A Method Truly Sublime (The Commander) (44 page)

“Which of those bitches set you up?” Kali asked.

Tonya gave Kali an arrogant smile as her only answer.

“Was it Keistermann?  Bentlow?  Webb?  Weiczokowski?  Mansfield?  Elspeth?  Morris?  Teas?  Claunch?  Fingleman?  Adkins?  Schrum?  Patterson?  Corrigan?  Julius?  Tell me it wasn’t Julius.  Please.”

When
Keaton mentioned the name ‘Patterson’, the juice pattern in Biggioni flashed, the piece of Biggioni that mirrored the white Focus.  Sky convulsed and retched.  Lori grabbed hold of him, and tried to comfort him.

“What’s wrong with Sam?” Kali said.  “He looks like he’s going to fall apart any moment now.  I’d swear his tag is fading…”

“Some Transforms ought to not indulge their curiosity too often,” Tonya said.  “It’s bad for them.”

“Ain’t that the shit’n truth,” Kali said.  “So, your old pal Adkins set you up, eh, with Fingleman’s help.  Leaves you sort of fucked sideways, doesn’t it, Tonya?”  Ah, Sky noted.  Kali was good enough to read a Focus of Tonya’s talents.  He
had wondered where Kali’s brash assurance she could handle Biggioni came from.

Tonya chose not to answer th
e question.

“I’m not looking forward to this clinic raiding expedition, Stacy,” Tonya said.  “The faster we do that, the faster we can get
this over with.”

Kali sighed.  “Sounds good to me.  At least I get to torture my favorite Focus.  This ought to be just a barrel of laughs.”  She took Lori aside.  “I know I’ve been a monster, but in explanation, understand that I’ve been shot more times in the last week than in the last three years combined.  We may not be personally compatible but I found leading a mixed group of Transforms to be exceptionally enjoyable.  If you ever have a need…”

Lori nodded.  “Has your opinion about the powers-that-be among the Focuses improved?”

“Not even slightly.”

“Then, Stacy, I’m positive I’m going to need your help in the not so distant future.”

The two lunatics smiled at each other in perfect understanding.  Tonya, to his side, muttered “This just keeps getting worse.”

Within ten minutes, Kali, Tonya and Hancock were gone, in yet another of Kali’s stolen vehicles.  Sky closed his eyes, futilely restraining his runaway thoughts.

Lori ran her hands through Sky’s hair.  “You can talk, now.”

Sky shook his head.

“Something happened to you in the Detention Center, didn’t it?  When you shouted.”

Sky nodded.

“Something to do with the Focus whose last name starts with P?”

Sky nodded again.

“She’s supposed to be a non-entity.  Just one of those tatty old first Focuses, not active since she led the breakout from the Quarantine.”

Sky shook his head.

“Hmm.  We need to get you home,
and try to fix you, Sky.  At least to where you can talk about what happened to you.  You up for a trip back to Boston?”

Sky nodded, several times.

“Let’s get out of here, people,” Lori said.  “Tim, why don’t you go get Tina?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stop That!” Lori said. 
Smiled at
Tim.  Sky giggled.  Tonya’s charisma’s tricks still worked, making Lori’s people all polite, formal and subservient.

“Yes, ma’am,” Tim said, and hurried off.

“Friggen Biggioni,” Lori said.  “Bitch.  Eileen, can you give me a hand with Sky, here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lori glowered, muttered obscenities, and followed Eileen as she carried Sky to the VW bus.

Chapter 13

In 1967 it is estimated that 10 female Sports (non-standard Major Transform
s) transformed in the United States.  Of those only 2 are known to have survived 3 months past their transformation.

“Understanding
Transform Sickness as a Disease”

Gilgamesh: March 28, 1968 – March 31, 1968

“Did you actually sense the Skinner taking Tiamat out of the CDC?” Gilgamesh
said.  Outside, a truck passed by in the darkness, rumbling loudly and sweeping the room with the searchlight beam of its headlights.

“No,” Sinclair said.
“Her juice reeked of violence.  I took off the minute I sensed the Skinner on the latest attempt.”  Sinclair could no longer cope with Arms, saddening Gilgamesh.

“Did they succeed?”

“I think so.  The CDC building blew up an hour later.  You’re familiar with my opinion of the place.  It’s had me on edge ever since I got here and started watching the area.  The dross in there was more than foul and corrupted, it was polluted with W and X bands, so bad it was almost evil.  You should be pleased to hear I got a whiff of them on the way out.  I had pulled back to within sense range of the hotel Hera used.”

“Did she fight them?”

“She helped, afterwards, I think.”  Sinclair paused, sadness in his voice.  “All of the Transforms who went in, including the strange Crow, got out alive.  I think the Crow was Sky, but he ended up so messed up by the Detention Center I couldn’t tell for certain.  I couldn’t sense Tiamat, but that doesn’t mean anything.  Gilgamesh, there’s one other thing.  I watched Tiamat for days.  Something bad happened to her.”

Gilgamesh took a breath and tried to settle his nerves. 
An utter panic gripped him, ever since the phone call with Sinclair started.  He needed to get better control of himself.  This didn’t help.  At least Sky was with them.  He hoped this meant something good.

“What do you mean, ‘something bad happened to her’?”

“Going through withdrawal scarred her.  I thought when her captors at the CDC got her juice, she would bounce back immediately.  She didn’t.  Her glow isn’t the least bit healthy any more.  I’m sorry, but even if Keaton does bring her home, she may never recover.”

Sinclair thought she might die.  He didn’t know what he would do if she died.  Follow the Skinner?

Only if he had to.

The more time passed, the stupider all his actions seemed.  He was tempted to run, nowhere in particular, just far away from here.  Find a quiet home somewhere
new.  Away from all the Beast Men, Crows, Arms, Housebound, lunatics, and people who would kill him just for entertainment.  How did Tiamat get him into this, anyway?

I
f he left the Arms, though, he would be consigning himself to the misery of low juice again, scavenging for juice and food.  A pathetic existence, prey to any wandering Beast Man.  He would be giving up on his big dream, to matter, to do something to help the Crows and the other Transforms.  He would also end up as an embarrassment to Sky, his putative Guru.

R
unning was no solution.  There was no real safety for a Crow, just different sizes of frying pans and fires.  Besides, he was making progress with his meditation, and with his new discovery, his rotten eggs.

“Okay,” he said.
“If Tiamat doesn’t live, she doesn’t.”  He would cope later.  For now, he would stay near the Skinner’s place.  He wondered how much of his resolve was courage and how much was simple affection for Tiamat.  He was so lonely sometimes without her.  It was going to take more than Sinclair’s warnings to make him give up on her.

“What are you going to do?” Sinclair
said.

“Wait.”

“Good luck, then.  I wish you the best.”

---

The Skinner came back with Hancock three days after Gilgamesh learned of the rescue, while he worked in the parking lot of his apartment, under the hood of his beat-up blue pickup truck.  Her sudden appearance startled him so badly he dropped his wrench into the engine.  They came in from the east along I80.  The Skinner was driving.  Hancock slept, curled into a fetal position in the back seat.  They were alone.

Sinclair
was right about Hancock’s condition.  Gilgamesh had never imagined she would be so bad.  She looked like someone ran over her glow with a lawn mower.  Her glow was twisted and scarred, and leaked dross like a fountain.  She left a trail of dross behind her everywhere she went.  Her glow was so mangled Gilgamesh couldn’t even recognize her.  Except for the intensity, he would have almost thought she was a Monster.

Gilgamesh’s heart sank. 
Tiamat might easily die of this.  Even if she lived, she might end up crippled, in either mind or body.  Arms healed well, but he had never imagined damage like this.

She never moved.  The Skinner drove Tiamat to her estate and left her in the garage.  Tiamat never moved at all.  Gilgamesh wondered if
withdrawal had consumed her mind completely.  She was no more than a vegetable.

Tiamat
had never lived up to his dreams.  He kept expecting her to be the lion in the jungle, and her life always proved harder than that.  He wondered if she would ever become the terrifying goddess of his imagination.

Gilgamesh stayed in his apartment, the one known to the Skinner, and waited.  He
left his truck packed, ready to leave in an instant.  He had already scouted out a new place over in Oakland, outside of the Skinner’s normal stomping grounds, a place unfamiliar to the Skinner.  He would live there and come close enough to metasense Tiamat occasionally, to see if she recovered.

He
needed to do more meditating.  He swore something changed inside of him when he meditated.  None of the other Crows he knew who meditated had ever reported anything strange.  On the other hand, Gilgamesh realized that compared to him, they were all low on juice.  Ever since he found Tiamat in Chicago, he had never been low on juice, and the only time he had taken non-Arm dross was during his escape from Chicago.

While he metasensed, the Skinner stood over Tiamat, pointed at him in his apartment, made Crow flapping motions, and pointed to Tiamat.  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gilgamesh said to himself.

The Skinner went back to her house and sat.

Tiamat didn’t move.  The more Gilgamesh metasensed Tiamat, the more he felt her pain.  She needed his help, although he knew it would be foolish to give her any help.  He turned his metasense away, but within a couple minutes he found his metasense focused on Tiamat yet again.  Guilt over not being strong enough to go with the Skinner on the rescue began to eat at his will.

Gilgamesh found himself moving before he realized he
had made a decision.  “I just need to check,” he said.  “Just once.”  He knew the Skinner’s garage.  He could get in unnoticed.

The Skinner thought Tiamat needed him.  Gilgamesh
needed to see this with his own eyes.  Perhaps only after seeing her could he pull Tiamat out of his heart.

Gilgamesh ran close,
and when he reached the Skinner’s metasense range, he damped his glow and quietly padded over to the Arm’s garage.  He entered noiselessly.

Tiamat lay naked on the garage floor.  She
had soiled herself.  Scars covered her body, of healed sores and worse.  She smelled foul.  She quietly moaned.

A hole opened up in Gilgamesh’s soul as Tiamat’s moaning broke his heart.  He couldn’t help himself; in an instant he found himself on the floor, beside Tiamat, her still hugely muscled hands in his.  He fought back tears by biting his cheek.  He
had been following her for so long she had become a part of him.

“Don’t run,” the Skinner said.  He turned and found her standing beside him.  He did twitch, but the Skinner knelt and put a hand on his shoulder.  She projected calmness, nothing he ever expected of the Skinner.  “I’ve talked to the Focus expert in this, and she’s of the opinion that although Carol’s memory may return, whatever personality comes back will depend on those who care for her during her recovery.  Gilgamesh, if you want Carol to be the Arm she was beforehand
, you’re going to need to be here with her, helping me to take care of her.”

The Skinner knew he loved Tiamat!  She
had either figured it out or found a way to metasense love.  He didn’t understand the Skinner’s limits; she certainly hadn’t been able to mask her glow from him before.  Or get him with her Arm charisma tricks.  Okay, get him with her non-predatory Arm charisma tricks.

He looked at the Skinner and read nothing from her blank face.  Her glow, on the other hand, reeked of triumph.

She had him and she knew it.

Never give a lever to an Arm, Sky had written in his letters.  That’s how you become an Arm pet.

Someday he hoped he would be able to write Sky back and tell him that he was right.

Sky: March 29, 1968

“You have to come.  They won’t deal with me alone.”

Sky nodded.  Lori had crawled into the tiny drainage culvert to talk to him and comfort him.  He wouldn’t let her take him anywhere near her household.  The shame of his worsening condition overwhelm
ed him.  He would rather not have Lori see him like this either, but her hold on his heart remained too strong.  He wouldn’t be able to stand it if she had been overwhelmed by pity, but Lori, his beautiful lady, channeled her compassion into action.