 30.06s and shotguns. More gunfire from them. One of the attackers was behind him. Cover Webberly?

  Oh. Cover Webberly. Get physically on top of her. Be a nice shield against bullets. The trick might even work, and would satisfy his responsibility for now. Dead was dead and he was feeling rather close. His meat and bones and sinew might be useful for something. Didn’t look to him like he was going to get any fighting in. He slithered his body on top of Van and then on top of Webberly.

  Male voices, loud, shouting about putting down weapons. Pistol fire, one, two, three shots. Another vehicle catching fire. A sledgehammer blow to the head, then darkness.

  “You have reinforcements?”

  Carol Hancock (3/25/73)

  “I got it,” Sky said. I looked up from where I sat in the warm sunroom of our Santa Cruz rental, munching on Ricky’s idea of a morning snack for an Arm and scanning the morning paper. It had been awhile since I last snacked on cold leftover pizza. I remembered the smell, reminding me of my first days as a free Arm in Chicago, but the taste struck me as off, food from another planet or life. My head hurt, and I didn’t know why.

  “Good,” I said to Sky. “What did you get?” At least his good cheer was more pleasant than the usual wisecracks about ‘if I had wanted to work on three dozen projects simultaneously, I would have signed up with Haggerty’. The morning’s headache refused to get any better, and I didn’t feel particularly tolerant.

  “I cracked what was going on in Portland with the Crows,” he said. That got me to sit up straighter. I had started to think that was an insoluble problem. His breakthrough was good for a backrub or something to acknowledge that yes, I was more beautiful than before, thank you very much Sky. Not now, though.

  “Sit.”

  Sky sat. The stiff cushion of the sun room chair crunched underneath his slight weight.

  Lori and Mizar were out chasing down problems associated with getting Council Focus Rodriguez’s help. I also wanted them to look in on Focus Webb’s household and see if they came to the same conclusion I did about that mess.

  I just wished I could shake this damned headache, though. I promised myself to get more sleep.

  “Sinclair convinced Thomas the Dreamer to give him a hand with the Judges. I’m not sure how it happened, but Sinclair got grabbed by the Judges in a hostage swap before Thomas showed up – supposedly he volunteered – but instead of holding him hostage, the Judges sold him to the Hunters. That’s a big Crow no-no, and when Thomas found out, he blew his normally-stoppered cork. Well, as much as someone like Thomas ever blows his cork. He and a whole slew of senior Crows cast out the leader of the Judges, the Guru Athabasca. It turned out that ‘Mentor Jester’ was just an identity of Athabasca.”

  “Ouch!” I said. There went my understanding of how things worked. Again. “They cast out a Guru? I didn’t know the Crows could do that, or would. Why didn’t Chevalier and his faction do that to Shadow?”

  “The Guru-casting surprised me, as well,” Sky said, looking more than just a little nervous. “The last time the senior Crows cast out a Guru was in the Mimesis fight in the early sixties.” Back while Sky was off with the Lost Tribe in the Canadian wilderness. “I suspect Shadow’s not going to be very happy about this, either, because one of the reasons they were willing to cast out Athabasca was his history as a follower of Wandering Shade, in addition to his dirty dealings with the Hunters. As to why they didn’t try to cast out Shadow? I have no clue. I was sure, to tell you the truth, that senior Crows, with their modern tricks, couldn’t be cast out, period.”

  “We’re not getting the full story.” Sky, for whatever reason, hadn’t considered the possibility that he might be able to be cast out. Now, he wasn’t sure.

  “Fancy that, from the senior Crows,” Sky said. “At least the four of us can’t get buffaloed like nearly everyone else. Apparently, Haggerty and crew bought the story without a stray thought, and then headed off to try and rescue Sinclair and Elspeth like the selfless heroes they are. With them went the Crow Gurus Merlin, Hephaestus, and Arête to help on the rescue, all ashamed about a Crow faction treacherous enough to sell a Crow to the Hunters.” It might have shamed Thomas and the others, but the Judges’ action didn’t surprise Sky.

  I tapped a finger against the top of the cardboard pizza box. “All right, so if the Crows fed Haggerty some bullshit story, what’s the true story?”

  Sky thought. “Thomas the Dreamer seemed awful eager to cast Athabasca out, and he used an awful lot of muscle to do so.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, but is that meaningful, or is it just a Crow showing normal Crow caution?”

  “I’m a Crow, and it seemed like a lot to me. He needed to call in a lot of favors to get that many senior Crows to back him on this.”

  I paced, back and forth in front of the wide window overlooking the ocean. I swore my head was pounding in time to the surf. “So he wanted Athabasca out of the picture, badly enough that he put a lot of extra effort into preventing any slip-ups. And he did it with Crows, rather than use any of Haggerty’s muscle.”

  “Secrets,” Sky said.

  “Yeah, secrets. Maybe he was worried that Athabasca might say something Thomas didn’t want the non-Crows to hear.”

  Sky raised an eyebrow at me and swiped one of my pieces of pizza. I growled, but he ignored me. “So what could Athabasca know that Thomas wouldn’t want out?” he said. “The fact that he didn’t include the ever-heroic and supremely powerful Haggerty hints to me of involvement of The Man, likely regarding Athabasca’s dealings with him.”

  I shook my head and grabbed the last piece of pizza before Sky could snatch that, too. “That’s not enough.” I held up a finger, momentarily distracted from my headache. “First, Athabasca knew something.” I held up a second finger. “Second, Thomas knew and didn’t want him talking. What does this say about Thomas?”

  “Merde!” Sky said, disgusted. “The Judges weren’t flying solo. At least at one point, who knows how long ago, they had good strong links to the rest of the Crows in this godforsaken conspiracy-pit of a country you call home.”

  “And, those links held up for at least some amount of time while they were supporting the Hunters. Otherwise, why would Thomas want to keep the information secret?”
>
  Sky nodded. “It’s possible that Athabasca had legitimate Mentor support all the way up until he stepped over the line by selling Sinclair.”

  I sighed. “It’s also possible that we’re making this up out of whole cloth. There must be a reason behind him becoming faux Mentor Jester, and that was likely when he lost his legit Mentor support, not when he sold Sinclair. We don’t have enough information.”

  Sky perched on the back of one of the wicker chairs and finished his slice of pizza. “I wouldn’t trust those senior Crows, though. Maybe they’re really on our side now, but senior Crows don’t ever play just one game at a time.”

  I nodded. “Keep this in the back of your devious little mind.” I pulled his head forward and kissed him on the lips. “Tell me, when did Haggerty head off to rescue Sinclair and Cathy?”

  He smiled at me and licked the tip of my nose. “About when we finished our first pass out here.”

  “We should have heard something, one way or another.” I gritted my teeth from the damned headache. “Sky, check me over. Do I have some sort of dross or élan contamination? I’ve got this damned headache, and…”

  Sky checked. “Nothing,” he said. “My guess is someone wants you to meditate and pick up something from the Dreaming.”

  Beat. “It’s the middle of the fucking day! I’m not going to pick up squat.” That’s it. I’m going to go back to the Yukon and change my name to Nanook…

  “Well,” Sky said. “Consider how many people you’ve given phone numbers to?” None. Damn. Someone was desperate.

  I found one of the bedrooms, chased everyone away, and meditated. My meditations were as useless as usual during the day, just vague impressions, nothing real, from someone vaguely close. About a half hour later, I gave up, and stalked out to find some people to do things for me. “Call around, Ila,” I said. My director of operations, back with me for only three days, looked up. She shared a desk with Sky, hard at work trying to understand some of the information we got from Webberly on the local Focuses. “Something’s up, local.”

  Solving the mystery didn’t take long. Haggerty and her group had shown up at the Stone Point winery, but nobody real was there to greet them, and the skeleton crew of normals was having hysterics. Someone with Inferno today, Webberly most likely, wanted someone else – me, that is – to handle the problem before she needed to deal with Haggerty Arm to Arm.

  Apparently, Haggerty’s group was significantly larger than expected.

  ---

  “They’re ready for battle,” Sky said. “There’s evidence that they’ve been fighting in the last day or two, perhaps the last few hours.”

  I nodded. They had normals and Transforms of several varieties out as screens. We were about two miles out, and already inside their first layer of Corpserider and FBI patrols. I frankly couldn’t believe the number of FBI agents Haggerty had with her. This must be official, or at least semi-official, cooperation with the Bureau.

  Sky and I had ditched our ride five miles back and came in on foot, in the hills to the northwest of the winery. We crouched behind the blackened remains of a formerly respectable tree, now horizontal and excellent cover. There had been a fire through here a few years ago, and the area was only beginning to recover.

  “Hunters?”

  “I can metasense two junior Hunters in camp with the Law still on them,” Sky said. “As well as nine Pages, some of them the most screwy Pages I’ve ever metasensed among the Nobles. Hoskins has been recruiting. No Hunter armies or patrols, though.”

  Hmm. “They don’t have Sinclair.”

  “Why not? Oh, right – Sinclair’s good enough to be able to skin the Law off of a Hunter in a minute. There’s a Crow Master down there, but not one I recognize. A new one. Here, let me show you something,” Sky said.

  We grabbed hands and shared metasenses for a few moments, still under the cover of the fallen tree. Not for long. Shared metasense was fine for long distance stuff, but I couldn’t crack local metasense shields if I was scanning out at long range, Crow style. “What the hell?” I pulled my hand out of Sky’s grasp to swat at several curious ants trying to crawl up my leg.

  “My question exactly,” Sky said. My metasense revealed a bunch of screwy Focuses, Crows and Chimeras. “Those strange Focuses feel like the Focus equivalent of a Crow Master to me,” Sky said. “No danger vibes – they’re allies, and rather closely linked ones, as well. Someone’s been trading our tech, my guess.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “Only one Arm, Haggerty. I wonder where Del is?”

  “Dunno. Sneaking into that group isn’t going to be easy. They’re all hair-trigger.”

  “Do you think you could show yourself to just Duke Hoskins?” I asked Sky.

  “Nope. Merlin will spot me first, if he hasn’t spotted me already.”

  Damn. Operational secrecy would be nearly impossible to maintain, and my plan wouldn’t work if Haggerty’s group knew we were around. They needed to act natural, or as close to natural as possible.

  “Well, I guess our plans are going to have to change. I’ve never dealt with Merlin outside of a social situation, but I guess I’m just going to have to trust him anyway. Get Merlin’s attention, Sky, and see if you can get him out here without spreading the word to anyone else.”

  “Yes, oh great and mighty Crow-rescuer Tiamat. Your wish is my command.” I swatted him, and he grinned at me. “One word of caution – if there’s a Crow Mentor down there in that camp – say, Thomas, for instance – I’m not going to be able to hide this from him. Hell, I probably can’t hide us while we’re doing nothing out here.”

  “Do it anyway.” Crow Mentors I would deal with. They knew how to keep their traps shut…or take us out, if that was their druthers.

  Sky exerted himself and created a big glowing dross sign that, in essence, read “Merlin – let’s talk”. Then we waited.

  “Crow Sky. Tiamat Crow-rescuer,” Merlin said. He came running, or at least jogging, up the narrow country road to where we watched. Without Sky’s metasense to borrow, I would have never spotted him, even when he got within my range. His couture had changed since the Pittsburgh fight, perhaps a bit of Haggerty’s influence. Snappy looking jeans, turtleneck shirt and a leather jacket, all dark blue-gray. Haggerty certainly knew how to dress her men and she saw no reason not to accumulate a very large string of them. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She and the Crow Guru had shared Atlanta as a home for a year or so.

  “Merlin,” Sky said. “Could you do us a favor and rustle up Arm Haggerty and Duke Hoskins for us? We’d like to talk to them without anyone else being the wiser.”

  “Why don’t you come down and visit?” Merlin said.

  “For strategic reasons, it’s important that Haggerty’s group not know that I’m in the vicinity,” I said.

  Merlin nodded. “I’m not sure that’s wise at the moment,” Merlin said. “We’ve got a large Hunter army on our tail, and they’re currently in Napa State Park, about twenty miles north of here. If things have gone according to plan, they don’t know we’re here yet, but their ignorance could change at any minute. There are at least a half dozen senior Hunters in the army, as well as Huntress Hecate.” Arm Bass.

  Yikes. I hoped to have a few more days to prepare, but it looked like today, tonight or tomorrow would be the big blow-off. Either that, or Enkidu would screw up and let me swat his armies one at a time.

  Well, if he was going to offer me victory like that, I would take it. I bet he wouldn’t, though.

  “Merlin, I hate to push a Crow like this, but there’s things going on that you may not know about, and we may be running out of time. Would it be possible for you to cover us from metasense and sight, and walk us into Haggerty’s camp?”

  “I would be glad to, Commander,” he said. “Covering the two of you would be no problem at all.”

  I needed to trust him, and he was now part of the conspiracy. I also needed a phone. My supposedly KOed Chicago people n
eeded to get out here, pronto.

  “We’ve won!” Haggerty said, and smiled. Right. Just like Gilgamesh’s victory. She paced the winery’s tasting room like a queen, waving her hands with enthusiasm.

  The last time Haggerty saw me, she had been thinking about revolting and dropping my tag, because I had gotten a tad too dark and bloody for her taste. None of that now. She was as full of herself as I had ever seen, on top of the world and glad to be doing my bidding. It was a damned good thing. I didn’t have a chance to arrange a private conversation with her to sort out dominance issues, and with Haggerty, there was always that five percent chance at any given time that she would challenge. The last thing I needed right now was dominance problems.

  I might get other challenges from more junior Arms, just because of my long absence, and because instincts were more of a driver in the younger Arms. With Keaton and Haggerty falling into line, though, none of the other Arms were strong enough that I would have to sweat. It made me feel a hell of a lot better to have that major potential headache under control.

  “We’ve spent the last four days skirmishing and maneuvering against the Hunters. It started after we attacked Enkidu’s Montana HQ and found it in ruins. Constant movement, constant patrol contact, squad level skirmishes, multiple feints, and three different successful ambushes on my part aimed at taking out their appropriated semis.” She smiled, and illustrated the last with clasp of her fist. “After the last ambush, Bass managed to take over overall leadership of the Hunter armies trailing after us, and she’s pissed. Because of all that, I’ve finally managed to sucker Bass and her huge Hunter army out of Hunter territory, and I’ve maneuvered them where they’re going to have to fight on my terms,” Haggerty said. “With Webberly and the Stone Point barony people as backup, I should be able to take them out. Completely. By my estimation, Bass carries about a third of all Enkidu’s remaining effectives with her, a big force, but not too big for what I want. If we take her, we can then invade Hunter territory without any worries and take them out, one stronghold at a time. Your help would be more than welcome, but it’s not necessary. Do you want to take over command?” This seemed too slick for Haggerty, and I smelled Duke Hoskins’ strategic hand. He was out extricating himself from camp business and would supposedly join us momentarily.