In This Night We Own

By Randall Allen Farmer

Book Six of "The Commander"

Carol Hancock is a victim of Transform Sickness and a Major Transform, an Arm. Established now with a territory in Houston, Carol works under orders from the senior Arm, Stacy Keaton, to gather an army to fight their major enemy, the male Major Transforms known of as the Hunters, and their boss, the secretive Major Transform known of as Wandering Shade. As she works on this project, Carol also seeks restitution from the leading Focus, Tonya Biggioni, for the many problems Tonya has caused Carol.

Tonya is on the bad side of the Focus Council for lying about her part in Carol’s rescue from incarceration. They give her two nearly impossible jobs, one to bring the Arms back under the control of the Focus Council, and the second, to take over the running of the Focus Mentoring organization. Complicating matters is the fact that Focus Lori Rizzari, a close friend of Carol’s, is running against Tonya for Tonya’s Council seat, pushing a revolutionary agenda that would upset the balance of power among the senior Focuses.

Tonya’s Focus Mentoring work will bring her into contact with a talented and idealistic young Focus, Gail Rickenbach, who she befriends. In addition, a group of Male Major Transforms named the Nobles want to prove themselves as ‘good guys’ to the Transform community, and undertake a quest to rescue a lost Major Transform Sport.

The collision of all of these forces will change the Transform community forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Allen Farmer
• Release date: Feb 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301222919

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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In This Night We Own

Book Six of The Commander

Randall Allen Farmer

Copyright © 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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In This Night We Own

Book Six of The Commander

The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence – luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition – are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

Cyril Connolly

Part 1

Diplomacy By Other Means

The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.

Victor Hugo

Chapter 1

Never yell at a Crow.

The Life of Crows

Letters and News Reports

Dear Focus {}

My name is Carol Hancock. I am an Arm and a member of the Focus Network. I sympathize with the recent attacks on Focus Household Transforms and I wish to state that I am not involved with any of these unsolved attacks.

Recently, the authorities detained me in the CDC’s Virginia Transform Detention Center, where the medical staff and the FBI questioned and examined me against my will. Although I cooperated with the medical staff, Focus Biggioni decided my cooperation did not meet her standards and instructed the medical staff how to use juice as a weapon against me. As an Arm, like a male Transform, I require juice to function. Without juice, I go into withdrawal. Focus Biggioni arranged for a male Transform, who had volunteered his services to this Arm to avoid the horrors of withdrawal, to be placed within my metasense range while I was low on juice. I was not allowed to save this volunteer from withdrawal; indeed, the male Transform no Focus had an opening to support was allowed to go into withdrawal right before my eyes. As a fellow human being and Transform, the pain of this Transform’s suffering as well as the pain of my own suffering was enough to ensure my total cooperation with the authorities at a level not seen by a Major Transform since the days of the Quarantine. I became their slave. Then, later, due to events beyond my control or knowledge, the authorities allowed me to pass into withdrawal. The reasons why they allowed me to pass into withdrawal remain unknown to me. Later, friends rescued me from this slavery and withdrawal.

In summary, Tonya Biggioni, your fellow sister in the Network, a trusted member of the Focus community, has abused her position of authority to cause great pain to another Network member, one acting in the best interests of the Network and causing no harm to other members of the Network. In addition, her orders drove an innocent male Transform into the suffering of withdrawal.

Actions such as this damage the entire Network. When a high-ranking Network member has the ability to arrange the torture of another member with impunity, no member can consider him or herself secure. Many members find themselves less eager to serve the Network when the Network treats its own so callously, and indeed, many non-Transforms have already departed the Network for this reason.

By her abuse of her authority, Focus Biggioni has damaged the Network, and by extension every Focus in the United States. I send you this letter to ask only that you consider the damage, and consider what you best feel is the appropriate penalty for someone who violates the Network’s trust in such a way. Please let your leadership know of your concerns and your suggestions, so that your leadership might take appropriate steps to heal the damage to the Network.

Thank you for your time.

Carol Hancock

Local Focus Vanishes (St. Louis Sentinel)

Strange things are going on in the Transform Community. One of our local long-time Focuses, Focus Iris Casso, and her entire household, vanished seemingly overnight on July 29 of this year. Authorities are baffled; they received no disturbance calls and the Focus’s residence, a house and three converted sheds, showed no signs of violence or disturbance. The household left their belongings behind, those who held jobs gave no prior notice of quitting, and they left their household vehicles behind. It’s as if they vanished off the face of the planet, abducted by one of those UFOs, neighbor Cassandra Martin said. The ongoing police investigation has yet to turn up a single lead, and…

Dear Focus {}

Everyone wants to protect her household and her Transforms. We all have our friends we can trust, and we all have our acquaintances who we do business with but who we do not fully trust. I want to tell you about the checkered history of one of our acquaintances.

She was once the California Spree Killer, an author of murder and mayhem on a scale wide enough to make the national newspapers and news magazines. She later lost control and killed a household Transform, Frank Kensington, while he was eating dinner with his family in a restaurant. Control is an issue with this person; all who have met her report bursts of temper where this person becomes as terrifying as a cornered Monster. Similar reports have also surfaced about those in her employ.

The person I am speaking about is the Arm, Carol Hancock. Her outward reasonableness hides a powerful Major Transform with a dangerous temper. Be careful dealing with her and those who work with her. Your household could be in grave danger!

With care,

Focus Tonya Biggioni

Agitating for Change (Boston Record American article)

One of our own local Focuses, Focus Lorraine Rizzari, also an Assistant Professor of Boston College, is on a political mission. She has decided to run for the Focus Council Representative position for the local Transform community. Although, as always, the politicking among the Transforms is highly opaque, the main thrust of Focus Rizzari’s complaints appears to be issues of corruption. Too many of the decisions the Focus Council makes for the Transform community are made without any input from outside the Council. Those of us who pay our dues to the Focus Council would like to understand where our money is going, but no financial accounting is ever made public. Joining with Focus Rizzari in her reform movement are Focuses Florence Ackerman…

Dear Focus {}

I am saddened to hereby announce my retirement as head of the Focus Council’s Focus Mentoring Program. I am retiring from public life, and can no longer carry out the responsibilities of the office. The Focus Council has appointed Focus Tonya Biggioni, East Region Representative, to be the head of the Mentoring Program. Please give her all the cooperation she needs to continue the program in the style in which it deserves.

Focus Faith Corrigan

Carol Hancock: August 3, 1968 – August 8, 1968

Houston was mine. I leaned against ‘Bubba’ the neon roach as he towered over the Southwest Freeway advertising Holder Pest Control, and marveled at the thick humid air and the endless streetlights lighting up the low cloud deck. My city. Mine. Nobody to challenge my dominance and ownership. Hell, the local Focuses and Crows even knew me and loved me.

I remembered the last time I tried to claim a city, and the misery of that failure. This time, I knew happily, would be different. I had support this time. Lori Rizzari, beautiful, capable, and a talented senior Focus. My boss, the Arm Stacy Keaton, guiding me and providing cash. Stopping me from stupid mistakes as well – let’s not forget that. Crows, multiple Crows, providing information and standing their eternal watch. I breathed the fragrant air of success and I loved it.

Below me and about a mile away, a nurse parked her car in an apartment complex parking lot and dragged her tired body up to her apartment. Late, because one of her co-workers had called in sick and she stayed late to cover the gap. I knew. I had been the one behind the co-worker’s drunken bender. As she opened her apartment door with her key, I started my slow jog in her direction. I figured my cue would appear in about 15 minutes.

I heard the voice of the boyfriend a whole minute before I arrived, angry, drunk, and offended because she had not showed up to make him dinner; he drank to kill the time while he waited. By the time she showed up, his miniscule abuser’s brain held little by way of intelligent thought. Yup, I thought to myself, right on schedule. When he moved from angry words to angry punches, I positioned myself at the door. When the nurse curled on the floor and started screaming, I recognized my cue and moved in.

My name is Carol Hancock and I’m an Arm, one of the eight known varieties of Transforms, and as all Transforms, a victim of Transform Sickness. As a Major Transform I’m rather important these days, both in the Transform community and to the FBI, who had expressed their respect by granting me a position on their famous most wanted list. I’ve been an Arm almost two years, and in that time I had been extensively medically tested, shot, tortured, attacked by other Transforms, raped, captured, sent into juice withdrawal and nearly killed…oh, and to survive, killed about two Transforms every three weeks. These days I had my own territory, a working relationship with my Boss Arm and former sadistic teacher, Stacy Keaton, a Crow partner in crime, Gilgamesh, my own pet researcher Hank Zielinski (who thought he owned me), a newly minted alliance with the Crows as my responsibility to corral, and not enough recruits to satisfy Keaton. On the 20th of July I had taken down a rogue Focus we deftly nicknamed Rogue Focus, a bitch who had been terrorizing the Houston Transform community, and sold said bitch to one of the first Focuses for good will and private accolades. The local Focuses and Crows now loved me, or, well, loved me as much as any other Major Transform could love a violent juice-sucking Arm.

I knew nothing this good could last. That didn’t keep me from enjoying the good life now.

Jeannie Zimmerman, my nurse, was twenty-nine years old, worked in Houston’s med center, and had a history of bad relationships. What she wanted was security, in the person of some strong male to take charge and to protect her. What she got, repeatedly, was some not-so-strong man who boosted his ego and masculinity by beating on her, and an endless series of night shifts due to performance issues related to the beatings. Today, she had been working the day shift to fill in for another nurse on what was supposed to be her day off and had instead found herself working a double shift.

That’s enough, I said, as I entered her apartment. I gave her bottom of the barrel boyfriend enough predator to chase him off without a fight, and had a short talk with Jeannie.

Ma’am, she said, fifteen minutes later. I’m yours. As her knight on the white horse, she thought I was wonderful.

Yes, you’re mine, I said, taking her hands in mine and completing the circuit that allowed me to tag her. I was her protector now, firm and strong. I would never, ever, hurt her.

She wouldn’t need to worry about the night shift anymore. She would now work days, as Hank’s medical assistant. Mostly. Except for crises, which I fervently hoped would be rarer than my history would predict. In any case, Jeannie eyed Hank suspiciously when I dropped her on him, but I suspected she would warm to him eventually, because he backed up his doctors’ arrogance with real brilliance. He had once taught surgery at Harvard Medical, and even if he never talked about his old career, his attitude sure did.

By the time I sauntered out of Hank’s moldy excuse for an office into the rising Houston sun, I was already plotting out my next recruitment. A researcher this time. The detective’s report had come in on Dr. Bertram Chesbit, a research professor at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. He had been a Network member for a decade before giving up in disgust after the Arm Flap (which warmed my heart, thank you very much). I needed a mob contract on his life as a contingency for betrayal, and a lever to control him by, which the detective report offered in the form of a three-year-old granddaughter he loved to excess.

Bald threat, pure and simple. Don’t knock the simplicity. It works.

I looked forward to some happiness from this one, though. I would be giving him a chance to do research on a real Arm. Me. I could be most persuasive.

Recruitment. One down, one on the table, hundreds more to go.

I spent most of the plane trip home, after recruiting Chesbit, planning my next set of activities: more recruiting for Keaton’s army, firming up the Arms’ alliance with the Crows, and some work on my cash supply. I wanted to do some more to Focus fucking Biggioni, but that would have to wait. I was too damned busy.

Instead of handling any of the items on my long list of worries, I found Hank chatting with Ying Tien and Greg Petroski in my living room. Handing off more of his least favorite responsibilities to Ying. Real estate purchases this time, complete with instructions for managing the less than legal financials.

I had been up to Chicago a couple of weeks prior to extract the salvage of my old organization. Dick Svetsrichen the mailman had managed to hold himself together despite my absence, so I picked him up and gave him an operations manager job in my new Houston organization. The Tiens were in mostly good shape but weren’t exactly mobile, so I left them and their restaurant and some of my money in Chicago. I picked up Greg, and much to my surprise, Ying came as part of the package, engaged and everything. What’s more, she bossed him around like Madame Mao, which made him substantially more sensible and functional. He loved it, too, and her. Seemed when he said he didn’t like strong women, he meant physically. She was delighted to see me, and eager to work for me, which hadn’t been what I intended, but she had already proved her worth in the last two weeks. She certainly had Hank wrapped around her little finger.

They all looked up at me when I came in and I sighed. Your lab equipment came in? I said to Hank. I really needed to be off with the Crows, but that would have to wait, along with all the other critically important things I really needed to be doing immediately. There just wasn’t enough time in the day.

He nodded happily, and so we left Ying and Greg and went to his moldy second floor office, where he and Jeannie ran me through the most amazing and complete examination I had ever gone through as an Arm. When I was done, he sat on his little rolling doctor’s chair and looked at me with evaluating eyes as I dressed.

Okay, cough up. You’ve been sitting on something since the Rogue Focus fight, I said as I decided to skip binding down my miniscule boobs. If someone managed to correctly decipher my gender through the male suit, more power to them. Maybe they would be a good candidate for recruitment.

Hank pointed to the chart in his lap, but I watched his eyes, not his papers. You still have a point of extra Fundamental juice inside you, actual sludge dross, worse than the gristle dross you’ve already had removed. I suspect this sludge dross is behind your difficulties with composition. My composition skills resembled that of a sloppy fifth grader, one of the few still lingering effects of my trip into withdrawal. Based on my extensive albeit chaotic conversations with the Crows, this is a problem that’s out of their league, Hank said. You know about our only other option.

I grimaced. Running myself down to near withdrawal and burning off the extra Fundamental juice just wasn’t high on my list of things to do. I weighed options and risks. It’s on the list, I told him. It’s not at the top.

Hank looked unhappy, but he nodded.

I left him to his worries and his new aide and headed off to my real top priority. The Crows.

Gilgamesh, alas, was already off on his next bit of Crow business. I understood his thinking – he was as serious and as professional about the Cause and his Crow career as I was about being an Arm, and he could no more afford to hide under my shadow than I could afford to hide under Lori or Keaton’s shadow. That left me with Midgard, a Crow too skittish to meet me, save in the presence of other serious Crows. He was my guard, at least as the Crows defined such things. From my perspective, he functioned as an excellent extra set of eyes and another Major Transform with whom to talk.

So: the phone. I sat on my new couch in my new house and picked up my new phone. White. With push-buttons instead of a dial. I felt very cutting edge.

Hey, ma’am, what’s up? Midgard said, answering his phone.

I looked through the message log. I see there’s a new Crow in town.

Uh huh, Midgard said. Two, actually. The older Crow’s name is Talisman, a magician follower of Merlin. He’s got four years of experience. He’s here with his lover, another Crow named Mercado.

According to Sky, about a quarter of all Crows were homosexuals. Zielinski had a similar prediction about Arms. Me? I wasn’t so picky that I restricted myself to one sex. Keaton was equally undiscriminating. Any hope I could get to talk to either of them?

Talisman looks bribable, Midgard said. I repressed a sigh. My preferred term was ‘donations to Crow well-being’. Midgard was nowhere near as politic as me. He’s a bit of a show off, but he’s under orders not to get seduced into your personal service.

Everyone I worked with was under orders. Again, I could sympathize. There were times when I thought the only reason I was near the top of the Arm heap was the fact that there were only three of us, and the third was a student. I can live with that.

Unfortunately, ma’am, Mercado is a shadow Crow. The only human he’s willing to deal with is Talisman.

I had heard of shadow Crows from Gilgamesh. He believed we needed some psychotherapist Focuses on our payroll to deal with these dysfunctional Crows. Right now, we had nothing. In that case, I’ll make sure that Talisman gets an extra-large donation.

Midgard grunted. He was unhappy with my largess, only mollified by the fact that I kept the scale small.

I’ve got an idea I want to pass by a Crow to see if it sounds tacky, I said, leaning forward and sifting through papers on the coffee table. The Houston Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Also Guns & Ammo, Soldier of Fortune, Newsweek and the Economist, plus three medical tracts Hank wanted me to read, two papers on eastern bloc brainwashing techniques I had gotten from the Network, and a first draft of Gilgamesh’s new book I was supposed to be reviewing. Of the set, the only ones I wasn’t behind on were the brainwashing papers and Gilgamesh’s book. I found the legal paperwork under a New England Journal of Medicine article on cortisol rates in Focuses. I’ve just put together a lease on my nascent research facility, a nearly abandoned tiny office building, and I was thinking that I might put a petty cash bin there for any and all Crows to use. Is this too crazy an idea?

Hmm. That sounds like a very good idea, but it’ll need protections. I’ll bet I can arm-twist Hephaestus into providing them, though, Midgard said. Hephaestus was the local top Crow, an actual Crow Guru. We had a good, but distant, working relationship. If I can arrange the protections, you won’t need to worry about misuse. If anything, you’ll have the opposite problem.

I wasn’t willing to even ask. I had a theory that among the Major Transforms, Crows’ thought processes were the least like normal humans.

That would work, I said. So, any feedback from Hephaestus’s students? Before I found and recruited Jeannie, I had a talk in Memorial Park with Hephaestus about our proposed Crow-Arm art gallery. His students were scheduled to get close enough to talk, if they wanted, but I hadn’t heard a thing.

Midgard sighed. Pork Belly, the youngest, panicked himself crazy, and the other young Crows caught it. Sorry.

I understand. With experience they’ll get better. I hoped. I didn’t understand Crows well enough to have a good feel for them at all. I was starting to put some credence into Sky’s wild theory that there were over a dozen Crow varieties, each as different from each other as Arms were from Focuses.

Next on my list was some more thug recruiting. I took a deep breath and plowed on.

Enkidu: August 3, 1968 – August 4, 1968

This job is punishment, Cleo, Enkidu said, sitting on the edge of the mold-blackened tub as he watched Cleo dress.

Punishment? Cleo glanced at her pancake makeup face in the cracked bathroom mirror. Dressing me up as a Focus is hard work and pretty disgusting, but how could this be considered punishment? We’re going after our enemies, dammit. With care she attached a set of eyelashes to her left eyelid. Her real form, part Monster, didn’t have eyelashes.

Our Master is of the opinion I somehow tipped off Focus Casso, allowing her to flee before we attacked. She had been his promised Focus, dammit, and his Focus hadn’t been home when he showed up. Nor any of her people. They had vanished in the night, hours before Enkidu arrived. Which is patently impossible, as we were still here when she left. Here being his pack’s ramshackle farm and stockade, on the Fox River just west of Oswego, close enough to Chicago to do his Master’s bidding and hunt for potential pack Transforms. He paused to let the bad taste out of his mouth. The real problem is this Focus we’re going to collect is going to Odin.

Okay, now I believe it’s punishment, Cleo said. She stuck the fancy wig on her head, somewhat cockeyed. Tell me what you think, hun. Do I look like a Focus now?

"I think we’d better cut the lights to the place first," Enkidu said.

Cleo hissed and cuffed him, hard, before going back to her makeup job.

They’re the Master’s orders, Enkidu said. We cut off the lights, go inside, get all haughty and push people around, distribute the evidence he’s dreamt up, snag the Focus and her household, and leave. They’re going to be light-staffed today. Something Wandering Shade’s arranged.

They had Gwen doing the driving today. Gwen didn’t like doing so, but she could pass as a man if she dressed for the part. No Focus would have just one male bodyguard, and although Enkidu did fit the part (male, clean-shaven, huge), none of the pack Boys did. They were too hasty with outsiders and left far too distinctive a trail of destruction when they passed by. Hoffman, his student, still hadn’t mastered his man form, so he, the Boys and the more Monster-like Gals had been left behind.

So, if this Focus isn’t for you, when do you get one? Cleo said. Are you getting anything out of this?

I’m getting a surprise, according to Wandering Shade, Enkidu said. He leaned forward and peered over Gwen’s shoulder. Stay on Ogden until we get to Western, then turn left.

Gotcha, boss, Gwen said, her voice a gargle of barely audible clicks. By necessity she would be portraying the strong silent bodyguard when they got to the Clinic.

Enkidu leaned back on the tour bus seat behind Gwen. He worried about the tour bus. It smelled like ass, the engine ran on for minutes after they turned off the ignition, and it rattled worse than any vehicle Enkidu had ever known. They should have stolen a better bus.

The Master should have allowed us to rush in and take Casso’s place without all the preparatory pussyfooting around he wanted, Enkidu said. The time we spent scouting out the area around her house, watching her guards for patterns, figuring out when her household Transforms came and went, all that stuff? Worthless. We should have just hit the place at dawn, taken down her guards in one big rush, and counted on speed and surprise. Smart tactics my aching mange! His mind felt like mush; his Master had revised the Law again and although it left him stupider than the last version, he did feel more aggressive. ‘Too much debate, not enough action’ his Master had said, explaining the necessity of the change. The memory of the change in the Law was fading away; Enkidu suspected he would forget about the change completely within a month.

It’s his day job, Cleo said. All the time Wandering Shade spends as a police officer has infected his mind with the weaknesses of the normals. Still, without his job we wouldn’t have access to the fancy weapons and the weapons training.

There was that. Enkidu couldn’t help but growl at the Master’s overelaborate over-cautious plans. We’re Hunters. We’re supposed to be fast and terrifying. Consider what we’re doing today – another plan that’s not going to leave a trail of destruction. It’s like he doesn’t want the world to know we’re here and what we can do.

Which led Enkidu into his worst nightmare – he feared the Hunters would eventually become the Hunter Police Force instead of the Hunter Empire.

Focus Casso? the Clinic guard said. Ma’am! We’re having a situation…

I don’t care about any situations, Cleo said, haughty. It was Enkidu’s idea to disguise Cleo as the Focus he had lost. When the guard didn’t immediately move, Enkidu backed up Cleo with a muted terror growl. I want Focus Frasier now. We’re moving her to a more secure facility.

Ma’am, but…

Enkidu growled again. The guard backed off several paces, allowing Enkidu and the five other pack Gals masquerading as bodyguards through the entrance.

The Clinic stank of humanity, a foul reek urging him to lash out and gut someone, anyone. Three guards lined up to stop them, but with a Focus leading the way they kept their weapons holstered. Focuses were precious, or so they thought. Precious princess bitches one must obey.

One more growl and they too gave way. Deena and Mary herded them to the far side of the common room, where they couldn’t cause problems. Enkidu, Gwen and Cleo badgered the head guard until he led them, terrified, to where Focus Frasier and her tiny household were staying.

Focus Frasier? I’m Focus Casso, acting on Focus Council orders. We’re here to escort you to a more secure facility, Cleo said, after she knocked on the door to the Focus’s tiny Clinic room. The Focus opened the door, bleary and scared. Dim battery-powered emergency lights lit the hallway. Several of the Focus’s people opened their doors and peeked out into the hallway as well.

Monsters! The more-intelligent-than-Enkidu-expected Focus screamed out her warning before Enkidu could put a meaty hand over her mouth. As his Master said, Frasier was a new Focus without any of the standard Focus tricks. She was normal-ugly, disease-smelly and had no Major Transform charismatic presence at all. He bent down to her ear.

You will cooperate, or you will die, Enkidu said, a forceful growl. With his charisma. You will not talk. If you speak even one word, you will die and your people will die. Nod if you understand.

Frasier struggled for a moment, and then got a good look at Enkidu’s wolf eyes. She shook and collapsed. Enkidu took her now limp form as a ‘nod’. Very good.

Follow your Focus, Cleo said, dropping notes, letters, and other paperwork in Frasier’s room and in the hallway. False evidence. Wandering Shade had given them false evidence to distribute, to, in his words, ‘to plant the seeds of distrust and paranoia in the bitches’ minds. He hadn’t appreciated Enkidu’s counterproposal, to rape the Focus live on national television.

Focus Frasier’s Transforms did as instructed. They now gave off the odor of pain and misery, not that Enkidu cared. One of the normals who accompanied Frasier’s household tried to take the Focus from Enkidu’s grasp, earning himself a growl and a cuff. He tried to flee, but Cleo snagged him with a free hand.

None of this. We’re taking you to a more secure facility.

The normal gave up his fight and followed Enkidu and Focus Frasier. They led the entire mess out of the Clinic and into the bus. To Enkidu’s surprise, not one of Frasier’s Transforms attempted to flee. Four of the normal companions of the Transforms tried to get on the bus as well, but Gwen and Enkidu tossed them back off, along with the normal Cleo had snagged, as soon as the crew of Transforms was settled. Enkidu’s pack had as many normal slaves as he could support, and none of this crew appeared to be keepers anyway.

In and out in less than fifteen minutes, Cleo said, when they were on their way back home. She scanned the checklist and marked off the last item. Clean.

Enkidu licked his lips and took another sniff of the Focus. Bah. I’m not sure why we bothered. She smelled as bad as a normal.

---

Very good, very good, Wandering Shade said. The late afternoon sun scorched the wide expanse of the Illinois cornfields as he paced in front of the hog-tied Focus and her hog-tied Transforms, dressed as he had been for months as a high-ranking officer of the Illinois State Police. Dispose of the bus.

The exchange point was down a narrow dirt road at the edge of Odin’s territory. They gathered among the daisies, goldenrod and thistle that filled the gap between corn and road. The fresh scent of wildflowers in the warm sun might have even been pleasant, except for the overwhelming odor of Hunter, Monster, and prey. Odin, in his half-beast form, paced anxiously across the invisible territorial line that snaked across the farmland west of Romeoville, a dozen feet from the cluster of cowering captive Transforms.

Master, the kidnapping worked as you planned, Enkidu said, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his broad shoulders. Too much heat for a combat, but perfect for the post-combat celebration of victory.

It will always work as I plan, if my plans are carried out correctly, Wandering Shade said. Your understanding isn’t needed to obey orders. He paused and sneered at Enkidu. Bring out the surprise.

Four of Odin’s pack Gals dragged a tiny wisp of a man out of Odin’s semi-truck. They pushed him over the invisible territory line, where he stumbled and then fell with a clank of chains at Enkidu’s feet. Enkidu’s eyebrows shot up. "A Crow? Master, you’re giving me a Crow?"

I thought it fitting, given your incessant prattling about how you’d like to have that bastard, Gilgamesh, Wandering Shade said. Enkidu wasn’t sure what changed, but Gilgamesh had done something to move him from being the butt of Wandering Shade’s jokes to the top of Wandering Shade’s shit list. He fully expected the Shade to parade Gilgamesh in similar chains someday. It took me far too long to figure out the right method to alter the Law to grab a Crow slave’s mind, but I’ve finally got it. This one’s yours, but his real loyalty is to the Hunter Empire. Wandering Shade’s voice turned soft and low. Name him and figure out how to use him, Enkidu. Someday he’ll be a legend among the Crows, the object lesson for why the tricky minded Crows must cooperate with us…or else.

Enkidu bent down to the broken man, this shivering wild-eyed Crow, in terrible health and with seeping shackle-galls, and picked up one of the chains. I’m Enkidu, your new Master.

The Crow wet himself, a sharp odor to join the rich scents of the Hunter gathering. Such a disgusting creature. Enkidu suspected this Crow had been in the Shade’s care for quite a long time.

What’s your name?

I’m called Orange.

Perfect. Enkidu laughed loudly. Not anymore. Your new name is Urine.

Master, Urine whispered. I will serve you under the Law.

Oh, you shall, Enkidu said, and smiled a carnivorous grin.

Gilgamesh: August 7, 1968

How’d you get here so quick? Sky said. Gilgamesh had parked his car five blocks away from the Inferno household and Sky had corralled him half way there, in a neighborhood of expensive estates and ancient oaks. The afternoon sun shone cheerily in a brilliant blue sky and the Boston summer heat was cool by Houston standards.

I was visiting Occum when I got the message. Gilgamesh studied his erstwhile pseudo-Guru. The older Crow appeared settled, not overstressed as he had been in Houston after the Rogue Focus takedown. The short, stocky Crow wore yellow plaid shorts and a bright orange golf shirt, loud enough to make Gilgamesh wince. Do we have an emergency?

They leisurely ambled down the shady sidewalks. In the distance, Gilgamesh heard children playing kickball. The latest kick had been foul. Or maybe not. The children were still arguing. Perhaps. Lori’s been locked in her room for over a day, and she did something to me to make me forget where her room was. Sky chuckled. Which, by the way, is an excellent trick I’m still trying to figure out.

Gilgamesh did a quick scan of Sky and didn’t pick up any juice patterns on him. Did she send for me, then?

No, but I can’t imagine her turning you down if you showed up, Sky said. For one thing, I suspect the work I’ve been doing on the Commander’s suggestion may have something to do with it. Without warning Sky vanished from Gilgamesh’s metasense. I’ve got it to where I can cover two people if they’re standing close together.

Great, Gilgamesh said, twitchy. It made him nervous for people to vanish out of his metasense, even if they were standing beside him when they did so, and he could still see them.

Dealing with Sky and Lori always resembled an amusement park ride. Inferno was just as bad, with their advanced training and extreme security consciousness. Sky’s sudden and still unexplained decision to rename his Tiamat as ‘the Commander’ practically gave Gilgamesh vertigo. The place made him feel inadequate, even with his extensive Arm experience.

And there was Lori waving at him from inside her room, signaling for him to come up. Even though he was well outside her metasense range. Worse, Sky didn’t even notice, prattling on about the various missions he and Inferno were doing to further the Rizzari rebellion, interspersed with gossip about the fledgling Focus grabbed from a Chicago Clinic, supposedly by a low end Focus named Casso, on the orders of Focus Biggioni. Inferno had bagged two ‘agents’ in the last week, both attempting to expose Transform job-holders in allied households, and one of Inferno’s spies in Philly had alibied Biggioni for the evening the Focus vanished. Carol suspected the Focus had run off in fear given the confusing evidence left behind, including the ‘submit to me or die’ letter written on Focus Biggioni’s letterhead. She thought the ‘Focus Casso’ story a likely fabrication by the Clinic workers to cover their asses. Gilgamesh suspected worse.

I guess I’ll just have to see what I can do, Gilgamesh said, gently leading Sky toward the Inferno household. Ann Chiron met them at the door, as if she owned the place. With the way she was cozying up to Sky and her aura of command he might have thought Ann was the Focus here, save for her non-exceptional appearance and lack of a Focus’s glow.