All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) (16 page)

Polly leaned forward, eyes boring into Tonya’s, Polly’s charisma amped to terrifying levels.  “Who’s saying this?” she said, demanding.

“Me,” Tonya said, her stomach roiling.

“You’ve never been allowed to go this far before.  What’s your game here?  I want answers, Shirley.”

Tonya’s bladder almost cut loose in terror at Polly’s words, as complex juice patterns flowed through Polly’s charismatic link and into her mind.  “It’s gone, this won’t work,” Tonya said, trying and failing to cut the link.  Her whisper was the best she could do.

“You shucked Patterson’s tag?” Polly said, a moment later, backing off a little on the juice pattern flood and her charisma. “How?”

“I had help,” Tonya said.  “A story you’re not ever going to hear if you keep probing like this.”

Polly backed off her hold a bit more, enough for Tonya to flicker her eyes around the room and realize that none of the others here were hearing the conversation or had even noticed something was wrong.  “If you’re not owned, why are you still alive?”  Polly said.

“Better armed guards,” Tonya said.  “Talking Rizzari out of her rebellion.  Bringing the Arms in out of the cold.  What I accomplished bought me my life.”  All true, and all enough to weaken Polly’s confidence the tiny bit that allowed Tonya to wiggle free from Polly’s tricks.

Polly made a grave mistake when she met Tonya’s gaze, as Tonya’s eyes were how she established her charismatic links.  Polly didn’t use her eyes, and Tonya didn’t know what she did use, but now Tonya fought back with her charisma, and for once was able to establish a charismatic link with Polly.

“What else can I do to win back your trust?” Tonya said.  A charismatic demand.

Polly almost answered.  Instead, she glared and fought off Tonya’s command, though unable to toss Tonya’s link any more than Tonya could toss Polly’s charismatic link.  “By your actions, over time,” Polly said, answering Tonya’s question anyway.  With a lie, or at least an incomplete truth.  “
They
had you for too long.”  Which showed weakness.  Polly didn’t trust weakness.  “They could have you again tomorrow.”

“True,” Tonya said.  “This is why I’m here, today.  Use me, the real me, while you can.  Let me tell you what’s going on.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Polly said.  “It’s obvious.  Despite all the politic pronouncements, you joined Rizzari’s Cause.”

Tonya glared back at Polly.  They had been close friends once, as young Focuses.  No longer.  “And what cause have you joined?”

Polly laughed, her laughter tinged with despair.  “Me.”  She shook her head and stopped the charismatic battle.  “Let’s listen to this Crow of yours.”  She turned to her still closed door.  “Bring him in, Sergeant Shot.”

Tonya cursed inside.  Not only hadn’t she won Polly over, she had possibly made things worse.

“…and so our friends and largest hidden strength, Master Occum’s Noble Beast Men, cut themselves off, worried that their own kind had betrayed them,” Sinclair said.  He sat on the edge of the elegant Louis XV chair, not relaxed at all.  He still had his Crow fierceness going, which he needed in this room to keep from being overwhelmed.

Sinclair told the complete story, starting with meeting a baby Crow who would later choose the name of Gilgamesh.  He continued on with the story of the Philadelphia massacre, the Hunter attacks on Arm Hancock in Chicago, Hancock’s capture, incarceration and rescue from the Crow perspective, her recovery in the hands of Keaton and Gilgamesh, Hancock’s alliance with Gilgamesh and later all of Shadow’s Crows, the takedown of Rogue Focus in Houston, Lori’s pregnancy, Gilgamesh’s detective work leading to the identification of Crow-killer and the Transform snatcher as the same person, the identification of Focus Frasier as the captive Focus held by the Hunters, Tonya’s mind scrape and her joining the Cause, and the events of the last few weeks.

Thrown together as a single narrative, it overwhelmed.

“Well,” Polly said.  “You aren’t lying.  You personally witnessed a great deal, but you’re holding something back, something important.  I’m not doing anything without this bit of crucial information.”

Sinclair nodded.  “It’s more terrifying than even you are, ma’am.  I can’t speak of it, but Focus Biggioni knows.  She’s one of the namers.”

Oh.  Polly turned to Tonya, leaning half way out of her seat.  “Care to enlighten me on this Crow mystery?”  Polly wanted to disown the mess and consign them all to the Cross, just to get the problems out of her hair.

“It’s our mystery as well,” Tonya said.  “Arm Hancock is the Commander.”

“Well,” Polly said, sitting back down.  “That’s at least one bit of good news.  I had been afraid this Enkidu Monster was the Commander.  He shows far too many of the signs.  Are you sure?”

Polly’s comment soured Tonya’s stomach some more.  She, Polly, knew far more about the Hunters than she revealed.  Probably learned through the Dreaming; Polly’s Dreaming capabilities were legendary.  Tonya shrugged.  “Military leadership, healing, overthrowing the old order, coming back from the dead, and the denial of the honors.  She shows all the signs.”

Polly looked at her.  “So does Enkidu.”

She and Sinclair let Polly’s comment lay there for a while, like a giant dead slug on the carpet.  Eventually Polly turned away.  “So, what can you tell me about this?”  She pushed a typewritten report over to Tonya, under the CBS letterhead: a formal inquiry to the Council about a group of hidden no-household Focuses, who lived just south of Detroit and who had been discovered by a group of canny reporters.  Tonya smelled Keaton behind this, craftier than normal.  Perhaps following Hancock’s advice.

“I know they’re real,” Tonya said.  “I’ve never met any of them, though.”

Polly shook her head.  “They’re Wini’s edge, aren’t they?”

“One of her edges, yes.”

“Damn.”  Polly closed her eyes.  “Thank you, Crow Sinclair, for putting up with us two old hens.  You’ve convinced me.  We’re going to do the right thing for once.  For this, I’m going to need a Crow who can stand up before a crowd of Focuses and tell them who he is and what he can do.  Any ideas?”

“A crowd?” Sinclair said, now panicky.  “Ah.  Not me.  Stage fright.”  The thought of stage fright in a Crow almost made Tonya laugh aloud.  “The one you want is Crow Sky.  Performances turn him on, uh, boost his confidence, ma’am.  I know how you can get in touch with him.”

“Good enough.”  Polly turned to Tonya.  “I need to get moving on this before we get smacked down by the first Focuses.”

“What are you going to do, Polly?” Tonya said.

Polly peaked her fingers and stared at Tonya.  “Win over the Council, of course.”

Gail Rickenbach: January 13, 1969

“I don’t remember saying any such thing,” Linda said.  Gail paced around the manse’s office, phone in hand, silently shaking her head.  “I must have been wasted.”

Linda was an inventive enough Focus to figure out how to get high as a Focus and to think up the Young Focus League, likely at the same time, but getting the League to
do
anything was well beyond Linda’s capabilities.  Focus Cooley’s penchant for running a hedonist household model didn’t help, either.

“You did,” Gail said.  “Ahem.  ‘The League’s a disaster and it’s all my fault.  You want it, you can have it.’”

“Oh, right,” Linda said.  She snorted.  “I was just grousing about misplacing my address and phone number ledger.  Once I found the ledger I sort of, well, you know, changed my mind.”

So much for her gentle phone call to remind Linda to send over the League information, Gail thought.  “Let me help you,” Gail said.  “There’s so much the League could do to help other young Focuses.”

“Ugh!” Long pause, while Linda breathed erratically and Gail tried to tune out the sound.  “Sorry.  I scored some ibogaine last night, an African hallucinogen, and I’m still seeing things that aren’t there.”  Gail had no idea what ibogaine was, save that this was Linda, and her trick let her get high involved using unfamiliar drugs in amounts that would kill everyone in her household if cut and distributed.  She had no reason to doubt Linda’s comment.  “How about a newsletter?  A newsletter would help.”

“To do a newsletter I’d need some news,” Gail said.  “To get news I’d need to know how to get in contact with the other Focuses in the League.”  Back to the original reason for her call.

“Tell yah what,” Linda said, a scheming tone in her voice Gail recognized, from every one of her Focus conversations.  “If you agree to do a newsletter, I’ll have my people copy my ledger and send the copy to you.”

“I’ll agree,” Gail said.  After hanging up, she headed back to the hall and found her pile of clean clothes all lonely and by itself, where she had left them to hold her place in the shower line.  Just a quick call to Linda, just a moment while she waited...  She counted towel clad bodies in the shower line.  Five people still waited.  They hadn’t saved her place.  Gail frowned.

“Gail!” Gretchen Carlow said, standing at the head of the line and wearing a shockingly bright orange towel wrapped around her torso.  “You have some business today?”  Gail normally waited until later to take her shower.

“I’m heading over to Focus Mann’s household for lunch,” Gail said.  She didn’t much like Wendy Mann, a beginner Focus who had Nazi household boss down to a fine art, but dealing with the other Detroit area Focuses was her job.  At least when not bird-dogging the household leadership team, doing wedding planning, moving juice, dealing distantly with the Crows, and solving yet another household interpersonal crisis.  Or working on finding the household a new place to live when their six months in the Church ended.

“Take my spot, then!” Gretchen said.  Gretchen must be in a better mood today than normal; she often thought the only reason to do a favor for her Focus was to get something out of the household.  From what Gail read, Gretchen was just being pleasant.

“If you don’t mind too much,” she said.  To the others in line: “I’m doing a cold shower, so don’t worry about how long I’m taking.”

“This would be so much easier if you used a little hot water,” Helen Grimm said, the one person in the hall who was mostly dressed.  Easier meant ‘normal’.  Helen ran the shower, and despite being one of Gail’s Transform attendants and by definition special, she still had a problem with extreme Focus strangeness.  Though Helen had gotten better in the past couple months.

“All I have to do is imagine last summer, and I’m just as warm as I need to be,” Gail whispered back.

As she showered she composed more of her own book in her head, one she suspected would remain forever unpublished.  Her book covered the details of her transformation from a normal into a Focus.  It did have possibilities, though, for slicing into articles for this Young Focus League newsletter.  She would have to pass everything by Beth first, though, to make sure she didn’t put too much emphasis on her personal special tricks.  If she put parts of her book in the newsletter, this would give her a leg up on Van in the writing-on-Transforms gig.  Now that he had finished his dissertation, they were back to the old nudge-nudge competiveness they had early on in their relationship.  Besides, he owed…

Shower door knocks interrupted her reverie.  “Gail!” Sylvie said.  “Telephone.  It’s Whisper!”

“Hair full of shampoo!” Gail said, bellowing back, and furiously started to rinse.

“Sorry about the wait,” Gail said, trying to keep the towel she wrapped around her long hair from falling off her head.  She had already flashed the shower line when she lost the towel wrapped around her middle while adjusting her head towel.  In a more normal setting, normal not including her being a Focus, her fumble should have elicited at least one wolf whistle or at least some ‘cover it up’ jocularity.  Instead, she got nothing but a stunned pin-drop silence.  “I’m glad you called, Whisper.  How are you doing?”

“I’m a Crow.  How I’m doing doesn’t matter,” Whisper said, his voice the raw whisper Gail expected.

Crazy Crows.  “I’ve met Gilgamesh.  Cut him and he bleeds,” Gail said.  “I care about how all people are doing.”  The nerve of that policeman last week, saying ‘listen, Focus, if I shot you I’d get a medal, so shut the hell up’ still irked her.  Kurt hadn’t been speeding.  She was sure.

The phone clattered.  Whisper had dropped the handset, Gail realized.

Here we go again.  She had set Whisper off somehow, though she had no idea what she said that might have panicked him.  Even the far more confident Gilgamesh panicked and nearly fled whenever she twitched wrong.  She was surprised Whisper decided, now, to talk to her over the phone after her cringe-cringe meeting with Gilgamesh, after all the mistakes she and her guard detail must have made to get the reactions they squeezed out of him.

Eventually, Whisper came back.  “Bad image in my mind,” he said.  Whatever.  “I hope you aren’t still demanding you need to meet me in person, because that isn’t going to happen.  Pardon my grumpiness.”

“Grumpiness pardoned,” Gail said, covering her mouth to keep from laughing.  “How can I make things easier for you?  I mean, you’re going to be doing my household a service with this dross removal, although this isn’t going to matter as much now as it will later, when we move into our new place.”

“Make things easier?  Well, you can take your household, all of them, out to a park or something.  On a regular basis,” Whisper said.  “That way I can get at the good dross and clean it out better.”