All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) (43 page)

Polly’s words didn’t make any sense to him at all.  “Focus Biggioni has talked to us, and made amends.  Can you do the same?”

She looked him over, carefully.  “I have nothing to make amends for.  You consider Focus Rizzari your leader?”

“Among the Focuses, yes.”

“Interesting,” Polly said.  “At worst, I make Focus Rizzari an ally, not a follower.  I’ll just have to gamble on the other issue.”  Focus Keistermann closed her eyes and put her hand on Lori’s blood soaked chest. The juice moved, an insanely intricate and massive dance of juice far beyond what Gilgamesh understood.  Focus Keistermann had used her household juice buffer to power up the most complex juice pattern Gilgamesh had ever seen.

A moment later, Lori opened her eyes and looked around.  “What have you done to me?” she asked.  “Focus Keistermann?  Polly?”  Her voice still burbled with blood from her lungs, but was stronger.

“I’ve given you access to your juice buffer. 
Live.
”

Lori tried to nod and then stopped with a sharp breath as she found the limits of the muscles in her wounded neck.  Gilgamesh noticed her right eye didn’t track.  He couldn’t figure out how Lori’s blood moved, as her heart didn’t beat, though she did breathe again.  “Thank you.”

“Of course, now that I’ve shown you the pattern, I can’t stop you from figuring out how to do it yourself,” Focus Keistermann said.  “A few months of practice should suffice, for someone of your skills.”

“If that.”  Lori couldn’t move her head, just her left eye.  “I’m still in big trouble, Gilgamesh.”  Despite her calm voice, her muscles around her wide eyes were tight with strain.  “One of the bullets went through the back of my head.  I can heal it, but I’ll have to create new brain cells.  I’ve lost a lot of motor cell memories.  I’m going to have to relearn a lot of physical things, like perhaps walking.  You’re going to have to protect me.”

“I will.  I’ll help.”

Lori’s remaining good eye tracked to Polly.  “What’s this tied up in?”

“You can’t teach anyone else this trick without starting an open war against Shirley Patterson.  You will have to publicly proclaim that you’re my follower, my pawn and my apprentice…and give up your Cause.”

“I will never be the pawn of the Council, nor will I ever give up the Cause.  I’m past that.”

“Appearances will have to be deceiving.”  Polly smiled.

“My friends?”

“Can know the truth, but only if they can keep the secret as well.  We’ll all be walking a very thin line.”

“I can agree we’re going to be doing that.”

Crazy Lori.  Crazy Focuses.  His love was clinically dead and still she bargained hard.

Earl Robert Sellers

“What the fuck?” the Duke said.

“Arm Keaton, in a helicopter,” the Earl said.  The hard rain had become a downpour, and turned the battle into a soggy chaotic mess.  The Arm, or someone with her, sprayed heavy gunfire from the helicopter into the real attacking army, now a block away from the wide avenue in front of the hotel parking lot.  The weapons fire from the reception hall rooftop was almost deafening, but they fired into the illusory army, not knowing the difference.  They were going to be low on ammo when the real army arrived.

“Ready yourselves,” the Duke said.  “We’re going after their near flank, as soon as the main group crosses the parking…”

His voice vanished into a yelp, as they all ducked back.  Arm Keaton’s helicopter spun out of control and fell with an explosion, into the parking lot not a hundred yards away from them.  The Earl metasensed the Arm jump free from the chopper, hit the ground with a roll, and sprint off toward a parked van.  Helicopter debris clattered by, ruining cars on the way, and ended up only thirty feet from the Noble group’s outpost at the edge of the reception hall.

“Reposition!” the Duke said, motioning with his larger claw and starting to move.  “Use the burning helicopter as cover.”  He led them around the burning wreckage and motioned for them to halt.  Twenty yards away, Keaton opened up the back of the van, unlimbered some RPGs, and started firing into the real army.  Arm Haggerty came blazing over to Keaton, grabbed a .50 caliber heavy machine gun that no human being should be able to fire without a mount, and began to spray the enemy, firing with one hand and feeding the ammo belt with the other.

Perhaps they did have a chance.  The Arms were far better at combat than Sellers had ever imagined.  He did notice that few of the enemy fell from Haggerty’s machine gun fire.  Dammit, devious Crow tricks still covered the attackers.

The real attacking army, now spread out in an open formation, appeared through the smoke as they crossed the avenue and slowed to a walk as they reached the parking lot.  A car-sized wolf – Enkidu – called out an order, and from the main group, a small group of Hunters and pack Monsters split off, coming their direction.  Toward the smaller ballroom, the one Sellers thought of as the dining hall.  The second flank attack the Commander feared.

Behind them, Sellers metasensed the Commander leap out of the window and make her way toward them.  Master Occum relayed orders via hand signals.  “We’re supposed to attack Enkidu’s small group,” Sellers said.  Windblown rain whipped into his face, the worst of the storm arriving with the Hunters’ main army.

Dimly, Sellers metasensed a third group behind the Hunters’ main army.  They metasensed as weak, untrained, and beastly.  Ancillaries.  Lesser combatants.  Baby Hunters.

The coup-de-grace squad.

The enemy wanted them all dead.

“Then let’s do so,” Duke Hoskins said.  “Charge.”

They charged.

Enkidu, Joshua the red-furred ape, an oversized lizard they had only heard of before, Thunder, and a fourth mature Hunter, a nameless miniature tyrannosaur, and their packs all awaited them.

Carol Hancock

I looked up, woozy, having consumed Gail’s entire juice buffer.  I had used it up healing Gail, plus about twenty points of my own juice.  Inefficient, but I had worked too quickly for efficiency.  My juice count was now down to around 95, but Gail would live.  Right now, she rested in a healing trance even a crazy baby super-Focus should be able to handle.  The screwy hold she put on me had expired when she fell into her healing trance.  I still didn’t have a clue what she had done to me.

I felt like I had gone twenty rounds with Keaton.

The real fight hadn’t started yet; I heard the Terror roars and coughs of the Hunters as they approached the parking lot, taking their time, letting us shoot each other up in here and waste ammo on illusory attackers.  Keaton signaled for me, flares in the air.  I sent my metasense out and saw problems.  Keaton, Sky, Haggerty, Duke Hoskins, Earl Sellers and Count Knox retreated toward the parking lot, four hundred feet out from the ballroom.  They faced the entire enemy army, save for a single Hunter and his pack, who were in the hotel.  The lone Hunter and his pack terrorized their way toward the ballroom, scattering terrified normals.  They would be on the Focus bodyguards’ strongpoint, guarding the only way to the ballroom from the interior of the hotel, in seconds.  The Hunters and their packs trotted forward, along with yet more partly controlled Monsters, juice zombies, and normal soldiers.  They would be
here
, in the ballroom, in less than two minutes.

I needed to be out there fighting, dammit, now that the traitor Focus and her people had fallen.  Otherwise, we would lose.

I also metasensed another Arm in the ballroom with me, over by the former windows.  On Keaton’s territory!  I had to defend it and fight this other Arm!  Wait.  What in the hell was I thinking?  A substantial stack of Monster guns, rocket propelled grenades and appalling .707 caliber sniper rifles lay at her feet.  She picked off targets on the enemy side, an accurate enough shot to take the wings off a fly across the damned parking lot.  I couldn’t fight her now, she was on my side!  Dammit, there were times when I could just spit over these stupid Arm instincts.

I forced myself to stop staring at the other Arm.  She would have to wait until later.  Metasensing around, I found Lori down, in Gilgamesh’s arms.  Something bad had happened to her.  Lori’s injuries sent me into an instant of sheer panic, but I suppressed my panic, too.  No time for emotionalism now, and Lori was more alive than Gail before I started healing her.  Polly stood with Gilgamesh and Lori, guarded by Sinclair and two Transform bodyguards.  My command had fallen apart.

I practically passed out doing my scan.  Not from low juice, not at 95.  I suspected, though, I was drowning in a sea of dross too personal to metasense.  I also had no idea how much juice I had burned while healing Gail.  I had lost count when I passed eight Transforms worth of juice, and I had healed for a long time after that.  What a time to find limits in my ability to use juice.

I didn’t know the status of any of my people.  Tom was out there somewhere, commanding my thuggish recruits and a bunch of Focus bodyguards.  Lori said I should be able to teach myself to metasense my Arm tags at a distance, but damned if I was able to figure out how.  Hank was in here, and I had no idea if he was dead or alive.  If he lived, we would need him later, as a doctor.  If I healed his broken leg.  If we won.

Shadow and Tonya stood at my side, Shadow still hidden, Tonya still holding on to him, on the bare edges of consciousness.  Tonya leaked juice like frozen pipes leaked water.  Must have been an unlucky ricochet, but my metasense didn’t give me any details about her wounds.  When I thought her recovered, I had been sadly mistaken.

My plan was going to fail with my number two Arm, me, so depleted.  I could take out one stupid Hunter without burning, and far too many of the remaining attackers were non-stupid.  If I burned juice, I might be able to take out one of the big ones, but I would be down, nearing withdrawal.  No guarantee I would win, either, down this far on juice.

“Tonya, I’m far enough down on juice that fighting is going to be a problem,” I said.  “Any chance you metasensed what Gail did that allowed her to give me juice?”

She wheezed and gazed at me through half-lidded eyes.  “I’ve got a confession to make, Carol,” she said, her voice a Hollywood special effect.  “I couldn’t even catch what sort of juice pattern she used.  I’m half dead myself.”

Unbelievable.  “She’s a newbie!  How’d she do it?”

“Instincts?  Stress?  I doubt she would be able to duplicate it even if we found a way to rouse her.”

Damnation!  I was Galahad on the quest for the Holy Grail, and all I had been given was a vision of it, to prove its existence and to entice me on.  “Any brilliant ideas?”

Tonya didn’t answer.  I lost her attention for the moment, and she stroked Gail’s unconscious head and muttered comments about how much she owed Gail and how difficult it would be to pay her back.  Twisty bitch.

An older male Transform got my attention.  “Ma’am.  How assured are you that we’re going to die?”

“Die or be taken captive.  Very assured. There are too many of the floss-with-a-chainsaw crowd out there.”  Without my help and my leadership, I gave the defenders no chance for success.  Even with my help and leadership, things didn’t look good.

“We’ve only lost one of us, thanks to you and your friends,” he said.  I followed his gaze to see a dead normal man cradled in the arms of one of Gail’s woman Transforms, a Vera Bracken, if my memory was correct.  “You saved my Focus’s life, ma’am.  Sure would be a bad thing to waste.”

“Scatter,” Shadow said, still invisible, startling the Transform.  No, not just any Transform.  He was the minister who officiated at Gail’s wedding earlier today.  “We must scatter.  Arm Hancock, can you clear us a way out of here?”

I took a close look at Shadow’s worry.  The Hunter who slowly slogged his way through the hotel had just busted through the Focus bodyguard strong point and stomped his way toward the ballroom entrance.  Four of his pack-Monsters still survived, and he was relatively unharmed.  I recognized him now as my old sparring partner Odin, from Chicago.  Would I be able to fight him and win in a close confined space?  Probably.

“Won’t work,” Tonya said, responding to Shadow.  His suggestion pulled her back to effectiveness, but her speech remained slurred.  “As soon as we start scattering, the Hunters will take us individually.”

She was right.  The threat outside was far greater than one Hunter in here.  That’s why Keaton stayed out there in the parking lot, shooting off flares.  The only way out of this mess was for me to get out there and attack.

I shook my head at the minister and Tonya.  “I’ve got to go and do whatever I can do in the parking lot.”  Even if it meant my own death.  “Tonya, you set up an ambush for the Hunter and his pack coming in here through the hotel.  Shadow?  Use your senior Crow tricks and stop that Hunter.”

“Wait!” the older male Transform said.  “Take my juice.”

What?  This was different.  “You’ll die.”

He grabbed my arm.  “I know that.  Others may live.”

“She can’t.  She’ll fall over,” Tonya said, voice reduced to a whisper.

“Not a problem.  I’ve learned to take juice slowly.”  Hope lit the minister’s eyes.  I hadn’t actually lied.  I did do it once, but not very well.  “It’s still fatal.”

“Do it!” he said, pleading.  “You saved Gail’s life.  Her household owes you.”