“Yes?”
“Now, instead of punishing you, I’ll punish one of your people. You choose who, but from now on, whenever you train, I want one of your people in here, and I’ll hurt them whenever you screw up.”
Gail’s smile vanished. “The hell you say!”
“That’s an order.”
“Oh, no. You can hurt me all you want, but keep my people out of this. I’m not going to give you one of my people to torture.”
“Your call,” I said. “But if you don’t supply someone, I’ll make my own choice.”
“You bitch,” she whispered, white as fresh snow over the threat to her household. I smiled.
“That’s ‘you bitch, Teacher’.”
She nodded, and said the words. Over the weeks, the juice had woven itself into her words, and with them came acceptance of her lot. Her anger fled.
“As with an Arm in training, first the pain, then the success, and last, the reward,” I said.
Gail nodded again, and began to strip. She had grown to understand the cycle of life for an Arm, seen how it reflected the cycle of life within a Focus household. She had told me how long it took her to understand that one of the more important roles of the Focus was to give out pleasure, and how she still attempted to talk Focuses with hedonist households out of their model. Now on the receiving end, she began to see the possibilities.
Without any rewards, the training would break her mind, just as without the intense pleasure of the kill, the pain of training would overwhelm any Arm. Even with the pleasure of the kill, my training had almost destroyed me. Some could argue that it had, though I would counter by saying one person’s destruction was another’s enlightenment.
Without a word, Gail climbed into my arms, and lay against me. Although I didn’t need to, I healed her wounds, almost without thinking.
The juice began to cycle between us, and we lost ourselves in pleasure.
---
“I still don’t see why.” Webberly paced, anxious, in the gazebo in the far back of the Inferno compound. Wisteria draped through the latticework, and purple flowers hung all around us. I had called ahead and told them we would come in the back way, SOP for introducing a new Arm to the Inferno household. An egoist, such as Keaton, would emphasize the ‘I’ in Webberly’s statement. I’m not sure what I was, save perhaps a bit manipulative, but I would emphasize the ‘still’. Webberly emphasized the ‘why’. Haggerty would equally emphasize the last three words. Headblind.
“If you want to deal with Focuses and run the absurd tests you want to run, you need to be able to deal with their households. The best place to start is a household not thrown by Arms, and the only one I know of like that is Inferno.”
“Ma’am,” Webberly said. Anxious. She normally referred to me as ‘Commander’. “This is your territory, ma’am. Free dealing would give offense to you, and I have no desire to give you offense. This is difficult for me, even with your tag.”
“You have my permission to gad around here as much as you like.” The problem wasn’t being around tagged Transforms. Instead, she had picked up on something else, and, truthfully, I was curious. Webberly’s capabilities and head problems were different than Haggerty’s, Sibrian’s or my own. Webberly, normally cold as ice, had become risk-adverse in her dealings with me. In her mind, she had put too much of an effort into winning my tag (though from my point of view, it was my effort in seducing her) to risk even the slightest chance of any social misstep.
“Ma’am,” Webberly said, as an answer to my statement.
I spotted Ann Chiron and a bodyguard, Doug, exit the estate house and walk across the compound to greet us. Webberly stood silent, but her instincts urged her to run. Something about this situation spooked her, and something other than the hidden presence standing right behind me. I was positive that she didn’t have the skill to spot the presence.
“Commander, Arm Webberly,” Ann said, when she entered the flowering gazebo. No offer to shake hands, but a small head bow to both of us. Webberly disturbed Ann: Arm, tall, black, muscular and ice cold. I pumped emotional support to her through the tag, metaphorical loaning of a little of my predator to stiffen her spine.
“Rose, this is Ann Chiron and Doug Warren. Ann’s one of the Inferno household leaders, and a leading researcher into Transform social structures.” She was also mine, but Webberly could read the tag perfectly well.
“A moment,” Webberly said, and then turned to me. “You have tag partials all over everything, ma’am. I believe that may be what’s bothering me.” Careful, oh so careful. I was impressed.
“I have Ann explicitly tagged. Not Doug.”
“Let me show you, ma’am,” Webberly said. She started writing on the air, three dimensional juice air-writing. I had seen this trick from her before, one of her tricks I couldn’t duplicate. She drew out my full tag, in – well, it wasn’t really yellow, but we had been using color names for years to describe some of the juice properties that a Major Transform can metasense. Then she went over several small sections of it in what we called red and wasn’t really. “The red are the partials you have in everything, here.”
Everything, not just everybody. I, for one, couldn’t metasense tags on objects. Yet.
Ann and Doug stood stock-still and gawped at Rose’s air drawing. I hadn’t realized Transforms could see Webberly’s air writing trick. How did they see the air drawing without having Major Transform metasense, anyway?
“Damn,” a voice said from behind my left shoulder. I put out my hand and gently stopped Webberly from filling her hands with knives.
“Get visible, Sky,” I said, putting some Arm drill sergeant charisma into my command. If he didn’t get visible lickety split, we would have a very unfortunate fight on our hands. Webberly didn’t have patience for this form of tomfoolery.
Sky, tomfoolery incarnate, became visible. He was short and blocky, with dark hair, oriental eyes, and a French-Canadian accent. While Rose visited with Lori and the rest of Inferno, Sky would be giving me another Crow lesson. Last year, we figured out my ability to sense juice traces was an ability to sense élan. From a Crow or Chimera point of view, my sense was pathetic, albeit finely tuned and detailed, but from an Arm point of view, this was a unique talent. We had been busting our balls – figuratively in my case – to improve my trick to the point where I could sense both élan and dross in something other than juice traces. Sky, the best metasenser around who was also a dross construct wizard, did the teaching. I was now up to yearling Crow in everything except range.
“Mademoiselle Webberly,” Sky said, and bowed. Sniffed Webberly’s hand. Webberly, to her credit, didn’t freak out. I think Sky had just destroyed her entire world-view on Crows and Crow capabilities. She hadn’t known about the invisibility trick, nor had she realized that Crows could be as bold as Sky. I had been saving Sky for much later, as introducing an Arm to senior Crows was normally a more advanced part of my Arm training suite than introducing them to Focuses, and Sky wasn’t the best place to start.
“Crow,” she said, half a statement and half a question. “You can see my skywriting?”
“But of course. As clearly as I can see your beautiful face and shockingly observant eyes. My amazement is that an Arm can do juice patterns.”
“I see no juice pattern, Crow,” Webberly said, put off by Sky’s forwardness. Heaven help her if Sky actually got fresh! “I use this capability for illustration, when I have to explain things to people.” Read ‘Arms’. Webberly wasn’t drawn to any of the other forms of Major Transforms. All the other Arms I associated with were drawn, in some fashion, to at least one of the other Major Transform types. Keaton to Focuses, Haggerty and Whetstone to Chimeras, Sibrian and myself to all of them.
As we talked, her skywriting faded away. She would need to do a re-write, when we got back to discussing tag partials.
“Nevertheless, Mademoiselle Arm. Trust me on this, as I’ve been living juice patterns due to my association with Focus
Rizzari for the past several years.” I didn’t interfere, instead mentally writing the beginning of a report on this to Haggerty. Haggerty wanted this, wanted this badly, and this would satisfy her unstoppable desire to pester me for results for at least a week.
Webberly studied Sky for a moment. “You and the Commander have tagged each other, as well.”
“I sincerely doubt that, Mademoiselle Arm.”
Damn straight. The male Major Transforms didn’t do tagging, and no Crow would be foolish enough to allow himself to be tagged by an Arm.
“Let me show you,” Webberly said, and drew out the same pattern again, then added a bunch more. Then sketched overlay sections in what we called red and purple. “The red is your common tag, and this purple must be the tag extras needed for an Arm to Crow tag.”
Sky shook his head. “Nope. That’s our Affinity link, not a tag. Tags are what you do to someone else, Affinity is what you do to yourself to bring yourself in alignment with another Transform.”
This could get ugly, ugly as in ‘theoretical enough to put me to sleep’. “Affinity is Sky’s term for a suite of metapresence tricks, such as when two Major Transforms share metasenses. Affinity shows up in a bunch of other things, as well, such as when Arms do Arm healing of others.”
“Thank you,” Webberly said, sincerely as always, to Sky. “I think you’ve saved me several weeks of work by showing this to me.” She turned to me. “On the other hand, there still are these tag partials all over both of you.”
“The implication is that my long-term interaction with Sky and the people in Inferno has produced some natural form of tag, then. A different form of tag than a normal one, since I didn’t consciously create them.”
Webberly nodded. “This gives me a whole lot to think about, ma’am.”
“Go on along inside, Rose. Tell Focus Rizzari what you just told me, and show her your skywriting capabilities when you’re proposing your experiment. You’ll win a friend for life. Don’t forget this is her territory, as well.”
Webberly walked off, chatting with Doug, and in a moment, with Ann. I turned to Sky. “Now do you believe me?”
Sky nodded. “You were right. Radically different juice manipulation talents, especially from your point of view. You seem to be able to overlap some of the Chimera sense and juice manipulation capabilities, while Arm Webberly is edging toward Focus. You share the same exact limitation, though. Obvious, but one I hadn’t thought of before.”
“What’s that?”
“Touch range for juice, dross and Élan manipulation.” Sky paused for a beat. “Obvious because we all know how good an Arm’s sense of touch is.” After the obligatory eyebrow wiggle, he took that moment to present me with another red rose, as was his custom.
“I’m touched,” I said. Payback.
He leaned his head over to near mine. “My most gracious lady didn’t want me saying anything, but I think you need to know, not the crazy lunatic who thinks she’s your boss at the moment.” Haggerty. Too hyperkinetic for Sky’s taste. “We’re down to our last thirty-two issues with the tag-retuning part of the household redefinition project, and their only challenge is in time and sweat. We’re just a few weeks away from announcing.” I nodded at his good news. “If you would be so kind, could you pass this along to Gilgamesh. He’ll want to know.”
The bad news, though we all knew this was coming: the end of Lori and Gilgamesh’s intimate relationship. I nodded again, firmly not reacting.
---
“I can’t believe you’ve agreed to this,” Lori said.
I shrugged. Lori, Sky, Webberly and I settled in Lori’s basement biochem lab, in the conference room-like area, not the dissection area, thank you very much. Sky perched himself on a stool, consciously emulating a bird. Webberly remained nervous but expectant.
“I have an ulterior motive,” I said. I settled on the floor, my back resting on the metal folding chair where Lori sat. “This doesn’t leave this room. Bass got to me with a juice trick when I tagged her, and I need to figure out what she did before I see her in person again.”
“What sort of juice trick?”
“She kept me from asking certain questions when I interrogated her.” Which should have been impossible. I had her fully under my control, and I had suspected she was holding back on me and did a full Arm-style mind scrape. “I figure when you have me tagged, you should be able to figure out what she did, and how.”
Tagged. Yes, I had agreed to let Lori tag me as an experiment. Webberly, Sibrian and, gasp, Whetstone (dragged into the project against her will by the two more-senior Arms) needed the data, and Lori and I were the only Focus slash Arm pair who trusted each enough for such a crazy experiment.
“No guarantees,” Lori said, absently rubbing her hands through my hair. I had made Webberly swear not to use this against me in the future. Even though Lori had five years on me as a Major Transform, an Arm giving rank to any Focus cost the Arm stature, even in an experimental situation. However, the potential benefit was worth the risk. “Ready?”
I opened my mind and will to accept what she did to me. “Go to.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Webberly said. She closed her eyes to better focus on her metasense.
“First is the standard tag I use on Transforms,” Lori said. I felt my juice wiggle and I gasped. My juice was hers now; if she wanted to destroy me she could, without even the slightest exertion. “As expected, I can’t move juice to Carol. Let me try various modulations Sky and I have been working with for my household Transforms.”
Whatever Lori did, I couldn’t tell, or metasense.
“Ma’am? Modulations?” Webberly asked.
“Tags, it turns out, are very malleable,” Lori said. “Tag modulation is dangerous, at least if you’re a Transform. On the other hand, Major Transforms are far sturdier.”
I needed this. Tags were an Arm strength, dammit. I burned a quarter point of juice into my metasense and, poof, my metasense cleared. These modulation changes were, as expected, absurdly subtle, within what I considered the error bar of tagging.
Error bar. Gah. Far too much time hanging around with Hank.
“Next will be the Arm tag emulation,” Lori said.
My juice more than wiggled. When my juice resettled, the world changed. “I’m yours,” I said, as I twisted around and bared my throat to Lori. “What would you have me do?”
“Hush,” Lori said, and gazed into my eyes as she rubbed my scalp. My mind melted into hers. If she wanted a pet Arm, she had me now. I wouldn’t even bother fighting; for years I had wanted in, wanted to join Inferno, wanted to be her Arm.
Not good for me at all. I went into this trusting Lori wouldn’t betray me and make me hers. Right now, I began to marshal my arguments to convince her to keep me.
The only bad side of this was the loss of my normal sexual desire for her, a standard side effect of the Arm tag.
“Anything, ma’am?” Webberly asked. This was the big test; Arms can, in most circumstances, move juice to each other. When tagged.
“Nothing, darn it,” Lori said. “Not even from my personal juice. There’s some physiological incompatibilities at work here. According to my metasense.”
Rats. Webberly’s hypothesis had crapped out, typical for all of our juice link experiments.
“We should make this permanent,” I said, smiling. “This is…”
“Carol, no, that’s the tag talking,” Lori said, and undid the tag.
The world remade itself again, this time in an emotionally shattering way. I froze, concealing my emotions and reactions. I wanted to cry over yet more loss, but I didn’t.
“Intense,” I said, when I recovered.
“Mademoiselle Arm, the first time you got out of metasense range you would have declared war on us if my lady left the tag on,” Sky said.
“I suppose.” My mind still wanted the comfort of Lori’s emulated Arm tag. Sky, I think, was wrong about what I would do when I got out of range. Lori’s emulated
Arm tag conveyed stature, unlike her earlier tag, because of her very important five extra years of experience and her Cause leadership.
Definitely this messed with my head.
“Lastly, the Focus-Focus tag,” Lori said. “If I can get it to work.” Technically, this was the most difficult of the experiments, as she had to jigger the juice to make me appear as a Focus to the tag.
Slowly my juice sloshed around, and I metasensed an impossible and yet familiar tag configuration develop. The warm fuzzy glow of Lori’s emulated Arm tag vanished into dust.
“This is foul,” I said. “Sticking this thing on an Arm is a declaration of war.”
Lori flinched. “I feel the same way. I’ll get it off of you as soon as we do the test.”
“Okay. I can’t draw juice. Can you give me juice?”
“Nope.”
“Wait, ma’am, ma’am Hancock,” Webberly said. “You flashed in recognition when the tag took hold. Why, ma’am?”
I repressed the urge to growl at her, or beat the crap out of her for this interruption. She was right. This was important. So I repressed my instincts. “Grrrm. Something from a long time ago. Long…oh crap!”
This I did not need.
I took a deep breath and fought my urge to do a Keaton berzerko attack. “This, or something like this, was what Gail used to give me access to her juice buffer in the Battle in Detroit.”
Lori dropped the tag, making cat barf noises eerily similar to Gail’s. “The tag’s not enough.”
I got to my feet, echoing Lori’s sound effects. “There’s something wrong with the Focus-Focus tag, something we’re missing. Something big, and not just with the juice transfer failure. I’m willing to try it again, but only if we can come up with a good idea about what’s wrong with the damned thing. It’s like the Focus-Focus tags are cursed.” I paced the conference area and met gazes.
Nobody had any good ideas to try. Not a one.
“And the Bass question?” I asked, too many paces later. “Anything on what she did to me?”
The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) Page 33
