The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four (7 page)

“If you’re going to deal with Arms, you need to learn
this, Zielinski,” Keaton said, eagerly leafing through the material.

“If you master this and are willing to teach it to me,
ma’am, I will learn.”

“Huh.”  Leaf, leaf.  “Arrogant pustule, aren’t you?”

He felt safe not commenting on Keaton’s insult.  “The
way around the nodule growth problem is to trick your body into consuming the
nodules.  An Arm can burn off muscles as easily as she can gain them. 
Excessive exercise of the area of the body in question, and caloric reduction,
will solve your issues quickly.  The asymmetric muscle problem is similarly
solved, but will take longer, the difference being that while nodule
development is an utterly wrong thing for a body to be doing, the asymmetric
muscle issue is only potentially…”

“Fine.  Quit droning,” Keaton said.  He stopped
talking.  Keaton’s impatience with his pedantry was worse than even the most
driven of the Focuses he dealt with.

She asked him about the 30 major muscle groups listed on
his anatomy chart, where the 640 number came from, the name differences between
the bodybuilder literature and his anatomy diagram, and so on and so forth, for
almost an hour.  About every ten minutes she grilled him on his suggested
therapy, hoping for a different answer than ‘excessive exercise and near
starvation’.  He didn’t have any other options, no matter how many times she
expressed her disgust at his suggestions.

Keaton’s unintroduced Monster hunter watched the entire
time, silent and unmoving from his post at the driver’s side door to his Mercedes. 
He always kept at least part of his attention on Keaton.

“Ma’am, one other thing,” Dr. Zielinski said, after he finished
putting away his easels and posters.  “You need to know that your enemies
attempted to follow me here, but I lost them.  From an inadvert…”

He didn’t notice Keaton move, but move she did, grabbing
him and tossing him across the hood of his car, arms akimbo, sacrifice style. 
She squeezed his neck, tight.  The last thing he saw before he blacked out was
Keaton’s enraged face, muscles corded like iron on her neck.

Hank woke in the same position, splayed out on the hood
of his Mercedes.  His neck ached, as did his lower back.

“…that’s fucking crap.”

“Ma’am, someone who’s talented enough to ditch a tail
isn’t someone you want to discard in thoughtless annoyance.”  This, from the
Monster hunter?  He hadn’t expected an actual give-and-take relationship
between them.  Hank levered himself up, thankful to be alive and not in
traction.  Keaton paced, double-time, across the vacant warehouse, fifty feet
away.  Several large former stacks of wooden pallets were now strewn across the
floor, some in splinters.

“I spent a fucking week setting up this fucking trap for
those motherfucking idiots,” Keaton said.  “God damned motherfucking cunt doctor!”

Oh, shit.  He
was
supposed to lead Focus
DeYoung’s people here.  No, Keaton hadn’t made a mistake by sending the summons
through the Network.  She wanted her messages intercepted.

“Ma’am,” Hank said, a quite croak.  “I…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Keaton said.  She stayed away, her
rage still boiling over.  “I fucking understand that you thought you were doing
me a favor by not leading them here.”  She picked up one of the scattered pallets,
raised it over her head, and smashed it, with her full Arm strength, down to the
floor, fifty feet away.  The pallet shattered like an eggshell, some of the
wood flinders landing on him.

“Focus Martine DeYoung,” Hank said.  He wasn’t impressed
with Keaton’s plan, or her reaction to failure.  Seeing her overreaction, he wondered
how in the hell Keaton had survived as a free Arm for this long.

Keaton stopped, turned to Hank, and stalked over.

“You know the bitch behind this?”

“I learned her name today,” he said.  Keaton stopped ten
feet away and put her hands on her hips.  “If you wish, ma’am, I can tell you
the…”

“Spill.”

He told the tale, and after an invective laden question,
the story about where he had learned the ‘losing a tail’ trick.  The latter
part of his story earned a low wolf-whistle from the unnamed Monster hunter,
and likely bumped Hank several notches higher on the Monster hunter’s man-meter.

“Tonya warned me to stay away from De Fucking Young, but
didn’t say why,” Keaton said.  “She implied the people hunting me and
bedeviling her belonged to some old Focus, though.”

Crap.  “She probably didn’t lie,” Hank said.  Having one
of the older Focuses after Keaton, and perhaps after him, was about the worst
news possible.  “Tonya’s comment means Focus DeYoung isn’t acting on her own,
but being used as a pawn.”

“Do you always state the obvious?”

What could he say?  “Yes, ma’am, far too often.”

Keaton stopped cold and slapped her forehead.  “Fuuuck
me.”  She turned and stalked over to get in his face.  Her rage had vanished
again, replaced by a bad attempt at a stone face that to him revealed utter
glee.  “Teach me this shit.  Now.”

“Ma’am, I’m an amateur at this, at best.”

“Fuck, I’m still a goddamned
housewife
at this. 
I’m guessing a ‘brush pass’ isn’t something one does with your fucking hair. 
Right?”

Hank barely repressed a wince.  “A brush pass is a way
of passing a message without people watching you seeing you passing a message. 
Two people meet at a prearranged location, they walk past each other without publicly
noticing each other, and one passes a message to the other using simple sleight
of hand.”

This impromptu lesson continued for two more hours. 
Keaton finally let Hank go, and, shaking, he got in his car and left, searching
for someplace close by that served food.  Somewhere not too ritzy, given what
Keaton, the concrete floor, the hood of his car, nearly four hours of sweat,
and blood from Keaton’s abuse had done to his suit.

“She knows a lot more about how the world works,
compared to the first time we met,” he said, on the phone to Tonya. 
“Unfortunately, my read on her is that her mental state is deteriorating. 
She’s losing her humanity, as well as her grip on logic.”

“Unless we do something, she’s a goner, you’re saying,”
Tonya said.

“I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before she gets
herself killed by doing something boneheaded, doing something based on her
strong emotions instead of anything resembling thought.”

“I’m not sure how bad that would be,” Tonya said.

Hank smiled.  “You’re telling me you and the Council
would throw away a weapon such as Keaton?  During a Focus faction fight between
the Council and some First Focus and her flunky Focuses?”

On the other end of the phone, Tonya slammed down her
coffee cup.  “The Arm’s not our weapon.”

“I hear a ‘yet’ in there, somewhere.”

“How, in God’s name, do we save her from herself,
though?” Tonya asked.

Hank had given that knotty question some thought.  “Have
you ever thought about hiring her in person?”  If Tonya got close to Keaton
often enough, Tonya and her damned charisma might be able to help Keaton retain
her sanity.

Besides, he would rather be volunteering Tonya for the
bell-the-cat duty, than having her volunteer him.  As she had just done with
this episode.

Tonya answered his question with a typical low growl,
and hung up the pay phone on him.

Mutie Mill Briefing

Sky sat down, nervous.  Bad vibes filled this basement room,
the vibes of illicit sex and private knock-down drag-out fights between
Transforms who wanted their disputes to stay private.  Ostensibly, this was the
basement teen lounge.  Three trucked-in card tables occupied the center of the
room, and he sat between Ann and Tim, waiting.  Connie walked in and sat at the
head of the table, followed by Eileen, Shelly and Deborah.  The team for the
Mutie Mill reconnaissance.

Lori walked in a half minute later, a sheaf of paper in
one hand and a poster of one of the uglier Focuses Sky had ever seen in the
other.  She leaned the poster board of the Focus against a well-grafittied
wall, and handed out bits of the paper stack to all of them. 

Sky scanned the handout, a mimeograph of information on
Focus Abernathy and her household.

“You wanted a briefing?  Here I am,” Lori said.  She
appeared distracted, and to Sky, cold.  To him.  She had been cold and distant
ever since he had tracked her down Saturday morning and tried to understand
what was going on in her head.  Apparently, she hadn’t appreciated waking up
next to him Saturday morning.  Surely you can figure out I didn’t take
advantage of you in any way, he had said.

She didn’t even bother with a response.  Ice, ice, ever
since.

“Where do you want me to start?” Lori asked.

“How about with Focus Abernathy?” Ann said, after a
glance at Connie and a juice signal response from the Inferno household leader.

“Fine.”  Lori licked her lips, closed her eyes
momentarily, and pointed at the poster.  “That’s her.  She transformed in
November of 1959, got placed in the New Haven, Connecticut Transform Clinic,
and, four months later, got moved to Beechwood Court, the Boston public housing
project.  She and her new household lived in abject squalor there until March
of 1961; during that time she had no direct contact with any Focuses, just the
Focus Network, her main contact person being, um,” a pointed look at Sky, “the
Doctor.”

“You’re kidding.”  “He sure does get around.”  “Unbelievable.” 
“That’s just what we need.”  Connie whistled and restored order, half way
through Sky’s comment of “Sacre bleu!  What are you doing letting an enemy into
this place!”

Lori shook her head and continued, ignoring all their comments. 
“He advised Focus Abernathy to use the juice weapon to keep her Transforms in
line, and she did so.  After Kennedy pardoned the Breakout Focuses and the UFA
went public, she got a talking to by Focus Schrum and made a deal – Schrum
could have Abernathy’s vote in the regional UFA meetings if Schrum kept
Abernathy safe from Focus politics.  Their deal holds to this day.

“Focus Abernathy ordered her household to pool their
money and purchase a working farm, outside Bridgeport, Connecticut.  They did so,
and her household still lives there.  Abernathy lives in a mobile home; when
too much bad juice builds up in her mobile home she sells it and gets another. 
Her people also live in mobile homes; the household purchases run-down mobile
homes, lives in them while they fix them up, and later sells them.  During summer
heat waves the household lives in tents, by choice.  Although they are poor by
most standards, their mode of living gives them more living space than any
urban Focus household, Inferno included.  Although their farming does not bring
in much money, they produce around three quarters of their own food on the
farm.”

Some of this was in the mimeographed handout Sky read,
but not all.  He smiled at the setup; Lori was a natural teacher, and the Inferno
Transforms loved to hear her teach.  He suspected they invented excuses for her
to ‘brief’ them on all sorts of things.

“As a Focus with eight years of experience, Abernathy
should not be taken lightly.  Note that she’s what we Focuses term ‘second generation’;
she never spent any time in the bad juice polluted Detention Centers, nor were
she and her people scarred from the excesses forced on the early Focuses during
the Quarantine and post-Breakout period.  As far as her strength as a Focus is
concerned, she’s considered tied for being strongest of the second generation,
with Lupe Rodriguez.”

Lori’s last comment brought everyone at the table to
sitting attention.  None of them had expected it.

“However, raw strength as a Focus isn’t a good measure
of a Focus’s overall power.  To be tops in overall power, a Focus must train her
tricks, must be smart enough to realize she needs training, must have the
willpower to do the training, and must have the political acumen to find
teachers and gain permission to do the training.  Of these, Focus Abernathy
only possesses the willpower.  My best estimate of her IQ is in the 95 to 100
range, she’s a high school dropout, reads at a Junior High level at best, and
she has no interest in cooperating with any other Focuses other than Focus
Schrum.  So, as far as overall power as a Focus, Abernathy is near the bottom
of the heap for Northeast Region second generation Focuses, about the same as
Focus Garrisi and Focus Untermeyer.”

Sky had never heard of either Garrisi or Untermeyer.  The
others had, and they nodded.

“Her strength at home, though, should not be
underestimated.  Like me, she hasn’t ever had to move.  Because of her penchant
for using mobile homes, our Crow friends report that her household is extremely
easy to approach and cadge dross.  She won’t have any bad juice issues.  Also,
because she’s never had to move, and because her living area is so spread out,
she has quite a few advantages most Focuses don’t possess.  For instance, and
yes, I find this interesting and intriguing, Focus Abernathy can move juice
beyond her normal 94 yard metasense range…but only at her farm.  The comments
I’ve managed to squeeze out of people imply Abernathy doesn’t even realize
she’s doing the impossible.  In addition, Focus Abernathy can do many of the
upper end raw power Focus tricks, such as identifying the tags of other Focuses
she’s met, instantly move juice from one Transform to another, tag, untag and
retag at range, and see using her metasense.  Her charisma is powerful but erratic;
as you can see in her picture she’s physically strong; she enjoys manual labor
and if the anecdotes are correct, she can lift over five hundred pounds.

“The men in her household who serve as guards are well
armed, but there are only six of them.  Abernathy supports eight Triads and her
household are all manual laborers, doing farm work.  They aren’t very loyal to
her, though, meaning her household superorganism is going to be weak, likely
weak enough to totally discount.  The household raises cattle, pigs, goats, but
no horses.  Also wheat, corn, hops, and squash, all of which they sell; plus
extensive vegetable gardens for household use. 

“Lastly, Focus Abernathy has a trick apparently unique
to her – she can tag multiple Transforms at once.  Other than pointing out to
us that we don’t understand the upper limits of Focus capabilities, I’m not
sure this is relevant to you at all, or the mission.”  Lori paused.  “Any
questions?”

“I have one,” Sky said.  “From before.  If this doctor
you’re keeping here is an enemy, why have him here at all?  Aren’t you worried
he’ll figure out what we’re doing and warn Abernathy?”  Crazy Lori. 

“He’s not an enemy,” Lori said.  She sighed.  “I don’t
know what his current ties to Abernathy are, but, no, I’m not taking any
chances.  He doesn’t know about the Mutie Mill mission, and we’re going to loan
him out this week to Occum to keep him occupied, just in case.”

“Why is he here?” Sky said.  “He’s likely a spy.”

“True,” Connie said.  “But he’s not spying for who you
might think.  He’s working with the American Arms.  None of us realized how
much he worked with Arm Keaton before he started getting two or three letters a
week from her.  Right now we’re filtering both his incoming and outgoing mail;
the problem is that he and the Arms are using private codes, something out of
the dark days of the Quarantine and post-Breakout underground days.”  She
shrugged.  “From what we’ve read, the Arms show little interest in Inferno as a
household, and they are as gung ho about the, um, doctor’s current project he’s
working on here, to help us, as we are.”

“The First Focuses, or at least their leaders, have a
contract out on his life,” Lori said.  “His old backers turned on him, which
makes him a perfect recruit for me, as we now share enemies.”

“You’re converting him to your damned Cause, aren’t
you?”  Sky said.  “If he’s who I think he is, he’s way too dangerous for you to
be dealing with.”  The doctor sounded like the ‘truck driver’ Annie had sent
with him to the States, and if he was also Annie’s long-time unnamed doctor
contact, which Sky suspected, said doctor had a reputation for corner-cutting,
devious tricks, and having a cavalier disregard for human life.

“Can’t convert the converted,” Lori said.  “What I am
trying to do is get him on my side, instead of on
his
side.  He’s
stubbornly self-centered, though, and for some reason doesn’t trust me much.”

Look in a mirror lately, Sky thought. 
I
don’t
trust you, milady.  “You don’t want him turning on you.  Us.”

“Yes, he’s dangerous,” Lori said.  She smiled.  “I’m
dangerous.  You’re dangerous.  Anyone worth recruiting to the Cause is
dangerous.”

With that, she stood and left, leaving Sky unsure what
he might do or say.