Only The Truly Damned

By Randall Allen Farmer

The renegade Arm Sylvia Bass is pinned down in the Bronx, plotting her revenge. Her guerilla forces continue to strike at civilization, causing havoc. Arm Carol Hancock, nine months pregnant and stuck in an absurd mutual tag situation with the rival Arm, Stacy Keaton, at the present can do nothing to stop Arm Bass’s plans or the depredations of her hidden forces. The renegade Pattersonite Focuses continue to bedevil the Dreaming world, using it to attack Carol’s allies.
Arm Bass must be stopped before she has time to consolidate her power and unleash an even greater threat. What costs will Carol and her allies need to pay to stop the greatest horror of all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Allen Farmer
• Release date: Dec 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005908867

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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Only The Truly Damned

(Book Eight of The Cause)

Randall Allen Farmer

Copyright © 2020 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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Only The Truly Damned

(Book Eight of The Cause)

"Only the truly damned can truly forgive, and truly redeem themselves and others."

Carol Hancock

Part One

The Challenge of Dreams

"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem." – Henry Kissinger

"And for the Transforms, internment will be paradise. They no longer need to worry about losing their jobs if they’re outed." – Mississippi Attorney Gerald Jones, June 22, 1973

Baby.

Carol Hancock (December 22, 1973)

Lights from the interstate strobed through the window, and the rumble of trucks made the cheap walls shiver. In the closet, a couple of wooden hangers gently clacked against each other. Tap, tap. Silence. Tap, tap, tap. A long, silent moment later, the faucet in the next room over dripped, causing an irregular gurgling in the drain.

I couldn’t sleep. The baby pressed on something important and the ache nagged at me. I obeyed my Arm instincts and didn’t fix the ache with the juice. It would have been wrong to do so. I had been running into a lot of that lately.

Baby? Nope, still pregnant. Any time now, though.

So why was I lying awake in a cheap motel in the back end of nowhere, instead of safe and comfortable at home? Blame Stacy’s latest scheme.

Hell.

She dozed, half asleep, on my left, head on my left shoulder, her short hair tickling my skin. She slept uneasily these days, her nights haunted by Dreaming attacks by unidentified Pattersonites. She bounced the bed as she shifted, dense with a bodybuilder’s muscles on her short frame.

Mizar, far more deeply asleep, buzzed his breath into my right shoulder, his mind lost in the Dreaming. At least he didn’t shift so restlessly when he slept. He carried the same excessive musculature, except on an additional two feet of height. On the other side of him Patricia, rat Monster that she was, slept as if the angels themselves sang her lullabies.

Tap, tap. Rumble. Drip.

I remembered trips with Stacy when I was a baby Arm, staying at no-tell motels while she tried to train me. The same sounds, the same smells, the same hard bed and vinyl furniture. We both were able to afford better now, but no such better options existed in the desert reaches of Nevada. Plus, of course, navigating Patricia’s presence was a lot easier in a cheap hotel than some businessman’s accessorized bunkhouse.

Patricia was here because Stacy wanted Patricia here. She didn’t explain why. Last week Patricia lost pack Warden to Jill, again, and this time she took the loss worse than normal. Stacy said that if her various inspirations worked, we would both gain status. Maybe a lot of status, which we both needed badly. Right now, our status situation was so bad we were starting to look at Webberly as an immediate threat.

She also said that if her inspirations failed, she would bow to me as an Arm.

I found I couldn’t refuse her offer, a tag thing. Sigh.

In the six weeks since we broke Arm Ingrid Sandell and learned everything we needed to know about renegade Arm Sylvia Bass, we had made zero progress on killing, neutralizing or even finding her. Some was due to the mutual tag situation. Well, most of it. The rest came from my end-of-pregnancy problems. I could hear Bass laughing from wherever she hid out in the greater New York City metro area.

So, yes, my official Arm recommendation is that Arms shouldn’t do mutual dominance tags unless they want to spend time in bed together and pay for it by plummeting in rank.

Only there wasn’t any sex going on here, dammit. My sex drive had turned off right after Thanksgiving, one of the many unexpected late-pregnancy Arm changes. Stacy refused to even consider sex with anyone until she figured out how to ward us predators from ‘juice axis three’ – connection, in her terms – problems. And Mizar had taken a pledge of abstinence after Gail reamed him out, saying that we should all consider him a eunuch until he found a way to mollify Gail.

Patricia, on the other hand, remained horny and frustrated.

---

My name is Carol Hancock, I’m an Arm, and I carry the title of ‘the Commander’. If things weren’t interesting in my life, I wouldn’t be writing about them. However, my life had been interesting for quite a while. I was currently in a screwy and seemingly impossible mutual tagged relationship with the Arm Stacy Keaton. She bossed me around on Arm issues, I bossed her around on overall Transform leadership issues. If we were normal humans, it might work. As Arms?

Well, neither of us really trusted the other out of our sight. We each had to constantly repress the urge to start a dominance fight. That aside, we were getting along about as well as I could ever remember. Think of us as soap opera sisters, outwardly loving and inwardly scheming to knife the other at the first opportunity.

Except, no such opportunity would present itself to either of us. Because all it would take to split the Arms into permanent warring camps would be one big nasty unresolved fight between Stacy and me. We both knew it, didn’t want it, and possessed the knowledge of how to avoid such a situation, based on the fact we were crusty old Arms with a lot of self-control. Because of that, we spent a great deal of time eating shit and not loving it.

---

Okay, you crazies, time to wake up and get your asses back to Chicago.

I inhaled in surprise and opened my eyes. My surprise dispelled when I saw Focus Gail Rickenbach, the Director, and a major member of my Chicago family, standing at the end of the bed, looking peeved. Beautiful, in an old terrycloth bathrobe, with a river of glossy brown hair lying across one shoulder, and broad white wings spreading out behind her. She wasn’t here in person; this was a Dreaming projection to make the target think Gail was here. Even a non-sleeping target. Roll out of the damned Monster pile and get moving! She accompanied the latter with a massive charisma slap and juice pattern-based tag yank.

Thankfully, only Gail knew how to do any of these tricks, or there would be a whole lot of sleepless Arms on the planet.

What’s going on, Gail? Stacy said, yanking on her Gail tag to make Gail start spewing facts instead of bile. Stacy and I had been making a lot of bargains in the weeks since the mutual tagging, and one of them gave me a subordinated mutual tag with Focus Geraldine Caruthers of Philadelphia, one of Stacy’s Focuses, in exchange for Stacy and Gail sharing the same. The tags included a limitation so they wouldn’t support juice exchanges, a cute trick Stacy and I figured out and the only reason the tag arrangement worked. This was a rather big discovery, given that normally Arms couldn’t share Focuses, but we were keeping it quiet for now.

Why, pray tell? Because both of us loved Focuses. As a group, they were the most interesting things on the planet. Beautiful, complex, and absorbing, every one of them. Neither Stacy nor I fully trusted the Crows, and we agreed that Chimeras were lesser beings worthy of little respect. Focuses, though, pains in the asses as they might be, gave life character.

Bass’s new Insurrection army attacked Flo and her household, Gail said, fluttering her angel’s wings. Gail in her Dreaming form, the Angel. We’ve got mass casualties, including Flo.

Shit.

Still, Bass didn’t have an ‘Insurrection army’ anymore. Flo’s alive? I asked. Flo was Focus Florence Ackermann, the current Focus Council representative for the northeast region. She didn’t have a multi-Focus household or any Arm tag links, but she was heavily linked to the White Mountain Barony, and maintained a screwy mutual tag relationship with Earl Rangel, the Barony’s leading Noble, a long distance relationship they consummated about once a month. Last I heard she was pregnant, in her first trimester.

Barely. She got clawed to pieces, spine severed, almost beheaded, Gail said. I shrugged, though I had a bad feeling this meant that Flo lost her baby. That didn’t make me feel good at all.

So, what’s the big emergency? Mizar said, awake now. Based on his tone of voice, I should say ‘Duke Mizar’, his Noble title of the moment. When he put some nobility in his voice, he was damned hard to resist. I trust Earl Rangel’s still whole. Meaning that Mizar would have sensed Rangel’s passing with one of his secret tricks.

Mizar and I got along a lot better these days. We seldom stepped on each other’s toes anymore, and he was very attentive to me, and kind, and willing to take orders. Intellectually, I knew he still messed with my emotions and subconscious on a regular basis, but our improved tags made it so that I didn’t notice his mucking around unless I cared to look.

However, Mizar remained his old impossible self in one way – he hadn’t given up at all on being ‘mysterious’. For instance, the only thing he would say explaining why he agreed with Stacy to come along on this mission was that he believed this was part of his restitution responsibilities. Certainly, he and Stacy didn’t get along. They were carefully polite with each other, but something about her bugged him, and vice versa. I didn’t bother to ask either of them about it. Not so long ago, Stacy’s major characteristic had been cruel sadism. Currently, it was ‘mysterious’, same as Mizar. Closed mouthed as always, but these days she took being closed mouthed to extremes.

Gail’s glower turned into hot anger at all three of us Major Transforms, and her wings flared out to touch both opposite walls of the motel room. She was supremely tired of our post-mutual-tag tendency to let sleeping problems remain comatose. What did you say to me when you left? Oh, right, ‘Bass doesn’t have an army, you should be fine’. She hit Flo’s place with over two hundred troops, and…

Of which a hundred and fifty were the usual juice slave cannon fodder, Stacy said. How did she know this? It’s a mystery.

And Bass wasn’t there, or even any of her major players, Mizar said. How did he know this? Yet another mystery.

You can handle this, Gail, I said. Stacy shifted positions and stuck her head on my pregnant belly, sending an improbable ‘mine’ to Gail. She and Gail had been sparring over who got possession of my unborn child if anything permanent and nasty happened to Mizar and me. Uncharacteristically gooey of Stacy, but in Chimera terms she had somehow taken a major responsibility for my baby. Right now, I didn’t object at all, probably a side effect of our mutual tags.

I thought something screwy was going on in the minds of Arms regarding other Arms’ babies, or even pregnancies. Watching Hank take the chopped remains of Mary Sibrian’s unborn child out of her had really hurt. Before I left Chicago, both Arms Haggerty and Naylor came by, giving me reports, and each of them did the obsequious groveling student Arm routine toward me. Voluntarily. Never taking their eyes off my bulging belly. Now this.

Nor did it escape my notice that this little mission, whatever it was, had us going west on I-80, not east toward our current enemy, Bass. Who we had a major responsibility to oppose, which we hadn’t been, in person, ever since right around Thanksgiving. Along with this came an undercurrent of ‘if Mizar and I can’t keep you safe, nobody can’. Stacy’s emotions friggen owned my child.

Yes, I can handle putting Flo and her household back together, Gail snapped. Sky and Lori are on the way to help with the inevitable élan issues. I waved my hand at Gail, not wanting to know the details. What I can’t handle is stopping Bass and her idiots from doing this again. Look, you fucking imbeciles, stopping Bass is your responsibility, and…

Mizar and Stacy exchanged a momentary glance at each other – passing strange given Stacy’s head on my bulging belly – after which Mizar did something with the juice that banished Gail’s apparition. There’s no way I’m letting you organize one of your wars in the final two weeks of your pregnancy, Mizar said.

Letting me? Nobody tells me what to do. That’s… Hell. I raised my head with a groan and a growl, realizing the meaning of the Stacy-Mizar shared glance. Stacy, if this is one of your games…

She growled back, and then smiled a false smile, probably burning some juice to do so. Just obeying the order you gave me in the Dreaming last week. Which I didn’t remember doing. Crap. No lie, either.

Which was? This was, what, the fourth time one of these came back to haunt me? The most recent was an ahem strong suggestion to the Arm, Mary Sibrian, to tighten up the Bass insults in her latest song. Given in the Dreaming. Which I didn’t remember at all.

Not to do anything offensive about Bass until you had the kid, Stacy said. Something about it being personal and you refusing to sit on the sidelines while Bass goes down.

I snorted. I said that in the Dreaming? Hell, sounds like my Dreaming self caught a bit of the family arrogance. That drew a low growl, and a snort, from Mizar. I don’t disagree with the idea of waiting, though. I think taking down Bass is going to take every one of us. Healthy and at the top of our games. Sports metaphors. Baah. I had clearly spent too much time hanging around the Crows.

---

Oh, fucking hell.

I rested in the back seat of Stacy’s car with my head against Patricia’s furry side, mentally cursing like a marine, after Stacy exited I-80 onto US 95 and headed north. I burned a little juice to repress my temper when Stacy’s mission now became clear to me – instead of going to pay Stone Point a visit and knock Webberly down a few pegs, we went to western dead-ass Nevada to recruit Focus Deena Forrest and her tagged Chimera, Loess, for Stacy’s extended household. I wondered why Stacy thought this would in any way raise my stature. Or why in the hell Mizar thought this would be a good thing.

Perhaps splitting the Arms wasn’t so bad an idea. Grumble grumble grumble. Perhaps I could kill Stacy dead enough that she wouldn’t recover before I spit out my baby. Perhaps I had forgotten that in my current state I probably couldn’t kill a student Arm. Bah and humbug!

I simmered angrily in the back seat for the two hours it took us to dodge spots of black ice and wind our way toward the teeny town of Denio and Focus Forrest’s ‘last gas station for fifty miles, casino and gift shop’. I got to listen to Stacy and Mizar cut down the Nobles and I learned that they both nurtured private long-term plans to fix Noble society. They planned to somehow boot up the Nobles to the point where they were at least as good, powerwise, as the now fallen Hunters. Which they currently weren’t. I didn’t say a thing. Instead, I worked out logically that, given Focus Forrest’s legendary obstinacy, both Mizar and I would be required to do this damned recruitment for Stacy. I also knew exactly what Stacy would be offering Forrest. And why it would work.

Son of a fucking bitch.

You again? Focus Forrest said, when she saw me leverage my way out of Stacy’s car. Yawta not be up and around with that baby of yours so closta popp’n. Yah, Forrest talked like that. She wore a real cowboy hat, too, and well-worn cowboy boots. Her people didn’t say a thing, though they did decide to lower their weapons and take a few steps back when Mizar smiled at them with his not-exactly-friendly ‘Duke Mizar’ grin. The three of us were about as VIP as VIPs got in the Transform world.

I was tired of the pregnancy comments, though. Instead of barking, I glowered at the dead grass and larger scrub poking up through the scant patches of snow. Let’s talk, somewhere warm, I said. We have an offer for you I think you’re going to want to hear. My unprompted comment earned me another twitchy exchange of glances between Stacy and Mizar.

Forrest led me into what passed as her household, which I think had once been a two-bit bank back in the gold rush era, about a hundred years ago. The patches on the walls had patches. The brick and clapboard building leaned a bit to the south, as well. She and her people didn’t live in the mouse-infested gift shop, and the ‘casino’ was simply an alcove with four out-of-date one-armed bandits. The only relatively new building on her property was a large corrugated Quonset hut about thirty yards back from the road. It reeked of military ordnance, gasoline, and motor oil. And Monster. Her tagged Chimera, the former Hunter Colonel Loess, and the remnants of his pack, lived there.

Okay, I’m lis’ning, Forrest said, once we got inside the repurposed bank. She took off her cowboy hat, about her limit for displays of courtesy, and hung it on a hook. She wasn’t one for Focus pleasantries. I sat in the tiny, barely furnished sitting room, which I guessed had once been used by some loan officer to loom over needy prospective borrowers, and burned juice to keep my bladder from leaking. I gave my introductory ‘join the Cause’ speech, then prompted Mizar to give his standard ‘join the Cause or we all die, and as a Focus the number of lives you will save will be immense’ speech. Mizar, in his human form, and so almost seven feet of solid muscle, stood as he talked, most likely because the flimsy chairs would collapse if he sat. The wooden floor creaked as he shifted his immense weight. Stacy stood, leaning her muscular body against the wooden wall, and watched, with a black briefcase by her feet. She still wore the odd gauzy silks she had taken up a few months ago, which somehow managed to reveal a bit too much skin and none of her weaponry at all. Patricia tucked herself quietly at Mizar’s feet.

Forrest wasn’t impressed, and said so, with a crumb of Focus politeness thrown in. I found her attention on me grating, a familiar bit of grating that echoed through my mind and reminded me of Stacy and Mizar’s reaction to each other. I ignored that for now.

As to why you, Deena, and why now, you have some rather unique talents for a Focus, I said.

The ones we share, dearie? Forrest sat in the other chair, a wooden thing about as old as the building. I wondered if one of her people would bring food for us, a common courtesy, but so far, no luck.

I nodded. Military expertise. We both knew how to command, and successfully. I worked strategically, and she worked best at the tactical level. A year back, there was a fight in Pittsburgh that left the old Council President, Keistermann, dead. Nod. Her household, Mercury Catering, passed to the new Council President, Focus Biggioni, but wasn’t what it seemed. Forrest waved her hand, motioning me to finish this so she could reject the offer. Forrest supposedly didn’t possess any Focus charisma at all. I disagreed, as she seemed capable of projecting juice-powered disdain with the best of them. Mercury Catering, in addition to being a money-making machine, is also a well-trained and powerful military covert force. What President Biggioni and her partner, Arm Stacy Keaton, I motioned and got another nod, are looking for is a Focus to lead them. A true Focus commanding officer. Mizar slipped out of the room with a creak of wooden floorboards, and I metasensed him going over to talk to Loess and his gang in the Quonset hut. Patricia joined him. Stacy, the balance sheets, please? I asked.

We hadn’t talked about this, beforehand, but if Stacy hadn’t come with the Mercury Catering balance sheets this was going to go south in a hurry and I would be the undisputed Boss Arm again in a few moments.

Of course, out came the balance sheets from the black briefcase. Deena whistled several times as she read. Eventually, she looked up at Stacy and me. I’m gonna be working with the two of you?

I pointed my thumb at Stacy. Nope, just her. Unless there’s a big war, then you’ll be working for me, as the Commander, as well.

Whadda you have to say for yourself, then, Arm? This, at Stacy.

I do battle tactics, the same as you, Stacy said, emotionless. The idea behind bringing you on is that I can’t be everywhere at once. My primary responsibility is to command whatever squad of Arms I’m working with, and their troops. We need someone to specialize in the tactical command of Focus households, her own and those of our allies. I believe that person is you. Stacy’s recruitment techniques were matter of fact and, well, intense and intimidating. She was a predator, and she never bothered to hide the fact.

There’s Crows involved in this. Deena glowered at me. She hated Crows.

I nodded. Focus Biggioni’s Crow partner is the leading North American Crow, Shadow, I said, mildly exaggerating. I, of course, knew how to sweeten the recruitment pot, based on what Deena told me the first time we met. He’s Wandering Shade’s adversary, the Crow who made the Shade stand still so I could kill him. Focus Forrest and Wandering Shade had been old enemies.

Blink. Blink. You’re implying someone, probably that bitch Patterson, brought that cocksucka back to life? And that he’s working with Bass? Yawta have said that tah start with. I shrugged at Deena’s inference leap. She did that, same as I regularly did.

Mizar reappeared in the doorway to the small room, Loess, Loess’s pack alpha Tangiers, and Patricia in tow. Loess was short for a Chimera, only six foot two or so, and showed numerous scars, highly unusual for a Chimera. His hair was dark and covered him almost like a pelt. Tangiers, however, showed no hair at all. Her skin was leathery and completely black. I firmly forced myself away from looking at Tangiers. She, I wanted to recruit, although I would be highly impolite to show any such interest during this negotiation.

Deena eyeballed Stacy and slowly smiled. Arm Keaton, if I may call you that, you feel just fine to me. Which I believe surprised Deena. Keaton didn’t exactly have a stellar reputation.

Stacy nodded.

I’ll agree to this, provisionally, but if this Shadow Crow isn’t as reasonable as you say he is I’m gonna hunt you down and make you pay, dearie, she said to me. I shrugged. If Deena couldn’t get along with Shadow, she couldn’t get along with any of them.

Duke Mizar, Loess said, following Mizar the rest of the way into the room. I turned to him and noticed that since Mizar left the room and came back, Mizar somehow took dominance over Loess. Crazy Chimeras. They always did things like that. Fucking always. I repressed a sigh. You implied there was a part of your offer you would speak about later. I think now is the time, your grace.

I was hoping Mizar had some idea, because so far in this shit-show I wasn’t getting squat.

Mizar turned to Tangiers, who stood barely inside the door to the room. Tell me, Warden Tangiers, why are you so unhappy with Loess?

Deena and Tangiers had somehow found a way to strip the Law out of Tangiers, which, given the state of Loess’s juice structure, didn’t work with him. I swore Tangiers’ juice structure was as clean as a Crow’s. No wonder I wanted to recruit her.

Tangiers studied her black boots. Your grace, this is a personal subject I would rather not talk about.

Still, Mizar said. It’s important.

Neither of us liked the Law, Tangiers said, softly. Our mutual dislike drove us together. Now that the Law is gone…. She shrugged.

Loess grunted. Tangiers is an excellent pack alpha, he said. I don’t know why we can’t work together like we used to.

I did. Tangiers scared him. She had grown beyond him.

Hell, was this it? Was this my goodie for this trip? I bounced in my chair in anticipation, or at least as much of a bounce as my body permitted me. I swore something started to shift around down there as I almost bounced.

Friend Loess, I would like you to introduce you to Patricia, Mizar said. I guess he hadn’t introduced her while they all met in the Quonset hut. After a few tiny Mizar prods, Loess and Patricia sniffed hands. Or hand and rat paw. I know this is all very personal, but I believe it’s necessary. Patricia has grown annoyed at her position in my pack because she believes she’s the right person to be Warden, emotionally and intellectually, but she keeps losing the Warden position to another pack member she thinks of as little more than a meathead. To Jill, who did possess a rather direct and Arm-like attitude about life, and the muscles and fighting skill to back it up. I believe a trade, of Tangiers for Patricia, may be the best solution to all of our problems. Patricia’s eyes widened, and then she nodded. She had looked over the walking cadaver that was Loess and liked what she saw. She really was unhappy about her position in our household, more unhappy than I realized.

Loess frowned and turned to Tangiers. Is this something you want, my dear? I won’t even consider this if it feels at all wrong to you. Or, for any reason, you don’t want to.

I held my breath. After a long moment, Tangiers turned to Mizar. I have no idea what to think of you, Duke Mizar. You confuse me. Join the club. I do have a question, though. How closely do you work with Arm Hancock?

Yes! My abdomen shifting continued, which I attributed to my growing excitement.

She’s my partner, and we share tags, Mizar said.

Tangiers turned to me, of all things fear on her face. She wasn’t good enough to read me and understand my attraction for her. Ma’am?

I did one of my recruitment tricks and allowed her to read me. That was enough. Tangiers turned back to Mizar and Loess. I agree, she said, an astonished and pleased expression on a face not built for smiles. It was if the heavens just started dropping gold coins on her.

Well. Now I was happy, save for one little problem. I turned to Stacy to acknowledge her win. Gaining a top-end Warden would strengthen the pack, and thus my stature. By a noticeable amount, given the way Patricia and Jill had been trading the position back and forth, with the resulting hit on the family’s stature. Good job. But we need to get back to Chicago, and fast, I said.

Stacy looked me over, paused, and then nodded. Baby.

Baby, I said.

Yup, my baby had dropped.

Saul Crashell (December 24, 1973)

Start, Talisman said. Focus on your hands. The hands are the key.

Saul nodded and closed his eyes. His closed eyes allowed him to better focus on his borrowed metasense, which needed all the help he could summon up. It was substandard, and even worse now with his access to the Abyss household superorganism artificially turned off.

Yet, even with his eyes closed, the red blotches hovered in the darkness. A dozen, maybe, faint, almost invisible. Sensed with his substandard borrowed metasense, not his eyes at all.

Three of the blotches moved slightly, and one showed an almost human-like outline. That would be Crow Talisman. The other two mobile blotches would be Rumor and Gilgamesh, and those weren’t even faintly human-like in outline.

Early in his six weeks of rigorous tests since the St. Shirley episode, he and Hank proved that Saul could generate juice by meditation. Then Hank returned to California, after an almost teary Chevalier begged Hank to help the ancient Crow restart the dross recycling project. The local Crows still hadn’t recovered from the St. Shirley incident, and remained flustered, so badly Saul could almost hear them cawing, squabbling, and dropping feathers out in California…all the way from Chicago. Notes – gone. Lab equipment and lab samples – gone. The psychological equanimity needed for their delicate experiments – long gone.

After Hank’s departure, and after nearly a week of no progress at all, Saul requested Crow Talisman’s help at Littleside, Talisman being the head of the semi-secretive Abyss research department. Extensive negotiations ensued, resulting in all sorts of changes. Abyss formally renamed their research department the ‘juice research and development department’, at Lori’s insistence. Talisman added Hank’s Littleside administrative duties to his portfolio, which made Talisman a very happy Crow. Most relevant to Saul, he got seconded to Tophet, Ann Chiron’s newly coined name for Focus Rizzari’s household, in exchange for Inez Neally getting seconded to Abyss. Plus numerous other organizational changes.

Dr. Inez Neally currently ran the monitoring station from a cart right next to Saul in the lab room where they conducted their experiments. The TMS – Transform Monitoring Station – was one of Saul’s better discoveries, product of a long chat with a new acquaintance at the CDC’s Atlanta Transform lab. The machine monitored juice movement inside a Transform by use of tiny skin sensors, like short versions of Chinese acupuncture needles, to reach into twelve different lymph nodes, and produce graphs like an EKG. The technology had been developed by the Atlanta lab, and so the lab owned six of the machines, of which they used two. Saul’s new friend had been delighted to find someone who appreciated the product of their hard work, and quite happy to loan one out. Got it, Inez said.

Saul focused on his hands. The other splotches, the ones not associated with the Crows, began to move toward him. Slowly. Very slowly. According to Rumor, this was the part they had been missing. Rumor believed, although only he could metasense it, that the conversion process started outside the body. Movement catalysis, Rumor called it. Steady, steady, Inez said. Connecting him with Inez was a wonderful inspiration of Gail and Lori’s. Dr. Neally was another voluntary Transform, a new one, a PhD researcher formerly caught in an endless cycle of post-doc appointments. She had authored more papers and had her papers cited more often than everyone else in the current version of Littleside put together, not counting Hank, but still, she was female, too tall, too – ah – striking in appearance. Such minor details as her exceptional ability as a researcher didn’t outweigh the important factors such as gender or looks.

Saul and Inez talked a lot. She helped him readjust from what St. Shirley had done to him, and he helped her navigate the tough waters of a new transformation. Academics seemed to face their own set of unique challenges. Lori was just too busy to shepherd Inez through the usual problems, and Inez, a worse workaholic than Hank, didn’t come well equipped with social graces.

The red blotches eventually reached Saul’s hands. Relax, Saul. Let the borrowed Crow work on its own, Gilgamesh said. Soft, soothing. Saul nodded, a tiny fraction of an inch, and kept his eyes closed. This was the tricky part, and the point where his previous attempts had failed. Now, the faint red blotches, dross, touched his hands, and the juice started coming in. Such a tiny amount, a thousandth of a point of juice at a time, less than any juice meter could sense, but Saul had learned to sense such tiny quantities. Any standard male Transform could, a serendipitous discovery they had made nine days ago.

How had this been missed? Apparently, nobody bothered to look. There was, in most researcher’s minds, nothing less interesting in the world of Transforms and Major Transforms than a generic male Transform.

Saul meditated, minute after long minute. The juice, so slowly, continued to come in from the ghostly bits of dross.

Done, Talisman said. Saul opened his eyes to the Littleside lab room, a chaos of tables, chairs, and equipment, mostly pushed to the side. Plus a blackboard, Rumor’s leftover lunch, three Crows, and Inez.

The readings matched the prediction to within the capacity of the TMS, Inez said.

Saul meditated again and measured. He had picked up, from the blobs of ambient dross, 0.723 points of juice.

Congratulations, Saul, Talisman said. You’re now, at least in my opinion, the first real Crow Savant.

Saul smiled. Hot damn, he whispered, still thinking enough like a Crow to want to whisper. He had originally been trying to figure out how a male Transform could produce juice by simple meditation. Instead, he became the first male Transform to borrow that most basic of Crow skills, the ability to gather dross and turn it into juice for his own use.

The joys of cutting-edge research, where what you aimed for bore no resemblance to what you got. Hot damn. Hot damn, again.

Do you want me to point out all the problems with that statement, Talisman? Lori said. She hadn’t been in the room a second ago – she just appeared, visible, from nowhere. Saul and Inez jumped, but the others in the room, all Crows, didn’t react. Saul guessed they already knew she was there.

Sure, let’s just barge in and ruin the mood, hun, Inez said. She walked over to the blackboard and tossed Lori a piece of chalk. Have at it.

Lori did, standing on a short step stool and writing furiously. Doesn’t work if the Savant Crow has access to a level 3 or larger superorganism.

We believe this is a training issue, Focus, Rumor said. Eminently fixable.

But one you haven’t solved yet, Lori said. That was Saul’s first setback, because once he joined Abyss he couldn’t duplicate his meditation results. That’s what attracted Gilgamesh’s interest. ‘It’s a clue, a big clue!’, he had said, almost shouting, an emphatic response from the usually phlegmatic Crow.

Lori continued scribbling. Requires active SO borrowing from a Crow. Which was generally done by way of a level 3 superorganism. Which, of course, messed up the ability to gather dross.

It doesn’t require real-time borrowing, nor borrowing as much as you would think, Lori, Gilgamesh said. If my metasense scans are correct, what Saul borrowed could keep him in juice for two weeks. With enough dross access.

I was getting to that, Lori said. She scribbled her third item. Spreads more dross around than is picked up.

Saul studied his feet. In a lab setting, Lori never held back if she saw a problem. Don’t worry about that, Talisman said. That’s a practice thing. Saul’s no worse than a baby Crow. The more he gathers dross, the better he’ll be at it. That didn’t sound too bad.

Lastly, and worst, Lori said, and started on her fourth line on the chalkboard. Saul untuned all his tags with this tiny amount of dross capture.

Ouch, Inez said. Saul had to agree. Tuning a tag required a significant effort by a Crow. If the tag-owning Major Transforms needed to retune a Savant Crow’s tags every time he gathered dross, the procedure would be effectively useless.

Gilgamesh and Rumor stared at each other for about five seconds, then went to the blackboard and started writing down equations, then correcting each other’s equations. They had figured something out and were likely metachattering with each other as they wrote. Saul had seen this before, and it usually took them a minimum of ten minutes before they resolved the issue.

Well, we’ve lost them, Inez said. She was used to this, as well.

Lori came over to Saul and chucked him in the shoulder. Hey, don’t be despondent. This is a big thing you’re working on, here. You’re just not done.

You think those two will figure something out? Saul asked. He didn’t even recognize the style of math the two Crows played with. He guessed abstract algebra, but he could easily be wrong.

Lori turned to the two Crows and nodded. If I had to hazard a guess, you’re going to need to learn to borrow whatever Crows do innately to keep their juice structures clean. Since that’s an innate all baby Crows get, it should be easy for Savant Crows to borrow, at least once we figure out how. She smiled. So, are you ready for another date? I found a neat gay biker bar in Skokie that’s got some racial issues I think we need to investigate.

Inez rolled her eyes. Lori had taken to dragging Saul around to ‘interesting locations’, and Inez considered the exercise to be a waste of their time. Also, the evenings weren’t ‘dates’, they were research.

I have a suggestion, Lori, Saul said. I’m, um, occasionally dating someone over in Abyss…

Melanie, Lori said. She’s a good match for you. Lori’s comment would have discommoded him once, but all his Focuses seemed to want to give him advice regarding his romantic life. Focus Exodus had been the most plainspoken; she practically ordered him to take Melanie to bed. The always opinionated Focus believed Melanie needed to get laid to get over some earlier traumas, by someone mature, gentle, and selfless, and that Gail should have arranged it months ago. Saul appreciated the flattery, but not the intrusion into his love life.

Lori’s eyes widened. You think we should be bringing her along?

She’s expressed an interest. That was an understatement. Melanie’s commentary had included about ten ‘please’s in a row.

I believe her real comment was ‘you’ve got to take me along, that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of a Focus doing’, Inez said. She’s got to be the craziest of that band of crazies. Meaning Abyss. Saul would have taken Inez’s comment more seriously, except she always said that whenever one of the Abyss old-timers did something typically Abyss.

The Abyss old timers were indeed discommoding, but their crazy notions did give the household a lot of character. Yesterday, six different Abyss people insisted to him that Bart Wheelhouse’s famous dartboard had somehow juice-enchanted itself so that no one ever hit the outer bull ring. Given the evidence over the next hour, Saul was almost ready to believe them.

She’s one of Gail’s attendants. Tagging her, which I’ll need to do, is going to be tricky, both politically and emotionally. Lori’s eyes glazed over in thought. Saul could almost smell a scheme brewing.

Saul was trying out several responses in his mind, something around the lines of ‘just ask Gail’, when Inez grabbed his shoulder.

Something’s going on, she said, her voice suddenly a half octave lower and penetrating. Saul recognized this as one of her Mizar borrowings – Inez was a natural, albeit currently uncontrolled, borrower of Chimera tricks.

Saul hadn’t picked up a thing, but as he watched he saw Gilgamesh and Rumor stop their chalkboard work. The Commander’s on the way, Gilgamesh said.

Lori blinked. Baby. Then she winced. And she wants the Branton 8th floor as her nest.

Saul echoed the wince. Sylvie, the Abyss household president and Branton boss, currently used most of the 8th floor as visiting VIP suites. She used the Commander’s old room, the honeymoon suite, as what she called the ‘hero’s reward room’.

They would need to move the furniture, and fast. So much for quiet research.

Carol Hancock (December 24, 1973)

Go, Stacy said. She and Deena clogged traffic on Butterfield. I stared at the ceiling of the van. Tonya’ll meet you there within a few hours.

Forrest, Loess and their people loaded themselves back into their vehicles with a slamming of doors. The drivers started up the vehicles before the last doors were closed, and they headed off to Abyss’s Lassup factory safe house.

Stacy climbed back into the driver’s seat of our still running van and slammed the door. I couldn’t drive now that the baby had dropped. I couldn’t do much of anything, actually, not with a full-sized junior resting on top of my pelvis. It made me feel unnervingly vulnerable, even with Tangiers and Mizar by my side. I felt a knot in my spine ease when we passed the Chicago city limits, though. Home. Safety.

The Branton remained the same as always. No one had broken the windows in the last six months, the various gunshot holes remained filled, and the place looked civilized and sane. Stacy pulled the van up to the front door and I got out. I wasn’t sure why we were at the Branton. Home these days was the Sandburg. I actually wanted the Birch building, but when I mentioned that both Stacy and Mizar answered, simultaneously, No. Mystic shit, my guess, my current theory of the source of all their latest weird behavior. I didn’t put up a fuss, and my beast remained about as quiet as ever, in part due to my condition and in part with Mizar’s help. Without my ahem bodyguards I would have been in full beast mode, but some instinct or other told me to let my bodyguards defend me.

The lobby overflowed with people. I guessed at least a hundred people, and they were all silent. My people, my defenders. They parted to let me through.

In the middle of the crowd, I spotted one figure towering above the rest. Armenigar. Six foot eight, bald as a croquet ball, and built like a Chimera. She was the oldest Arm in the world.

What the hell are you doing here? I said. Her presence was a surprise, and any surprise implied a threat. Both Stacy and Mizar growled. Tangiers pulled out her knives.

You called me, she said.

I blinked at her. How could I have called her? I shook my head. The technical details weren’t worth worrying about, probably another piece of crazy shit having to do with my co-ownership of the Dreaming. If I called her, it was all right. I relaxed.

Stacy didn’t get the message. She stalked up to Armenigar, angry. Submit, she said. Armenigar looked down at her, then over to me, and sighed.

I’ll agree to a full tag for the duration, she said.

Fine by me. Stacy and Armenigar did their thing, much more calmly than I expected, as Lori and Gail appeared from nowhere. Gail wore a towel on her head and another on her body, fresh from her shower. Typical. Since you’re the one with the experience, I’m putting you in charge of this insanity.

Let’s get Carol up to her room, and then we need to set up some better defenses, Armenigar said. She glanced down at my belly with a faint smile. You’re in for a wild ride, Carol.

Armenigar was right. I did feel a hell of a lot better in my old room. Despite my long absence, this room of mine really was home, a territory within a territory within a territory. Amy Haggerty was already here, and I could feel Midgard and Gilgamesh at work nearby, beefing up the Crow defenses on the room, hallway, and floor.

Carol, Lori said, we just got the call from Rose Webberly. She and Dowling are at the airport and will be here in a few minutes. Betsy Whetstone called a couple of hours ago to say she’s on her way and expects to be here before night.

Dowling? Armenigar said. Crap, not another one. Amy, get down to the main entrance and make sure none of the damned Chimeras get in. And watch the tags on everyone. No one gets into the Branton except Carol’s tagged people. Where the hell are the fucking Crows? I said six, and I mean six!

Yes, ma’am, Amy said. On my way.

I’ll get the Crows, Lori said. If you weren’t bellowing at them, Joan, they might be more likely to show up.

If they were here instead of wherever the hell they are, I wouldn’t be bellowing at them, Armenigar said. According to my metasense, Armenigar was now a part of Lori’s pack, operating under her pack’s household rules, as an associated Chimera of all things. Absurdly impossible. I couldn’t even imagine the theory to make this all work, but this was clearly Lori’s way of getting around the ‘Focuses can link with only one Arm’ issue.

There were times when I wondered if Lori’s recent spate of innovations was as much of a danger to the Cause as Bass. She now, for one thing, carried around and used the Great Enabler, often changed her shape using illusion scaffolding, and used Sky as her Crow Master. As far as I knew, she never changed away from standard human, though. Today, she was blonde, curvy up top, with blue eyes and a vaguely zaftig demeanor.

Ma’am Haggerty, Del said to Amy as Amy headed out the door. The Commander’s got to have some people who can borrow her metasense. They should be able to help you validate tags.

Del? I blinked twice and she remained here. Why the fuck wasn’t she still back in Los Angeles putting her household back together? How did she get here so quickly? She was about as mystical as a buried rock.

I didn’t ask. I swore I just had a contraction. One of the early ones, and painful. I was a master of pain suppression, so what was with this pain business? I asked my body. No answer. I decided my body knew what it was doing and remembered how Lori’s pain resistance plunged when she went into labor up in the Yukon.

Have you heard from Naylor or Billington? Or Duval? I said, to Lori. Where the hell are they?

I contacted Duval a half hour after Joan showed up, Lori said. She’ll be here this evening.

How many people are coming in here? Cathy said. Focus Cathy Elspeth was another of the Focuses who lived, with her household, in the Branton. Where are all these Arms coming from?

Everyone just looked at her for a moment. Armenigar shrugged. Damned if I know.

The Dreaming, Gail said, and took my hand. It figures you would get the Dreaming version of the call to arms, Carol. The pun was both deliberate and pointed. Typical. Do you have any idea who all is coming?

This isn’t a good time to be bothering the boss, Focus Rickenbach, Del said. We’ll just need to deal with events as they happen.

Gail looked at Del for a long moment and then shrugged. Those two acted funny around each other; whenever they noticed the other existed, they went and hid in their own minds. I had seen it once in Los Angeles, but now they did it full time. I couldn’t cope now, though I would need to figure it out later. Okay. So, what do we need to do?

Defense, Armenigar said. We need the Crows up here to put together some decent dross defenses, we need a defensive perimeter of Arms. If the Chimeras want to be useful, they could establish a secondary defensive perimeter outside the Branton. What do we have for military hardware?

Damn, Mary said. My apologies, ma’am. I brought a few supplies, but not heavy-duty armaments. I can probably get some from Rose, but it’ll likely take a few…

The door opened, and every Arm in the room went into combat positions. I found my knife in my hand and hated, just hated, the knowledge that I was not in any condition to fight.

Ma’am’s, a voice said. It’s just us. Arm Giselle Debardelaben strode through the door with cocky confidence, followed by a much meeker Grace Billington. Which matched my feelings for the both of them.

I relaxed. We had built up enough muscle here that I started to feel comfortable.

My relaxation didn’t last more than an instant, as Giselle turned on Stacy and tried to glare her out of the way. Dominance issues. Right here in my bedroom, when I was helpless as a damned baby.

Armenigar whistled, a shrill, piercing sound. She’s mine. Giselle was chronologically junior to Naylor, but she only wore my tag and Armenigar’s tag. She currently held tags on all the other mature Arms in North America, including Naylor, except for Webberly, Haggerty and Stacy. Which means for the duration she’s yours.

Stacy and Giselle sighed, and Giselle allowed Stacy to temp tag her. Alright, I should have more faith. Keaton and Armenigar were both old, experienced Arms, and they could sort out any imaginable nasty dominance issues.

That is, unless I had subconsciously called Eissler here.

I flopped down on the bed and rubbed my forehead. Wake me when this is over.

Armenigar grinned and turned to the doorway. "Where the hell are the fucking Crows?"

"Think of what happens if you win."

Mizar (December 24, 1973)

So, they chased you away, too? Gail said. Mizar had asked her for a meeting, and they ended up in the Birch building. They walked, just the two of them, in a wide carpeted hallway, with the multifloor atrium on one side, and a rank of workrooms on the other. Once the birthing logistics got settled, the Arms allowed only one Focus to stay in Carol’s birthing nest, and it wasn’t Gail. Gail’s crew of bodyguards milled around outside the Birch building, unhappy as always when Gail went off without them.

Me and every Chimera who got dragged into Chicago by their Arm, Mizar said. I think Prince Hoskins is currently organizing a tournament to work off some excess energies. He expected a metasense summons to participate at any moment, which he didn’t look forward to. Right now, he wasn’t in the mood for a tournament.

And you? What’s up?

Mizar took a deep breath to steady himself. Of all the members of his family, he found Gail the most difficult to deal with. I believe I’ve completed the quest you assigned me. One of the many quests he had accumulated as he made recompense to all the people he offended.

Gail stopped, as did he. She looked him over, carefully, likely with one of her hidden tricks, a form of deep metasense scan she didn’t think anyone knew about. I didn’t assign you any quest. She paused and cocked her head to the side. But from your point of view, I suppose I did. I was looking for a permanent change, though, not something for you to fix once and be done.

Hmm.

She shrugged. So, tell me, how have you made Carol happy? Talk about doing the impossible, her unspoken thought continued. She started walking again, leading him into Newton’s work area. Mizar smiled. He really liked Newton’s bird art, especially his abstract works.

I’ve spent a lot of time listening to Carol, as you suggested, Mizar said. He was surprised at Gail’s question. She had demanded a great deal of him, mostly around proving his ability to seduce a person without relying on juice-powered manipulation. He expected questions along those lines. She does like to tell stories. An expression of her desires to interact with people, at a juice level, primarily in one-on-one situations. And a touch of warm humanity. Gail nodded. I learned about Chimera Loess’s warden, Tangiers, from Carol, and about Carol’s desire to possess Tangiers. It wasn’t standard Arm greed, though, but something else that took me a while to figure out. It turns out Carol can read someone’s personality quirks almost instantly, and she realized that Tangiers was not only strong and smart, but saw the world in much the same way Carol did. When the opportunity presented itself, I figured out how to make an exchange, Patricia for Tangiers, without offending anyone. And, yes, it’s made Carol very happy.

Gail stopped in front of a wooden dross art frame, a cube holding a three-dimensional representation of a wild turkey. She carefully reached a left index finger to the wooden frame, made of three-quarter inch wide dowels, and touch-activated the dross art. The wild turkey began to hunt down seeds and peck at them. Gail watched, mesmerized. Mizar marveled at Gail’s work, amazed that she, as a Focus, not only could interact with dross at such a fine level, without juice patterns, but also metasense the ‘on switch’. So, that’s what was going on, Gail said. Cutting Patricia loose was a good thing; her unhappiness was messing up you and Lori’s Monster household dynamics and retarding its superorganism growth. So, this Warden Tangiers is that good? I can’t get a good read on her.

Tangiers was, at the moment, integrating herself with the other pack members and taking the Warden position from Jill, by force of will instead of with a fight, as she and the rest of the pack served as guards outside the Branton.

This was Gail showing off, working far beyond the usual Focus distance limitations. No, not showing off. Just not caring whether he noticed her tricks or not. Good, very good, as this played into some ideas he wanted to bring up later.

She’s got excellent shields, even for a Warden, Mizar said. You’re going to like her when you get to know her. You two are similarly top end.

Gail didn’t react to his comment, engrossed by Newton’s wild turkey. Her eyes narrowed, she wiggled her fingers, and found the dross control that allowed the viewer to rotate the scene, focus in and out and pan it from left to right and back. She did so, thoroughly enjoying herself. She hadn’t known wild turkeys also hunted and ate small insects, and let her surprise show. So, are Carol and Stacy making any progress on their little ahem problem?

No, Mizar said, with a sigh. I swear that the two of them are actually working on finding a way to keep this mutual tag crap going, despite the professional cost, simply out of amusement value. He caught something deep in Gail’s mind. You have a plan.

A plan too immature for discussion, Gail said, her words slow and emphasized as if written on parchment in an exquisite cursive. He caught the side emotions of yet another devious plan of Gail’s rumbling deep in her mind. This one felt well along to completion. Gail turned, quickly, and gently grabbed his shirt along the buttons. You’re sitting on something, aren’t you, Mizar? she said. Something to make me happy, perhaps?

Okay, gamble time. Yes, Gail.

Blink, blink.

He pressed forward. We’re never going to be helplessly in love with each other, and…

Got that right. Glare.

Still, the juice supports other kinds of relationships besides lovers.

Such as? She let go of his shirt, but kept in eye contact and didn’t go back to fiddling with Newton’s dross art.

What Annie and I had, he said. She was my Muse.

She smiled. Capital letter M muse, eh? This is some sort of third or fourth juice axis thing?

Third axis. Stacy’s even found a name for the third axis that sounds correct – connection. Gail frowned, suddenly radiating competitiveness. Muse is my word for it. Names were important. He had thought and meditated for five days before he settled on muse.

So third axis. That means the mundane is influencing the juice, instead of the other way around like with tagging.

Perfect. Mizar relaxed, as he hadn’t been able to predict whether this would trigger Gail’s often paranoia-based temper or the steamroller that was her curiosity. Yes. You already have a Muse, by the way. Stacy.

She moved back, thinking through his statement. Okay, okay, I think. A Muse is someone who has the right to give you advice you have to listen to, but you don’t have to obey. Mizar nodded, pleased to find his gut feeling confirmed. His gut had been telling him Gail was the right person to confide in, but he hadn’t really trusted his gut since he slept with Haggerty. His gut had led him into far too many mistakes. Dangerous and stupid mistakes. I would have thought my Muse was Van. Or perhaps Tonya.

It was never Van, as this is a thing of the juice that only Major Transforms can touch. At least for now. There are two other important roles I’ve managed to name, Mentor and Teacher. Tonya and Stacy were once your Mentors, and Carol your Teacher. When you graduated from…

I got that, Gail said. Mizar wasn’t sure, but he did suspect her ability to interrupt anyone was juice powered, some form of enhanced Focus charisma. So she’s my capital ‘m’ mentor, now?

Mizar nodded.

Gail frowned, and thought some more. You want me as your Muse because we’re both overpowered freaks that most people don’t understand. People in the loosest sense of the word, of course.

He repressed a smile; normally Gail refused to admit, even to herself, how much of an overpowered freak she was. Yes, he said.

Gail turned away, going over to Newton’s dross construct table. Newton wasn’t a natural at making them, but under Gilgamesh’s tutelage he had mastered quite a few of the useful ones. You know, it strains my credulity that the first Chimera to survive also ended up being the smartest and most powerful Chimera. That certainly isn’t how the other Major Transforms work.

It helped that Gail was smart. If Focus Forrest had anything approaching Gail’s smarts, she would have grabbed the Boss Focus position a decade ago. That’s why Annie had survived and prospered – she had been a smart Focus.

I wasn’t this way to start with, Mizar said. Without looking at him, Gail waved an index finger in the air, prodding him to continue. Mizar smiled. That was just so Annie! Let this be a lesson about the older Monsters and Chimeras you find in the wilds, Gail. Monsters and Chimeras who can’t cope with élan get stupid and weak, and eventually die. Those of us who survived only did so because we got smart and strong. I’ve named this juice culling. I don’t know yet if it needs capital letters the way Teacher, Muse and Mentor do.

Gail shrugged, reached into her blazer, and pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "Okay, you’ve convinced me.