Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2)

by Randall Farmer

  Crickets chirped and the cool nighttime breeze tugged at Gilgamesh’s jacket. Clouds hid the stars and Gilgamesh suspected they were due for rain before morning. All the household but Gail and a single guard slept, all bedded down on the second floor as part of the midnight scramble operation. In a few hours, after Gilgamesh and Newt finished cleaning out the first floor, Kurt and Sylvie would shift people around to give the two Crows access to the second floor.

  Gail worked in her office, practicing her complex juice patterns. Although as complex as Focus Daumarie’s, they were vastly different, the complexity in a new direction. He thought of his former wife, Gina, and her crocheting hobby, as crochet was a good analogy for Focuses and their juice patterns. Focus Daumerie crocheted juice pattern lace, small and ornate, while Gail crocheted comforter-sized juice patterns made out of repeating tiny and less ornate juice patterns.

  Gail practiced as Gilgamesh worked. He wondered if she was a better witch than he was a wizard. She could certainly crochet her juice patterns quickly.

  He wasn’t sure how far he could trust Tiamat about Gail. After comparing Tiamat’s current metapresence with Gail’s, and extrapolating the attendant changes to their juice structures, he decided Tiamat loved Gail, and vice versa. He suspected neither of them realized.

  Tiamat had fallen for an angelic little Focus who wasn’t quite so angelic anymore. Fallen hard, too. If Gail turned on him, and forced the Arm to decide between them, he doubted she would decide in his favor.

  He and Newton dropped the slippery dross in a parking lot two blocks away, moving Crow silent through the scattered leaves. Once out of the Rickenbach household, the slippery dross would age quickly and become a Crow delicacy in two days, if Gilgamesh remembered the late Crow Wire’s old lessons correctly.

  He decided he was being paranoid about Gail. Although Gail could be temperamental, she was an honorable, intelligent and kind Focus. They had been friends for years, Gail being one of the few Focuses who understood his fears about being a pioneer Major Transform. She would never turn on him or harm him on purpose.

  Two of the local housecats found him and rubbed up against his legs as he and Newton swept together the next batch of slippery dross. The local cats at least appeared to like him.

  The Clumsy Angel’s household possessed ample beauty, but not as beautiful as before, or as beautiful as it could be. They needed the household tuning. They could use quite a bit of tuning, actually. He wondered if Gail would work with him and tune her household, and laughed bitterly. Occum was right. He didn’t have the months or years necessary to build the required Affinity bond. This was, in all likelihood, a lost cause.

  He and Newton didn’t find any problems until Van and Sylvie moved the now-sleeping Gail out of her office and down the hall to Kurt and Sylvie’s room. As they exited Gail’s office, Gail said “Oh, Gilgamesh, you’re here” in her sleep, and nestled up to Van in an awkwardly seductive fashion. Van’s transparent flinch and instant jealousy portended future drama. Sylvie’s naked bedroom eyes on Gilgamesh, while he watched Van and Gail, meant she had been listening to the Inferno stories about Sky and the Inferno women Transforms, and that, too, meant future drama. Lastly, once everyone else cleared out of Van and Gail’s apartment, he and Newton hadn’t been able to pick up more than tiny amounts of the slippery dross draped over Gail’s desk.

  The Good Doctor’s new juice pattern system produced an entirely new and more difficult to handle form of dross. And that certainly boded ill for the future.

  Now this was a problem worthy of a Crow Guru, Gilgamesh decided. After he and Newton finished and he returned to his apartment, he ignored the potential for drama and started work on decoding this new dross variety.

  Carol Hancock: September 13, 1972

  “Progress toward pattern codification?” Hank said. We met in his new office in Littleside, a spacious, airy place, much larger than his old dump and more comfortable than his Littleside lab. I suppressed the urge to carve divots out of his shiny new desk. “No, no, you’re looking at this wrong, Carol. The proof of concept part of the project is finished. It works. It’s proven. What Gail and I are working on now is making this real instead of the toy version of witch. We aren’t facing theoretical issues now, but time issues.”

  “Come on, things can’t be that good,” I said. Too much time on the phone this morning, so I needed a break. I had been talking with Terry Bishop of Inferno, going over possibilities for the new boots I would be using for my new combat method. I needed the soles to be a lightweight metal sandwiched between shoe layers, and thus invisible. She talked me into titanium, which she assured me she would be able to sweet-talk out of Bob’s Barn or their contacts. “Are there any real issues standing between where you are now and releasing this to the Focuses?”

  “Personal signifiers,” Hank said. “I know they exist, and they’re a big hairy mess. I’ll need to borrow some of our best metasensers for a few days to crack the problem.” Gilgamesh. Sibrian. Gail as well. Perhaps even Sky. I nodded.

  “Okay. Give. What’s a personal signifier?” I tried to keep the glee out of my voice. This was something I could take to Keaton to show her that Haggerty’s crazy push the Cause scheme worked.

  “It’s the part of the juice pattern unique to each Focus, but the signifier isn’t stable and changes over time. If we can’t crack the personal signifier issue, the patterns won’t be transportable.” I nodded. A Focus would be able to create a book of pattern formulas she wouldn’t need to memorize, but she wouldn’t be able to pass her patterns to another Focus. An improvement, but not good enough.

  “How soon will you need more Focuses involved?” Linda Cooley, a powerful Focus I often worked with, would be perfect for this.

  “Weeks, and not many,” Hank said. He allowed himself a small smile. He understood the potential of his research, and he was starting to get the prideful scientist inventor ‘I am God’ feeling going. This time, he damned well earned his faux divinity. “I cadged some time with one of the Crows’ research experts, a Crow I’ve worked with before, named Dark Star.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “I know. He’s useful, though. He’s the one who convinced me that I’m not as far along on the personal signifiers as I thought. Oh, and he’s convinced the Hunters are farther along on their war preparations than we realized, and he wanted me to pass the information along to you.”

  “Stupendous,” I said, deadpan. I didn’t have time for the Hunters, unfortunately. However, if we waited too long, they would certainly have time for us. I swore this Dark Star Crow was a font of useless distractions. “Anything on the other projects?”

  Hank closed his eyes for a moment to shift mental gears. He looked like crap, neglecting his exercise again.

  “I can give you a verbal report on the Arm self-modification project,” he said, after opening his eyes. I motioned with my hand for him to explain. “I’ve tested eight different Arms so far, and certain patterns are emerging.”

  “What sort of patterns?”

  “Every Arm manifests some variety of physical change. Four of the eight are taller. Rayburn’s hair is real blonde these days. Mostly the changes are minor and benign. Eye color, hair color, skin texture. After Arm Billington, Arm Whetstone’s changes are the most dramatic.”

  “But?”

  “Not all the major changes are benign, such as Arm Webberly’s shackle galls around her wrists. Arm Rayburn suffered hearing loss in the high frequencies after hiding out in an airline hanger for several days when she was having difficulty with the authorities. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to regain her full hearing, but she can’t.”

  I frowned at the implications. “Why is this happening?”

  “As far as I can tell, virtually all the major alterations have a psychological basis, and most of the minor ones as well. Arm bodies subtly adjust themselves to fit the self-image of the Arm. Rayburn thinks of herself as blonde. You think of yourself as taller. Bil
lington thinks of herself as black.”

  “Hank, this is a weapon,” I said.

  He nodded. “This is very dangerous information, and I fear someone else is familiar with this, someone intimate with Transform physiology, and Arm physiology in general, and used this at least once in the past. If I could just prove this beyond a reasonable doubt…”

  My eyes opened wide at Hank’s Transform doublethink accusation. He flat out accused Bass of causing Keaton’s psychotic break and the death of Arm Svensen. He didn’t have the proof, but he suspected…and Hank wasn’t one to ever take flights of fancy.

  Hooooooly shit.

  You Want To Live, You Follow Orders

  “It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Tonya Biggioni: September 14, 1972

  “What the hell do you think you’ve been doing!” Suzie’s usual icy cold voice devolved into a broken wreck of uncontrolled fury. Tonya stared at the telephone in shock. One of the year’s first cool breezes wandered through the curtains into Tonya’s office, as the late afternoon sun dropped the window into shadow. Tonya grabbed at a couple of loose papers before they blew off her desk.

  “Suzie, what’s…”

  Suzie didn’t let Tonya get the words out. “You’re going to pay for this atrocity, bitch!”

  “Suzie!”

  “You just think you can ignore my wishes with impunity? Well, I’m tired of your fucking incompetence! I should have brought you to heel years ago.”

  “Suzie!” Tonya was impressed. Suzie rarely lost her cool, but when she did, she did it proud.

  “You shut the fuck up, you fucking wop. Send me Delia. No. Both you and Delia. I want you to watch as I turn your favorite into a mindless zombie. You’ll be crying blood, you fucking twat!”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s your fault, you fucking bitch! Your fault! You work with those fuckers. You should have stopped this. This is all your fault.” Then, astonishingly, Suzie began to cry.

  “Suzie, tell me what happened. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s your fault!” Suzie’s scream now overwhelmed. “Fucking bitch. Bitch.”

  Tonya waited as Suzie cried. After several minutes, the sobs subsided.

  “Listen to me, you useless piece of shit,” Suzie said, in a hollow attempt at her usual ice cold. “Nobody walks into my own household and murders one of my people and gets away with it. I want the head of the killer on my doorstep by Saturday, or you and Delia are going to come by and pay for screwing up.”

  Or else I’ll expose your crimes to the FBI, and you’ll spend the rest of your life on the inside of a tiny cell as a vivisection subject for their researchers, Suzie didn’t quite say. Damn. Tonya’s gut felt hollow, as the attack Suzie described echoed Wandering Shade’s kidnapping of one of Wini Adkins’ favorites far too closely. Wandering Shade’s attack had led, through many improbable steps, to Tonya’s fall in the Arm Flap. To untold deaths and misery. To a place Tonya would rather never go again.

  “Suzie,” Tonya said, placating. “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t know how to track down rogue Crows, or how to kill them. Last time it took a war.”

  “You hear me, bitch? You want to live, you follow orders. You Hear Me?”

  “I hear you, Suzie,” Tonya said.

  She maintained emergency procedures for disasters like this. She and her household could disappear into the woodwork and…

  “Rogue Crows?” Suzie said, her voice breaking again. “What the fuck are you talking about, you moron?”

  “You weren’t attacked by Crows? Or their enslaved beasts?”

  “No, goddammit, by an Arm! An Arm! Crows? Incompetent fool! Didn’t you put any work into getting the Arms back in line?”

  “Arms? You got hit by an Arm? What the fuck are they doing attacking you?” Tonya said, her voice a half octave too high, her mind whirling in sudden confusion. Arms didn’t attack Focuses, at least not without authorization from the Council, tacit or otherwise. Her sudden anger gave way to fear. No baby Arm possessed the skill or organization to carry off such an attack, and none of the senior Arms would do something like this without political cover. She hoped Carol and Lori weren’t behind this, because she would likely end up joining them in their outlawry, if they called in her debt to them.

  Utter quiet descended on the other end of the line. Too many heartbeats later Suzie began to dial a rotary phone, and Tonya recognized the phone number from the whirring of the dial. Shirley Patterson. The chief of the first Focuses, and Tonya’s private nightmare. Tonya shivered and sweat pooled on her lower back. “I know the Crows hit you, Tonya. Tell me what else is going on with the Crows,” Suzie said, after a minute, in her whispered conspiratorial voice. Shirley Patterson would hear every word they both said.

  Tonya told the story, starting with the cease-and-desist letter to Crow Gilgamesh, the exposure of Focus Innkeep’s people and ending with Shadow’s latest promise to do something to stop the Crows stupid enough to ignore the normal Crow dictum of staying out of other peoples’ business. If he could.

  “Tell me what happened to you, Suzie,” Tonya heard Shirley Patterson say, a tiny whisper from the speaker on the other phone in Schrum’s hands.

  “One of the goddamned Arms, one of the short ones, waltzed right into my compound, juice sucked one of my Transforms, then fucking fought her way out again! No matter what we did, we couldn’t kill her!” Suzie started crying, again.

  Crap! Keaton herself? What the hell? No one had enough pull to order a hit on a first Focus!

  “Put the phones down, Suzie. I’ll send Anne and her people over to take care of you,” Shirley Patterson said. Anne was Anne Trail, a first Focus who lived out on Long Island, not too far from Schrum’s place north of New York City. A nice lady, not a politically active Focus at all. Suzie’s crying retreated to the background after she put the phones down next to each other.

  “Tonya, I think it’s time for the two of us to lay our cards on the table,” Patterson said.

  Tonya didn’t say anything, nearly too petrified to talk. Shirley Patterson once had Tonya tagged, and the tag messed with her mind so much she hadn’t been able to tell anyone anything about Patterson. Such as, for instance, Shirley’s many powerful Focus tricks.

  “I see several choices, Tonya,” Patterson said, her voice sugary and calm. “I’ll let you stay independent, but only if you produce results. Your other option is to give up your independence voluntarily. If you stay independent, and fail, I’m going to invite you and your household for an extended educational visit to Hilltop.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Don’t dissemble, Tonya. You know exactly what’s going on and what I’m saying, even if Suzie is clueless. I’m sure your dreams have been as tremulous and apocalyptic as mine, recently.”

  Tonya almost fainted. Part of Patterson’s bad dreams almost certainly came from Tonya and Polly’s own plotting to remove the first Focuses from power. Tonya’s dreams mostly didn’t deserve comment. Monsters hunted her. Darkness crept toward her from all sides. The usual vague feelings.

  “Cat got your tongue? I’m sorry about the past, Tonya. I didn’t understand, back then. I handle discipline better now.”

  She had cut her own beating heart out of her body to offer to Patterson, once.

  “I know you’ve been independent for years.” Tonya still couldn’t respond. “So be it,” Patterson said. “What’s been done to Suzie mustn’t happen again. I’m giving you back your old job as Arm liaison, this time with the responsibility to keep the Arms in line. I’ll handle Donna, there won’t be any trouble. Your first task is simple: you put a stop to Arm poaching on the first Focuses, or else. I already stated the price for failure.”

  “Ma’am,” Tonya said, her blood cold as an ice flow, her mouth a dry desert. She and her household would join the green-eyed zombies in Patterson’s compound if she failed. As controlled slaves. Forever.
<
br />   Tonya would rather die.

  The other phone on Schrum’s desk clicked off. Suzie’s crying didn’t stop.

  ---

  Summer hung on strong in Los Angeles, the temperature in the high eighties as Tonya approached Keaton’s Los Angeles lair. The Arm’s home base was a huge split-level house up in the hills, and Tonya wondered why the Arms needed such damned big houses. Entering an Arm’s lair always forced unpleasant comparisons to the crowded poverty of Focus households.

  Patterson’s mission didn’t come with plane tickets, which Tonya purchased herself. When added to her payment last week to Suzie, it meant her entire household would be pinching pennies for the next month. Tonya firmly pushed her resentment aside. Strong emotions made her vulnerable, and showing any vulnerability would be most unwise. She felt vulnerable enough without her bodyguards.

  One of Keaton’s students opened the door, an abused-looking Arm with observant eyes. She couldn’t have been more than three months past her transformation.

  “I’m here to see Arm Keaton,” Tonya said, and walked in the door. The young Arm gave ground reflexively. “Where is she?”

  General irritation made Tonya more forceful than she intended, and the young Arm blanched. “Ma’am, if you’ll wait here…” she started, but Keaton interrupted from the doorway into the kitchen.

  “Well, well, terrorizing baby Arms already. What’s wrong? You run out of kittens?”

  Tonya ignored Keaton’s barb. “You should have heard Suzie Schrum on the telephone,” she said, grinning, as she walked to the kitchen. “She was so mad she cried. Just broke down and sobbed.”

  Keaton grew smug, giving Tonya all the information she needed to know. “Oh, really?”

  Tonya recited as much as she could remember of the conversation with Suzie, lingering in glowing detail over every sob and hysterical pronouncement, while leaving out the conversation with Patterson. By the time they finished, she and Keaton both sat in the living room while one of the students served them summer sausage and various cheeses as a snack. The student possessed rock hard emotional control, strange in an Arm still so normal looking she possessed age wrinkles.