The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Five (5 page)

They consumed the
last of the
hors d’ourves.  Johnny came out with a tray of crackers and a cheese ball, and most respectfully asked what they wanted to drink.  Tonya pumped his juice supply, just a bit. 
Her
subtle manipulation was too small for him to notice, but the steady reward for good behavior was what had led him to alter
ing
his priorities
, what
would
mak
e
him into a
well-adjusted
Transform.

Connie and Esther made it in, as well as Cathy.  Cathy Elspeth was theoretically a
C
ouncil member like any other, one of the three at-large members, but she was also one of the first Focuses.  Her voice carried a little more weight than the others when decisions were made, but
despite her mildly illicit stature,
Tonya
still
considered her a decent person.  She figured that if they had to have one of the first Focuses on the Council, they could have done considerably worse.

The first Focuses tried to present the illusion that they had stepped away from politics, but
it
was just an illusion.
Tonya didn’t believe
the illusion
, not since she joined the Council five years ago and got a lesson in how the world worked. 
Currently only
one first Focus
sat
on the Council, a junior one with little of the hard-edged abrasiveness th
e
other original hard cases showed.  The reality was something entirely different.

Tonya herself was on the Council as the Representative for the Northeast. 
Elected, yes,
but
the
elections among the Focuses were shams.  The real selection had been her nomination, by Suzie Schrum, the President of the Northeast Region.  Suzie was Tonya’s boss, a first Focus herself, and a nasty one.  After the election, the firsts had initiated Tonya, an event Tonya tried to shut out of her memories.

First Focuses also ran t
he Western and the Southern Regions, their Council representatives under their thumbs as well.

The Midwest wasn’t run by a first Focus, but the President of the Midwest region
was
a figurehead
for
Wini Adkins, another first
, and the Midwest Council rep, Esther, was little more than Wini’s sock puppet
.  Lastly, one of the three at-large seats was held by Cathy Elspeth, a first Focu
s.

The situation appeared
so innocuous. 
The first Focuses held on
ly one Council seat
, and e
veryone thought
this was
reasonable, given all
the first Focuses had
done.

However,
of the seven Council seats, the first Focuses controlled five.
A solid majority, plus some, any time they wanted to exercise
their power
.

Tonya made damned sure she kept the first Focuses happy.  When there’s only one game in town, that’s the game you played.

The first Focuses approved of her.  She
ha
d caught on fast.

Esther brought word when she arrived that Jill was having some sort of family crisis and expected to be a few minutes late.  Ginny Mansfield made it in at five minutes to 10:00.  Ginny was the resident straight arrow.  She never generated a hint of impropriety and her household never did anything the least legally dubious.  Tonya wondered how she managed.  Ginny never thought about
illegal tricks
and always seemed so surprised at any hints that
some of the
other Focuses might have taken another path.

“Ginny!  You look terrible!” Polly
said, to Ginny
.  Polly honestly cared for people, doing her best to
sand down
the rough edges in the Council and generate at least the illusion that everyone was friends.  “Come over here and tell me about it.”

Ginny was an at-large rep, elected for her basic decency and her impeccable reputation.  To Tonya’s eye, she did look terrible.  Her clothes were neat and clean and her dark blonde hair was perfectly styled, but
her eyes held
a hollow look.  She looked gaunt.  She gave a ragged smile back at Polly.

“I’d rather not talk about it.  I’m sorry for holding everyone up.  Can we begin?”

Polly frowned, but she said, “All right then.  Let’s get started.”  And off they went.

The agenda was a depressing one.  It always was.

First
,
they talked about money.  Always money, as they tried yet again to come up with a way, any
way, to alleviate the terrible grinding poverty of Transform life.  So many people in those households, and many of them highly skilled with valuable professions. 
However,
no one openly hired Transforms.  Many households lived hand to mouth.  Every time a household start
ed
to
make progress
, they spen
t
all their savings
to move again, an endless trap
with
no escape.

The
Council
came up with patch measures.  More ways to identify those under-utilized professionals so that at least their services would be available to
the
other households.  Help
ing
households start small businesses of their own.  On a shoestring, because of course there was no money for seed capital, and of course no one would lend to a Transform.

Once past the most important issue of money came the reports of the attacks.  Since late last summer there had been a large number of successful attacks on household Transforms, twenty seven overall at last count.  Dealing with the attacks was Tonya’s baby and she had her theory on the subject.  Most already knew
her theory
, but she presented it anyway, in case anyone had missed it.

“I fear we have a rogue Arm.  On September 7th of last year, Carol Hancock, the second surviving Arm in the United States, finished her apprenticeship with the first Arm.”  Tonya didn’t mention the name of the first Arm.  Even mentioning Stacy Keaton’s name, the person
responsible for
the terms serial killer and spree killer, could chill a room of
Focuses
down to absolute zero.  “Hancock had been in contact with us through a Network doctor before her escape from apprenticeship, but after winning her freedom she cut off all direct contact.  The attacks on tagged Transforms increased to their current rate of about one a week after she left her apprenticeship.  As you know, the
attacks
continue.  The timing of the increase of the attacks is highly suspicious.”  

Tonya had other things to say on the subject, about a battle between Keaton and two Chimeras, but
her comments
would have to wait until tomorrow.  Her biggest fear was that the Council was going to blow off the information on the male Major Transforms yet again. 
They would write off t
he attackers as standard Monsters.
  Again.

Tonya had been working on the issue of the Transform killings and kidnappings for nearly five months, looking for evidence to link the attacks to Hancock or anyone else, and she
ha
d gotten nowhere.  Oh, she
ha
d collected
reams of
data, but she hadn’t found a single bit of incriminating information.  Instead, what she got were red herrings, such as the three cases where terrifying ‘animal roars’ had been heard by nearby ‘witnesses’ to the killings or kidnappings.

Polly lean
ed
on Tonya and the others
with
government connections to ‘step up their lobbying for more work on the Arm capture effort’.  Tonya didn’t suspect Keaton, at least not too often.  Keaton
had
fled to California
after
a brace of Male Major Transforms – Chimeras –
forced
her
out of Philadelphia.  Keaton’s new Network contact was Lupe Rodriguez.  Although Rodriguez
wouldn’t
talk about the exact details of her new relationship with Keaton, it did appear to work.

After chewing on the attack problem
,
they worried the endless legal battles.  Far too many Focus households skated a little too close to the edge of the law.  Attempting to keep the Focus households
solvent
was a major Council responsibility.  The households made extensive use of the two unemployed Transform lawyers to fight for their legal rights and for decent treatment, often by the arrangement of the Council.

In addition
, the Council
continued lobbying for
the right for Focuses to choose their own households rather than accepting the Transforms foisted on them by blind luck and the doctors who worked with Transform Sickness.  This wasn’t as hot a topic on the Council as it was among the general population of Focuses; the Focus Network as a whole had begun, last year, independent lobbying efforts for this right.  This hadn’t gone over well with the first Focuses, who had decided the general population of Focuses had no right to independent opinion
s
about anything. 
Opinions were
the sole prerogative of the UFA Council. 
Their edict
, however, didn’t make the original problem go away.  Too many households ended up with new Transforms
who
didn’t match the personality and tenor of the household.  People like Johnny survived because he got lucky and some Focus had a slot available when he transformed, while upstanding decent men and women died, because they weren
’
t so lucky, and no slot was available for them.  The Focuses wanted control so decent people would survive and made it into their households, not thugs and criminals.

Their next agenda item concerned the
Focuses who were not coping: the young ones, the ones
who
were overwhelmed,
and
the ones
who
were just plain cruel to their people.  They talked about the mentoring program, where older Focuses helped the younger ones get started, and tried to figure out why
the program didn’t
seem to work as well as they thought it
should
.  The big problem seemed to be too many new Focuses and not enough interest by Faith Corrigan.  Faith, one of the first Focuses, headed up the mentoring program.  She and her cronies hadn’t expanded in number, as had the number of new Focuses.
  These days she picked and chose, helping her favorite new Focuses and ignoring the rest.  The Council decided to formally request Faith increase the number of mentors.

Each of them read out their
status reports
.  Polly and Cathy brought up
new problems
, both too intractable to solve in a simple discussion; both tabled for later.  Connie
brought up
an
old problem
, Federal and State taxes, and which States had recently enacted new tax laws harm
ful to
Transform households
.

Sometimes the group was even able to do things to help.
Not very often.

The meeting
was all very ordinary and mundane.  One of Esther’s people took notes and there was nothing in those completely accurate notes that couldn’t have been published in any newspaper in the country.  The official Council meetings were the completely above board and public face of the UFA, and didn’t touch the dark stuff.

At lunch, as they all gathered and talked and caught up on news, Tonya caught Ginny slipping away with Polly.  Tonya found herself a seat by the entry to the hall and leaned back with her eyes closed, looking unsociable.

Ginny and Polly made their way to the master bedroom and shut the door.  They spoke in low voices, but not low enough.  Tonya had noticed years ago that even Focuses underestimated Focus
enhanced
hear
ing
.  Tonya was nine years past her transformation, her hearing was exceptional, and eavesdropping didn’t trouble her morals
in the slightest
.

“So tell me what’s going on
,
” Polly said
,
gently.

Ginny took
a moment before
she
answered, her voice shaky.
“I need to tell you officially.
I’m going to be resigning my position after this meeting.”

“Ginny, that’s terrible!” Polly said.
“What happened?”

Ginny hesitated again
.  “
My m
oney issues
are now
a money
problem,” Ginny said.  “We can’t afford the travel costs anymore.”