Beth nodded, her sparkling red curls bobbing. “Yes. What’s the drawback?”
“I haven’t found any, yet.” Gail led Beth into her office, and offered Beth a seat. “So,” Gail said. Too excited to sit in a chair, she perched herself on her desk. A couple of papers wafted from the desk to the floor. “If you want to help, I’ve got an offer.” Gail’s office was a cheery place in its college-student style cramped chaos and the absurdity of piled-high furniture and lines of boxes arching overhead. A plate of cookies already waited for them on the tiny table between the guest chairs.
“An offer.” Beth took a deep breath. “What sort of offer?”
“How’d you like to do this with your household?”
Beth blinked. “How?”
“Well, think of the numbers. There’s about as many Crows as Focuses, but only a few Arms. So each Arm is going to get to support multiple Focus households, and I’ve talked to Arm Hancock, and she’s open to the idea, if we can come up with a Crow for you.”
“Uh, Gail, I’ve never met a Crow. That I know of, at least.”
“There were some at my wedding reception,” Gail said. She suspected Beth had been using her charisma to shove her politically hazardous dealings with Crows into her subconscious.
“So you say. I seemed to have missed them.”
“Well, the Crow who’s moved in here, Gilgamesh, has a friend who works with him named Newton.”
“Okay. Invite him over, and we can talk.”
Gail blushed. “It’s not that simple. Newton’s a bit more skittish than Gilgamesh.”
“So the drawback is the Crows, eh?” Beth said. Gail nodded.
“I knew there had to be something. What do I do, then?” Beth said. She smiled and picked out an orange and black pumpkin cookie from the plate.
Gail had been through this years ago. “You start by writing to the Crow. Leave him gifts. Then talk to him on the telephone. Think of dating the shyest boy in high school, and then realize the Crows are even shyer than that, and you’re going to be the one making all the moves.”
Beth laughed. “Let me guess. Doing the wink wink nudge nudge ‘come over here big boy’ routine sends Crows screaming the other direction.”
“Yes. Worse, they’re all practically immune to Focus charisma, and they aren’t talkative. I’ve known Gilgamesh for years, and I still don’t have a good feel for him as a person.”
Beth ran her hands through her buoyant curls, and smiled. “Sounds like you need to do some work yourself, Gail.”
“Uh huh. Yah, I need help. At times, it’s almost as if he’s not here, save that the household just works better and the dross seemingly walks out of the place on its own. I’d like someone else – you, Beth – to compare notes with. How hard can it be to partner with a Crow if a rough-and-tumble Arm can do it, anyway?”
“Uh, right. Knowing Arms, she probably saved his life in a fight to the death or something.”
Gail giggled. “The first time they met in person was during a fight against a Hunter.”
“Gads. I can’t see that working for Focuses.”
“Yeah. We’re going to need to come up with our own way of working with Crows. Here’s Newton’s post office box addresses. He doesn’t own a phone, or at least not that Gilgamesh is willing to admit to me. If you can figure out how a Focus can make friends with a Crow, you’ll be doing us all a whole lot of good.”
“Well,” Beth said. “I can give this a try.”
Tonya Biggioni: October 12, 1972
“Carol?” Tonya asked, shocked. No ring of the doorbell, no call from the guard. Tonya had merely sensed something odd, and came to investigate. She hadn’t expected an Arm on her doorstep, especially one not normally welcome in her household without an invitation. Tonya glanced around warily for her guards.
“Sorry, toots, sudden change of plans,” Hancock said. She barged right on in as if she lived there, trailing a dolly piled with boxes. As she went around a hallway corner, she started whistling.
“Ma’am, why did you open the door?” one of the guards asked. Neither he nor the second door guard showed any sign they had seen or heard Hancock.
What if this wasn’t Hancock?
Tonya paled. “Lock down the house. No one goes in or out until I give the all clear.” She sprinted down the corridor after Hancock, leaving the unnerved guards scrambling to follow her orders.
One of her cooks met her halfway down the hallway to the kitchen. The woman walked dreamily toward Tonya while wearing a juice zombie’s will-less eyes. Tonya muttered a fierce obscenity under her breath, and sprinted faster.
Tonya found the intruder in her household’s kitchen, unloading a truly massive amount of food from her cargo boxes. No, not food, ingredients. Enough roasts to feed the entire household. Oysters. Huge portabella mushrooms. Fresh Italian sausage. Fresh vegetables. White chocolate. More.
Tonya stopped, took a deep breath to calm herself, and followed the deep breath with a charismatic self-calming. She cranked up her metasense. Yes, an Arm, someone and something new, carrying two Arm tags, a Crow tag and a Focus tag, along with the ‘weight of the world’ shadow associated with the effects of a Focus’s tags on her household.
“Put the mushroom and the knife down, turn around and start explaining yourself,” Tonya said. “Whoever you are, you’re not…”
“‘Put the mushroom down’? Tonya, that’s limp, even for you.” The intruder did turn, and she and Tonya locked eyes, dueling with their charisma. The intruder laughed. “Hey, you really think I’m some sort of enemy, don’t you? How come?”
Tonya sighed and gave up on the charisma battle. “You don’t metasense like Carol Hancock.”
“You picked up on the improvements? That’s part of why I’m here, to give you the good news. We’ve made a breakthrough. We being me, Gail, and Gilgamesh.”
“You got the juice draw working? Or the household tuning?”
“Nope. Something completely different. Here’s the deal,” Hancock said, and tossed Tonya a thin report. “All we were trying to do was speed things up, but instead we’ve solved a bunch of problems we didn’t know we even could solve. We’ve just saved a ton of lives. It’s time for the Focuses to celebrate.”
Tonya weighed the odds and decided the intruder was Hancock before she scanned the report. After reading the report she sank down into a wooden stool as she flipped through it again. “Holy Mother of God,” she whispered. “Salvation and apocalypse in one easy package.” Instant Inferno-style households. Just add Crows, Arms and tags, and you end up with at least a triad worth of openings plus fertile Focuses and Arms, at least with the Crow, plus marginally fertile household women. “This is going to turn the whole world upside down.”
“Unfortunately, here’s the bad news,” Hancock said, and tossed a soiled and partly mangled galley proof at Tonya, loaded with bookmarks. Tonya caught it, and read the title.
‘Two Arms too Many’, written by an Edward N. Mackey. There was something familiar about that name, so Tonya used a small juice pattern to summon up the memory.
“Your stock clerk Ed, from Philadelphia,” she said. Carol’s lover from the time of her training with Keaton, six years ago. Hancock nodded. Tonya muttered an unhappy word under her breath, and flipped hurriedly through the marked sections.
“This Ed person, if he actually wrote the book, refers to me as Tuberculosis,” Tonya said, not amused. “According to Shadow, that’s a term Chevalier’s Crows use for me.” TB. Tonya Biggioni. “This is a setup.”
“Read on,” Carol said.
Tonya read. In the galley proof, he referred to Hancock as ‘Beth O’Neil’, an identity she used during her training. “Keaton as ‘Suzie Patterson’?”
“Some asshole Crow must have been stalking me after my recovery from withdrawal,” the Commander said. “Suzie Patterson was an identity I used then.” Tonya shook her head.
Mackey referred to only two Crows, ‘The Writer’ and ‘Mr. Panic’. Tonya
read a marked section about feeding surplus male Transforms to Stacy, and in another section a rough outline of her little lucrative side business, evaluating stolen goods for several families of organized criminals. “Damn.”
“It’s going to be pretty tough to do much about Ed,” the Commander said. “Read the afterward.”
The afterward was the usual ‘this book would not have been possible without the help of…’ After a list of mundane names and likely Crow aliases was the name Erica Eissler, and the information that the author currently lived in Stuttgart, West Germany. Ed, if he existed at all, was under Arm Eissler’s protection.
“I got a letter from Shadow, first week of October, stating Chevalier’s group had agreed to stop harassing other Major Transforms after a certain nasty Detroit Focus forcibly reminded them of the old agreements,” Tonya said. She was glad she hadn’t been present when Wini killed the Crow spy. She preferred to remember the relatively kinder, gentler and saner Wini from a decade ago. “The agreement didn’t last long, apparently.”
“This was in the pipeline from before,” Hancock said, holding up a couple of acorn squashes to be split and seeded. “You want to give me a hand with this?”
Tonya blinked. “I don’t cook.”
“What, you’re above cooking now?” Hancock gave Tonya the eye, and Tonya sighed. She walked over to the cutting table and picked up another couple of squashes.
“Old habits,” Tonya said. “Cooking is what housewives do, and there was a time when avoiding those stereotypes mattered a lot to me. You don’t need to remind me how to take advantage of my Major Transform senses when cooking, either.”
“Good,” Hancock said. Tonya split squash as Hancock sliced vegetables and mushrooms with an Arm’s speed and precision. When Tonya finished the squash, Hancock pointed her at the roasts and baked potatoes, then gave her instructions for what to do with them.
“I’m not too worried about the information in the book,” Tonya said. “The publisher has a bad reputation for not checking up on his authors’ veracity. Besides, all the specifics are well out of date, and I don’t leave leads behind. These breathless revelations are old news.”
“Well, if this doesn’t bother you, then it won’t bother me,” Hancock said. The Arm was still giddy from the recent tagging, and Tonya eyed her suspiciously.
“Does Gail know how much danger she’s in from your breakthrough?” Tonya said, as she turned the ovens on to preheat. “She’s going to catch Focus Council-member level heat over this, especially from the Crow-haters among the first Focuses.” Adkins and Patterson likely didn’t care, but Schrum and Teas were going to explode and she couldn’t predict Fingleman’s reaction.
“Them, Chevalier’s Crows, the Nativists, the FBI’s Transform Task Force, the media, the old-guard researchers, and probably a few Major Transforms we don’t know about with agendas of their own. If you can give Gail some pointers on how you Council FB’s manage to survive this sort of shit, she needs it.”
“I can do that,” Tonya said. “What about Keaton?”
Hancock snorted. “This is what Keaton’s been demanding for years: leverage on the Focuses. The new household paradigm doesn’t work without an Arm pledging to back up the skittish Crows involved.”
Tonya shook her head. “I’m not so sure about Stacy. I visited her a month ago and it didn’t go well.”
“I heard. Join the club.” Despite Hancock’s effusive mood, Tonya caught a flash of exasperation and deep anger.
“I don’t think Keaton’s mood involves cooperation among Major Transforms this year, Carol,” Tonya said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Hancock put a golf ball on the kitchen counter and tapped it twice. The room filled with a painful metasense static. The Arm leaned over to Tonya and whispered in her ear. “I put a box with a thick loose-leaf folder and some other documents in your private safe. The box contains everything Inferno’s been doing with their household tuning project, everything Hank’s been doing on his secret project, the training techniques that turned Gail into a Focus who can handle this shit, and the exact procedures we used to create Gail’s instant version of an Inferno-class household. I’m giving this to you to use in case of an emergency, such as Keaton deciding to rid the world of the Commander and her organization. If Keaton’s reasonable about me, but still being a Cause-hating hard-ass, you may need to pay for the privilege of reading and using the information. It’s insurance all the way around.”
Tonya nodded and didn’t say a word. Hancock leaned back and slapped the golf ball again, turning off the painful metasense static. “I passed the word along to Keaton about the firm deadline for pulling the coup on the firsts.” Her voice was passionless, the enthusiasm and happiness gone.
Tonya shivered. “You sound bothered.”
“Keaton didn’t react well.”
“How?”
“To quote her exactly: ‘A year! La di dah! A year! Oh, all right, ten months. So much can happen in ten months that Polly’s strike date is meaningless. Don’t even bother bringing up the subject until June, assuming you and I and everyone else is still around’. Bass has warped her good sense.”
“I don’t like this,” Tonya said.
“You, me, and everyone else I’m on speaking terms with.”
Tonya and Hancock cooked for the next half hour, mixing, slicing, and sautéing. Gossiping like fishwives as well. Then Delia Vinote, Tonya’s personal assistant, stuck her head into the kitchen and signaled, Can I give the all clear?
Tonya looked from Delia to Hancock. Delia didn’t seem to have any difficulty seeing the Arm. Yes. And get Marty. I need you both in here.
Delia returned with Marty in a few seconds.
“Delia, Marty, the information in that document shouldn’t go any farther than the two of you,” Hancock said. Tonya bristled when Delia and Marty nodded. Hancock was getting far too good at her charisma tricks; she had mimicked Tonya’s personal charisma perfectly.
Delia sat, shocked, when she finished, and Marty whistled. “Arm Hancock, this is wonderful news, even in its preliminary form. Dangerous, though.”
“It is at that,” the Commander said. “Is this worth fighting for?”
“Do you think we’ll end up in an actual physical fight against the first Focuses and Chevalier’s Crows?” Delia said.
“Yes. Perhaps even with Keaton and her west coast Arms.”
“A fight would be a disaster,” Tonya said.
“I don’t think we can avoid a fight with certain people.” Tonya’s boss, Suzie Schrum. Likely Sara Teas as well. Tonya nodded. “The rest is negotiable. Still, you and your people do need to prepare.”
“Preparing would telegraph our intentions.”
Hancock sighed. “Listen to your Commander.”
Tonya wanted to spit nails. “We’ve got to be able to act better than a bunch of hyenas squabbling over dinner.” She sighed. “This can’t be helping you with a certain, um, status issue. You just proved that pushing the Cause is the correct thing to be doing.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. There’s a lot of status involved in actually carrying Crow and Focus tags. My instincts say ‘get more’, not ‘run away, you fool’.”
“I’ll trust you on that. I do worry about the timing of your presentation.”
“Life as an Arm is always a gamble.”
Tonya frowned. “Sit on it. Don’t present this to Keaton.” She didn’t bother using her charisma. Her charisma worked only on Hancock when she was attempting to push the Arm in a direction she wanted to go. At times, she had almost no resistance at all to that sort of persuasion. Anything else? A complete waste of juice.
“That’s suicide.” Carol growled and paced the kitchen. “Keaton ordered me to show her a major success from the push the Cause project. She’s choosing between my way or Bass’s way, remember.” And if Stacy chose Bass’s way, well, that’s why Hancock had broken into her safe.
Silence stretched for many minutes. It
wasn’t Tonya’s place to vehemently disagree, no more than it would have been Hancock’s place to disagree about some bit of insanity that Schrum dropped on Tonya. Hancock took Tonya’s silence as agreement, and as she prepared some sort of Middle Eastern grain dish, she calmed down. A little.
“Arm Hancock?” Delia said.
Glare.
“By any chance, have you been watching any television this year?” Hancock shook her head at Delia’s query, as did Tonya, who didn’t watch television either. “In that case, perhaps there’s something you need to see tonight, after dinner.”
“So, there. Her. Recognize her?” Delia said, and pointed.
Delia hosted both Tonya and Hancock in her quarters, watching some absurd crime drama named Mod Squad. According to Delia, one of the originals, the actress who played the woman undercover cop, had been replaced this season by a different actress, who portrayed a Transform undercover cop. The change seemed to fit the social message of the show, where these not very realistic but quite diverse young undercover cops worked together to solve society’s ills. The team consisted of one traditional young white man, one modern colored gentleman, and a liberated woman – now a liberated woman Transform.
Interestingly enough, they hadn’t mangled the Transform. The woman was well muscled, and for a moment, Tonya thought they were portraying her as an Arm, but they did a quick segue to her Transform household, and she realized they just portrayed her as a well-trained woman bodyguard.
Tonya did a double take. There, disguised under various makeup and wigs, was Focus Wendy Mann’s household! Wendy had a cameo, herself, about five seconds worth, all muscled up in the athletic-fit Focus mold, and ravishingly beautiful to boot. Tonya felt a momentary flash of jealousy; Wendy wasn’t good looking for a Focus, but professional makeup artists could turn a normal twenty-something into a goddess, and what they had done to Wendy was almost obscene. The household was thoroughly unrealistic, though. Although crowded on the screen, the place was still far too luxurious and comfortable for a real Focus household.
Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) Page 20
