The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) (44 page)

“Why weren’t you supporting Melanie, Focus Rickenbach?”

Gail froze.  “I did support her,” she said, the protest in her voice weak.  “I tried.”

Of course you did, Zielinski wanted to say, and comfort her.  She still held him with her charisma, even with her confidence gone.  His heart didn’t care at all, and knew only that she was hurting, and needed him.

“The support didn’t work well, though,” he said.  He spoke as gently as possible, because that was what the Focus wanted.

“I got upset,” Gail said.  Blotches covered her flushed face now, and tears leaked from her eyes.  “I sometimes lose control of the juice when I get upset.”

Zielinski didn’t say anything.  His heart ached to help, but she remained stiff and unapproachable.

“Tell me about these other techniques you know of,” Gail said.  A preemptory order.

Gail had grown cold, hard and controlled.  Effects of Carol’s training, almost certainly.  Zielinski told her all he knew of ways that Focuses supported their people in stressful circumstances.  Gail listened attentively.

Zielinski sat in a booth in the far back corner of the shabby Railway Diner.  At least the waitress brought an infinite supply of coffee, and the apple pie was surprisingly good.  He put his head in his hands and tried to contain his own tears.

He had forgotten his own mistakes could hurt so much.  There had been so many of them over the years, so many losses, so many compromises.  He still heard Gail ask ‘How can you live with yourself?’

Guilt.  Sympathy.  Rickenbach had tied him in knots.  She had become much more dangerous since Carol began training her.  He hoped, fervently, she would get over her anger at him and this hadn’t completely ruined their professional relationship.

He looked at his watch.  Fifteen minutes after eleven.  A little early for lunch, but he had been awake since two.  Not to mention the ability of old familiar smells, such as apple pie, to interfere with the olfactory component of Focus charisma.  An old trick, but oftentimes the oldest tricks were the best.

He needed to stop by to see Carol, but he knew enough to wait.  She would know if he showed up under some Focus’s sway.  She would fix the problem, but Zielinski preferred his own methods, much less efficient, but certainly less painful and less humiliating.  Maybe he would find a hotel and take a nap for the afternoon before attempting to deal with Carol.  No, better yet, he would stay with Tom.  Maybe by evening, he would be safely free of Gail’s effects and could be ready to see Carol.  Male pheromones, from a strong male presence, would attack the hormonal component of Focus charisma.  He really wished Occum’s White Mountains Barony was close by.  A dose of Noble hormones would go a long way right now, even if all they did was discuss the latest Noble practice combat.  Even the memory of the strong comradely smell of Nobles helped him a little.

The waitress slapped the apple pie down in front of him, and refreshed his coffee.  The smell of both was refreshing.  Was hormone balance the reason why the Major Transforms needed each other?  Household
hormone balance
?  The idea came out of nowhere, and had promise, but oh, hell, would that be a tough sell.  Even Lori would laugh in his face if he presented his idea without some decent proof.  He would have to think about the problem and use the issue to take his mind off his ongoing problems with the juice pattern project.

But first, a nap.  He hoped Tom was in town.

Expected Battles

“Major Transforms by rumor possess different capabilities outside of the US and Western Europe, such as Focuses able to borrow other Focus’s tricks via the Dreaming.  Are any of these capabilities at all real?” – from Arm Haggerty’s Speculative Projects List

Gail Rickenbach: August 3, 1972 – August 4, 1972

“Gail?”

Gail turned back toward the door into the little courtyard.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” John Guynes asked.  He was one of her primary bodyguards, and had been for years.  He was about thirty, medium height, dark brown hair, and a tight-coiled way of moving possible only for a Transform in peak physical condition.  Even here in the safety of their home, he remained eternally alert.

Gail couldn’t help noting how more pronounced the coiled motion effect was since Teacher started training him.

“Sure.  What’s up?” she said.

One of the children, a three year old boy, screamed “Daddy” and came running.  John picked the boy up, but never lost his focus on Gail.

“Gail,” he said, and hesitated.  He raised his free hand in the air in an aborted motion, and then started again.  “Gail.  I’ve been thinking about what the Arm did to Melanie.”

Oh hell.  Thinking.  Along with everyone in her entire household.  What the damn Arm did would tear her household apart.

“Yes?”

“Well, I was thinking, after Buddy takes his turn, you’re going to need someone else.  I was thinking, well…” He stopped and took a breath.  “I was thinking, I’ll volunteer.”

“What?” Gail said.  “Why?”  Behind her, she could hear Sylvie suck in her breath.

“Well, I’ve been fighting, too.  It wasn’t just Buddy.”

Gail shook her head.  She had been the one who assigned the next session with the Arm to Buddy.  Punishment, but she knew very well she wouldn’t have assigned him such a nasty punishment if she hadn’t needed someone to suck up Teacher’s cruelty.  “You don’t have to.”

“Somebody’s got to be the one.  Who else is it going to be?  Helen?  She’s got to be almost sixty by now.  Trisha?  She would probably have a nervous breakdown and need to quit her job, and then where would we be?”  He shrugged.  “I don’t see a better idea.”

Gail thought about the problem for a moment, and then nodded.  “I’ll give this some thought.”  Her sudden affection for him boosted his juice count and she didn’t fight the slip.

“Thanks,” he said, awkward again.  He put his son back down on the ground.  “You go back and play, Matthew.  Daddy has work to do.”

“That’s a good man,” Kurt said, as the door shut behind John.  Gail sat on the ground beside Sylvie, and noticed that Sylvie’s eyes were swollen and red.  She was watching the younger children play in the courtyard.  There was a small swing set and a sandbox in the area, plus the usual collection of balls, tricycles, and miscellaneous other toys.  Plus five small children, ages six months to five years.  Sylvie sat on the ground, holding the youngest, and Kurt sat beside her, holding her in turn.

Sylvie always helped with the children.  Despite her duties as Gail’s aide, her investigatory work and her occasional free-lance writing, she always found time to volunteer to take care of the children.  Four years ago, back before she transformed, she and Kurt had wanted a whole house full of kids.  Six of them.  Their dream died when she made her transformation and lost her fertility.  Gail remembered how hard Sylvie cried when the adoption agency people had told them her transformation disqualified them as prospective adoptive parents.

So now she helped with the children.  Even though the Transform women were infertile, the normal women of the household kept producing babies.

“Gail,” Kurt said. “If Sylvie ever draws the short straw, what would you think if I were to…”

“Absolutely not,” Gail said.  “Transforms only.  I know you want to, but Transforms are better equipped to take the pain, and I can support a Transform while they’re being tortured.  I can’t support a normal.”  She thought of Melanie and felt like a liar when she said the words, but dammit, she would do better next time.

She wished someone would torture the damned Arm.  In the entire time Teacher had been training her, Gail had never been so completely angry.  She expected to take abuse herself from the training, and accepted the risk when she agreed to the training.  She never agreed to let the Arm abuse her people.

“Gail?”

“No.  Besides, it’s going to be a few days.  I got mad at Buddy a little while ago and told him he was next.”

“Oh, you did?” Kurt said.  Sylvie just rocked the baby and wouldn’t look at her.  “Good.  You got anybody else that’s really screwed up recently you can put on the block?”

“Aren’t you bothered about my choice?”

“You should have chosen him in the first place instead of Melanie.  The guy’s an asshole.”

Gail leaned forward and rested her chin on her knees.  The playing children watched her warily.

“Look, do you guys have a minute?  I need to talk to you about something.”

Sylvie shrugged and Kurt raised his eyebrows.

“Things have been rough since I started working with that Arm, and now with the latest, well…” Gail shrugged.  “How’s everyone holding up?”

Sylvie looked over at her, finally, and there were tears in her eyes again as she gently rocked the sleeping baby.  “Whadda you think?  Every couple of days Hancock comes through and the juice goes haywire, and she terrorizes the crap out of everyone.  Now she starts torturing people, and we all get to look at Melanie and wonder…”

“Hell,” Gail said, and could feel tears gathering in her own eyes.  “I’ve got to find a way through this, don’t I?”

Sylvie nodded.  “You’re strong, Gail.  Be stronger.”

Gail didn’t answer.  She retreated to her office, forced the tension out of her, and composed herself.  The training took so much out of her that she hardly did anything more for her people than move juice.

Her people were falling apart.

So much for being the local expert on Focus mentoring and household dynamics.

---

“Van?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you mind terribly if I turned into a Nazi?”

“At this hour of the night?”

“Oh, well, I was thinking about maybe in the morning.”

“What kind of Nazi?”

“A corporate Nazi.”

“Oh.  Any particular reason?”

“Well, it seemed like I needed something a little more authoritarian to keep everyone from going nuts.  I talked to Tonya, and she thinks that the corporate Nazi thing ought to work pretty well for what we’re going through.”

“Huh.  It’s pretty clear we need something.  I suppose corporate Nazi is as likely to work as anything.  Although leftie authoritarian might suit you better, El Commandante Rickenbach.”

“Okay.”

“Gail?”

“Hmm?”

“You aren’t going to expect me to do the authoritarian thing, are you?”

“Nah.”

“Good.”

“Some things are just plain impossible.”

“Hey!”

---

“All right everyone, pay attention,” Gail said, and the voices died down all around her.  They gathered in the courtyard between the wings, the only place large enough to hold everyone.  The weather was unseasonably cool and cloudy, and people pulled their jackets close against the wind.  They stood, sat, and leaned against the swing set.  The teenagers watched the children inside the apartments.

“Okay, you all know we’ve been having a pretty rough time,” Gail said.

Voices interrupted her.  “Yeah!”  “Somebody needs to do something about that Arm.”  “Did you see what she did to Melanie?”

“Hush.”  Gail spoke the word quietly, but put her full-on charisma into the word.  The commotion fell into a sudden stunned silence.  Gail smiled; this was the first time she had hit her people with her newly honed charisma.  “I didn’t give you permission to interrupt.”  Her comment surprised most of the people in her household.  Most got nervous.

“Okay, look.  We’ve all had a hard time since the Arm first came through, and everyone’s afraid, and a lot of you are real pissed.”  Nobody interrupted her now.  “You need to know a few things.  First, she isn’t going away any time soon, so we need to learn how to deal with having an Arm among us.

“Second, we
can
make this easier to live with.  Right now, we’re getting upset, fighting with each other, and copping out on our responsibilities.  That’s no good.  We need to support each other, instead. 
All of us.
  Look for chances to help other people get through, and avoid taking your own problems out on anyone else.  We need to all work together, and I expect it of you.”

The wind broke the silence, followed by a rumble of distant thunder.  Her people waited, expectant, hoping she could come up with a miracle.

“Third, I’ve told you for years why we rotate our household leaders so often: so that if a crisis happens we’ll have lots of people with leadership experience.  The crisis time is now, and I’m going to be changing the household model into one better suited to a crisis.

Some of her people nodded in agreement.  Most did not, including the current household president, Manfred Cadriel.

“The elected leadership council is hereby disbanded, and I’m in charge.  What I say, goes, on any subject, at any time.  I’m delegating responsibility to the following people.  Gretchen Carlow is in charge of household maintenance, Kurt Dejung keeps his old job of head of household security, Helen Grimm is in charge of finance, and Sylvie Dejung is now formally my second in command, meaning if I’m not around and she is, what she says is what happens.  Isabella Wheelhouse is in charge of the kitchen and reports to Gretchen, Betha Ebener is in charge of child care and reports to Gretchen…”  Tonya’s corporate model required Gail to think of her household as a corporation, with Gail as the CEO.  Painful.  As Van suggested, though, she instead envisioned her household in a more Socialist fashion, with ministers and bureaus, not that she would ever tell them.  Either way, the trick was to delegate authority.  Steady the household and reward the household members using her charisma, not with juice.  She wasn’t a baby Focus anymore, and save for emergencies, she was good enough to make the juice moving automatic, something everyone in the household could count on.

Gail hadn’t given Bart Wheelhouse or Manfred Cadriel senior positions.  She expected trouble from them, but she didn’t want either of them up at the top until they proved willing to take her orders.  She expected to be hitting them often with her charisma to keep them in line.

Besides, after dealing with Teacher, Bart and Manfred were small stuff.

“The new changes take effect immediately.  If anyone has any questions, you can come talk to me,” Gail said, after finishing the responsibility list.  “One thing I want to be real clear about, though: I expect a lot out of all of you, because I know you’re capable of it if you try.  I won’t punish you if you try your best and things don’t work out.  I will punish you if you don’t give your best, or if you aren’t willing to cooperate with other people, or contribute to the well-being of the house, or if you have a problem taking orders.”

Nobody moved.  Gail barely heard her people breathe.

“Which leads into the next subject.  We’ve got that Arm coming through every couple of days.  Last time, we did a lottery, which didn’t work.  If you’re doing your best and doing a good job, you shouldn’t have to worry about the Arm.  Tonight, Buddy is taking his turn as punishment, and I’ll assign the Arm as punishment for any other big screw ups.  If you’re doing your best, you shouldn’t have a problem.  For the rest of the time, I’m looking for volunteers.”

Now her people murmured, but Gail continued speaking.

“John Guynes already volunteered.”  The murmurings grew louder; the word ‘volunteer’ was fraught with juice, and had been ever since Matt’s sacrifice. “I want you all to know that I am
extremely
proud of him.  We as a household all owe him for this, and I owe him specifically.  I want to promise you, John, that I will do everything I can to compensate you for the kind of selfless heroism you’re showing for the sake of everyone else, and I will also do everything I can to reduce the unpleasantness as much as possible.”

This time, Gail stayed silent and let the murmurs continue.  John beamed at the approval.  Many people talked quietly, but Gail noticed thoughtful looks on several faces as they looked at John, and suspected she would get a few more volunteers.

“Last, I need to let you know some of the details about what we’re doing with the Commander.  I’ve talked to some of you already, but you all need to know.  The Commander and I are looking for a breakthrough in the way Arms and Focuses interact.  If we succeed, we’re going to achieve something that will make an impact all over the world.  We believe there’s a tie between all the Major Transforms, and between the Major Transforms and household Transforms, a tie we need to improve.  If we succeed, we’ll save untold lives, and make the lives of Transforms everywhere better.