“Nevertheless,” Sinclair said. “They do Rules differently than we do, but they’re still Rules.”
“Shit,” Hoskins said, disgusted. “It’s Rules, it’s not Rules. No one can explain what the Rules are, except we’re supposed to follow them. Give me a nice, clear, written set of Rules that a man can learn and understand, not this nebulous Focus crap.”
“They call it ‘courtesy’ and think everyone should understand how they do business,” Sinclair said. “It’s still Rules. Right now, we’re eating politely in her restaurant, paying plenty of Gilgamesh’s money and leaving a fat tip. Courtesy. We’ll be polite and friendly and we’ll go through channels, we’ll get in eventually, and hopefully she’ll even like us, because we’re so polite.” And hopefully no one would kill them in the meantime.
“Shit,” Hoskins said again, and slouched down in his chair. “Courtesy.”
“Guru Gilgamesh?” Hoskins said.
Gilgamesh sat outside of Sumeria, in the little RV park just to the west of New Orleans. He shaded himself under a huge old magnolia and worked on new dross constructs, improvements to his rotten eggs. The old rotten eggs, he realized, were really just a very primitive form of a floating gradient dross construct. Combining his Guru training and his recent combat experience, he now understood how to make them properly.
He had spent most of the last couple of days, besides the time he spent standing watch, plotting out a good structure and working out the proper derivatives. He had finally finished the derivation earlier this evening. The new rotten eggs weren’t eggs at all, or even tennis balls. He used golf balls now and suspected he could go even smaller. Plus, his new treasures would last longer, hold more, and tolerate more rough handling.
He had picked up a sling shot yesterday. When he constructed his first golf bomb this evening, ‘dazzle metasense’, he had tried it out in the slingshot and the golf bomb worked wonderfully. Twice as potent as his old ‘dazzle metasense’, and now he had real range. He would be spending enough time with the long-range sling shot to get pinpoint accuracy. The training wouldn’t take long; the adage of ‘never play poker with an Arm’ was matched by the adage of ‘never shoot billiards with a Crow’. Crows were no stronger than a male Transform, but after a few years of learning how to gather dross more efficiently, they all had exceptional hand to eye coordination.
“Your grace?” he said. He was actually getting used to the huge Noble.
Hoskins squatted down across from Gilgamesh. “Guru Gilgamesh, do you remember when I described how the Crow did some kind of dross effect on me that made me unconscious, back when they attacked Master Sinclair?”
Gilgamesh nodded. “I remember.”
“Is this something you can do?”
Gilgamesh thought. “I can see how such an attack might be theoretically possible, but I don’t know how.”
“Would you be willing to try?” Hoskins was intent.
“I suppose I might make a start, but why do you want me to? I wouldn’t think you’d want me to learn dross constructs that affect Chimeras.”
Hoskins shook his head. “The attack would have been damned useful two days ago if you could have knocked those Hunters out to start with. But that’s not why I’m here. You see, if you can learn how to duplicate the attack, you can teach me how to resist it.”
“Of course, but you’d only know how the resist the one particular effect. Our enemies might try something different. Also, I’m not up to the power level of whatever they used on you. I won’t be able to knock you unconscious. I’ll be lucky to make you a little drowsy.”
“Yes, but if I can resist your effect, I might have better luck resisting similar attacks from these enemy Crows. If they ever attack Master Sinclair again, at least I want to make them need to come up with new tricks. I’ll be damned if I want them to be able to use the same one twice.”
Gilgamesh nodded thoughtfully. “Then we shall do this, your grace.”
“Good,” Hoskins said, satisfied. “If you’re willing, we can do the same thing with any other constructs you have or want to learn. That way, our side gets better offense and better defense, both at once. Good all the way around.”
“Yes.” Definitely yes. A chance to train with a Chimera who was willing to teach him how to affect other Chimera? Definitely, definitely yes. “Practice your Terror on me, as well,” Gilgamesh said. “Recent events have reminded me that I’m nowhere near as Terror-resistant as I should be.” Hoskins nodded.
He wondered if Tiamat would ever be willing to go for such a deal.
---
“So what do you want from me?” Focus Helen Daumerie asked. Nine in the morning, time for Focus Daumerie to hold court in her empty restaurant, attended by her ranks of bodyguards and aides, eight men and two women who would serve as waiters, cooks and hostesses later in the day.
Focus Daumerie was a short woman with dark brown eyes, light brown skin, and black hair falling in curls all the way down her back. She was the only one seated.
“Focus Daumerie,” Gilgamesh said, respectfully, and hoped Hoskins would manage to control his impatience. “We have a wounded Crow, and we hope that you might be able to heal him.”
“Let me see this Crow.”
Sinclair came close, and at her order, knelt at her feet. Her guards shifted restlessly, nervous to have him so close to their Focus. Hoskins managed to remain perfectly still, but Gilgamesh metasensed the stress rolling off him. The Focus laid her hands on Sinclair’s head and closed her eyes.
“Tell me about his injuries,” she said. Gilgamesh described everything they knew, and then fell silent. No one said anything then for a long time as the Focus did whatever she did to examine Sinclair. Gilgamesh metasensed juice moving, but nothing beyond the basics. Outside, the distant noises of Canal Street traffic sounded, along with the ding of a trolley’s bell. A fly buzzed through the upended chairs.
“Someone laid a pattern on his mind,” Focus Daumerie said, not opening her eyes. “The power that once held the pattern in place is gone, but the pattern itself remains inside his juice structure.”
“Can you fix him, Honorable Focus?” Gilgamesh asked.
She nodded, slowly, as if she were not completely sure. “If I had time, and another Crow to compare him to. I won’t be doing this for free. What do you have to offer, to make it worth my time?”
Focus bargaining. Gack. Gilgamesh hoped they had enough of whatever she wanted.
“We can clean the dross from your restaurant and household, so that it will take considerably longer before it goes bad.”
“We just moved three months ago. How much is there to clean?”
“Not much,” Gilgamesh said, chagrined. The dross cleaning was the best offer he had been able to think of. “What other price would you consider worthwhile?”
“Money. I’ll attempt to fix your Crow for $60,000.”
Sinclair choked. Gilgamesh winced and mentally added up his assets. Counting real estate, he barely cleared five figures. “I’m sorry, Honorable Focus, but we aren’t wealthy. We don’t have money in those quantities.”
Focus Duamerie frowned. “What do you have to offer, then?”
Sinclair turned back to them, and Gilgamesh and Hoskins looked at each other, stumped.
Gilgamesh smiled. “I think I have something you might be interested in.”
---
“You want me to do what?” Tiamat said. They sat in the living room of her Detroit home, and Tiamat’s people, Tom and Ila, attended as well. Unlike Focus Daumerie, at least Tiamat let them all sit.
“I want you to go to New Orleans for a week and teach Focus Daumerie and her household how to cook. Plus whatever else you want to teach them.”
Tiamat raised a single eyebrow and watched him for a long moment. “Bullshit,” she decided. “That’s not all you want and you know it.”
Gilgamesh felt miserably unhappy. His idea would work only if Tiamat cooperated. She was right, though, and he needed more from h
er than his simple request. “Sinclair is crippled, and she can heal him,” he said. “All she wants is a week of your time.”
“All,” Tiamat said, flat.
Gilgamesh hung his head, and Hoskins spoke up. “We do seem to have acquired some enemies, Commander Hancock, and it does so happen there is some chance of fighting in New Orleans. If we’re sitting in one place for a week.” Tiamat leaned back in her chair, more relaxed. “Is there something we can do for you to compensate you for your time?”
“What are you offering, your grace?” she said. Gilgamesh had worried about Tiamat getting touchy about Hoskins being in her house, but instead, they treated each other with an exaggerated politeness. They had dealt with each other enough in the past to know how not to set the other off.
“Our service, Commander? Is there some task that needs doing?” Hoskins said.
“If there is anything I can do for you, Commander Hancock, I would be glad to,” Sinclair said. “This is my life on the line, here.”
Tiamat leaned back and eyed them speculatively for a moment. Then she smiled.
“All right, for the sake of my friendship with Gilgamesh, and since this is for the Cause, I won’t charge you as much as I could. I want two things. First, the complete story of what’s going on, including the Crow and Noble politics, from each of you. I want to know if your enemies are the same as my unknown enemies.”
Sinclair, Gilgamesh and Hoskins all looked at each other, and then Gilgamesh nodded.
“Second.” She turned to him. “Gilgamesh, Crow Sky told me to tell you that his and Focus Rizzari’s latest project is all but completed. You know what that means.”
Gilgamesh’s spirits fell. He knew perfectly well; while he had been learning to be a Guru, he hadn’t been working on his dross cleaning business. Sky had bested him and won Lori’s hand.
He gave Tiamat a small nod, burying his emotions until later.
“I want you to join me here in Detroit and start working with Focus Rickenbach. You’ve worked with her before, and I’m positive my training’s messing up her place as badly as I messed up Focus Frasier’s place in Chicago.”
Gilgamesh took a deep breath and glanced at Duke Hoskins and Sinclair. They both nodded, willing to owe him for this. “I can do that.”
“Commander Hancock?” Hoskins said. “I have one other thing to offer if you’re interested.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Do you have an interest in sparring? I find it difficult to find challenging partners, and it’s been a few years since we’ve had a go.”
Tiamat smiled faintly. “Don’t you think that might be a little dangerous? An opportunity for some natural conflicts to get out of hand? You do appear to be a little stressed.”
“Perhaps,” Hoskins said. “However, sparring is a great cure for stress.”
Tiamat smiled wider.
---
“Wait,” Gilgamesh said, trying to push Tiamat away. It was amazing how fast she could make the clothes disappear when she put her mind to it.
“What do you mean ‘wait’,” she whispered in his ear, while her hands did things to make thinking difficult.
“Just wait a minute,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She laughed her evil predator laugh and ran her hands lightly down his torso from his shoulders down almost to where he really wanted her touch, and then stopped. He moaned.
“Well, if you really want to wait,” she said, “why then, we’ll wait.”
“Damn,” he said, his voice a whisper, no longer interested in waiting. He tried to pull himself together, and took several deep breaths. Tiamat watched him with her dangerous smile from several paces away.
All right, all right, he thought. Just a few minutes.
He concentrated.
The first dross construct fell apart almost before he started, but the second one held. He laid it into the floor. The next one went on the wall that bordered the hallway. After that, he simply stretched them to cover the rest of the room.
“What on earth are you doing?” Tiamat said from where she watched, sitting Indian style on the bed and flipping her empty diaphragm case through her fingers. She was astonishingly beautiful. She never seemed to understand her own beauty. Lean and strong and graceful, like a panther in the jungle. Dangerous and powerful and seductive. Oh so seductive.
“Dross constructs,” he said. “This set blocks a Crow’s metasense. In a minute, I’ll block a Chimera’s.” Her training from Sky must be paying off.
Tiamat raised both eyebrows at that. “Oh, really? That’s a very nice little trick, Guru Gilgamesh.” She laughed her dangerous laugh. “In a bit, I’m going to ask you all about your progress. But first though, finish that up and get over here. We have business to attend to.”
Carol Hancock: August 10, 1972 – August 15, 1972
“Your houses always boggle my mind,” Lori said. “I can’t imagine one person living in someplace this large.”
I grinned. Lori did that to me. “Zielinski thinks it’s some kind of turf thing. All the Arms like lots of space. You have everything arranged?”
“I got someone to take my classes all week, so I’m here for the duration. I don’t teach a lot of classes anymore, so arranging time wasn’t too difficult. Does this little project of yours know I’m coming?”
I nodded. “She’s delighted. She’s very impressed with your research, and the way you buck the first Focuses.” Lori was so close, and this time she was on my turf. I found my nerves tingling with excitement, and I wanted to close my eyes and lose myself in my metasense. How manifestly unfair that I was about to leave.
Lori smiled a nasty smile. “Well, we’ll see how delighted she is after I’ve been here for a week.”
I shook my head in mock dismay. “What are you planning to do to her?”
“Just give her a little challenge in her life.” Lori poked me in the chest. “I think you’ve fallen for the young Focus’s beautiful glow and you’ve gotten all soft on her. I remember what you and Keaton did to me three years ago, and I know for a fact you’re not hitting her anywhere near as hard.”
“Well, she isn’t quite as tough as you were,” I said.
“She will be.”
I turned over toward the picture window that looked out on the back yard. A cool late summer rain soaked the patio furniture.
“Carol?” Lori asked.
I shrugged, a small motion. “At times, I don’t know how hard I should hit her. I want to toughen her up, and the toughening is necessary, but I enjoy the nasty stuff so much I don’t trust my judgment. I’m going to have to live with her when I’m done, so I don’t want to hurt her so badly that she hates me, but I can’t afford to go easy on her, either. I think I’m pushing her as hard as she’ll take, I worry that she’s not progressing fast enough, and then I worry that my own urges are screwing up my thinking, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
“You’re worried about your unknown enemies.”
“Of course I’m worried about our unknown enemies,” I said. “I’m an Arm. They might easily decide to strike if I’m not here.”
“You think I’m in danger?” Lori snorted. I nodded, appalled at her arrogance. “I’m always in danger, and spending my time in some other Focus’s household will leave me far less exposed than when I’m teaching college students. Trust your teaching.”
I let my face go blank. She would have her entire suite of juice pattern tricks out looking for trouble, as well as her contingent of well-trained Inferno bodyguards. The problem was psychological, not logical, as I wouldn’t be here in my territory to properly protect her.
It’s an Arm thing.
“I’ve got news on another front,” Lori said. I nodded and motioned for her to continue. “Based on supply orders, the Network’s spies think United Toxicol is putting together a duplicate of their Kansas City élan production setup in their Denver lab.”
“Denver? That’s not good,” I said, disgusted. Nobody
important stayed in Denver long among the Arms or Crows. Something about the city was off, and nobody knew why.
“I know. We don’t have a single useful Network contact in Denver at the moment, and Denver’s Focuses are beyond useless.”
“Amy still thinks we’re facing a big new superpowered enemy, and these days she’s got me more than half-convinced she’s right,” I said. “I don’t know if this means shit or not, but she fingered Denver as the most likely place our supposed new enemy lives.” Denver gave me the willies, the same way Pittsburgh did. I was suddenly glad Haggerty had me doing full time research; otherwise, a thorough sweep of Denver was something I would normally be assigned.
The trip to New Orleans was a whole lot more appealing than any theoretical time in Denver. I had charged Gilgamesh, because I needed his participation in my Gail project, but truthfully, I would have gone with him for free, simply to be able to protect him. A chance at flushing out some of our hidden enemies was just gravy.
“So,” Lori said, after a minute of contemplation, “have you been keeping a dream journal?”
I nodded, still staring out the window and stewing.
“Well, then, why don’t you let me have a look at it?”
I sighed, and turned toward the stairs. Lori followed.
“Look, while you’re here,” I said, as I headed up the stairs, “Mary Beth will take good care of you, and you and your people can make use of any of the facilities, but I’m going to lock up some of the rooms, and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave those alone.” Even though Lori was a special case, I still felt uneasy leaving anyone in my home.
“Don’t worry,” she said, as truth echoed through her soothing charisma. “I’ll take good care of your house and I won’t try to get into anything you’ve locked up.”
“Hmph.” She read me too easily.
“Now, about this dream journal,” she said, wrinkling her pert little nose at the smell. I couldn’t come up with any reason not to give her the journal. I snagged the notebook off the shelf and extended it to her, but she didn’t take it. She was too busy looking around at my bedroom in curiosity and red-faced fascination.
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