The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3)

by Randall Farmer

  Giselle didn’t pee her panties when Gilgamesh appeared out of nowhere, but it was close.

  ---

  I sparred with Giselle for three hours before introducing her to my basement, where I got to critique her technique while she picked apart a normal merc spy working for, our guess, Crow Echo. She enjoyed the work, but was a little weak on Keaton-style interrogation techniques. I promised to train her in them, which she appreciated.

  Afterwards, I hauled her over to Littleside and introduced her around, now that the morning shift had arrived. After she met Gail, I got to hear Giselle’s explanation of why she wore so many Focus tags – they gained her both stature and trust, as the more Focus tags she wore, the less she appeared to be a pawn of any particular Focus’s political agenda. Both Gail and Lori ended up tagging her, much to Arm Whetstone’s amusement. That drew Giselle’s attention and ire, as well as a short trip outside to the practice yard, where Betsy got to learn about the true power of Arm stature and the benefits of Armenigar-style combat training. After asking my permission, Giselle tagged Betsy. Then we all got to watch Lori work out her frustrations regarding her lack of progress learning juice music by beating on the now limping Betsy, Tim Egins of Inferno, and Valerie Faulkner of Gail’s household. I had Giselle study them instead of participating, as she didn’t yet understand the Transform training techniques that allowed Transforms to possess fighting skills similar to that of young Arms, far above what was normally humanly possible. She was more impressed by Lori’s combat capabilities as a pregnant Focus (though not yet showing) and how she could paste all three, when they ganged up on her, without using her Focus tricks.

  “So, Carol, have you read over the claims of Focus Juardiola?” Gail asked, after pulling me away from Lori’s frustration reduction session. We stood by the heavy steel door that led out to the practice yard. All the exterior doors at Littleside were heavy steel, and many of the inside doors as well. Littleside took security seriously. “It’s been over a week since we sent you our write-up.”

  “Do you think this so-called Focus faith healer is at all real?” I asked. I did not believe the claims.

  “My guess is she’s a Shaman Focus and a charismatic, like you.” Gail’s science directorate had recently learned of Haggerty’s suppressed research on Major Transform sub-varieties, of which Amy posited there were sixteen each per Major Transform form. They took to it with glee. Shaman types and charismatic types were uncommon.

  “That doesn’t warm my heart,” I said. “It also makes her claim that she can cure Transform Dystrophy more difficult to test.”

  Gail tilted her head back and eyed clouds. They threatened snow. “I want to send Van and a team to investigate,” she said. “This could be extremely important, as well as something to aid the Household Redefinition project.”

  Van spoke Spanish. I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Not right now. Far too dangerous, and you don’t want to think about the potential problems if Van, a known Focus-spouse, is on our government’s watch list and they grab him.”

  “You’re kidding,” Gail said. “Such things exist? Even for those of us without criminal records?”

  “Uh huh. Haggerty’s been copying them and passing them on to us for years.” I paused. “Once this is settled, I’ll get one of the crew to get your team over the border and back without the government’s knowledge. But not until then, understand?”

  She nodded.

  I still thought this was another insane time-wasting complication best handled by tossing it into that most wonderful of Bob’s Barn’s inventions, the small office document shredder. But Gail didn’t consider this a waste of time, and that was enough for me.

  ---

  “Phone call. Tommy Bates calling back.” Last week, after I beat Haggerty and humbled her, I ordered her to end the war against the FBI. Her big public fight had happened two nights ago, and still we heard no word from her.

  “Tommy,” I said, when I reached the kitchen phone, and suppressed a grimace when I realized I was leaving bloodstains on the receiver. I had been working off my rage and frustrations in my basement. “Where’s Haggerty?” Tommy Bates was FBI, part of the Network since the Quarantine in the ‘50s, and one of Haggerty’s top people for the last three years or so.

  “I don’t know, Commander. She called me right after the firefight, said she was wounded but all right, and she would contact me in a few hours.”

  “Nothing since?”

  “Nada. Not a thing.”

  Haggerty must have followed her instincts and gone to ground to heal, a natural response. I wished she had contacted me before she did so, but I couldn’t come down on her too hard for not thinking clearly when she was badly wounded. “How badly is she hurt?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  So hopefully this meant she was all right, and I should just trust her to reappear when she healed enough so she wasn’t so vulnerable, or when she found herself in enough trouble that she needed help.

  “You know what happened in the fight?”

  “Nope,” Bates said. “Those folks are locked up tighter than a Russian election. I’ll probably get rumors in a couple of days, but nothing yet. But you don’t need to worry much about the FBI Arm Task Force for a while. Amy’s plan worked, and there’s virtually nothing left of them.”

  “All right, tell her to call me when she resurfaces,” I said to Bates. “You call me if you hear from her and she hasn’t ordered you otherwise, or if you hear any rumors about that fight.” He wouldn’t disobey Haggerty to please me, but he would obey me otherwise.

  “Will do.”

  I hung up the phone and began to worry. I had a meeting with Keaton on the 15th, and I needed to know before then if Amy was going to be ready to fight first Focuses. If she wasn’t, I was going to be eating shit big time for ordering her to shut down the FBI’s Arm Task Force.

  Damn. Nothing to do for it but wait.

  Henry Zielinski: December 10, 1972

  “Doctor?” Melanie said. It was eight o’clock in the morning, and Zielinski was just heading out to Littleside. Melanie and Gordon Armelin were his bodyguards today. Gordon was driving, and Melanie sat in the seat next to him. Even while she talked to him, she constantly scanned for threats. The day was chilly, and the gray sky threatened snow.

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if, well, I’ve been feeling a little odd recently, and I was wondering if I could talk to you about that?”

  “Certainly you can. Odd how?” The hazards of being a doctor in the family atmosphere of a Focus household. Everyone wanted to tell him about their symptoms. Given that he was a guest, he made a point of being gracious, and he would be gracious to one of his bodyguards in any case.

  Also, Melanie wasn’t the complaining type, and Transforms seldom got sick. She wasn’t one he would expect to come up with phantom complaints.

  Zielinski noted a faint blush creeping up her cheeks, but she stubbornly continued her endless scanning. “Well, it’s a little hard to describe. It’s, ah, well, my breasts are tender, and starting a couple of days ago, I’ve been feeling queasy on and off. Oh, and Kurt’s been giving me hell because he says I’m being moody. He accused me of having a bad case of PMS, but my period just isn’t coming.”

  “Your period is late?” She nodded. “How late?”

  “It was due more than a month ago,” she said. In the front Gordon glanced back at their conversation with raised eyebrows, but then turned his attention back to the driving.

  “You realize you’re describing the early symptoms of pregnancy,” Zielinski said.

  “Well, yes, I know. But I’m a Transform! I can’t get pregnant.”

  “I wouldn’t think so, no.”

  “I thought it might be some other female thing. Maybe you know?”

  “I don’t know, but we can certainly check you out.”

  Melanie sat on the examining table with a sheet wrapped securely around her torso.

  “This,” Ziel
inski said, extending the lab report out in front of him, “is the result from a positive pregnancy test.”

  “I’m pregnant?”

  “That certainly seems to be the case.”

  “But I’m a Transform! I’m not fertile.”

  “Well, you are certainly fertile. Whether you’re a standard Transform remains to be seen.”

  “All right,” Zielinski said. Melanie was dressed and they sat in his office. “To all our tests, you’re a completely standard Transform.” That didn’t necessarily mean she was a standard Transform, of course. That the tests read completely normal could easily mean only that she was something they didn’t know how to test for yet. He had expected her to test positive as a Goldilocks, and was actually looking forward to all the information he would learn from a Focus Attendant Goldilocks, but she wasn’t.

  “So if I’m a Transform, how did I get pregnant?”

  “That’s a good question. Do you mind if I ask you some personal questions?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Good. And I do apologize for the personal nature of the questions, but can you tell me about your sexual activity since your transformation?”

  Melanie turned red again. She shifted restlessly in his guest chair and the still new leather of the chair squeaked. “There hasn’t been any until a few weeks ago. Too many women in the household, and people outside the household don’t want to sleep with Transforms.”

  Zielinski nodded. “So it’s possible that you’ve always been fertile. You say you became active a few weeks ago? How many weeks?”

  “It was mid-October, so almost seven weeks ago.”

  “And when was your last menses?”

  “My last period? About two weeks before that.” The sex happened in what would be a normal woman’s most fertile time.

  “Can you tell me who the father is?”

  She blushed again, and mumbled “Gilgamesh.”

  Ah, now things made sense. “That may be our explanation then. There have been rumors for many years that Crows can occasionally impregnate Transforms. The rumors are unconfirmed, and though fertility between a Transform and a Crow seems to be rare, that might explain your current condition.” Crows seemed to be able to impregnate Focuses at the drop of a hat – or a trouser – but Transforms were different.

  Melanie nodded. “Does it work out all right?”

  “I can’t say for certain, but I didn’t hear any rumors of tragedy along with the rumors of pregnancy, so it’s likely fine.” Zielinski was considerably less sanguine than he portrayed. Transform Sickness killed an awful lot of people for an awful lot of stupid reasons. He considered Melanie’s pregnancy to be a huge risk, but there was no point scaring her with his worries. He carefully made notes in what had once been a small chart for Melanie, and was about to grow much larger.

  “So if it’s a fluke, then Gretchen and Trisha are probably fine and it’s just me,” Melanie said.

  Zielinski stopped cold, goosebumps on his limbs. “Gretchen and Trisha?”

  “Oh, well, Gretchen says she’s feeling about the same way I am. She’s actually had three kids already, and she said that if she didn’t know better, she’d swear she was pregnant. Trisha’s been bitching for weeks, and she’s actually thrown up a couple of times.”

  “So,” Zielinski said, carefully. “Did Gretchen and Trisha also sleep with Gilgamesh?”

  Melanie nodded.

  “Are they the only women who’ve been sleeping with Gilgamesh, or are there more?

  “Ah, well, Gilgamesh is pretty popular among the unattached women in the household.”

  “I see. Do you suppose we could get all of Gilgamesh’s bed partners in here for me to test?”

  Zielinski sat on his little stool in the lab and rubbed his forehead. Six pregnancy tests so far, and four of them positive.

  How in the hell had Gilgamesh done it?

  Crows weren’t more than marginally fertile with anyone except Focuses. Zielinski got ahold of Sky about an hour ago and confirmed the rumors. In all the years Sky lived on and off in Inferno, he only managed one other baby besides Lori’s. Given the amount of opportunity for the ever-charming Sky, that was miniscule. Yet Gilgamesh spent seven weeks in Gail’s household and impregnated two-thirds of the women he slept with, perhaps more. Zielinski suspected his negatives might be negative only because the pregnancy was too recent.

  Two-thirds of the women pregnant. This was greater fertility than even normal women showed.

  Almost twenty years of Transform Sickness, and the one constant was the infertility issue. Transform infertility was the death of all their dreams and plans, because whatever they did, there would be no babies. Even if they saved every Transform there was, humanity would still decline into oblivion because there weren’t enough babies. Even if all the Focuses had babies, all the Transform men found normal women to impregnate, and all the Goldilocks had babies, and all the Crows slept with as many women as they could find, there still wouldn’t be enough babies to replace all the adults as they aged and died. Humanity would fade from the earth because Transforms simply weren’t fertile enough to continue the species. The fertility problem had been the major stumbling block to Van Reijn’s hypothesis about Transform Sickness, the one issue keeping it from becoming the accepted theory.

  Except for Gilgamesh. Here, quietly in Gail’s household, Gilgamesh somehow broke through the wall surrounding Transform fertility.

  The media would bury them in unwanted attention once they found out. The fanatics would be enraged beyond reason. The Van Reijn hypothesis was intimately coupled with the mythology hypothesis these days and the idea that Transform Sickness was a recurring phenomenon. If this went public, if the public came to believe the myth hypothesis was something other than tabloid trash, the world would fall on them in righteous anger.

  Oh, and then there was the hint of polygamy involved in this. No, this was worse than polygamy, something worth a half dozen tabloid covers. The dreaded peasants with pitchforks would march on them and…

  Oh, and Carol would explode because of the additional complication added to her already immense and complicated household redefinition project. Fertility. Dammit, they had solved the fertility problem by accident! The snowball effect, as Lori had labeled it, emanating from the needs and results of the juice pattern project. If only Keaton and Bass had waited just another three months…

  The machine binged and Zielinski pulled at the paper as the machine extruded it. The test was a Quantitative hCG, and the value was 4 mIU/ml. Borderline. Probably negative in most cases. Probably indicative of a pregnancy too recent to register in this case.

  Five out of seven. How in the hell had Gilgamesh done it?

  Well, either Gilgamesh was an unusual sport of some kind, or this was an unexpected side effect of the tagging ceremony. Whatever lay behind this, he was producing babies by the cartload.

  Zielinski also blamed the tagging ceremony for Carol’s sudden willingness to give her kills to Gail’s household. Was household tagging the big breakthrough in Transform Sickness the research community had been longing for, showing up on his doorstep unexpectedly?

  Shouting from the hall interrupted Zielinski, followed by the sound of someone running. The door to the lab opened with a bang. Outside, a woman screamed obscenities in a voice that peeled paint off the walls.

  “Doctor!” The nurse at the door screamed in a panic, but Zielinski was already moving. He didn’t recognize the voice, but only an Arm could manage that volume and that level of obscenity. He headed toward the sound at a run, hoping this wasn’t the strange new Arm Carol dragged in this morning. Instincts from his ER and Korean War experiences took over as he gave orders for prepping an operating room. He turned the corner in the hallway and found the source of the commotion.

  Haggerty stood just inside the back entrance, screaming at the people attempting to help her. Something was badly wrong with her right leg. Her right thigh was shorter than it should be by about six in
ches, and swollen up like a beach ball, perfectly round. She screamed obscenities at anyone who bumped it, and each bump sent shivers of muscle spasms pulsing under the skin.

  Terminal stage muscle hypertrophy, Zielinski realized with horror. Her thigh was round because the bone was gone, shattered into pieces by the muscles of her leg. How the hell did this happen to a mature Arm? He might need to amputate the entire leg and let her grow another.

  He spotted Jeannie, his nurse, among the crowd. “Call the Commander and get her over here, immediately!” he said. Jeannie ran for the phone. Whatever he was going to do for Haggerty, he needed Carol here to keep Haggerty under control. His Haggerty tag wouldn’t be enough when the inevitable surgery started.

  “Out of the way,” he said, shouting at the confused and terrified crowd around the Arm, mostly doctors and nurses, plus a couple of men Haggerty brought with her. The crowd withdrew at his voice of authority, except for a couple of the doctors and the two men of Haggerty’s. One of the men had been trying to keep the crowd away from Haggerty’s leg and had had his back to Zielinski, but he turned around as the crowd cleared.

  Zielinski stopped cold when he recognized the haggard and worn man, for one of the few times in his life shocked speechless.

  “Zielinski,” the man said, not surprised to see him at all.

  Carol Hancock: December 10, 1972

  “Nothing new on Cathy Elspeth,” Ila said, spreading her notes on my kitchen table. “Our people penetrated her Transform rights organization and four of her household’s businesses. She’s on excellent terms with the Salt Lake City political and religious establishment, especially the local police force, likely her primary defense if anyone was silly enough to bother her with a Transform army. Her household’s advertising business brings in enough money to give her the fourth largest household income among all the Focuses, allowing her to buy friends instead of needing to blackmail them. Despite the rising tension in the Transform community, she still hasn’t upped her household defenses, sticking with her one night watchman.” Despite the fact her suburban spread practically backed up on the Hunter and Monster dominated Wasach National Forest. “I think she may really be what she seems, an ordinary Focus with the bad luck of being caught in the Quarantine, and because of her ample charisma now flagged to act as the proxy for the first Focuses on the Council.”