All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) Read online

  Help!

  Sincerely, Beth Hargrove

  (written by P.N.)

  Tonya looked up at Delia after she finished reading the letter. “For the moment, forget you ever read this letter. I’m going to be in my office, spending some time alternating between panicking and thinking, and probably making a few phone calls to justify my existence. Hold all incoming phone calls. Slide the food under the door. Don’t panic if the juice goes nuts. The usual. When Marty returns this evening from work, you and I and Marty and no one else are going to have a quiet conversation. I suspect it may last a long while.”

  ---

  “Okay,” Marty said, putting together the information from the letter with all the other information Tonya managed to dig up that might fit into the mess. “Here’s what we have: Beth got visited by three unknowns she believes to be Crows and Chimeras, who missed her household’s moonshine operation, and she’s being blackmailed into attacking Focus Adkins. Keaton moved to the Detroit area in December because of an offer you relayed to her from the first Focuses, and you posited the offer might be a trap. Keaton has a new charge, so she, the newbie and Hancock could have also done this. Beth has never met any Arms before, likely doesn’t realize how easily Arms can masquerade as men, and thus they could have easily fooled her. Focus Adkins is publicly anti-Arm and deals with Keaton through you, and is likely the first Focus who originated the Keaton deal. In addition, the Arms have evidence showing someone is training no-household Focuses, and you believe the person behind this is Focus Adkins. In addition, there’s Chimera interest in Detroit, a young Focus in Detroit who’s attracted widespread attention because of her immense potential, and because she’s going to get married in May. Lastly, according to Focus Rizzari, with only one exception Crows’ metasense cannot pick up on verbal conversations, cannot ‘see’ normals, nor can read handwriting or printed words at a distance, nor can any Crows take the stress of confrontations such as the one with Beth. Anything else?” He leaned back in one of Tonya’s two office chairs, balancing it on the rear legs.

  Tonya closed her eyes, moved juice before she got too wrapped up in the discussion and forgot, then tried to remember anything else that might be relevant. She pulled her own chair out from behind her desk, to make for better conversation. “I was in secret contact with a senior Crow named Shadow, but when I attempted to call him today I found out his phone had been disconnected. We know Carol visits with Keaton about once a month, normally around the first of the month. I tried to contact both of them today and only got their answering services. We also know Keaton likes to partner, so to speak, with a local Focus. So far, she’s chosen to work with older, established Focuses. We don’t know who she’s contacted in Detroit, and if she’s working with any of the Detroit Focuses.”

  “I wonder if whoever Arm Keaton’s working with in Detroit might have a thing about Focus Adkins,” Delia said. “That isn’t so farfetched, you know. Focus Adkins is rather extreme.” Rather extreme didn’t cover it, in Tonya’s mind, however much she had once liked Wini. On the other hand, Wini kept to herself, mostly, save for the occasional dabbling in mentoring young local Focuses and breaking male Transforms. The last irked Tonya, as Wini made no attempt to fix the Transforms, she just broke them to the saddle. They were hardly good for more than menial labor after Wini’s efforts, but some Focuses thought this was just fine, enough to keep Wini in business.

  “Who else is there in Detroit?” Marty said, leaning forward and landing the front legs of his chair back to the floor with a thunk. Marty was Tonya’s household president, and she always made sure to have him involved whenever she needed raw brainpower. His ideas tended to be different enough from Tonya’s to be useful, and he was good at knocking holes in Tonya’s bad ideas.

  Tonya looked through her notes. “There are six Focus households in the Detroit area. Gail, Beth and Wini you know about. There’s Grace Johnson. Pretty much average. Black woman, six years out. There’s Judith Stell. She’s a second generation Focus like me, pathetic as a Focus and under Adkins’ thumb. Then there’s Wendy Mann. She’s brand new, transforming a few months after Gail. August, I think. I’ve talked to her on the phone, nothing special.”

  “Hmmm. Keaton hooked up with you by mutual agreement and chose Lupe Rodriguez, one of the strongest Focuses around, by choice. She’s also dealt with Focus Rizzari, another tough cookie,” Delia said. “Sounds to me like there isn’t anyone in Detroit who matches her previous specifications.”

  Tonya nodded, grabbed another apple, and took three bites. “She’s dealing with Wendy Mann, though.”

  “Huh?” Danny said. “Why?” Danny had bodyguard duty again. When Tonya said ‘me, Marty, Delia and no one else’, this didn’t count bodyguards.

  “Because that’s who I would choose if I were Keaton.”

  “You’re getting spooky again, boss,” Danny said. It always bothered him when she did this.

  “Who’s mentoring her?” Delia said. Her eyebrows rose momentarily, before she paused and looked through the notes in front of her. “Wait. Here it is. Focus Adkins.”

  “I know where you’re going, and it won’t work. I offered to get Wendy a different mentor, and she turned me down. She likes Adkins. I detected no trace of hidden resentment, and I doubt a young Focus could fool me on that. She and Adkins have, um, compatible personalities.”

  “Damn,” Marty said, then stood and began to pace, dodging chairs and tables in the small office. “You’re pretty convinced our Mr. Concord isn’t Keaton, aren’t you?” he asked Tonya.

  Pinning this on the Arms would be the easy solution. Unfortunately, the more Tonya looked at it, the less plausible it seemed. For one thing, she doubted the Arms would miss an attempt to tag them. For another, neither Keaton nor Hancock would have to hire a Focus to shoot Wini from surprise – they could do the shooting themselves if they wanted, and would likely prefer it that way. Hancock surely would.

  Which meant this was a Crow operation, likely by Rogue Crow, and Hancock’s passed on warning that the Crows were moving from words to deeds was now coming true.

  “Correct.”

  “Okay. I’ll trust you on that, ma’am,” Marty said. “You think this is Rogue Crow’s work?”

  “Perhaps. I have some suppositions I want to test. I have a bad feeling this is about to get uglier.”

  Tonya checked the time, reached behind her and grabbed her phone. Thursday night at this time Lori would be working in the lab next door to her Boston College office, and although she never liked to be bothered, she should be able to figure out Tonya was calling her with her annoying phone-scrying trick.

  Nothing.

  She called Inferno next. Yes, Lori was home, and yes they had a minor emergency in progress.

  “What timing,” Lori said, after she eventually picked up the phone. “What sort of problem have you run into?”

  “Focus Hargrove’s being blackmailed by someone, most likely Crows, most likely Rogue Crow,” Tonya said. “The reason I called was that I wanted to consult with Guru Shadow about it, but his phone was disconnected and I wondered if you knew anything about what’s going on.”

  “I do,” Lori said. “On New Year’s Eve the Nobles and their lair vanished. Sky managed to locate their new lair on the 6th, a place up in New Hampshire, but they’ve gone all squirrely, overly polite, non-communicative, and guard-like. The Crow who helps the Noble Chimeras, Occum, is ‘not available’, even to talk to Sky. The best we can figure is someone attacked their Boston headquarters, and Occum, a paranoid sort, is afraid we’re behind it, either directly or indirectly through loose lips. Worse, today, Sky and I had to go pick up a very panicked Crow Sinclair from New York City. Some unknowns trashed Shadow’s business in New York. Sky and I investigated and found the place crawling with foul dross, bullet riddled and blood spattered with what Sky identified as Crow blood. There was also a corpse on site, a six two male normal, who had been taken out by a Crow attack. Shadow is either dead or gone to grou
nd in justifiable panic.”

  “Damn,” Tonya said, softly. “It’s started, then.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it has. Inferno’s gotten so worried that I’m being guarded now even when I’m sleeping,” Lori said. “I can’t get ahold of either Keaton or Hancock, but according to their various answering services there’s nothing more going on than the usual Arm-at-work stuff.” Lori paused, in thought. “What are you going to do about your problem?”

  “Confront Polly; I think this may give me, finally, enough leverage to make my case,” Tonya said. “I need a Crow, though. Someone willing to give evidence and answer questions while facing down two of the nastiest Focus bitches on the continent. I was hoping Guru Shadow was up for it. I don’t know any other Crows who might be, though.”

  “I can’t imagine…” Lori’s voice tailed off, interrupted by a side conversation, ending with Sky shouting ‘you’re crazy, you can barely walk!’ “I believe we have a volunteer. Crow Sinclair,” Lori said, finally, amazement in her voice. “Be nice.”

  Sinclair? He wasn’t half the Crow Sky or Gilgamesh was, at least in the nerve department, based on what Tonya had seen. “I will. You have my word.”

  The phone clattered as Lori handed it over. “Focus Biggioni?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Crow Sinclair. I’ll do it. Where am I going?”

  “Long Island,” Tonya said. “Thank you. This is going to be very rough, you understand.”

  “Ma’am, Shadow’s life, all our lives, may be at stake,” Sinclair said. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes, even if it means giving up my life, sanity, or freedom, to save him.”

  “Glad to have you on board,” Tonya said, unnerved. His ‘do whatever it takes’ comment shivered her juice; whatever was going on in Crow politics, they had never outgrown the bad old days of ‘do whatever it takes’. She gave Polly’s address, the approximate time Tonya expected to be arriving there, and another heartfelt thanks to Sinclair. She asked Lori to help Sinclair in any way possible before she hung up.

  Tonya shook. She already knew Guru Shadow’s Crows were a loyal bunch, but Sinclair’s words disturbed her. There were depths in these Crows she wasn’t sure she wanted brought into light.

  She relayed the information to Delia and Marty. “Next call. This one’s likely to be worse.”

  Tonya dialed. She hoped she was correct, and what she thought was happening was indeed happening where she thought it was happening. It was what she would be doing. The only question was time of day. She looked at the wall clock, and paused, surprised that it was already 9:45 PM.

  Someone picked up the phone on the other end and said hello. “I would like to speak to Focus Mann, please,” Tonya said, after introducing herself.

  There was a pause on the other end. “Yes, ma’am.”

  A moment later, “Mann speaking.”

  “Hi. This is Tonya. Do you have a few moments to talk?”

  Long pause. “This is not the best time, and…”

  “Good. Perfect. Has there been a lot of excitement around your place in the past weeks?”

  Very long pause. The phone relayed some background noise that sounded like fighting. “You might say that.”

  “I would like to talk to your visitor. You’ll want to be polite when you ask, but make sure you tell her that it’s Focus Tonya Biggioni who wants to speak to her, and that it’s an emergency. Okay?”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “I understand your position. On the other hand, think of the consequences if you don’t forward this message and your visitor found out later. Not pretty.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of this, ma’am.” Young Focuses of Wendy’s mindset had one good property: they responded well to intimidation by their superiors.

  About three minutes passed, while Tonya winced at what this call would do to the next month’s phone bill. Eventually, someone picked up the phone.

  “Yah?” The voice of a four year old girl. “Mommy?”

  “So, Stacy, can you wrestle with a Transform yet without being tempted to drain him?”

  “You fuck’n bitch cunt, why the hell do I bother to send you any reports or letters since you seem to know fuck’n everything already?” Keaton used her real voice for this answer. “How the fuck did you know to call me here! I’ve spent weeks figuring out how to stop Rizzari’s phone scrying trick, and there’s no way you could have anyone spying on me. No way!”

  “No spies this time, Stacy. I just figured out the situation. My instincts are better than they used to be.” The removal of the Patterson tag did wonders for Tonya in many different ways.

  Keaton paused, covered the phone, and bellowed something about everyone getting out of the room. Or, perhaps, the house. Or was that ‘county’? In a moment, Keaton returned. “I swear I should have killed you when I had the chance. You’re the cancer that’s going to be the death of me. So tell me, bright stuff, what exactly do you think I’m doing visiting Focus Mann, anyway?”

  Tonya smiled. “From what I observed in Boston, you have to juice yourself up to the max to deal with a household of Transforms in your personal space. That’s a weakness, and given what we’re going to be doing in a few months I guessed it was a weakness you had to remove, and doing so takes close interaction with a Transform household. Wendy’s safe from your perspective, unlike Gail, who could accidentally cause you big problems with her absurd untrained abilities. The other Focuses are too set in their ways to be able to cope. In exchange, Wendy gets physical training for herself and her bodyguard-level Transforms.” Tonya smiled at being able to think like an Arm. At least a little bit. “Hopefully you won’t make too many mistakes. Losing a Transform is real hard, especially for a young Focus.”

  “Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Tonya. I want this Focus for the long haul and I’m not about to wreck her. Not that you couldn’t figure that out, seeing how much you’ve figured out already.” Tonya thought she heard Keaton’s teeth grinding. “So, why did you go to the bother of figuring out where I was? Surely it wasn’t just to hear my sweet voice. Don’t you have some rough men to castrate or something else socially meaningful to do?”

  If this were a physical meeting, this would be the point where she would bound up to Keaton, kiss her on the forehead, and give her a twinkly smile. In Tonya’s mind, Keaton took herself too seriously. Of course, Keaton thought the same thing about Tonya.

  “Remember how I said to Rizzari during the CDC mess that about once or twice a year I get stuck in what she called ‘boneheaded adventures’?”

  “Yah. Basically, the stuff I do day in and day out.”

  “Right. Well, I’m in another one, and this one involves Detroit.”

  “Great.”

  Tonya paused. “I have a question for you: would you know if one or more Major Transforms came by Detroit to lean on someone?”

  “You mean Hargrove’s alleged blackmail artists?”

  Sweat seeped down Tonya’s back. “Don’t take me wrong, but was it you?” Delia hissed, afraid Tonya went too far.

  “Nope. Unknowns, possibly enemy.”

  “Agree we have a problem?” She and Keaton edged into what her bodyguards universally called TonyaKeaton Shorthand. It drove her bodyguards nuts.

  “Too many problems.”

  “Deal?”

  “Speak.”

  “Hargrove. Specific.” Keaton already protected the Detroit Focuses as a group; Tonya asked for active protection of Hargrove.

  “Unknowing.” Keaton wanted to do the protection without Hargrove’s knowledge. Tonya didn’t bother to answer. “Okay, that’s going to cost.”

  “You sure about no longer needing unclaimed Transforms?” As expected, both Delia and Marty stiffened. Tonya moved their juice a little, to ease their discomfort, hopefully slowly enough so they wouldn’t notice. They hated it when this particular subject came up. Justifiably.

  Keaton laughed, loudly. “The prey is
so plentiful these days I can practically put up signs saying ‘Transform Sickness? No Focuses want you? Pleasurable suicides available, $200 cash.’ and get business coming to me. Salt mine, remember?” The percentage of unclaimed Transforms was up because of the Focuses being siphoned into the salt mine project. Not a large change, but on a subject this close to the survival of the Arms, they noticed.

  “We need better Focuses.” Tonya paused, and thought out loud. “Well, after your faux-Hancock spree, you need more money like a ship needs more rats. I can’t get you out of your legal troubles. You’ve just been well supplied with weapons. That leaves information.”

  “Which you are about as short of as I am, given that half your Network researchers upped and quit on you because someone was stupid enough to tell the authorities how to break an Arm. Right, muy mucho stupid traitorous bitch?”

  Tonya forced her temper down and soldiered on. “How about I tell you about what Hargrove’s visitors wanted her to do?”

  “That’s not going to be worth much. Auntie Stacy is looking forward to a present. Hint hint.” You want a deal, you send boxes of technical research notes taken directly from your researchers.

  “I can do that. On the other hand, I’ll take what I can get for the other information, even if it isn’t much,” Tonya said. Sweat started to puddle on her leather chair; she had sweated through her dress.

  “Spill it, then.”

  Tonya looked quickly around the room, met Marty and Delia’s gaze, and sent ‘hold on tight’ through the juice.

  She then read Hargrove’s letter to Keaton.

  “Hmm. This is a bit more serious than Hank let on,” Keaton said. Tonya relaxed, her prediction verified that Secret Agent Zielinski still used his Dr. Madison identity, and hadn’t lost or sold it. He was, as usual, uncannily present when and where he shouldn’t be. “You do understand why these idiots are targeting Hargrove, don’t you?”