Lori’s face turned feral after Tonya’s comment about Suzie. Schrum had ordered a hit on Lori once, among other provocations. Her hired thug had wounded Lori and killed one of her Transforms, and no one had ever convinced Lori to forget.
“If she’s going to take the first Focuses, she’s got to take Shirley Patterson and her multi-Focus household,” Connie said. “Who would lead that attack? Keaton herself?”
Tonya nodded. “Almost certainly.”
“Can she win?” Connie’s face turned pale.
Tonya shrugged. “They should be able to take Patterson with a coordinated attack, but it would take all the Arms working together. The Commander is a good enough strategist to out-plan Patterson, and Keaton can’t be beat for battle tactics.” Just thinking about such a fight hurt Tonya’s brain.
Polly rubbed her forehead. “I’m not so sure. If any of the first Focuses can survive this idiocy, it’ll be Shirley Patterson.”
“They’ll just pick them off, one at a time, because like the Crows say, we’re housebound,” Connie said.
Lori nodded. “Keaton’s betrayed us and we’re screwed,” Lori said. “Twelve real Arms and they’re going to tear us apart like gauze.”
Polly nodded, counting noses like the pro she was. “We can’t help the firsts. They’ve either been neutered, gone power-mad and evil, or in the case of my boss,” Patterson, “become a psychopathic true believer in her own divinity. But let’s think, people. What do we do? I’m not interested in slavery or death for either myself or my people. The Arms don’t need to become twisted and evil to become murderers – they’re predators. Murder is their natural state. We need to be prepared for our turn on the lines because they’re going to come after us, regardless, if only just to test us to see how strong we are. Tonya, what do you think happened to the push the Cause projects?”
“Remember that box I told you about?” Tonya said. “The Arm end of it is squashed for now.” Amy and Carol had to be pissed, having their successful research stomped on like this. What had that done to them? “Keaton wants to use the fruits of the project to control us later. The Commander gave me the box while she was still loyal to the Cause. There’s little in the box that’s of immediate use, save the recipe for how to build a Crow-Focus household, which involves adding a teaspoon or two of actively pushy Arm.”
“We need more witches,” Connie said.
“Yes,” Polly nodded. “We need to use all the strength we’ve got. Lori, you’ve been training Focuses, and several others are strong from their own self training.”
“Lupe Rodriguez, Pearl Innkeep,” Tonya said.
“Jill Bentlow. She didn’t join us last time because she didn’t want to oppose the first Focuses, but I think she’ll join us this time if we’re being threatened by the Arms,” Polly said.
Lori nodded. “I know a few more. Not many who I’d call combat capable, though. Of that lot, Ellen O’Donnell, Elisabeth Grammar, Maybelle Roznovsky and Stephanie Doud are the best.”
“Put together a list,” Polly said.
“Lupe’s in Los Angeles, just a few miles from Keaton,” Connie said. “We need to get her out of there.”
Tonya shook her head. “No. If we pull Lupe, we alert Keaton.”
No one said anything to that. Cold facts. Bad luck for Lupe, being so close to Keaton, but they wouldn’t ruin what little chance they might have just to save Lupe and her household.
Polly nodded. “We bring in who we can, and figure out how to work together. Ignore the first Focuses restrictions. At the least, we can see if multi-Focus charisma can roll a multi-Arm predator.”
“Move households?” Connie asked. Polly nodded, her face pale.
Multi-Focus charisma was such a slim hope, Tonya thought. A stalemate was more likely in any encounter. Then the Arms would just shoot them.
“Other suggestions?” Polly said.
“Well, there’s still Gail and juice support for an Arm project,” Lori said. “If we can get juice from a Focus to an Arm reliably, maybe we can convince some of the Arms to break ranks and join our side.”
“Lori, that’s crazy. Hancock’s on the other side now,” Tonya said.
Lori frowned. “I’m not sure how true that is,” she said, slowly.
Tonya started to argue, but Polly held her hand up for silence. “You see something, Lori?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, thinking. “Keaton put Carol in a position where she needed to choose between her loyalty to Keaton and her loyalty to us, and she chose Keaton, but her farewell message had more information in it than what you would expect. She invited me to help Gail in Chicago, and reminded me about your safe, Tonya. Plus, this operation has Keaton’s feel to it, not Carol’s. Don’t forget how well Carol managed to surprise the Hunters during the clearing of Chicago. If the Commander was in charge, with the same goals, we’d find out what was going on only when she dumped the first Focus corpses on our doorsteps and demanded our surrender.”
“That’s something,” Connie said. “If the Commander isn’t doing Keaton’s planning, that helps us a lot.”
“Don’t count on it,” Tonya said. “That’s the sort of thing that could change tomorrow.”
“Gurgling poo,” Lori said, after thinking for a few moments. “The juice pattern project! Tarnation!”
Tonya frowned. “What about it?”
“Zielinski has put together a working method for transcribing juice patterns, so that they can be recorded and stored, and then duplicated later by different Focuses. I’ve been helping him, off and on, in my free moments, but he’s the brains behind the project. The project’s not complete, but it’s working. He’s even using the transcription system as a lever to increase Gail’s learning speed as a witch.”
“You’re kidding,” Connie said, breathless. “He’s got his lost cause project working? That’s huge. There’s got to be a way we can use something like that.”
“Oh, I’m sure there is,” Lori said, “except for one little problem. The biggest breakthrough in Focus technology in a decade, and the Arms own it.”
They all groaned. Tonya cursed the day the first Focuses had taken out a contract on Zielinski, forcing him to go underground and eventually, to the Arms.
Polly tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair. Tonya could almost smell the devious thoughts running through the Council president’s mind. “Well, since Hancock isn’t going to be putting her full effort into the Arm juice support project, then we need to give Gail some help.”
Lori nodded. “I think I’ll be making a lot of phone calls to Chicago.”
Polly shook her head. “This isn’t a time for half-measures. If our lives depend on a Zielinski project, our young super-Focus needs more than an occasional phone call. You need to live there.”
“What?” Lori said, her mouth open in shock. “That’s enemy territory now!”
Polly nodded. “Live there. Pick up your entire household and move to Chicago.”
“Polly, you don’t know what you’re asking!”
“Yes. I do.” Polly paused for emphasis. “You can do this. Consider losing one of your people to an Arm raid, or spending time in Keaton’s basement with your defenses down. Do you think even your ability to tolerate pain is immune to the multi-Arm predator?”
“Polly…” Lori said, and then interrupted herself. Polly didn’t say anything. Lori sighed and nodded, accepting. “I’ll do it, but I hope you don’t end up regretting this idea.”
“Get over there as soon as you can. Teach Gail the trick of drawing juice from her own buffer. She needs the trick, and I give you my permission. Under the circumstances,” Polly said with a small smile, “we’re going to disregard Shirley Patterson’s orders.
“As a matter of fact,” Polly said, looking at Tonya and Connie, “I’ll teach you two the same trick. And any other Focuses we can pull in. Until the Arms come knocking on our doors, we’re going to do nothing but circle the wagons here in New York and train up witche
s. Real full-powered witches. We’re going to need every trick we can get our hands on, and thanks to the Hero’s suggestion, I’ve got forbidden Focus technology manuals I can hand out. We can’t save the firsts, but we’re going to darned well give ourselves a shot at saving ourselves.”
Tonya blinked, startled. She had been trying for the last three years to convince Polly to teach her the juice buffer capability, and now the forbidden trick just landed in her lap.
“While you’re up in Chicago, Lori, why don’t you see if you can work on Hancock. Maybe lure her back to our side,” Polly said.
Lori shook her head at the likely impossibility of that task. “Think about what you’re saying, Polly.”
“None of that,” Polly said.
Tonya could barely believe her ears. Polly had just thrown Lori to the wolves. Unless Polly had a deeper scheme she wasn’t sharing with them, or, specifically, with her.
A miracle, thought Tonya. What they needed was a miracle, because nothing else was going to help.
Henry Zielinski: November 4, 1972
Hank stretched out on the floor of the Littleside employee gym, trying to clear his head from the disasters of the day. Of the week. Carol had been through a few hours previous, not for long, and again in a horrible, depressed mood, garnished with utter futility. “If you were smart, you’d find some way to stop me from messing up everything,” she had told him. “The basement work is eating my mind. You need to find out if Lori knows any way to keep people like me from, um, messing up things.”
Carol’s confusing comments bothered him, but before he could glean anything from his boss, or even remind her again that she was the Commander, she vanished. He had seen Carol in this mood before, long long ago. A visit in Newark, when she was a student Arm, and at wit’s end with Keaton. He suspected something rotten had happened, something she wouldn’t or couldn’t talk about. Something Arm egregious and evil.
Her order of the day contradicted her earlier order about keeping things quiet. Was Carol playing some game with him? Well, yes, of course. The real question was: what sort of game?
Finished with his stretches, he went over to one of the treadmills, and started to jog. Although this was officially the employee gym, it existed mostly to be a perk for visiting Arms. The gym was large enough for a facility twenty times the size of Littleside.
The treadmill to his right started up its squeaky motion, startling Hank. He looked over and saw Lori, jogging along nonchalantly. She wore a sweat suit, and her short black hair bobbed as she jogged. He hadn’t seen her enter the gym.
“What are you doing here, Focus?” Hank said. Something about Lori’s appearance here, the method of it, triggered his formality. Then he realized something else, and quailed. “What are you doing here without your bodyguards!”
“Hank, the shit’s hit the fan.”
“I can’t talk about anything.” Lori could use her charisma on him, and he would spill. He would resist, but only in a cursory fashion. He would hate himself afterwards for the betrayal, but he couldn’t resist Lori, who he still thought of as ‘his Focus’. Something Carol knew.
“Don’t you say that to me. I need someone real to talk to, Hank.”
“Talk to Sky.”
The Focus laughed. “Inferno got to Sky first.”
Oh, crap. “Inferno still thinks the Commander is the best thing since 2-ply toilet paper?”
The Focus nodded. “Yes. They’re attempting to figure out how to help her.”
Code. The Focus spoke in code. However, she shouldn’t be, which meant he was missing something important.
“Life been peaceful for you?” he said.
“Perfectly peaceful, perhaps even too peaceful,” Lori said.
Uh huh. “Your mentor’s not causing problems for you, is she?” Polly, Lori’s teacher.
“Yes, she is, the bitch. She’s ordered me and Inferno to move to Chicago. So I come to Chicago to scout out the territory, and what do I find in my PO Box here at Littleside? A note from the Commander. She anticipated Polly’s decision as well as my arrival, Hank, and has everything planned, even my living arrangements. Worse, the Commander is also personally dodging me. Wherever I go, she’s just left. I’m feeling rather pawn-like, an unfamiliar feeling.”
Ah. When Lori said things were too peaceful, that meant she couldn’t get hold of the Commander. Focus politics running right into Keaton’s crisis and Carol’s deep games. What was Polly up to? What was Lori planning? There had to be some way he could squeeze this out of Lori, at least indirectly.
Carol – no, the Commander – planned something appalling and devious.
“Your old UFA boss staying out of this? I can’t imagine she’s going to be happy to lose so valued a member to the Midwest region.” Lori’s old boss was the first Focus Suzie Schrum, and Lori had long ago sworn to kill her the next time she saw her.
“I haven’t told her yet, but I’m thinking she’ll see the light when I explain the necessity behind the move to her in person.”
Shit, no! Not that option, Lori! Suzie Schrum wouldn’t survive a visit from Lori, but Lori likely wouldn’t, either.
The Focus suppressed his questions, though. Her charisma kept him from speaking further. Today, he dealt with Lady Death. He felt a headache starting to build. “So, Focus, what do you want to talk about?”
“Back when Littleside opened and the New England Journal of Medicine booted my latest paper,” on her epidemiological hypothesis that broad spectrum antibiotics were behind the rise in auto-immune diseases due to the killing off of endemic human beneficial bacteria, “you mentioned that since my untenured career at Boston College was likely over, you might like to see me here working at Littleside. Well, here I am, just as you wanted, because the bastards at Boston College fired me. Chevalier’s harassment tarnished my record, and they wouldn’t let me take a leave of absence during their investigation. When I insisted, they let me go. I’m so annoyed I had to give the Eskimo Spear to Sky for safekeeping. I can’t be around that thing when I get annoyed.”
Hank stopped his treadmill and looked at Lori. This was horrible news, but not unexpected. Lori’s excellent control didn’t reveal anything, but intellectually, Hank knew that the Focus must be devastated by this turn of events. She had focused her entire life on her teaching and research career as a microbiologist. Losing her Professorship would be enough to unhinge anyone. To a Focus with the lives of her household on the line, ordered to move into the enemy camp, devastated didn’t come close to Lori’s hidden true reaction.
He suspected she was no longer sane, fallen completely into Lady Death.
“You want to go somewhere private and talk about things? Get a late dinner or something?”
“What a wonderful idea, Hank. I think there’s a lot to talk about.”
Hank nodded. A private mind scrape by Lady Death. About to jump the opposite direction her household wanted her to jump, if he guessed correctly.
He anticipated the evening would be painful.
Now The Gang’s All Here
“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer
Gail Rickenbach: November 5, 1972 – November 8, 1972
“Ma’am,” the young woman said, “the Boss gave me some information about what kind of facilities you require, and I took the liberty of doing some initial research.”
The young southern Chinese woman went by the name of Ying. Gail thought her poised, reserved, and efficient, one of the more interesting members of Carol’s organization of interesting people.
“What kind of facilities did the ‘Boss’ say I’d require?” Gail said. They sat at a table at an excellent Chinese restaurant in Chicago, and Kurt, John, and Sylvie accompanied her.
Ying pushed aside a cup of tea and took several papers from her binder. “She said that you would need facilities to house two to three hundred people
and suggested a hotel might be best. I found several possibilities that you might want to consider.”
“Two to three hundred? I don’t even have seventy people in my household.”
“You will need to ask her about that, ma’am,” Ying said.
“I can’t afford space to house that many people.” She wondered where the hell Carol came up with such a ludicrous number, and wished Carol would tell her what she was up to, instead of sticking her with surprises like this.
“The Boss is expecting to cover the costs,” Ying said.
Gail sighed and rubbed her forehead. “All right. Show me the possibilities.”
“This one is a hotel built eight years ago, based on expectations of greater growth of office space in this area than actually occurred,” Ying said as Kurt pulled the car to a stop in front of the Branton. “Ownership changed twice since the hotel was originally built, and the current owners are looking to unload. Eight stories. Ground floor has reception, offices, cocktail lounge, and a full service restaurant. Second floor has meeting rooms. Third through eighth floor are sleeping rooms, for a total of 126, of which six are suites. Laundry facilities in the basement, parking below ground, and a small swimming pool on the second floor.”
“A swimming pool,” Gail said, awe creeping into her voice.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And the Boss is willing to pay for me to live here?” Gail looked out the car window at the huge building towering over them. A full-sized hotel!
“Yes, ma’am. The financial arrangements will be complex and are likely to take several weeks, but our people are capable of handling that sort of thing. We might be able to negotiate for early occupancy. We will, of course, cover the interim costs as well.”
Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) Page 26
