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

  “You never were,” she said. “Nor will you ever be.”

  He had always feared Tiamat would grow tired of his independence. He didn’t bother to stand, and just let the shaking take him where he lay crumbled on the ground. “I found what lured me to Detroit, ma’am.”

  “Tell me.”

  “My former family. My wife’s remarried, and they’re here.” He told the rest of the story. “It was a trick of the juice, ma’am. A trick of the goddamned juice.”

  Tiamat’s emotional ice cracked a little, a few drops of caring leaking into her emotional state. Then nothing. “So be it. If you’re still with us, Gilgamesh, we’re meeting at rendezvous point C at 6 AM on the 17th. Be there. Or not.”

  Tiamat turned and stalked back inside.

  Part 4

  The Happiest Day of My Life

  (May 17, 1969)

  “It is well that war is so terrible - we shouldn't grow too fond of it.” – Robert E. Lee

  Chapter 9

  “Health, contentment and trust

  Are your greatest possessions,

  And freedom your greatest joy.”

  – The Buddha

  Gail Rickenbach

  Tricia finished braiding Gail’s hair, then pinned it up in a French twist. “Gail,” she said. “It’s going to be okay.” They were in the bride’s room of St. Luke’s, and the room was a bustle of activity.

  Horror stories abounded about how badly a Focus could back up the juice on her wedding day, but the stories hadn’t dissuaded any of her Transform women from doting on Gail to excess. Which was good, as her hands couldn’t stop shaking. Hell, her body couldn’t stop shaking. Lucky her, she didn’t have to worry about coming down with the Shakes again. No, it was just normal, honest-to-God wedding nerves.

  Oh, and one other thing.

  The big secret. The fact the world had scheduled a large chance that her wedding or reception would turn into a war zone. Only her inner circle knew, and she had drilled Kurt, Sylvie and Van to where they were able to do their versions of Transform Doublethink as well as she did. Letting the wedding go on anyway was a gamble. The risk soured her stomach, but she understood responsibility, now. She hoped.

  No one would notice her nerves. Surely. Brides were always nervous on their wedding day.

  “Where’s Kurt and Gordie?” Gail said, uneasy. They were the bodyguards on duty today. Her other two bodyguards, Vic and John, guarded Van, and man, had they given her strange looks when she gave them that order.

  “Don’t worry so much,” Tricia said, tucking a loose strand in underneath the pins. “They’re just outside the door.” Gail knew this, if she thought like a Focus. Gordie was perfectly visible to her metasense. Above the crush of people, she heard her mother arguing with one of her people about flowers and corsages. Just normal wedding day tension and arguments. Gail had been in enough weddings over the years to know how wedding preparations went.

  Her disquiet was worth a prayer, so she prayed that her people would come through the day safe and unharmed.

  Carol Hancock

  With my field glasses, I did another quick scan of the smallish parking lot of the old church from my position in the empty third story apartment across the street, letting my metasense linger. A psychological crutch, yes, but when something works, use it. Who else but Lori would have discovered that binoculars, magnifying sight, would also trick the brain into picking up more details with the metasense? Tom had taken to calling Lori “the Focus from Planet X,” and the term stuck among my people. Lori’s ideas were more than just otherworldly, though: they worked, and they were useful.

  St. Luke’s was an imposing old urban church, exuding a grandeur edging toward beauty. The daylight made the defense easier – according to my Crow contacts, senior Crow tricks would have a much harder time hiding an approaching army in daylight. With that, the eyeballs and metasenses of all the Crows I had talked into spotter duty, and the narrow streets around the church, we were ready, and in good shape for a fight.

  I took the binoculars down from my eyes and repressed a shiver of nerves. My responsibility for this operation was immense. Scary, but as Haggerty might say, a good scared – command responsibility did feel like something I was made for. I didn’t see Haggerty, and wouldn’t expect to, unless she showed herself to me. She patrolled the area, around and around and around, sensing and hiding. The Crows would all be inside the church, sensing out (though Occum said he would choose his own hiding place, not trusting me because I was female, an Arm, from Missouri, too young, and too tall for a woman, besides; did I mention I found the twisted runt of a Crow difficult to deal with?). We had worried Occum and the Nobles would back out of their promise to be here and help defend, but they hadn’t. We had prepared signals, both mundane and with juice, for all the circumstances we could come up with, and an important alert signal for ‘something strange is going on, and I don’t know what’.

  I had finished the battle preparation for the wedding, but this was just the first part of my long day of activities. Later, I would make sure everyone followed my plan for the caravan from the church to the Dearborn Hyatt, and the reception there. Then, I would make sure our trap ‘army’ stayed hidden in place around the Hyatt.

  I truthfully hoped the Hunters attacked here, during the wedding. I was a lot more confident about being able to ambush them around St. Luke’s than around the damned Hyatt.

  “Well, Focus Forbes, are you ready?” Tom said. I nodded. I had worked myself into exhaustion, but I finally mastered my disguise, after five days of juice-pounding work. I could pull off the masquerade, muting my metapresence to be that of a lousy, weak Focus, a real stretch of my juice manipulation talents. Tom, Gilgamesh, and Hank accompanied me as my ‘Focus’ bodyguards. Gilgamesh had shown up on time, despite whatever was going on in his screwy head. Even with no preparation time, he had no problem at all masquerading as a male Transform. This made me want to curse Crows and their innate stealthy talents.

  “Time for the first part of this show,” I said, stone faced and cold as ice.

  Gilgamesh

  The panic built up in Gilgamesh as he followed a glacial Tiamat down the stairway of the commandeered flea-bag apartment and out into the street which led to the church. Fifteen Focuses and well over two hundred Transforms attended this wedding, with the normals, a total attendance of over five hundred. He shivered just to think about it.

  Tiamat wanted him thinking in terms of fighting and combat. Convincing people to take cover, getting people to safety. Guarding Focuses. Watching for traitors. Once Tiamat ditched her Focus masquerade, he was supposed to skitter into the shadows and hide himself, help run communications, and wait for opportunities.

  Gilgamesh returned to scanning the area around him and saw nothing unexpected. The Nobles hid in the church attic already, having located a panel to leap from into the sanctuary, if necessary, and had different exits planned for going outside, if the situation warranted.

  Tiamat led their group into the church, signed the book in the narthex with her assumed name, and greeted Focus Polly Keistermann, the Focus Council President and one of the country’s scarier Focuses. The greeting was public and a big prearranged show. If the Lieutenant (as the Focus was known among the Crows) accepted Tiamat as a Focus, well, then Tiamat was a Focus, even if her juice signature wasn’t exactly standard Focus material. Not that anyone but a Crow could spot the difference, and Gail, who hopefully would be too busy with her wedding to notice.

  Two of the Polly Focus’s bodyguards were disguised Crows. Gilgamesh stubbornly forced his racing heart to a more normal pace, and looked the Crows over, very carefully. One of the Crows winked at him and continued his military duties. Sinclair, which didn’t surprise him. The other did: Zero, one of Shadow’s local New York Crows. Both were dressed up in the house uniform worn by all of the Lieutenant’s bodyguards. He was confident the Lieutenant knew about Sinclair, but Zero? Was he a mole?

  Gilgamesh resolved to f
ind out, later.

  Henry Zielinski

  “Either you go in as the fat lady, or you go in as my bodyguard,” Carol had said, with her arms crossed and her brows down. He didn’t want to go in at all. Six weeks post-op from the removal of half of his adrenal gland, at fifty-three years old and no longer artificially adrenally a young man, he didn’t belong in a physical fight. But no, Carol wanted him there for his insights and as her personal field medic, just in case.

  He hated the fat lady disguise with a passion, making his choice easy.

  Gilgamesh walked beside him, lost in his own world. Carol and the Crow had been fighting, their words to each other icily polite. Hank couldn’t get the story out of either of them, not to his surprise.

  Hank looked over the narthex of St. Luke’s and picked out Focuses and households with practiced ease. He would like nothing better than to exchange news with them, but he wore his Kirk Jordan mercenary-for-hire disguise, complete with shaved head and fake tattoos, and Focus gossip wasn’t on his list of approved activities.

  Half way to the entrance to the nave, Focus Hargrove nabbed Carol to chat. Hargrove was sure she recognized Focus Forbes from some old Focus get-together, and she and Carol chatted about old times. Carol, playing her Focus Forbes fluffy-Focus character to perfection, supplied all the right questions and giddy answers simply by reading what Focus Hargrove expected to hear.

  Focus Hargrove finally let Carol go, and a Rickenbach Transform offered his arm to escort her and the rest of them into the huge nave, with enough pews for hundreds to gather for worship. Well, score one for Carol, Zielinski decided. Zielinski people-watched. Tom was doing scans of the sight lines and ambush points in the building. Gilgamesh edged over from human-looking to Crow, concentrating too much on his metasense, no way to maintain a disguise. Zielinski gently nudged Gilgamesh, which earned him a dirty look, and Gilgamesh’s return to humanity.

  One young Focus caught his eye. Young in time since her transformation; this woman still had some of her old hair left, not as beautiful as she would later become. She moved like an Arm. No, that wasn’t it, because Eissler didn’t move like that. She moved as if Keaton had trained her. So did her two Transform bodyguards, significantly better trained than normal for a young Focus. This must be Wendy Mann. Hank couldn’t help but approve. They needed all the help they could get.

  If the Hunters went all in on the attack, as both Carol and Stacy feared they would, the wedding defenders were doomed.

  Tonya Biggioni

  “Look, there’s the church,” Danny said, pointing.

  “Oh, my, it’s huge,” Delia said. “Rickenbach’s household actually got to live in there for six months?”

  The church was indeed beautiful. Tonya experienced a momentary flash of jealousy and wished she had a chance to live in someplace large for a while. The place was awe-inspiring, old stone walls and soaring bell tower, stained glass windows and a maze of additions added on over decades.

  Tonya noticed a man near the ground, though, just finishing scrubbing the old stone. Faintly, she could still read ‘Monster die!’ The awe faded in the face of mundane hatred, and she turned her eyes back to the car.

  The parking lot filled rapidly, even a half-hour before the service, just as planned. “Don’t be surprised at how many Focuses attend,” Polly had told her. Meaning troops, of course. They needed all the help they could get, and Polly had been politicking with a passion.

  Danny decided at the last minute against dropping Tonya off at the door, reluctant to leave her with just two bodyguards, even for the few minutes it would take him to park. Not surprising, as he didn’t trust the faux bodyguard of hers, Tony. Her big secret.

  After parking, they began the long walk to the church, and on the sidewalk out front, they joined the stream of people heading in. Individuals and families, and behind her, Wendy Mann’s entire household converged on the church en-masse. Ahead of her, the strains of the organ prelude drifted out from the sanctuary. People milled in the narthex and there was the confused bustle of people moving in a hundred different directions. Tonya recognized Gail’s people by the bursting grins they all wore, and guessed Gail was high as a kite with happiness, wherever she and the wedding party were cloistered. Although they weren’t all cloistered, Tonya noted, seeing Beth cornering a Focus she didn’t recognize near the big double doors to the nave. She hoped Gail calmed down enough to allow the minister to keep a straight face through the service.

  Nobody recognized her right off the bat. She knew a few of Wini’s people were around somewhere, helping out, but they weren’t here in the narthex and the other households knew her only by reputation. She guessed she had no more than a couple of minutes of anonymity left, before the show began.

  Delia nudged her, and she turned. Well, Tonya noted, here it was, now. An usher walked her way, recognizing a Focus but not knowing the particulars.

  “Welcome, Focus,” he said with the wide grin of all of Gail’s people. He was an older man with a friendly face. “I’m Manfred Cadriel and Gail Rickenbach is my Focus. We’re delighted to have you here. Can I ask your name?”

  “Thank you very much for the welcome,” she said, politely, knowing her politeness wouldn’t matter. “I’m Tonya Biggioni.”

  The man froze and his face turned pale. “Ah, welcome,” he said, stammering, before pulling himself together. “Would you like to be seated? Or, ah, would you like to stay out here for a while?”

  Wonderful. Tonya listened to the murmur of voices ‘that’s Biggioni’, and ‘no, really, that’s Focus Biggioni’ as the news passed swiftly through the crowd and her people struggled mightily to maintain straight faces.

  “I think I’ll be seated,” Tonya said, and extended her hand. The man extended his elbow for her to take. Slowly. He looked like he expected her to bite him, or to retag him as hers right there on the spot.

  “That is the most ridiculous display I’ve ever seen,” Delia said, as soon as they sat down and the man was safely away. Tonya just smiled and watched around her as people kept coming and coming.

  Every Focus household in the city attended the wedding. In addition, Tonya spotted seven different Focuses from farther afield, and more people from their households. Also, there were normal people from the church, non-Transforms, several older ladies, and a surprisingly large collection of colored families from the neighborhood, lured into the church, Tonya suspected, by the presence of Grace Johnson and her household.

  Outside, Tonya heard a ruckus as some reporters from the Detroit Free Press tried to make their way in, loud and confrontational until a couple of Wini’s people came running to settle the issue. At least those reporters didn’t make their way in, but Tonya spotted others hidden among the bride and groom’s college age friends, taking notes and snapping pictures with professional quality cameras. That lasted until one of the ushers summoned the best man, a young man with a brown beard who seemed to know all the college kids by name. They gave him a hard time, but they quit taking pictures, for at least a little while. She fingered this group as Gail’s journalism friends. Tonya sighed, and attempted to keep out of range of the cameras.

  Sensing a little pressure through the juice link from Delia, Tonya turned to her. Delia stammered an incoherent juice signal back to her, something about checking people out. She recognized someone she hadn’t expected to be here. Tonya checked, and practically had a stroke on the spot.

  The ‘Focus’ who had been chatting up Beth Hargrove, and with a passable imitation of a Focus’s metapresence, sitting just five people down from her in the same pew, was Arm Hancock. Next to her, as one of her bodyguards, was the Crow Gilgamesh. Hancock’s other bodyguards, using the term loosely, consisted of her military number two, Tom, not much disguised at all, and good ol’ secret agent Hank Zielinski, in yet another of his goddamned disguises. Zielinski as a Hell’s Angels style merc? Amazing.

  Hancock gave her a predatory Arm smile. Tonya hadn’t thought Hancock would be here as a weddin
g guest. The whole tableau raised goose bumps up her arms. At least Hancock hadn’t figured out Tonya’s faux bodyguard Tony wasn’t what he seemed to be. That would get ugly fast.

  By the time the service started, nearly 500 people crowded into the church, and people were standing in the back. Despite the crowding, it was a beautiful service in a beautiful old church. Fifteen Focuses attended, not counting Hancock. Beth Hargrove was one of the bridesmaids, and Gail herself was radiant in a gown that must have been a gift from some Transform somewhere, because it would have cost thousands of dollars otherwise. Her people looked like they were about to burst, they were so happy. Tonya sadly remembered her own wedding and the unfulfilled life that followed. She hoped Gail and Van would end up happier with each other. Beside her, Pete and Delia held each other close, and Tonya heard Delia sniffling.

  The soloist was a master, and Tonya wondered how, even with all the households in Detroit, the wedding had found someone so talented to sing. She had a voice of inhuman purity, and the whole church held its breath as the notes soared to the heavens. Tonya shivered when the solo finished, released from the grip of song and falling to earth with a pang of disappointment. Once the song ended, Tonya realized that the singer behind the latticework screen was Wini Adkins, showing off yet another of the inhuman talents possible for a Focus. Tonya wished for a moment that she too could sing like that. But she had never developed her voice, and it sounded ordinary, with only a casual acquaintance with the correct key.

  Nothing went wrong, everything went right, and even though the minister couldn’t keep a smile from his face, the ceremony was still beautiful.

  Chapter 10

  “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”