Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) (35 page)

Gilgamesh shook his head.  He had come here to get away from Arm – Focus politics, and fractious Transforms in general.  His troubles had apparently followed.  “I really can’t say anything, Sinclair.”

“Tell me, if we were to pass some information to Tiamat, do you think she is required to pass the info directly on to Kali, or do you think she can sit on it for her own uses?” Sinclair said.

“I think it depends on the information.”

“So.  In that case, I believe I’m going to give you some information that I would like you to pass on to Tiamat.”

“Is this information she can pass to Kali?  Or are you expecting Tiamat to keep the information secret?”

Sinclair smiled.  “Oh, no.  This is information Kali already knows.  Very well, in fact.  Shadow wants Tiamat to know what Kali is doing.  Every day, hour by hour, every single thing she does.  We’ve got reports on Kali coming in all the time, and we’ll give you a report every day, and you pass it on to her.”

“Who’s this ‘we’?”

Sinclair smiled and didn’t answer.  Gilgamesh shook his head when he worked out the implications.  A few months ago, Shadow sent some of his Crows out on the west coast to spy on Chevalier’s operation, and re-tasking them to follow Kali as well would be easy.  Well, not exactly Shadow’s Crows.  This sounded like the crazy adventurous Crows Sky hung out with…which, not too long ago, would have included Gilgamesh.

“What good will this do?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Maybe nothing.  On the other hand, if Tiamat wants to break with Kali, maybe the information will be of some help.”

“Well, if you want to help her, there is one thing that might help,” Gilgamesh said.  “Tiamat is convinced something in the Crow research notes we passed to Kali triggered her change of plans.  It would help immensely to get ahold of those notes.”

“I’ll get Shadow to cough up another copy,” Sinclair said.  “Also, when you talk to her next, there’s something else Shadow wants you to pass on to her.  Tell her Shadow doesn’t have a position if Kali wants to go after the first Focuses.  We don’t support either of them, and we’ll stay out of the fight.  If Kali goes after the witches, then we’ll support the witches over Kali.  But tell her we’ll support her, Tiamat, over any of the other three.”

“Shadow will support Tiamat?”

“Not if she’s a flunky of Kali, because Shadow won’t support Kali.  Only if she’s working on her own.  Tell her so.”

Damn.  “I’ll tell her.”

Sinclair motioned to Warden Jane.  She stood, went over to a pile of boxes, stacked coats and winter gear, three backpacks and a duffel bag, and picked out a loose-leaf notebook.  “This is what we have on Kali so far.”

Gilgamesh took the notebook from Sinclair.  He didn’t bother to open it, far more interested in who had maneuvered him into this visit.  The Madonna of Montreal?  Shadow?  The Progenitors?  He decided either of the first two could have nudged him here using the pheromone flow, and considered his latter guess much less likely, as he hadn’t seen anything resembling planning from the barely existing ghosts of the past.

“So, I heard Newton’s taken up with Focus Hargrove,” Sinclair said.  Warden Jane giggled and made naughty naughty finger signs at Sinclair.

“Uh huh,” Gilgamesh said.  Gossip.  Someone had maneuvered him all the way out here to
gossip
.  “They’re dating.”

“Dating?”

“Dating.  Beth’s doing all the asking out, though.”

“Beth?”  Sinclair blinked.  “I take it Focus Hargrove is one of those many Focuses you’ve made friends with over the years.”

Gilgamesh nodded.  “Though when I’m not around she doesn’t remember who I am, or that I’m a Crow.  Or didn’t.  With the mess going on, I think she’s given up on making herself forget with her Focus charisma.”

“He hasn’t moved in?”

“I would say he’s about as close to moving in as he’s ever been, which is ‘not’,” Gilgamesh said.  “Nor did Beth invite him to move in.  They’re both terrified of things blowing up in their faces.”

Sinclair shrugged.  “This is the biggest test case of the Cause at the moment.  We’re all watching to see if a normalish Crow like Newton and a normalish Focus like Sparkles can ally.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good test,” Gilgamesh said.  “Newton’s had far too many dealings with Focuses in bad situations, because of our housecleaning work.  There’s nothing testier than a Focus in a dross-clogged household.  The fact that Beth is being reasonable keeps throwing him.  Her problem is the years of ‘Crows are the evil enemy’ crap the first Focuses have been shoving down the throats of the standard Focuses.  I’m hoping the move to Chicago will shake her out of her mental rut.  If not…” Gilgamesh shrugged.

“We’ve got to do better at getting Crows and Focuses together,” Sinclair said.  Gilgamesh nodded and shook his head.  So, Sinclair, where’s your Focus?  “At least we have three working examples, though nobody’s going to call Inferno or Charade ordinary households.”

“Gail and I aren’t there, yet,” Gilgamesh said.  He sighed.  “Household tuning’s got both of us running scared.”  He wondered if Gail knew Focus Ackerman.  It sounded like Flo and Orange Sunshine had made progress on household tuning.  Knowing someone else had succeeded would help.

“I understand,” Sinclair said.  “Sky and Lori practically had to live with them to get the tuning set up properly.”

Or, perhaps not.

Gail Rickenbach: November 9, 1972

“Focus Rizzari!  You made it!” Gail said, as she greeted the intimidating Focus in the Branton foyer.  At least Focus Rizzari wasn’t wearing her black cloak.  Five in the morning, and Rizzari’s people appeared worn and rumpled from driving all night.

Rizzari blinked at the hotel foyer, with its high ceiling and open lobby.  She didn’t say a word, and she didn’t change expression, but she looked.

Heh, Gail thought to herself, pleased by the impressive show of her new home.

“We need to talk.  Privately,” Rizzari said.

“If you’ve followed the politics, then you realize the importance of being able to pass juice to Carol.  Since you’re going to need more training than Carol is able to provide, I moved with my household to Chicago to take over your training,” Rizzari said.  They sat in the living room of Gail’s suite, a respectable place to entertain a high-ranking Focus guest.  Sylvie had appointed Vera Bracken as household decorator after the move, who made Gail’s old furniture vanish, replaced by far more elegant pieces.  No more pine plank and cinderblock bookshelves.

Gail did her best not to give her thoughts away, but her mind whirled anyway.  Politics put Focus Rizzari on the other side of the current conflict.  Gail had her own rather forceful opinions about the importance of her project, but a senior Focus moving her entire household to Chicago to train her was an entirely different thing.

“What kind of training?” Gail said.  She kept hold of her emotions with her charisma.  Although she had won over Rizzari three months ago, enough had changed to make the powerful Focus feel foreign to her again.  Gail didn’t want any repetitions of the Lady Death episodes from the first visit.

Rizzari studied her carefully and then nodded.  A gesture of respect, maybe, for Gail’s control?  Gail couldn’t tell for sure.

“First, Polly’s given permission for me to teach you to draw juice from your buffer.  Afterwards, I’m going to help you with the juice pattern project and anything else that seems necessary.”

Polly?  Focus Keistermann, the president of the Council?  Too many high level Focus politicians realized Gail existed these days.  This wouldn’t help her sleep at night.

The content of Focus Rizzari’s comments disconcerted her as much as the context.  The trick of drawing juice from her own buffer was a critical skill, and one Gail worried about figuring out on her own.  With Rizzari’s instructions, she might learn the trick in a matter of days.

Things sped up again.

Gail nodded.  “I’ll call Dr. Zielinski.  The sooner as he can draw up a Zielinski diagram of the buffer-access juice pattern, the sooner we can get started.”

Lori raised an elegant narrow eyebrow on her severe face.  “Yes, of course.  I’m going to need to see his recent codification developments.  Unfortunately, this isn’t a simple juice pattern.”

Gail nodded.  “Let’s go talk to him.”

Littleside was quiet as they walked toward Zielinski’s office.  The halls were wide, and the antiseptic hospital scents hadn’t yet overcome the construction odors.  The place was beautiful, full of light and shiny new equipment.

“There’s another Focus here,” Focus Rizzari said.

“Already?  Beth must be an early riser.”  Focus Rizzari’s metasense range was longer than hers, but Gail picked out significantly more detail.

“Hargrove?  What’s she doing here?”

“I invited her.  As a friend of mine, she was in as much danger in Detroit as I was, so I talked her into coming here,” Gail said.

“Hmm.”  Rizzari sank back into her unreadable mode, her face utterly blank.  “Who’s the normal with them, and why does she metasense like she’s been sleeping with all the world’s Major Transforms?”

“Van’s sister Daisy,” Gail said.  “She’s here as an informal PhD candidate in Transform biophysics and biomechanics.  She’s a Major Transform groupie, but she’s also quite, um, smart.”

“If she wasn’t Hank wouldn’t let her clean his test tubes, much less study under him.”

They walked into Zielinski’s office, a big, beautiful place filled with dark furniture and heavy medical tomes.  He and Beth sat with their heads together at his worktable, going over a Zielinski diagram.  Daisy ran some sort of test on a portable device, one of four new to the office.  The intense concentration on her face and the manual in her lap meant this was another of Dr. Zielinski’s crash courses.

The mouth-watering odor of warm bread and cinnamon rose from a plate of cinnamon rolls from Beth’s kitchen, and Gail’s stomach rumbled.  She had grabbed a quick breakfast, but it didn’t remotely satisfy in the face of the warm cinnamon rolls that always followed Beth around.

“Knock knock,” Gail said.  Beth and Dr. Zielinski looked up.

“Focus Rizzari?  Neat!” Beth said.  “Now the gang’s all here.”

Rizzari raised an eyebrow.  “She’s helping you?” she said, to Dr. Zielinski.

He nodded.  “Just getting Beth started on the basics.  I’m going to need to incorporate your level one and two training into my program, Lori.  Turns out Beth is catching on to the new method much faster than you did, Gail.”  Gail winced at Zielinski’s casual idiocy.  He must have introduced himself to Beth as himself, instead of his Dr. Smith identity.  Overwork, perhaps?

Nah.  Reading Beth, she realized that Beth knew him from before as Zielinski.  Now that was a story worth extracting.

“What goes into level one and two?” Gail said, grabbing a cinnamon roll from the plate.

“Meditation, acceptance that standard juice moving involves use of juice patterns, and changing your mental image of what you’re doing when you move juice into a juice pattern visualization,” Rizzari said.

“Which meditation form?” Gail asked.  “Guru Gilgamesh showed…”

Focus Rizzari waved her hand and cut her off.  “Focus style meditation.  Compassion and contemplation of the juice buffer.”

Gail sighed.  Yet another Major Transform who didn’t see the benefit of using multiple meditation forms.

Focus Rizzari and Gail sat down on the other side of the table from Dr. Zielinski and Beth.  Focus Rizzari asked Beth to do several simple exercises, and meditated, concentrating on her metasense.  “Some of my level one and two training is redundant.”

“I was afraid of as much,” Dr. Zielinski said.  “Can you give me a hand figuring out which parts are relevant?”

She nodded.

Gail sighed.  “How much am I going to need to go back and relearn?”

“Hopefully, not much,” Rizzari said.  “From what I’ve seen, you’ve picked up most of level one and two capabilities already, the hard way.  Some you picked up by necessity when you devised your ahem secret tricks.  Some I taught you.  Some of the advanced compassion meditation techniques, the ones that Hank here winces at when I mention, are most likely the only ones you’ll need to learn.”

“You’re still convinced that compartmentalization is necessary?” Dr. Zielinski said.

“Absolutely,” Rizzari said.  “Compartmentalization isn’t anything remotely normal, but for a Focus, it’s the only way she can get a grasp on the sheer complexity of juice patterns.  Using your music analogy, Gail, what you’re doing now is playing a single instrument.  Compartmentalization gives you the whole orchestra.”

“Oh ho!” Gail said as she licked her fingers.  “Complexity.  That’s the part I can’t seem to get a handle on, Focus Rizzari.”

“Lori,” Focus Rizzari said.  Neat, Gail thought.  She had been afraid that with Carol breaking off with Lori, they would need to start over in their relationship.

Gail nodded at Lori.  “So what is compartmentalization, anyway?  How long does it take to learn?”

Beth laughed, and pushed the plate of cinnamon rolls over to Gail.  “You’ll need them.  Compartmentalization is how you train your subconscious mind to do juice pattern work on its own, and you do so by learning how to use your household juice buffer as an added part of your mind.  The damned trick took me months to master.  You’ll probably master compartmentalization tomorrow, Gail.”