“BFBs?”
“Inferno-speak for Big Focus Bitches,” Van said. “Such as yourself, nowadays. You’ve gotten the seat at the table you always wanted.”
He’s not coming back, Gail thought. She didn’t say what she needed to say, or promise what she needed to promise. She didn’t say she would stop using her charisma and juice use as a crutch, but she couldn’t promise that. She would need to show that, over time. So that couldn’t be the problem.
I can’t ask, either, about what else I’m missing, Gail thought. She lost the right to ask when she got the damned seat at the table.
If I went down on my knees and surrendered, he would never believe I didn’t play with him, Gail decided.
What, then, could she do? Especially while a battle raged to the east of them?
She thought and dredged memory while they walked. Several rockets arced into the air and fell, on the other side of Oak Valley. Small explosions drifted up into the sky, along with some debris. Wasn’t there a subdivision on the other side of Oak Valley? Shit! She hoped the evacuations worked. She didn’t want to think about the property damage, though…
Van wasn’t just bitching about his lot. He left her as much in protest as in pique. What could she do to make it up to him?
She had answered his old complaints long ago. Abyss had her tagged and she solved the FB problems the tagging created by finding a way to toggle the tag to the ‘off’ position when she needed to, and toggle it back on later. She no longer pushed back against the idea of interfering in other Focus households. Hell, Helen Grimm and Ersel Carrington already worked on finding another abused household to take under their wing.
“I do have my seat at the table,” Gail said. “I didn’t leave Abyss behind, either. They have the household tag and the superorganism borrowing techniques, and if we can ever get any free time, we’ll even get them properly trained up. They’re even just about ready to find a second abused household to rescue.”
Van gave her the ‘yes, and?’ look. Damn. Men! If you had a problem, especially with something mechanical, they went out and said so directly, no hesitation. If they had an emotional problem, you had to dig it out of them with an icepick.
“Look, cute stuff, I’m out of ideas,” Gail said, along with a raised eyebrow. “You want something from me, you’re just going to need to ask.” The two pairs of Darla Nicosia’s people raced back toward the battle, carrying their now empty stretchers.
Van sighed. “I would like you to tag me, Gail, and figure out a way to boost my IQ.” He laughed a pained laugh. “My time in Inferno’s really humbled me, at least regarding my own brainpower. I’ve never met anyone as brilliant as Ann Chiron, and I would really appreciate being able to compete with her for once, dammit.”
Gail’s heart melted, and she bet every Transform in a hundred and twenty yards got teary-eyed right then.
“I think I could do that,” Gail said, her voice suddenly husky. She found her hands in Van’s hands. She didn’t understand how to tag a normal – no Focus did, that she knew of – or how to boost the IQ of a normal. She bet she could, though, in not much time at all.
Van took Gail in his arms and kissed her, then just held her and comforted her without words. Home. Gail wanted so much so to be home, with Van, but they were here, and together, and that despite the war, that was good enough for now.
They walked and rolled some more, in silence. After a few minutes, Gail realized Van led them back to the recovery tent. The silence gave Gail time to think, to digest the new chaos in her life.
What Carol said with her crazy offer to marry Van was that he was Gail’s equal, not only as a person, which she already knew, but her equal as a Transform. Absurd, but not if you looked at things from Carol’s perspective. Carol had said quite a few things on the subject of the worth of a Transform, indirectly, ever since she returned to Gail’s life. From Carol’s perspective, her success as an Arm wasn’t because she was the world’s most powerful Arm, but because… Because of what? Because Carol was the world’s smartest Arm? That wasn’t it, either. The most dedicated Arm? Not quite, but close.
Carol saw her success as derived from her character as a person. That was it. Brains, experience and raw talent meant nothing unless you applied them, learned from your mistakes, challenged your own assumptions, took risks, and never stood still. Some of Carol’s character came from Keaton – “We’re not the good guys, we’re the better guys” was a statement Gail had heard from both of them. The more Gail thought about it, though, the more she realized Carol had learned a lot from Keaton. A debt that likely lay behind Carol’s willingness to follow Keaton, albeit reluctantly, during Keaton’s descent into madness and evil.
Van was a Transform by marriage, a normal thrust into the world of Transforms. His character was what mattered, not his physical skills as a Transform – for as a normal, he didn’t have any – but his mind in all its aspects. Intellect and character. He stayed by her side in the early days when any sane man would have run and he backed off when she got to where she… When she started to let her capabilities as a Focus make her judgments for her. When her strength of character weakened, when she fell into taking the easy and expedient paths in life.
Her mistake. What she must stop doing. Letting the juice run her decision-making was a deadly trap for any Focus, as it was the path of the leaders of the first Focuses.
What she did had put a distance between her and Van that might never be fully crossed. Caused wounds that might never heal. Did that mean they couldn’t get back together? No, but it did mean that they would need to grow, individually and together, if they wanted to preserve their marriage. To be partners again – yes, partners – she needed his advice. Advice he had been hesitant to give today, because of her recent stated annoyance at his words of advice. How, though, could she win back his trust and his advice? The harsh words between them sat in her memory and wouldn’t go away, poisoning the future. A cold marriage might still be a marriage, but Gail didn’t like the cold. There was hard work ahead for her. Work for Van, as well.
They stopped inside the recovery tent, in front of the cots where Arm Webberly and Count Dowling lay side by side. Webberly feigned sleep, but why? Gail came up with a likely answer, because the Arm knew she had flouted the orders Gail gave her as Director. The Arm had her reasons, most likely good ones, but wasn’t up to defending herself and her decisions at the moment.
Thoughts rolled through her mind, unbidden, a bit of the Dreaming and the camp’s shared unconscious mind leaking into her conscious thoughts. The Madonna had told her, a few minutes before she faded into sleep, to look up one ‘Jessie Covenas’, who lived at a particular address in Lubbock, Texas. Her comment made no sense at all. Crow Guru / Mentor Snow’s Dreaming comment to her, apologizing for not helping her defend Chicago: ‘Reason is heroic, reason is aspirational, always the underdog against feelings, emotions, intuitions, faith and dogma.’ It almost sounded like a quote, and something she didn’t appreciate at the time (her payback had been to publicize that the annoying Dreamer, Jardin Aden, was just Snow’s Dreaming identity and not, as everyone suspected, that of an ultra-powerful renegade Focus named Deena Forrest). Dan Freeman’s comment to her in the recovery tent earlier today, that The Man wouldn’t bother any of them if they just didn’t keep trying to ‘save the world’. And his commentary about too many unknown things still being left unexplained, such as the four instinctively linked Beast Men he found on his proving quest that made him a titled Noble. Beast Men – natural untrained Chimeras – were all loners, or at least until now. Now some of them self-organized into packs. Why and how? What changed?
“What do you see, Gail?” Van said.
See. Gail shook the Dreaming thoughts out of her mind and looked. What she saw were two wounded Major Transforms, shot to pieces by unknown assailants. They had protected Van at great cost to themselves. She didn’t understand Van’s point, so she concentrated instead on what Van saw.
What cau
ght Van’s eye was that someone had freed Rose Webberly’s arm from her restraints, and she put her dark, muscled hand in Count Dowling’s massive paw. A faint current of juice flowed between the two of them, a subtle twist to their juice structures. Dowling opened his eyes a crack, and Gail watched as Dowling did as he always did, his eyes moving up and down her body, following the curves and stopping at her breasts and hips. For an instant, Gail got angry, but then caught herself. She had heard the comments about the Noble and his heroics, how Hank and Amy Haggerty and even Carol worried that after such horrible wounds, after being so depleted in élan, there might be nothing left of his mind or his sense of self. They feared he would need to start over as a Noble.
They were wrong. The old Count Dowling was still in there, very much so, strengthened by his link with Webberly. So, instead of letting herself get angry, Gail cranked up her charisma in an ancient and obvious fashion and fluffed her hair with her free hand. Smiled knowingly at the Noble.
Then she saw what Van led her to see. Why Van had attached himself to the two strange non-family Transforms.
Webberly and Dowling were no longer just an Arm and a Chimera, nearly separate species. They were now male and female predator Transforms, Transforms who transcended their transformations.
“Hope,” Gail said, responding to Van’s question, thinking of herself and Van, as well as Carol and Mizar. “I see hope.”
A nearby explosion made her wince. When another followed a second later, she sprinted toward the sound, leaving Van behind. Several more, too close together in time to count, followed.
She stopped, five long paces beyond the recovery tent entrance. Dirty black smoke clouds roiled up into the sky from far too close by. From the direction of their getaway busses, stashed a hundred yards away in a warehouse’s parking lot.
Someone had trashed their rides out of here. Someone didn’t want them to be able to retreat out of this battle.
Gilgamesh! Who did this!
Nobody, he sent back. We’re in big trouble. Another enemy’s after us, and they’re good enough to hide from me at Focus range.
Which Gail thought impossible.
“Enkidu wants a Yorktown, a strong enough victory to force the Cause to surrender,” Van said, as he rolled up behind her. “Carol wants a Borodino, from Napoleon’s invasion of Russia – a tactical victory so costly to Napoleon that it won the Russian campaign for the Russians. What I’m afraid of is that someone else wants a Stalingrad, a battle so costly that it destroys both the armies involved. I think they’re putting a lot of work into arranging our mutual destruction.”
Unfortunately, I’m afraid Van’s right, Gilgamesh sent.
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh had a hard time peeling his eyes away from what Focuses Pitre and Minton did in the bloody, chaotic medical tent, healing the surviving guards from the bus attack explosions. And Dr. Zielinski’s activities. Juice-powered healing. Focuses couldn’t heal. That was one of the truisms of the universe. Yet, there they were, healing away, tagging and untagging Transforms as they moved. That Dr. Zielinski found a way to heal using the household superorganism was less of a shock – that fit.
The more disquieting aspect of it was something he would have to think about later. Juice wasn’t free; Focuses using juice to heal meant that they didn’t have juice for other activities, such as supporting their Transforms. Practically, Gilgamesh knew what that meant: they would get juice from the Arms, and the Arms would go hunt up some more. Kill. Morally iffy? Of course. He just didn’t see any way around the problem, for now.
The Focuses piled up the dross, as well. That bothered him more than just a little. All their recent developments piled up dross. Although the dross kept the Gurus and Crow Wizards deliriously happy, this too was a waste of juice. The Crows needed to find some way of recycling dross into useful activities for household support. He wasn’t sure how, and it wasn’t likely in his specialty, which was combat dross uses. Perhaps he needed to put some work into…
“Status,” the Commander said over the walkie-talkie. Gilgamesh felt his back stiffen at the sound of Tiamat’s cold battle voice, and he tore his eyes away from the healing to pay more attention to the battle.
“East side, main force, at least sixteen Hunters still up, as well as far too many pack members, as they weren’t in the nursing home when it blew. They’re currently set up defensively, digging comrades out of the rubble,” Keaton said. “Their stealthed reserve group is still active and probing at us here, and driving our Crows to distraction.” Meaning Shadow was, as usual, in danger. “I don’t think they’re as strong as Enkidu’s main group. It’s suicide to attack either group and we’re outnumbered at least two to one, make that three to one. Will need to attempt to flee if they go after us.” She didn’t think she would succeed. Gilgamesh’s stomach churned at her words.
“North side,” Duke Hoskins said. “Facing the same group as number one as well as the formerly hidden group of, well, mostly expendables, as well as a smaller group of six Hunters and the smallmouth. We could take one charge from the General,” Enkidu “but not from both the General and the smallmouth.” Gilgamesh did the numbers and grimaced. They remained insanely outnumbered.
“West side,” the Commander said. “Surrounded. Got the smallmouth in front, the FB at the rear, and the irregulars to our side. Irregulars digging in. Irregulars have twelve Hunters and they’re undamaged.” The Commander was so outnumbered she didn’t even bother to mention the odds.
“West bend one,” Gilgamesh said. “Holding our position, at the back of the FB. They don’t know we’re here. Unknowns trashed our rides out; they’re all blown to shit.”
“Crap,” both Tiamat and Keaton said, simultaneously
“West bend two,” Billington said. “We’ve taken the retreat strongpoints; the irregulars who held them fled as we approached. Outnumbered by irregulars over three to one, but they’re being real cautious. My guess is they have a quality problem.”
“West bend three,” Duende Poder said. “We’re now covering the corner between the irregulars and the main force, but haven’t yet engaged. The irregulars have spotted us, and they’re not happy.”
“West bend four,” Focus Rodriguez said. “We’re still in our vehicles, ready to move whenever you’re ready.”
“West bend one and four,” the Commander said. “Time to take out the FB. West bend three – engage the main force.”
This is it, Gilgamesh realized. No more hidden strategic reserve to use as a hammer to finish off the Hunters.
He waved his people forward, and went to talk to Gail, Focus Martin and Focus Jahnke. “Charisma time. Ignore their Patterson stench. Focus Wilson is otherwise a low-end non-political type, and certainly doesn’t have enough charisma to balk two Focuses. Focus Rodriguez will join us momentarily, and although she’s on our side, be extremely polite. They don’t like who we’re working with, and Rodriguez is Council-quality as far as charisma is concerned.” He didn’t mention that Focus Gladchuck and several of the other lower-end local Focuses who were ‘helping’ them would arrive with Rodriguez as well.
Focus Wilson saw Gail, Focus Martin, Focus Jahnke, and Gilgamesh coming, crossed her arms and glared.
Then Focus Wilson saw the twenty-car procession that was Focus Rodriguez and her Transforms, recognized Rodriguez, and started to look a mite pale.
“Good morning, Focus Wilson,” Gilgamesh said. “A fine day for a stroll in the park, isn’t it? I happen to know of a park a couple of miles away that would be much better suited for a stroll than this one.”
Gilgamesh’s charisma was just enough to keep the trigger-happy types from making a mistake. The Focuses would do the real job, as they led Wilson’s Transforms and the normals to their vehicles, and sent them off.
He started to run toward Gail before he knew why. Gunfire, from above. Aimed at the Oak Valley ruins. “Down! Take cover from the news chop…”
A hammer blow, and down he went.
&nb
sp; Dolores Sokolnik
“Commander!” Del said, a loud directional hiss. Whispers wouldn’t do much good in this mess. The bulk of the firing was between the tiny fraction of Hecate’s Gals and Guys who could use firearms and the unknown Focus’s people. The weapons fire didn’t accomplish much save to keep people’s heads down. Occasionally, one of the Commander’s group would take a shot at one of Hecate’s Gals and Guys, but that was about it.
Del wished she ended up on the other side of the ruins, or her family ended up on this side. Her metasense didn’t show much, not with this many Transforms fuzzing the details. She wanted to see if Promise and Modesty would be able to fight as a team, as she had taught them.
She wanted to see if they would survive.
Nothing she could do about it, now.
Hancock looked over to where Del’s voice originated. Del and Arête were invisible. However, when Del met the Commander’s gaze, she yanked on the Commander’s tag.
The tag yank got the Commander’s attention.
Del and Arête lay in a ditch, about four feet deep, off the side of the driveway across from the nursing home rubble. One of the Commander’s group, a large white-furred lioness, weighing nearly a half ton, was in the same ditch, about ten feet away. Arête had assured Del that he could fully mask them from any Monster, but Del wasn’t sure. This was a particularly large one, and sure didn’t feel like a normal Monster to Del.
The Commander concealed herself under a semi, twenty feet from the edge of the parking lot. She leapt out from under the semi, over the parking lot pavement, to land beside the Monster. She then crawled over to Del, keeping her eye on the unknown Focus’s group. Del did her best not to grimace, as the Commander’s tag and the Law sent their contradictory impulses through her system. She didn’t let hostility to the evil outsider overwhelm her, but neither did she crawl to the side of her dominant superior for comfort.
An Age Without A Name Page 36
