No Sorrow Like Separation

By Randall Allen Farmer

Book Five of "The Commander".
Carol Hancock, wife, mother, pillar of the community and faithful member of her church, never expected to contract Transform Sickness. Certainly, she never expected to make that rarest of transformations, the female predator transformation, and become an Arm. Initially captured by the authorities, she escaped and served an apprenticeship under an older Arm, Stacy Keaton. After she graduated from her training, she took the city of Chicago as her territory, and held Chicago until a secretive Major Transform, Wandering Shade, betrayed Carol to the authorities. Carol’s friends rescued her, but only after she fell into juice withdrawal, which greatly damaged her.
Cared for now by Keaton and a male Major Transform by the name of Gilgamesh, Carol must recover her mind, her abilities and her sanity, as well as regain her place as a powerful and influential Major Transform. She will face unexpected dangers, confront new opponents, and gain new friends as she recovers...and more.

(Although this is the fifth book of “The Commander” series, new readers can also begin with this novel, if they wish.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Allen Farmer
• Release date: Nov 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301871155

Randall Allen Farmer

Greetings.I am an author, science nerd, an amateur photographer, a father, and a pencil and paper game designer and gamemaster. My formal education was in geology and geophysics, and back in the day I worked in the oil industry tweaking software associated with finding oil. Since I left the oil industry, I've spent most of my time being a parent, but did have enough time to get two short stories published (in Analog and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine). Now I'm giving epublishing a try, and I have an ample supply of novel-length publishable material to polish and publish.

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No Sorrow Like Separation

Book Five of The Commander

Randall Allen Farmer

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by Randall Allen Farmer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form. This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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No Sorrow Like Separation

Book Five of The Commander

There is no fire like greed,

No crime like hatred,

No sorrow like separation,

No sickness like hunger of heart,

And no joy like the joy of freedom.

– The Buddha

Part 1

Recuperation

However looked at,

It’s a world

to be loathed –

but as long as you live here

I'm drawn to it!

– Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home

Chapter 1

…and I could not believe it. For over three weeks not a single Chicago Clinic has registered any new woman Transforms. They are very reticent to speak of this matter, and the Focus Council’s attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Hunter Activity Near Chicago and Media Responses

Carol Hancock: April 9, 1968

I awoke.

That in itself was astonishing. My last chaotic memories were of Hell, the land of demons, answering questions, slipping lower and lower on juice. I had been nearing withdrawal and I hadn’t expected to wake up.

I sat up, startled. Memories fled.

I sat in a bed, a stark Danish modern style bed, of the palest wood. White sheets, white blanket, white bedspread. The floor was a dusty shade of white, polished wood of some variety. The bed was queen sized and sat on a half-round white rug in a huge undecorated bedroom. Cool dry air with a hint of ocean spray blew the white window curtains obliquely across open windows. The stark white room smelled freshly painted.

The sheets beside me appeared rumpled, the pillow beside mine showed a head-shaped indentation, and the room smelled of fresh sex. Was this heaven?

My muscles ached slightly, which I recognized as from extensive exercise, not from muscle problems. I looked down at myself and marveled. I guessed I had lost perhaps a third of my weight, all in muscle. My arms and thighs were noticeably thinner. I carried no noticeable fat on my body, save for my perky young-teen breasts. Under my downy fur, my skin appeared translucent, paper-thin.

I heard quiet steps and puzzled. They walked in heaven? A mental image of myself wafting around as a weightless astronaut filled my thoughts, and made me giggle. Distantly, I recognized something was wrong with my mind.

The footsteps came to the door. Stacy Keaton, naked as a sunbeam, stuck her head in the room. My mentor, former teacher, and oftentimes my sadistic torturer, was now good looking and well kept up. I cringed reflexively, horror scenarios from my memories appearing out of nowhere. Nope. Not heaven. The other place. I hadn’t escaped Hell. Breathless little screams leaked from my throat as I tried to retreat into the headboard.

Keaton’s eyes widened as the relaxed expression on her face vanished. You cringed! she said. She came into the room, and her eyes lit up. Happy! Surprised!

I attempted to close my mouth on the screams and set my face to stone. I recognized through my panic my vulnerability, and vulnerability was a specter of terror.

Now you’re trying to mask your emotions. A slight smile appeared on her hard face. She sat down beside me on the bed and held my face in her hands, holding me tight as I tried to pull away. I shivered as she stared into my eyes. Is there a real Carol Hancock in there now?

I tried to convey a complex submissive explanation of my fears. My explanation came out as Torture? I spoke no words.

Do you need to torture someone?

I shook my head.

Ah. We’re not doing that this time. Her gaunt, cruel face remained hard, but her words were gentle. I shivered, just a little, and the beginnings of tears leaked out of my eyes. I tried to respond to her and my body shouted my message as I tried to force content from my mind to my voice, but no words came.

She studied me carefully as I struggled to form words. Help, I’m stuck in my head and I can’t talk. Right? Keaton said.

I nodded, sagging as I let the effort of my futile attempt to speak slip away. Her eyes followed me closely and my fear bubbled up inside.

Keaton relaxed and smiled a little more. Gilgamesh and I were beginning to worry the Carol Hancock we knew and loved was gone for good, she said. You were in withdrawal for over a day.

Confusion. Gilgamesh with Keaton? A day’s worth of withdrawal? Loved? I couldn’t bear to understand. I reflexively grabbed Keaton and hugged her as the confusion and horror of her statement churned inside me. She stiffened momentarily, put her arms around me, and hugged me back. Only then did I realize whom I sought comfort from, but by then it was too late.

Keaton’s hug was parental. Her reaction could have been worse, far worse.

I shivered again as memories of incarceration flashed through my mind. I couldn’t understand what I remembered and I remembered so little of my recent past. My memories, Arm perfect, faded into chaos on February 29th, during a victory celebration over the Chimera Odin and his pack of baby Chimeras. Shit had happened after the 29th, feces fragments flying through my mind. Keaton rubbed her hand in my hair, whispering ‘it’s all right,’ as the screams finally came out, ripped loose from my throat. I didn’t cry, now. Crying would hurt too much. I left as much of my reactions bottled up inside as I found possible. Only those screams escaped, despite me.

I understood Keaton. Back in Chicago I had treated Bobby, my lover, like this when he got hurt. As a treasured possession. As horrible and demeaning as this might sound for an Arm, being a treasured possession of Keaton was a vast improvement over the fragments I remembered of our previous relationship. Given what little remained of my former spirit and aggressiveness, horrible and demeaning wasn’t half bad.

One of the times when I looked up during my screaming I spotted a man standing in the room. Clothed in a short-sleeve shirt and slacks. Worried. Nearly as hard to read as an Arm or Focus. He was thin and wiry, with flyaway dark brown hair and hooded dangerous wary eyes. His muscles were all wrong, wrong sizes, wrong attachment points, wrong shapes. A shiner surrounded his right eye and recent defensive wounds decorated his lower arms. He had to be the strangest normal I had ever seen. I did wonder what Keaton was thinking, letting a normal man wander around freely in whatever place she lived.

Carol? he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Is that you?

I recognized the voice – Gilgamesh. I realized I had a problem: the man I thought of as ‘my Crow’ was here, trapped, in some crazy fashion Keaton’s prisoner. Given my current state, I couldn’t do much about it, so I just nodded in response.

My name is Carol Hancock and I’m an Arm. Victim of Armenigar’s Syndrome. So is Stacy Keaton, who was my former sadistic teacher and current – cringe – nurse. She has a teeny tiny issue with occasional psychotic breaks and is a hazard to be around. Gilgamesh, who I had never before seen in the daylight, is a Crow. He, like all Crows, takes the term ‘skittish’ to heights previously unimagined. Crows and Arms, along with the Chimeras and the Focuses, are Major Transforms, the rarer and more powerful versions of the normal male and female Transforms. We’re all victims of Transform Sickness, a rare but worrisome disease that made its presence known in the early 1950s. The authorities do not like Transforms, and given the fact us Arms needed to hunt down Transforms and kill them in order to live, the authorities had us Arms on the top of their most wanted lists.

As always, I drowned in deep shit. Keaton, again? Gilgamesh stuck with her as well? A gap in my mind as wide as the Pacific, screaming ‘withdrawal’? Withdrawal meant my supplemental juice supply had zeroed out. Transforms died from withdrawal. I guessed us Arms were tougher.

Worse, my old memories didn’t make sense to me, something wrong with my mind. Why, for instance, did cars start when you put the key in the ignition?

We found a closet and dressed in workout clothes, hand-made especially for Keaton and me. A part of me expected this, another part of me found the hand-made clothing absurd and incongruous. Was there some sort of ritual involved? Why?

I can feel her think, Keaton said to Gilgamesh. She’s safe right now.

Safe? Gilgamesh warily gave me a hug. We had never touched before, that I could remember. The comfort of his embrace overwhelmed me and my eyes misted over. He met my eyes, still holding me. He was stronger than a normal man. Nowhere near as strong as an Arm. Yes. The Q bands in her glow have complexified. She’s worried about far too many things. I never before realized, but Gilgamesh was as smart as I was. Or as smart as I used to be, before this withdrawal thing.

Can you blame her, kiddo?

They were bantering. Keaton and Gilgamesh were bantering. God!

I let the two of them lead me through Keaton’s house, a mansion on a large estate with several outbuildings. Keaton talked a bit, explaining things, and showed me around. She wasn’t a person of many words. Gilgamesh was worse, saying nothing, although he kept a firm grip on my hand. As we walked from room to room, I found a measure of calm. I was safe here from the outside world in this pale palace. Keaton’s sadism didn’t terrify me, just her psychotic breaks, which at the moment I could do nothing about. She might hurt me, she might not. Things would be as things would be.

Keaton’s perfectly maintained mansion held little in the way of furniture. The house was pale, stark, and immaculate. Her home’s plainness eased my mind. Tomorrow was cleaning day, she explained, when she vacated the premises and a cleaning crew came in and did what cleaning crews do.

Gilgamesh lived in the five-car garage, by choice. I had spent some time there as well, according to Keaton. One of her outbuildings, a guesthouse, had a basement I could smell from the porch. I magically knew the basement was where she kept her workshop and her torture chamber. No, Keaton hadn’t changed her spots. She tortured as a way of working off stress and anger, and she enjoyed her play immensely. She had a gym in her main house, not a full Arm gym but usable. Seeing a quizzical expression on my face, she said that her gym would pass inspection by normals. Her logic went beyond my understanding. More magic.

The tour of the house eased some tension inside of me. I remained lost, but as she opened every closet and took me through every room, the lost feeling began to fade. I didn’t know where I was, what state, what city, but all that was information about the outside. Better to stay in my pale womb for a while longer. A lesser territory, safe with my occasionally terrifying teacher.

As we inspected a library, filled with empty shelves and a few books, I found something in my memories, a ritual I could perform that would please her. I knelt at her feet, curled small, and laid my cheek on her shoes. She stopped, startled. Then she rubbed her hand affectionately in my hair. Pleased. Her actions made me feel safer.

Gilgamesh didn’t get down on the floor with me. Nor did he gain any pleasure from my ritual. The ritual made him nervous, but he didn’t leave my side. Different rituals gave him pleasure: quiet whispers, dark of night meetings, excessive politeness. I could satisfy none of them now. My inability saddened me.

The kitchen appeared lived in, somewhat messy, but only a little. Then it hit me – I recognized this sort of mess. I had been doing the cooking. How?

Once we got you back on your feet, Keaton said, you wouldn’t let either of us cook. You couldn’t speak or remember what you did an hour previous, but you wouldn’t let us cook. You were, are, amazing to watch.

Right. Memories rose to the surface of my mind. Keaton’s cooking skills consisted of warming pre-prepared foods and cracking eggs on top of canned corned beef hash. Keaton ate raw hamburger by the pound if I wasn’t around to cook for her.

I noticed hints of other things while I walked her house. I still couldn’t speak, but I put the word training firmly in my mind and met her eyes.

She looked at me as if I was a ghost. Too much observation for the little mind she expected of me. I sensed the gears spin in her head; she now realized my inability to speak didn’t make me stupid. Yes, she said. I’ve spent pretty much the entire time since you left me honing my capabilities and advancing my skills. Recently I’ve been working on helping both you and Gilgamesh.

I had no cause to argue and buried my confusion, though to me it didn’t appear Gilgamesh was getting Arm training. Instead, I fixed us a proper Arm-sized breakfast. Keaton hung back, leaning against the kitchen cupboards. Silent, thinking. Gilgamesh vanished. Well, not really. He retreated to a corner of the kitchen, there but not there. I couldn’t find him unless I put ‘where is Gilgamesh?’ firmly in my mind and concentrated. He seemed distracted.

You spoiled me, you know, Keaton said, about half way through my preparations. I had finished the Eggs Benedict, but the homemade waffles (and berries) had a little way to go. In Philadelphia. Things being clean. Food like you prepare. It made me think.

I didn’t understand. That was okay. I understood I had mental problems.

After breakfast was the gym. The gym was on the first floor in the wing that led toward the back. The room once had been a large high-ceiling family room, now stark and plain, with immaculate off-white mats to contrast the iron gray of the weights. Keaton set up a buffet table, brought out some books and papers, and spread them out. Your experiences in withdrawal reset your Arm physique…and stop cringing when you hear the word ‘withdrawal’, Hancock, you’re an Arm! She pointed. This curve was from your first time through, which when you finished maturing you would have hit 295 pounds. I never got there, but I got close. I topped out at 265 pounds, a little less bulky on a much smaller frame, Keaton said. Now, this is your current curve.

I looked at it and didn’t understand a thing. I met Keaton’s gaze and put that in my mind.

Hmm. Okay. You’re going to top out at 180 pounds this time. According to Zielinski’s old paper on the subject, that means you’ve replaced a lot of slow-twitch muscles with fast-twitch muscles. You’ll be a lot quicker than you used to be, you’ll have less endurance, and be significantly less strong. At your current weight, you should be able to lift about 300 pounds on your bench press with your Arm muscles. You can’t do 150 now. We’re going to fix that, but it’ll take time.

The numbers didn’t make any sense. Her words were gibberish.

New problem, Gilgamesh said. His whisper contained no panic, far more confident than he had ever been when I heard his voice before. He had followed us into the gym, but I hadn’t noticed. There he was! Over in the corner. Dressed in workout gear. I wondered why. Carol’s incapable of even basic logic and mathematics. She can’t tell that 180 is smaller than 295.

I nodded. They were just numbers. Arbitrary codes with minimal meaning.

Crap, Keaton said. Can’t speak, can’t do logic, but to my metasense I’d swear she’s back to normal. We’re still fucked.

Her words made me wonder, though. How did Gilgamesh figure out my thoughts?

I ached to speak, a hard need. Something moved inside me, not physical, not mental, but something in-between. Magic, I said. Gilgamesh. Magic.

Keaton’s eyes opened wide. Yes! she said, snapping her fingers. A happy noise.

That was more than strange, Gilgamesh said. Just before she spoke she burned juice.

I sat down, confused, and put my head in my hands. Too much strangeness. Gilgamesh knew about the big Arm secret of burning juice? How did he know I burned juice? Was his metasense that good?

This is new, Keaton said. She wasn’t worried that Gilgamesh knew the big secret. He showed no signs of torture. Perhaps he was innately deferential to her dominance? I wished I knew how I figured things out. Had to be this ‘logic’ thing that no longer made sense to me. Burning juice is a physical trick, or at least it is for me. The question is, then, whether this is another of her post-withdrawal changes or some trick she figured out while in Chicago?

Such as this. Keaton’s ‘logic’ went over my head. Annoyed, I leapt up and hopped on top of a cabinet that held gym supplies, and leapt over to one of the two ropes. Unsafe, Keaton barked out with her drill sergeant voice. Not at me, so I ignored her. I climbed up the rope, upside down, until my feet met the ceiling. Gilgamesh vanished for real this time, taking cover outside the gym.

I hissed and growled down at the room. Angry and frustrated, I wanted to bite something and thrash it. Some creature’s neck would do.

Keaton walked over to the bottom of the rope and glared up at me. Get the fuck down from there and lose the Monster attitude, she said. Her voice brooked no delay and I followed her orders. Only her orders hadn’t been given in her drill sergeant voice. I knew they were orders, though. I didn’t know why.

I met her gaze, quizzical. Monster?

Your predator effect doesn’t come across as Arm, but as Monster, when you do that, Keaton said.

This was good and bad. Keaton didn’t think of me as an Arm but as a Monster. I wasn’t competition. My memories flagged this as ‘good’. However, I flagged Monsters in my memories as ‘bad’, as in ‘to be slain on sight’. Keaton didn’t appear ready to kill me, though. I didn’t understand.

Notmonster.

Keaton shook her head. You work out. She turned to the gym entrance. Gilgamesh.

There! That was so neat to see him appear and disappear like magic. I started to work out. This I knew. I didn’t even have to think. I just exercised until I exhausted myself and couldn’t move. A few minutes later, I started up again. Exercising felt good. I could exercise like this all day and night, as long as I got food.

As I worked out Keaton got in Gilgamesh’s face. That was one sorry ass bit of panic, chickenshit. What the fuck have I been teaching you?

Find a place to hide so I can defend myself and fight back, if appropriate, Gilgamesh said, stressed. Of course, he had a Keaton in his face. I would be stressed, too.

And where did you end up this time?

Kitchen, northeast corner.

Where you didn’t have line of sight to toss any of your rotten eggs at the problem. I swear, a blind lame housecat could do better. Keaton tapped her foot. Let’s try this again. Boo!

She hit him with Arm predator, threatening death, from two inches away from his face. I couldn’t follow his movement, but found him a moment later behind a dumbbell rack with a tennis ball in his hands.

Needless to say, this bit of entertainment totally confused me. I treated what followed as if I watched a Saturday morning cartoon in a foreign language.

Better, Keaton said, and then charged him yelling Yaaah! Yaah! He found another place to hide. This went on for several minutes, his hiding and her charging, his stress level growing, until he did something that left a yellow stain in the air.

You sicked up? Keaton said. You’re off your game today, kiddo. Clean that shit up, dammit.

Wait, Gilgamesh said, raising his hand. Carol sensed my sick-up. He closed his eyes. The juice component to it, my guess.

Which is too faint for me to pick up at all, Keaton said. Yet another potentially beneficial change. This is starting to freak me the fuck out.

I wondered what in the hell either of them was talking about and why Keaton sounded like she had been hanging out with the hippies. Keaton frowned at me and produced a leather belt from where it had been hiding on her arm and snapped it on her hand. Remember this? she said to me.

I nodded.

I haven’t had to use this form of inducement yet to keep you moving, she said. Does that need to change?

I shook my head ‘no’. This was a point of honor with me. I could repeatedly push myself to utter exhaustion, in proper Arm style, all on my own, thank you very much. I went back to my exercises and tuned out Keaton and Gilgamesh’s discussion about my capabilities I couldn’t understand anyway.

Yup. I remained a work in progress.

Gilgamesh: April 9, 1968

Listen up, Keaton said. She strode over to Gilgamesh, a scary panic-inducing buzz-saw of a dwarf, radiating annoyance. I want your panicky self back after dinner. We need to spend some quiet time trying to figure out what’s going on with Hancock.

Yes, ma’am, he said, but the Skinner, an angry sneer on her face, had already turned back to the gym and Carol’s never ending exercises.

He slipped out of the house, picked up a set of keys from the garage, and slowly jogged back to his apartment. The farther he got from the Skinner the more the stress eased, but he couldn’t totally relax. His Tiamat remained in the Skinner’s care and the Skinner had made perfectly clear, repeatedly, that if he didn’t help her with Tiamat’s recovery he would no longer be welcome in the San Francisco area.

Being an Arm pet wasn’t anything like he had imagined. The Skinner hadn’t laid a finger on him that he hadn’t invited, and she made no effort to confine him. She wasn’t a pleasant person, at least not often; she sneered at him, belittled him, and repeatedly insulted and humiliated him. Several times he caught, out of the corner of his eye, the Skinner’s true feelings toward him – she thought he was a disgusting pervert with abhorrent personal habits bad enough to make even her cringe. None of Sky’s warnings about lusty Arm sex, beatings or shackles, had been correct.

Nor had Sky mentioned anything about ‘his’ Arm spending her evenings in her workshop basement torturing one poor man after another. Or making love to another Arm, which Gilgamesh found impossibly distracting.

Worse, for some crazy reason the Skinner had decided it was her duty in life to improve Gilgamesh. Thank God she hadn’t tried to make him into an Arm; what she did to him was nothing like what she had done to Tiamat. She hadn’t bothered to ask his permission. Scary smart, she understood what he needed without quizzing him. Panic training – not to teach him to avoid panicking (though some of that happened naturally), but what to do when panicking. The Skinner thought panic was useful.

Oh, and running. She had convinced herself Gilgamesh could run about as well as she could without burning, and in her drill sergeant manner she found a way to prove her supposition. She didn’t say a thing, she just ran behind him and radiated her emotions.

About the emotions…the Skinner had figured out the great Crow secret of metasensing emotions before she even lured him in, either from her meetings with him or from her dealings with a supposedly disguised Sky. Not surprisingly she turned his trick against him every chance she could.

So far, he found himself quite impressed with the Skinner. At least as long as he kept from thinking about what happened every night to her torture victims. And the fact he helped her hunt down her prey to keep her juiced up and safer to him.

On the way into his apartment Gilgamesh collected four days of mail. He dropped the stack on the kitchen counter and dealt with other issues, such as the smelly kitchen garbage he needed to toss. He showered, changed clothes, and finally went through his mail, separating out the bills into one pile and the Crow letters into another.

Two caught his eye: one from Sky with no return address, written in a shaky version of Sky’s normally exquisite cursive, and another from of all people Shadow, Thomas the Dreamer and Innocence.

He winced at the latter letter and opened it first. The letter was short and direct.

Dearest Gilgamesh,

You recently accrued a significant debt of obligation toward several Crows who aided you in the shepherding of the rescue of the Arm known to you as Tiamat. Your current proximity to her and one other Arm is well known to us. We three, acting in legitimate concert, and speaking for all Crows, have purchased this debt of obligation. We now formally reclaim it, by assigning you, Gilgamesh, the task of informing us the identity of the entity or entities who are hunting down Crows, colloquially termed Crow Killer. Good luck.

Gilgamesh looked at the letter, and at what the letter said and didn’t say. The artfully crafted letter wasn’t in Shadow’s style. They knew he was an Arm pet. Several other terms stood out as noteworthy, none in his normal vocabulary, all of which shivered his juice: ‘shepherding’, ‘legitimate concert’, ‘formally reclaim’, ‘informing us’ and, of course, ‘debt of obligation’. They were well used terms these others knew well, even if he didn’t, as potent as the more common Transform terms of pheromone flow, stripping, pumping, dross, Arm and Housebound.

Someone was having a party and hadn’t invited him. The party likely started around 1952 or so and had been going ever since. The hundred and fifty to two hundred Crows in the United States were enough to form a strong society, save for the fact the upper end of this society must have decided not to include the young Crows in the real deal and kept the good stuff for themselves. There must be a large number of real old Crows. Shadow was one of them, and the question remained on Gilgamesh’s tongue: how old was Shadow, anyway? What could the older Crows do? How limited were Crow capabilities?

Or: how unlimited?

Gilgamesh wished he understood more about Focus society. If he did, he might be able to extrapolate and compare. He needed another Crow, to bounce ideas back and forth with. The assigned task was, at least at first glance, a death sentence. As a young Crow, he possessed none of the physical benefits or dross manipulation talents of an older Crow. This should be a job for an older, more active, more talented Crow, like Sky. Selecting him made no sense. He wondered if the job was nothing more than a fancy death sentence, an attempt to properly and politely rid the continent of one particular too-troublesome Crow.

Perhaps his pseudo-Guru Sky could help. He opened Sky’s letter and read.

Gilgamesh:

I’m barely able to write and I’ll have more to write later, probably much later. I did help Kali rescue your Tiamat, but I’m not sure if Tiamat can recover. I’m sorry. I’m in a bad way, not from what the Walking Nightmare did to me, but from the nearly living evil gristle dross suffusing the place. If I can trust what I experienced, I got attacked inside the Detention Center by Focus Pissed Tuber, and she’s powerful, evil, nasty, understands far too much about us and our fine feathered compatriots, and is out to get us. Oh, she wasn’t physically there. Worse, Focus L was there with me, didn’t sense a thing and strongly disagrees, saying Focus Pissed Tuber is a weak Focus, save politically. So be careful! There’s far more going on than meets a young Crow’s eyes.

Sky

Gilgamesh figured out, a couple of minutes later, ‘Focus Pissed Tuber’ must be the nasty Focus who lived in Pittsburgh. He paced his apartment and tried to figure out what to do. He didn’t want to skip out on Carol; his Tiamat had improved, but hadn’t recovered yet, and she still needed him.

Gilgamesh was as juiced up as he had ever been, every last ounce from Arm dross, over eighty percent from spicy Arm dross. High on juice, he was significantly smarter than normal, his memory better and his ability to understand things while meditating far more extensive than before.

For instance, he now knew somebody who thought of his or herself as a religious icon (or so this person appeared in his meditations) watched over both himself and Tiamat. He hoped this watcher meant well.

He also realized he couldn’t trust the other Crows.

He felt bad for contemplating holding back information from Shadow. Because of the evil canker among the leading Crows, he couldn’t take the chance Shadow was the bad one. Often, he feared there might be more than one bad one. Sometimes, when his thoughts turned particularly bleak, he looked at the misery of so many of the Crows he knew and wondered how necessary their misery was. Again, he had no evidence the misery of so many Crows was intentional on anyone’s part, just a nagging suspicion his nerves wouldn’t let go.

Shadow was his friend, and helped him, and Gilgamesh liked Shadow, but friendship was no guarantee that Shadow’s interests were anything like his own. The only thing he understood, now even more than ever given the official letter he just received, was that Shadow was part of the hidden Crow leadership. Perhaps Shadow was as wonderful and good-hearted and helpful as he seemed.

Gilgamesh wouldn’t bet his life on it.

He would rather bet his life on the Arms. Not counting book learning, he had learned more from the Skinner in his short time as her ‘pet’ than he had learned from anyone else, save perhaps Wire. Assuming the Arms didn’t turn on him, he was safer with them than anywhere else he had ever been.

However, no Crows had been willing to talk to him civilly, face to face, since he left Shadow. His loneliness weighed him down more as each week passed.

He steadied himself against the kitchen counter, and took some time to call Sky’s phone in Toronto. Nothing. He tried Focus Rizzari’s household and the person who answered told him Sky no longer lived there. He did convince the stern phone lady his call was important enough to transfer, after a five minute wait, to Focus Rizzari’s work phone.

Yes? Pause. Gilgamesh, right? I’ve been waiting for you to call me.

Here we go again. You have? Uh, I need to talk to Sky, uh, and…

You need his advice. I understand. Sky warned me that you’re his student, sort of, and would be needing help, Focus Rizzari said. She always seemed to live five steps ahead of him. He couldn’t imagine what she must be like in person. He suspected he would find out soon: his mission almost required him to interview Focus Rizzari, and the phone wouldn’t give him what he needed. He’s not available. Somehow he blew out his mind in our little, um, mission. He’s stashed somewhere safe with a talented medical friend of mine, and…

You have him with Dr. Zielinski? I’ve heard nothing but praise about him, and I’m sure the Good Doctor will be able to figure something out.

Focus Rizzari laughed, perhaps recognizing the Crow’s new name for Zielinski. You are a rather feisty Crow, aren’t you?

I try.

More laughter. So, I understand it’s not safe for either of us, but perhaps I can help. I’m frankly so pee owed at the Transform leaders, both Focus and Crow, that I’m no longer interested in following the normal rules.

I find myself in much the same pickle, Gilgamesh said. I’ve recently accumulated a large stack of problems. First off, the senior Crows have given me a crazy mission far too dangerous for a young Crow like myself. Second, I’m sort of stuck here as an Arm pet of Stacy Keaton, helping her put Carol back together. Third, I keep seeing things when I meditate and it’s beginning to scare me.

The sound of a pen clattered on the other end of the line. Focus Rizzari didn’t respond.

Focus?

With a stack of problems like yours, you’d better call me Lori. Do you need rescuing?

No, no, nothing like that, Lori. Did Sky ever tell you anything about his Arm captivity?

Uh huh. The Arm who owned him, who he referred to as ‘Arm’, always kept him shackled when it was just the two of them. Later, when they were part of the Lost Tribe, the hold was emotional. Threats against his friends. Neither ever trusted the other.

This is more like a common cause thing, Gilgamesh said. With veiled threats and emotional manipulation. I’m not shackled or otherwise physically restrained. I swear I’m being out-thought, though, by a master manipulator. Which bothered him. He survived as a Crow by being able to outsmart the opposition. Not this time. Not when the Skinner was the opposition. The damned Arm was good enough to keep him guessing on even such a basic question.

This sounds like the Keaton I know. She teaching you anything?

Yes, Lori. Did the two of you hit it off, then?

Not even slightly. Lori sighed. Anything for the Cause, though. And if you can look past her sadistic psycho tendencies she’s not half bad as a companion. She’s also a compulsive information trader and she’s real smart, not at all what I expected. She paused. About your other topics? Although I check this phone and my office for bugs regularly, neither of those topics is safe to talk about over the phone. I’ve kicked over too many hornet nests recently to safely speak about such topics, and I suspect you have, too.

True, Gilgamesh said, hearing a familiar code. Lori worried about the Feds as much as she worried about the senior Focuses. She was far more active in the outside world than he was. I’m just not sure what to do about anything.

"Crow society is based on favor exchange and implied tests. I doubt you’ll get anywhere trying to decipher the secret Crow capabilities without personal visits to the senior Crows. My guess is that any Crow