The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight

by Randall Farmer

  At least after the Patterson tag-shucking incident Carol no longer kept her tied up, and they were feeding her regularly.

  “There must be entire areas of capabilities we’re not using. Give me some examples.”

  Tonya nodded. “Group juice use. Juice uses amplified by physical objects. Long distance message relays. Juice based pseudo-telepathy. Juice based psychotherapy.” She paused. Her voice was hoarse from the days of talking. “I’m not saying that each of us can improve our own personal capabilities tenfold. Just that there are far more areas of specialization the Major Transforms can get into than we’ve been led to believe. Allowed to believe.”

  “More,” Carol said. Just like Keaton.

  “Uh.” Tonya momentarily lost her train of thought, the well of information finally starting to run dry.

  “I can help,” Lori said. “One of the things Ann keeps beating me about the head with is the fact we can’t study human nature without taking into account the culture of the viewer. The Major Transforms in the United States have all followed development models lifted from our culture, or whatever subculture we belong to within the United States. For instance, Keaton’s take on Arms is nothing more than the culture of marital violence, of men against women. It would be foolish to think Keaton’s approach is the only one possible. Consider, for a moment, Arms as virgin sacred warrior women, sublimating their need for physical passion after they take juice into sacred aggression against heretics. Can you understand how easy that model might be to follow?”

  Carol gave Lori the strangest look. “Or, if you want another interesting take, consider the power of dissonance that would arise from being a Mormon Arm…”

  “So, despite Patterson’s telephone games with you, the first Focuses would like to kill you, or so you said, earlier. Is this still true?”

  “Yes,” Tonya said. “Based on what I know now, none of the other first Focuses knew Patterson was controlling me.” Tonya rubbed her temples. “The only thing I can add is that not only was she protecting me from the other first Focuses, she was protecting my household as well. If they decide to smack me down, the first thing they’ll do is take out my household’s stay-at-homes one night while I and my bodyguards are off doing politics. Such as right now.”

  Lori’s face tightened in anger, but Carol just shrugged. “Let’s say I refuse to give on the ‘go through Keaton’ issue, and tell the Council to go to hell. What’s going to happen?”

  “The first Focuses will attempt to kill you.”

  “How?”

  “Assassination, most likely.”

  “They haven’t succeeded, yet,” Carol said, sneering.

  “They’ve never tried,” Tonya said.

  “The first Focuses haven’t been trying to kill me?”

  “As a group? No. To them, and to the Council, you’re a resource to be fought over and controlled.”

  Carol’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me that from their viewpoint, they control Keaton, but not me? I’ve gone out of my way to be friendly to you Focuses!”

  “Ah, you’re making a mistake,” Tonya said. “The first Focuses are not the Network. Your work with the active Network Focuses has succeeded. The Network loves you. Focus Claunch loves you, but can’t admit to it in public. You’re one of the Network’s favorite people. On the other hand, the other first Focuses look at reality in an entirely different way than Claunch and the Network. As far as I know, you’ve won only one of them over to your style of doing business, Focus Fingleman. You aren’t worth anything to the other first Focuses if they, through the Council, can’t deal with you directly.”

  Carol frowned and didn’t respond.

  “The first Focuses don’t want control over your day to day activities. What they want from you is a proper business relationship. From their perspective.”

  “You’re saying they would be willing to kill me if I refuse to have a proper business relationship with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “The first Focuses are as arrogant as they are insane,” Carol said. “So they went after me in Chicago just because I wouldn’t deal with them?”

  “No,” Tonya said. “Not the Firsts, but the Council, I’m embarrassed to say. The Firsts told us to solve the tagged Transform kidnapping problem, but didn’t give us any orders regarding ‘how’. The Council was leaning on the FBI because all of us were convinced you were poaching tagged Transforms. We couldn’t conceive that someone like Rogue Crow existed.” Tonya sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. It took an effort of will to open them again. She had attacked and broken the Commander! Attacked twice. She could argue that Patterson had controlled her, so it wasn’t her fault, but Tonya knew better. Being Patterson’s pawn only showed weakness, not lack of culpability.

  “Lori here told us everything we needed to know to make the right decision, and in our arrogance, we refused to listen,” Tonya said. “I screwed up, plain and simple, because I was the one pushing hardest on the theory that you were our enemy. That’s why my being here is so appropriate.” Looking back on her memories, she couldn’t even say Patterson had been controlling her, regarding this.

  Carol fixed Tonya with her predatory gaze. “Huh.” She studied Tonya for another minute, and then leaned back and folded her arms. “Rogue Crow played us both like a fiddle. Back then he had me convinced the Network Focuses were after me, and he had both Gilgamesh and I pinned down by his Hunters.”

  “Hunters?”

  “Rogue Crow’s charges are no longer mere Beast Men,” Gilgamesh said from the couch to Tonya’s left, where she now saw him sitting next to Lori. “Rogue Crow uses directed withdrawal scarring to keep Beast Men from losing their humanity; his Chicago area beasts call themselves Hunters. They share the same scarring, and they’ve named it: the Law.” Like Shadow’s voice over the telephone, Gilgamesh’s voice was melodic and attractive. He didn’t say much, but when he did, people listened. Tonya understood the danger the Crows represented – Gilgamesh’s version of Major Transform charisma made her want to cuddle with him as if he was a big teddy bear.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Carol, what do Chimeras get as their version of Major Transform charisma?” Tonya said.

  Carol laughed. It was a nasty laugh. “I’ve never put a name to it. It’s like what Arms have, but more animalistic.” She turned to Gilgamesh. “What have you Crows named it?”

  “The Terror,” Gilgamesh said. “When a beast roars at you, you go instinctive and mindless.” Tonya wanted to curse and throw a tantrum. Back when she had been investigating the Transform killings and kidnappings, she had encountered several cases where witnesses had heard this ‘terror’, without realizing they were hearing Chimera charisma in action. She had even heard the ‘terror’ in Philadelphia, in the juice zombie fight, without realizing what it was.

  Unless Patterson ordered her to forget, of course.

  “Yes,” Carol said, leaning forward, her personal presence much more forceful. There was magic in her voice. “I think we can all agree that we need to hunt down and defeat Rogue Crow and his Hunters, and wash our knives in the blood of their entrails.”

  Tonya flushed momentarily with the lust for violence, and Lori let loose an actual snarl.

  “Looks to me that you Focuses need to work on resisting this form of charisma,” Zielinski said, tut tutting the two of them. He, dammit, had enough exposure to Carol’s predator to be able to shake it off as easily as he was able to shake off Focus charisma.

  Being able to rouse Tonya’s lust for violence did give Tonya a good idea about how Carol would be using ‘the Commander’. Ally or not, she was going to be a problem.

  “So, let’s negotiate,” Carol said, ignoring Zielinski. “How do we mollify both the Council and the first Focuses without giving in to their ridiculous demands?”

  “I have several ideas,” Tonya said. “The first is simplest – we lie. We say there is no Arm organization. You still get Keaton’s permission before you agree to any job of
fer from the Focuses.”

  “Won’t work,” Carol said. “Keaton’s often impossible to contact.”

  “You have that problem as well?” Tonya said. Carol nodded. “So it’s not just me.” She sighed. “What is she doing that eats up most of her time, then?”

  Carol shrugged. “It isn’t wise to even think about such things.”

  Gilgamesh minutely shivered her juice, and she turned toward him. “No conspiracy, or secret identities,” he said, connecting Keaton’s behavior to Rogue Crow’s. “She spends a lot of time dealing with her hidden organizations, training, and hunting.” He sighed, minutely. “Keaton hunts for fun, and to work off steam.”

  “No wonder she thought having you around was cheating,” Carol said. “I don’t think it’s cheating at all. I like having Crows help me hunt.” Gilgamesh visibly preened in response to Carol’s compliment.

  Carol’s charisma had another aspect to it she had never seen with Keaton’s, unanticipated and rich with potential. Tonya didn’t fully understand it, but as best she could tell, it was something like ‘be my ally and I will protect you’. Unexpected. It gave credence to Lori’s assertion that Focuses and Arms were meant to work together. Closely.

  “Any other ideas about our little dilemma?” Carol said.

  “Yes. Instead of recognizing the Arm organization, we acknowledge that Keaton is your boss, and for politeness sake, we must pass by her, first, any job offers to you.”

  “Politeness?”

  “Politeness is important among the upper-end Focuses. An impolite comment can turn a Focus from a close friend into a life-long enemy.”

  Carol rolled her eyes. “You should just fight. Physically.” She paused, and shrugged. “Politeness!” She shook her head. “As a way of saving face, if this works for you Focuses, it’ll work for us Arms.”

  No, the Arms weren’t polite. Tonya had known so for years.

  “So, Tonya, how did the Julius rebellion really end?” Carol said.

  Tonya blinked her way through the abrupt subject change. “Now there’s a tale and a half. It all started when…”

  Rebel Assault (1964)

  Tonya picked up the phone on the third ring. “Two minutes fifty seconds.” Click.

  She found herself standing, threatened and jittery, in her office. She took three steps to her open office doorway. “Attack coming, get ready,” she said, loud, yanking on her Transforms’ juice to get their attention. All before she stopped to think – quickly, quickly – ‘what was that?’

  The person on the phone had spoken with Tonya’s own voice. The voice had hummed with charisma, but she had never run into any Focuses with this particular charisma skill. The warning was real, which gave this form of charisma more power. She continued to think as she ran down the hall to the weapons closet and unlocked it. She tossed two long guns to the first bodyguards trotting up.

  The speaker had to be someone I’ve met, she thought. Someone I’ve interacted with at the juice level, or at least the charisma level. That’s how I know this is a true warning.

  A grim smile crossed her face as she ran down the stairs to prop open the back door of her row house to the warm afternoon sun. As they would be selling this place when it went bad, they couldn’t bore holes through the walls separating the individual units – not to mention the fire code violations – but they could arrange for defensive connections through the back yards. Fences were far easier to remove and put back than interior walls.

  “Spotters,” Tonya said, attracting the attention of the two closest house guards. Todd and Russell clambered up the thin metal ladders they had installed, to the row house roof. The roof itself was too steep for good footing, but they had installed narrow level wooden pathways and guide-ropes.

  Keaton. The caller had to be Keaton. Which meant Tonya’s plans and preparations had worked – arranging for a nearby Philadelphia safe house for Keaton to recuperate in, keeping Zielinski here so Keaton, a very guilty Keaton, would be fixated on Tonya’s residence, and her repeated charismatically-backed comments to the Arm that if she helped Tonya, Tonya would help her.

  Tonya’s smile widened as she thought about Arm charisma, which is what she had just experienced. Drill sergeant charisma. Excellent for combat operations. If she successfully forged an alliance with Keaton, she would have a Major Transform as part of her household security team.

  “Got them, ma’am,” Todd said, from the roof. “Forty or so, well-armed, and I believe with a Focus among them.”

  Forty. So, Tonya thought. Who was going to end up the trapper and who the trappee? Forty was more than she thought Focus Julius could muster for an attack. About double Tonya’s best estimate.

  This didn’t bode well. Perhaps her impolite, taunting and threatening phone call – to induce Julius to attack – hadn’t been such a bright idea. Yet, unless Julius broke the implicit no-violence ‘truce’, the Council would continue to lose their nerve, and continue to postpone, indefinitely, the necessary full-scale assault on Julius’s household.

  Tonya put her hand on the brick facade of the row house, taking a moment to breathe deeply and steady herself for combat. Just like hunting Monsters. Only this time, the Monster was a Focus and her troops, and the kill zone would be the entryway to her own home.

  “Set it up for internal defense Blue,” Tonya said, gathering her armed men, who were streaming out of the other row houses into the bright sun. “Everyone else, into the safe rooms.”

  Blue was a gamble, but as with all things Focus, the politics of the fight was important. The attackers had to shoot first.

  “You will surrender, now,” Focus Julius said. Tonya ignored Julius’s charisma easily.

  Despite how off Julius’s Transforms felt, and their numbers, Tonya was starting to think her household had a chance. Julius didn’t know a thing about combat tactics. She and about twenty of her people filled the entryway of Tonya’s row house, six of them ringed tightly around the short Focus. Tonya and her people were set up on the doors out of the entryway, half of her shooters kneeling and the rest standing behind them. Only nine shooters, including Tonya.

  “Isn’t going to happen,” Tonya said. “Coming here was foolish, bitch. Lay down your weapons, now.” Her charisma should be strong enough to affect Julius’s soldiers. What was Julius thinking? There wasn’t a normal among her troops inside Tonya’s row house, and only three in her entire group. How could she support so many male Transforms? They all wore Julius’s tags.

  Tonya metasensed Julius flinch, but Tonya’s charisma didn’t affect the soldiers. This matched the rumors Tonya had heard, but found hard to believe, that Julius’s male Transforms were charisma-resistant.

  “So be it,” Julius said.

  The rebel first Focus hand-signaled, invisible to Tonya’s eyes but not to her metasense. As Julius signaled, Tonya yanked on her people’s juice, Tonya’s signal to fall back. A moment later, Julius’s troops fired at empty air.

  Two juice yanks. Tonya’s people fired, carefully, ducking in and out of contact with the invaders as they did so. Two of Julius’s people fell.

  “Back,” Tonya said. Of her people, only Roger Ebbs, a normal, was wounded, but right now she was stalling for time.

  Pop pop pop. From outside the row house. Three of Julius’s Transforms outside the house winked out of Tonya’s metasense. Head shots. Tonya grinned, feral. Yes! Keaton. Tonya had no idea where Keaton was set up, likely across the street, but another of her gambles had paid off.

  Screaming chaos from Julius’s people drowned out the ongoing gunfire outside, as Julius’s troops opened up inside Tonya’s row house, spraying gunfire everywhere, panicked and wild. Tonya winced as a partly spent bullet that had passed through an interior wall hit her. Blood spurted from Bobby Harper’s upper right arm as well, a bad hit. Danny, a house medic as well as bodyguard, helped drag Bobby out of the combat area and tended his wound.

  Outside the row house Keaton continued to fire, as one by one, enemy Transforms
vanished from Tonya’s metasense. Tonya followed the surviving enemy Transforms with her metasense as they gave up on the assault and fled in open panic. Her people, following the Blue plan, had been waiting for this, and pushed forward with a counterattack. She followed, hoping to engage Julius and end the rebellion here, but Julius had already fled. Three more of the attackers fell, inside the row house, before the back end of the invading squad exited the too-narrow-for-easy-flight doorway, all three still alive, at least for now.

  Outside, two more of the enemy Transforms fell, gunshot wounds to their lower bodies, hit far more times than it would take to stop them. Well, she had told the Arm that enemy tagged Transforms were legitimate juice-suck targets. She did wonder how she was going to explain this to her people.

  Sirens wailed, approaching, as Julius and her people ran in panic out of Tonya’s metasense range. Before the police arrived, the two wounded but not dead Transforms in the street vanished from Tonya’s metasense range as well, physically dragged away…in the other direction. Yes, Keaton was going to have a feast.

  Tonya had won the battle, but not the war. Julius had escaped Tonya’s trap.

  ---

  “You’re better at bamboozling the police than I realized,” Hank said. They had commandeered the kitchen of the row house Hank lived in for the autopsy. Needless to say, her people had cleared out, save for her bodyguards and the two wounded captives. Martha, who considered this kitchen hers, was already grumbling.

  Tonya had only lost two people in the gunfight, Robert Culver, a Transform, and Marco Wilson, a normal, married to Althea, one of her Transforms. Four others had wounds bad enough to need Hank’s full attention. She hadn’t let herself grieve yet, using her own charisma to damp down her emotions. “Find anything yet?” Tonya said. She wanted answers to the rebel Transforms’ charisma resistance.

  “Nope,” Hank said. He had bunkered down with her non-fighters in the row house where she had him stashed, and her people said he had been the least panicked of them all, and had, in his wheelchair, helped cover a door. “This is going to get a little messy,” he said. “A circular saw isn’t a bone saw. I’m not making any guarantees that I won’t screw this up.”