All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) (39 page)

“That is the most ridiculous display I’ve ever seen,” Delia said, as soon as they sat down and the man was safely away. Tonya just smiled and watched around her as people kept coming and coming.

Every Focus household in the city attended the wedding.  In addition, Tonya spotted seven different Focuses from farther afield, and more people from their households.  Also, there were normal people from the church, non-Transforms, several older ladies, and a surprisingly large collection of colored families from the neighborhood, lured into the church, Tonya suspected, by the presence of Grace Johnson and her household.

Outside, Tonya heard a ruckus as some reporters from the Detroit Free Press tried to make their way in, loud and confrontational until a couple of Wini’s people came running to settle the issue. At least those reporters didn’t make their way in, but Tonya spotted others hidden among the bride and groom’s college age friends, taking notes and snapping pictures with professional quality cameras. That lasted until one of the ushers summoned the best man, a young man with a brown beard who seemed to know all the college kids by name. They gave him a hard time, but they quit taking pictures, for at least a little while.  She fingered this group as Gail’s journalism friends. Tonya sighed, and attempted to keep out of range of the cameras.

Sensing a little pressure through the juice link from Delia, Tonya turned to her.  Delia stammered an incoherent juice signal back to her, something about checking people out.  She recognized someone she hadn’t expected to be here.  Tonya checked, and practically had a stroke on the spot.

The ‘Focus’ who had been chatting up Beth Hargrove, and with a passable imitation of a Focus’s metapresence, sitting just five people down from her in the same pew, was Arm Hancock.  Next to her, as one of her bodyguards, was the Crow Gilgamesh.  Hancock’s other bodyguards, using the term loosely, consisted of her military number two, Tom, not much disguised at all, and good ol’ secret agent Hank Zielinski, in yet another of his goddamned disguises.  Zielinski as a Hell’s Angels style merc?  Amazing.

Hancock gave her a predatory Arm smile.  Tonya hadn’t thought Hancock would be here as a wedding
guest
.  The whole tableau raised goose bumps up her arms.  At least Hancock hadn’t figured out Tonya’s faux bodyguard Tony wasn’t what he seemed to be.  That would get ugly fast.

By the time the service started, nearly 500 people crowded into the church, and people were standing in the back. Despite the crowding, it was a beautiful service in a beautiful old church.  Fifteen Focuses attended, not counting Hancock. Beth Hargrove was one of the bridesmaids, and Gail herself was radiant in a gown that must have been a gift from some Transform somewhere, because it would have cost thousands of dollars otherwise. Her people looked like they were about to burst, they were so happy.  Tonya sadly remembered her own wedding and the unfulfilled life that followed.  She hoped Gail and Van would end up happier with each other. Beside her, Pete and Delia held each other close, and Tonya heard Delia sniffling.

The soloist was a master, and Tonya wondered how, even with all the households in Detroit, the wedding had found someone so talented to sing. She had a voice of inhuman purity, and the whole church held its breath as the notes soared to the heavens. Tonya shivered when the solo finished, released from the grip of song and falling to earth with a pang of disappointment. Once the song ended, Tonya realized that the singer behind the latticework screen was Wini Adkins, showing off yet another of the inhuman talents possible for a Focus. Tonya wished for a moment that she too could sing like that. But she had never developed her voice, and it sounded ordinary, with only a casual acquaintance with the correct key.

Nothing went wrong, everything went right, and even though the minister couldn’t keep a smile from his face, the ceremony was still beautiful.

Chapter 10

“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”

– The Buddha

Carol Hancock

The ceremony over, we all stood and watched as the newly married couple bounced happily down the aisle.  I relaxed.  An attack on us, during the wedding ceremony, would have been difficult to repulse, because of everyone’s attention on the wedding party.

Biggioni chatted with me afterwards; my disguise hadn’t fooled her at all.  I kept up the Focus Forbes exterior and chatted back and worried about the precautions for the trip from the church to the reception.  The guests would be getting their maps after their trip through the reception line, and I hoped they weren’t too bothered by its circuitous nature.  For security reasons, we had kept the route secret.  The guards we arranged for the route should be in place by now.

Tonya wasn’t happy with me being inside the congregation instead of safely outside doing predatory things.  She was angling to get me alone and pump me for our battle strategy, but I dodged her line and lure.  I didn’t trust her, not yet and perhaps never.

I turned my eyes to the heavens, and prayed for humility.  Waited for that bolt of lightning.  It hadn’t happened yet.  Wait a few minutes.  The organist still played the recessional, and some of the congregation eased out, but we weren’t moving yet.  I still felt uncomfortable in a church.  God’s place in creation for monsters such as myself had only four letters, and despite the good works I always promised myself to start doing, tomorrow, I didn’t think they would ever outweigh my other deeds.

Henry Zielinski

Hank was a wreck.  Here he was at a huge wedding reception, and he couldn’t talk to anyone he knew because of his disguise.  He was pretending to be a bodyguard, a job for which he was manifestly unqualified.  On top of everything, there was the endless waiting for an attack, due any minute now.  Except it had been ‘any minute’ for three hours now, and still no attack.  Carol was practically cracking her teeth in anxiety, unable to think of any reason for why the attackers were waiting so long, and worried that the Focus Frasier rescue had scared off the Hunters, blowing their attempt to lure them in and trap them.

His fake tattoo itched. The food was, well, spotty.  Faced with an issue of quantity and the bride’s arbitrary demand to move the reception, the bride’s father had opted to use the hotel’s own catering service.  Hank had consumed too many of Carol’s gourmet meals, and the difference between what a team of normals could prepare for 500 plus guests and what an Arm interested in food preparation could prepare for an intimate dinner was not to be believed, especially if she used the Arm panoply of sense enhancements.  Even with Carol’s rigorous exercise program, he still inexorably gained weight.

Zielinski wondered what passed through Carol’s head right now.  She was stuck in a five Focus confab headed by Focus Keistermann herself.  Polly told old Focus tales, about the bad old days, to Focuses Hargrove, Mann, Silvey, one other with faint red and white streaks in her hair, and one disguised Arm.  Not having a metasense himself, Zielinski guessed Keistermann took Carol in tow because Carol’s disguise wore thin.  If anyone had the tricks capable of shoring up an Arm’s disguise, it was Focus Keistermann, a true juice pattern-slinging witch.

“You are who I think you are, eh?” a soft voice said, from about a foot above ear level.  Zielinski turned away from the punch bowl and found one of Keistermann’s bodyguards towering over him.  Huge, muscular, someone who looked mean even for a bodyguard.

“I’m not sure we’ve met,” Hank said.  Something felt odd about this bodyguard, though once you put your bodyguards in catering uniforms, what wasn’t odd?

“My new friend, here,” eyebrow twitch, muscle twitch beside the lower jaw, “has a bit of sensitive information to pass along to the people in charge.”

Hank covered up one set of realizations with a different realization and waited for his subconscious to do a bit of cogitation and hopefully spit out some useful information.  The bodyguard’s shy friend, standing right next to Mr. Muscles, wore another of Keistermann’s uniforms.  A Crow, not one he had met.

“Hello,” Hank said, to the shy Crow.  “How can I help you?”

“I’m glad to meet a personage of such grand a reputation,” he said, in an extremely soft voice.  “Some call me Zero.”

“And I’m happy to meet you as well,” Hank said.  He had never even heard of this Crow before.

“Polly asked me to pass this along: I’ve picked up a faint trace of a massive dross outflow gradient within Crow-sense range, within the last hour.  To the west, approximately.”

“Let me guess,” Zielinski said, resisting the urge to rub his temples.  “Dross outflow gradients are something only you have figured out how to metasense, and you can’t explain what you mean to another Crow, much less a normal like myself.”

“You are indeed wise in the ways of Crows,” the enigmatic soft-spoken Crow said.  “But I’m afraid, alas, that it does mean we’re likely to have an attack.  It’s such a fine wedding reception to see ruined by conflict.”

Hank turned to the towering bodyguard, who was definitely not a Crow.  “I’m glad to make your acquaintance at last, as I only know of you by reputation.  Although it’s
some
reputation.”

The barest twitch to a fighting stance, overridden in an instant. “A mutual acquaintance in Montreal termed you the most dangerous normal on the planet,” the muscular bodyguard said, and twirled the fake moustache.  “She was right.  What will it cost to be the fifth of us to claim you as a friend?”

Haggerty was his latest ‘catch’, despite the blood soaked episode in Houston.  In his mind, the Houston episode was just a hazard of dealing with Arms.  Hank won her undying gratitude by being the first person able to explain to her, in a logical fashion, what lay behind all of Stacy and Carol’s comments about her being socially inept.  “You know full well who you’re going to have to take that up with.”

“How do I contact her, though, without setting off a territorial display?”

An idea came to him.  “How much have you thought about territoriality in those like yourself?”

“More than a certain psychotic pipsqueak we all know and can barely cope with.”  Keaton, not Carol.

“Assuming we don’t end up in any irrevocable battlefield confrontations, write me a letter showing interest in exchanging information on territoriality, and I’ll bet that will start a fruitful dialog of negotiations.”  The tall bodyguard nodded, and backed away.

Zielinski turned back to playing bodyguard.  Arm territoriality.  They were, what, only six feet away from each other, and likely neither sensed the presence of the other because each of them masked their metapresence to their utmost capabilities.  He had the urge to throttle a certain Focus Council President for setting up this absurdity.  This reception reeked enough already of the theater of the absurd without adding more, but the Council President likely saw this as a devious experiment in human behavior.  He sighed and repressed the urge to throttle Keistermann.  Again.

Gail Rickenbach

All these Focuses!  Who invited them all?  She never should have let Beth take over the invitation list.  However, Beth had wanted to help, so much.  Her father would shit petunias when he finally received the bill for this bash!

With so many Focuses gathered around her, Gail discovered she saw extra things.  For one, after about a half hour in the reception, she could tell how long they had been Focuses just by looking at them.  She wandered over to where Focus Anderson (call me Katie) chatted with a Focus that Gail didn’t recognize, Van arm in arm with her.

“Gail!  Our bride!” Katie said.  Normally the older Focus emanated friendliness, but today her good humor felt forced.  It had to be the sheer number of Transforms attending the reception.  Gail hadn’t realized Katie was about as old a Focus as Tonya.  “Gail, this is Linda Cooley, all the way from Chicago, another of our young up and coming Focuses.”

“Hey!” Gail said, giving Linda a quick hug.  “Glad to finally meet you in person, Linda.”  Focus Cooley wore a muted aqua full-length gown and an off-white shawl around her neck, held by a silver pin in the shape of a leaf.

“Glad to meet you, too!” Focus Cooley said, and turned to Van.  “You too, Mr. Schuber.”  Focus Cooley, a short and well-padded Focus, smiled perkily at Van, and examined him closely.  Luckily, Linda wasn’t high, at least not yet, or at least not high enough for Gail to notice.  “So, Mr. Schuber, what’s your secret for getting along with a Focus?”

Van shrugged.  “Well, I’m patient, and I’ve spent a bunch of time with my mind elsewhere, doing research,” he said.  Gail’s mouth dropped open wide; Van almost never answered questions of that nature.  “I’m also gathering materials for a book on the early Focuses.  You just used Focus charisma on me, didn’t you?”

Katie laughed and backed away.  Of all things, Linda blushed.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “My charisma just came in earlier this year and I have a tendency to let it slip.”  Seeing Gail’s dumbstruck expression, Linda turned to her.  “Don’t worry.  When your charisma comes in, I’m sure you’ll have the same problem.”

Van guided Gail away from Focus Cooley.  “How about wandering this way,” he said.

“Glad to meet you, bye!” Gail said, hanging on to Van’s arm.

“Okay.  Who was that?” Van said.

“Hold it.  I thought they were your relatives.  They weren’t Focuses.”

“I thought they were your relatives.  You okay?” Van said.  “Your mind has been off in the ozone for the last half hour.  ‘Lovely flowers you have there, Mrs. Orchid’.”

“I said that to Mrs. Flowers?  Ohmygod.  Ohmygod.”  Gail thought for a moment.  “It’s the juice.  All these Focuses and Transforms being together at once, each with their own universe of links to their own Transforms, well, it’s kaleidoscopic.”

“I’ll take care of you.  Don’t worry,” Van said, holding her tight. Gail nestled comfortably under Van’s arm.

I need someone safe to talk to, someone who won’t get offended by my behavior, Gail thought to herself.  She looked around the room for a likely target.  There, next to a Focus she didn’t recognize, Gilgamesh stood alone, disguised and metasensing as a male Transform.  She would have missed him if she didn’t already know what he looked like.  She decided messing up Gilgamesh’s disguise wouldn’t be a good thing, so she looked for another suitable target.

It didn’t take her long to find one, a four eleven athletic little Focus with hard-case written all over her face and no fashion sense at all.  About seven years as a Focus, old enough that she would likely look down her nose at Gail no matter what Gail did, and talented enough as a Focus to hide her emotions from Gail.  She and her bodyguard were playing tourist or something, looking out the huge windows that formed one side of the Hyatt ballroom.

“Hello?” Gail said to the Focus, who didn’t even twitch an acknowledgement.  “I’m Gail Rickenbach-Schuber.”  Nothing.  “The Focus getting married…?”

The tiny Focus finally turned with preternatural grace and looked at the two of them.  “Lori Rizzari,” she said, and held out her hand.  Gail took it, suddenly ice cold.  Focus Rizzari was the most flat out daunting Focus she had ever talked to over the phone, an honest-to-God professor and the only Focus known to have gotten pregnant and given birth.  In person, Lori was porcelain china doll pretty and a bundle of frigid power.  About three months pregnant again, as well.

“Hi!”

“What
the
?” Lori said, and practically yanked the arm off her bodyguard.  “Sky!  Look at her.  Just look!  They were right!”

“Huh?” Sky said.  Oh, crap, Sky was another Crow disguised as a male Transform. She had never metasensed a Crow like Sky before, though.  Under his disguise, his metapresence twisted and turned, nearly Focus complicated.

“What am I supposed to be looking for, my most gracious Lady?”  Oh, what a wonderful Canadian French accent. “Oooh, I get it,” he said, with a loin-tightening purr.

“You’re a Crow, sir, yes?” Van said.  “I hadn’t expected any of the Crows attending to be out in the open.  Sir.”

“Observant little cuss, aren’t you?” Lori said to Van, who stood a foot and a half taller than Lori.  “You’re the historian, if I remember correctly.”

Van nodded.  “I try, ma’am.”  Van had talked to a few Focuses about the history of Focuses, but the only one who willing to grant him an actual interview on the subject was Focus Adkins, and just to evaluate Van, not to talk history.

“There are some things that are not yet public knowledge, and that’s one of them.”

“So what were you two looking at with your metasenses, anyway?” Gail said.  Lori did the old Focus stone face routine.  “When you were looking at me, that is.”  Lori relaxed.

Ah hah.  Lori was one of Keaton’s friends, the hidden guards.  She and Sky had been scanning outside with combined metasenses, just like the games Keaton played with her.  Scattered facts arranged themselves into stories inside Gail’s mind.

Like pregnancies.

“You know,” she said to Lori, “if you’re going to end up pregnant once a year, the little manuals they give out to new Focuses, the ones that say that Focuses are infertile, need to be changed a bit.”