A Method Truly Sublime (The Commander) (20 page)

The room of unhappy men started arguing as soon as Patrelle finished.  Tonya didn’t say anything.  She just sat back in her chair and observed.

One faction, led by Leeson, the head of Security, believed Hancock too dangerous to keep incarcerated; they wanted to execute Hancock yesterday.  Another faction believed anything they got out of the Arm was worth the grief, even if Hancock manipulated her interrogators.  A third group believed they needed her, but before they would be able to move forward they needed something more than Hancock’s minimal cooperation.  Patrelle and Ellicot of the FBI, part of the third group, in specific wanted more information from Hancock regarding criminal issues, which Tonya translated as ‘more information about Stacy Keaton’.

T
he men argued for almost an hour before they managed to reduce the number of their problems to one: they needed the Arm’s real cooperation, but they didn’t know how to get it.  Tonya listened as they argued, wrestling with her conscience.

If Tonya followed
the spirit of Wini’s orders, she needed to volunteer her expertise and break Hancock for them.  Hancock, broken, would finger Rizzari and Zielinski, and they would catch grief from the Feds.  Their fall wouldn’t be a bad thing, not with Tonya possessing the power to save them and extract favors from them.

Her conscience nagged.  Hancock might be a murderer of innocents, but
her captivity stopped her depredations and satisfied the authorities’ need for justice.  Worse, the thought of breaking another Major Transform, in public, made her feel physically ill.  Worse, Hancock’s coerced answers might even expose Tonya’s dealings with Keaton.

Tonya decided she had little choice in the matter.  She didn’t see any
easy way to dodge her responsibility or her orders.  Offering to help, though, didn’t mean she had to force these men to accept the offer.

When the discussion wound to another halt Tonya tapped on Dr. Ascot’s sleeve and indicated an interest in speaking.  Dr. Ascot turned to whisper to Dr. Jeffers.  Dr. Jeffers shook his head.

Fine.  Tonya shifted her attention to her mental to-do list, working on the details of how she planned on expanding her household’s real estate business.

The mention of her name startled her out of her reverie five minutes later.

“You know, the one thing we haven’t tried is to sic Focus Biggioni at the Arm,” Dr. Jeffers said.  “She told me yesterday that if we put her in charge of getting the Arm’s cooperation, she would win the Arm over.”  Jeffers turned to Tonya.  “Is your offer still open?”

She nodded.  Damn Jeffers. 
He knew she wasn’t a joke.  He was even open minded enough to consider her an asset, at least after all the other assets crapped out.

“Who cares?” Assistant Director Patrelle said.  “This isn’t a job for a political hack.  Focus Biggioni’s just another politician, albeit farther up the sewing circle hierarchy than our previous totally useless Focus advisor.”

She blinked and let a coy, almost flirtatious look settle on her face.  “Focuses do have different specialties.  One of mine is mending recalcitrant Transforms so that they can get along better with their Focuses.  I have enough experience with this to make a difference here.”  She gave Patrelle a smile, a message she knew he would be able to read as ‘this ballbuster breaks men’.  He had impugned her honor.  In her mind, she started to see the psychological resemblance between Patrelle and her newest, Snake.

“I don’t want Hancock mended, Biggioni,” Patrelle said.  His harshness w
on her friends around the table, without her needing to use her Focus charisma.  “I want her broken.  Do you think you can do something like
that
?”

Tonya didn’t answer, indicating the question was beneath her.  Given her
often-proclaimed comments to the Council and to Polly that she did not ‘break’ Transforms, this and Patrelle’s behavior would be perfect cover for her to weasel out of this mess.

Dr. Cooper cleared his throat.  “Assistant Director, you’re insinuating that just because Focus Biggioni’s a woman she couldn’t do anything so harsh.  In that you’re wrong.”  Tonya cleared her own throat, trying to attract Cooper’s attention and charismatically shut him up.  She hadn’t expected any of this group to stick up for her. 
Worse, Dr. Cooper didn’t meet her gaze.  “Her nickname among the Transform community is the Wicked Witch of the East, because of what she does to Transforms.”  Dr. Cooper’s real argument was the opposite of his stated comment: this woman is too powerful and of course you don’t trust powerful women, do you?  Nasty.  His comment elicited the expected male salty laughs.

Perfect. 
Dr. Cooper was one of Flo Ackermann’s contacts, and Flo didn’t want Tonya to break Hancock while the Feds held the Arm, so in a bass-ackwards sort of way they had become allies on this matter.

“Don’t dismiss Focus Biggioni’s talents so quickly,” Richard Bentwyler said.  “As you all know I’ve worked with the Transform community for many years and worked with Hancock in St. Louis before the FBI took over her treatment and hardened the Arm beyond salvation.”  Now someone had to go and ruin the effect.  She caught his gaze
, about to charismatically order him to shut up, when several old facts rattled into place.  St. Louis.  Wini Adkins’ old Transform Detention Center home.  Bentwyler was Adkins’ eyes here and off limits for her manipulation.  Dammit!

“Your point?” Dr. Jeffers said, before Patrelle leap
t down Bentwyler’s throat and cut him a few new orifices from the inside out.

“Breaking this Arm, though not stated
in such a crude manner, is what the Focus Council sent Focus Biggioni here to do,” Bentwyler said.  “Hancock’s a renegade Transform, at least from the point of view of the Transform community.  My backers aren’t at all opposed to the authorities making a lesson out of her.”

Darn it! 
Bentwyler had stated Wini’s position with eloquence.  Tonya couldn’t wiggle out of her assigned tasks now.

Dr. Jeffers turned to Tonya.  “Can you do what Assistant Director Patrelle wants and break Hancock?”

Tonya answered his question with a question.  “Can you verify that the medical data you’ve given me is accurate?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then if you put me in charge, she’ll be completely cooperative by the 25
th
, six days from now.”

“She’ll be needing juice by then,” Dr. Jeffers said.

“Have it ready.”

“Focus Teas was the one…”

“As I said before, different Focuses have different strengths, and different political contacts,” Tonya said, a tiny conspiratorial smile on her face.  Let these fools do the dirty work involved in getting juice for the Arm.  They would need to learn how, if they wanted Hancock usable, long term.  Tonya wasn’t interested in volunteering to do anything outside of the confines of the signed contract.

Dr. Jeffers nodded.  The juice problem was now his to deal with.

“We can’t give you carte blanche, Focus Biggioni,” Patrelle said.

“I’m not going to need to interview Hancock
in person.  Nor am I going to need to move Hancock, interfere with her security, or hinder whatever legal efforts you have going,” she said.  “I’m not going to do anything you haven’t done.  I’m just going to do things
right
.”

Patrelle licked his lips and decided, resigned to what he thought was an unnecessary delay.  He nodded to Dr. Jeffers
, the other person here who had to sign off on the deal.

“So, what is it that you’re suggesting, Focus Biggioni?” Dr. Jeffers
said.

Tonya took a deep breath.  Here we go.  Success or failure.  Choose your poison.  Once in motion, there
would be no way to stop the process.

“Gather round, and I’ll draw
this out for you,” Tonya said.

Chapter 7

The number of actual secondary Monster transformations in 1967 was estimated to be 875.  This number, larger than either the number of surviving male or female Transforms for 1967, is typical percentagewise for all years before the middle 1970s, and was much abused by those members of society who agitated for the termination (judicial execution) of all Transforms.  It is, however, a misnomer.  The first year mortality rate among all Monsters is estimated to be over 95%, most occurring in the first month.

“Understanding Transform Sickness as a Disease”

Carol Hancock: March 19, 1968

The intercom clicked on
a half hour after dinner.

“Carol Hancock?” the intercom voice said.  I recognized
the voice, but not from my incarceration.

“Yes, I’m still here,” I said, sardonic.  Where else would I be?

“I’m Dr. Lewis Jeffers, head of the CDC’s Transform Research Division.”

“I’m honored.”  I was.  Now I knew where I
had heard his voice before: on television, from innumerable appearances on the evening news and Sunday morning pundit shows.  “What can I do for you?”

“Give us your real cooperation,” he said.  Uh oh.  “After reviewing the information we’ve gotten from you, we’ve decided that you’ve been holding back in many of your answers, and in some cases, lying to us. 
Because of this, there’s been a change in plan.  Until you give us your real cooperation, you aren’t going to be getting any juice.  No bargaining, no exceptions. If you do everything we want, you get juice.  If you don’t, you don’t get any juice at all.  Until we judge you ready to cooperate, you’ll be held in isolation.”

Fuck.  My captors us
ed the juice weapon correctly for the first time.  They also made sure I wouldn’t have any personal contact with the interrogator or anyone else.  Either they had found and pinned Zielinski down about how to control me, they had gotten Keaton on retainer, or they had gotten one of the top Focus bitches on retainer.

Given Teas’ departure and Zielinski’s note, possibility three was by far the most likely.

I didn’t dare show my real reaction.  Instead, I laughed. “You’re dreaming.”

“I
see,” Dr. Jeffers said. “Too bad.  I’ll talk to you again, after we’ve determined you’re ready to cooperate.”

I had to say something.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.  I let a big sneering smile cover my face.
“Do you really think you’re going to manipulate me as easily as that?  You’ll get nothing from me if I go into withdrawal.”

“No juice,” Dr. Jeffers said.
“If you want juice, you give us absolutely everything.”

Dr. Jeffers turned off the intercom.

I started to pace.

I had my escape scheduled for two or three days after my second kill.  I would be fully healed then and ready to go.  Nothing too difficult: a simple, straightforward run, powered off a juice burn to let me rip open the outer door of my confinement area.  The inner door I would get past by surprising a guard.  I would bull-rush my way out of the rest of this place.  Exactly half a kill of burn.

I needed th
e second round of juice to complete my healing.

It didn’t look like I
would get it.

I
didn’t cope well with the news.  Without juice, I had no hope for escape.  My predicament ate at my mind.  With each passing hour, it became harder and harder to keep up my good-natured Carol the Cooperative Prisoner false front on.

F
ear they would properly use the juice weapon had haunted me from the start.  Even McIntyre didn’t understood, equating juice to hard drugs.  I didn’t disagree with his assessment – because juice was worse, far worse, than any hard drug.  Now someone who knew the secret had told them how to use the juice weapon correctly.

I needed juice.  I craved th
e juice.  I must have juice.  I asked to speak to Dr. Jeffers and got no response.

Time passed.  Late dinner arrived.  To test my new status I
requested a replacement bra, just to see if they would withhold everything, but they delivered the bra with late dinner.  The kicker?  They slid the dinner under the door, along with instructions on how to knock twice when I finished, so the guards could remotely open the door-bottom slot, allowing me to slide out the remains.  No personal contact.  Someone had realized I had been manipulating everyone in this place and solved that security issue by cutting me off from any and all human contact.

The old deal of food, water and supplies hadn’t lapsed, just the part about juice.  I understood the psychology well: they didn’t want me to have any distractions to keep me from thinking about the juice.

Dr. Jeffers didn’t come back on the intercom in the evening.

“Murderer” the whispering said.  Without distractions, the whispering began to dominate my senses.  About three hours in, I recognized one of the whispering voices as that of my daughter.  I’m afraid I lost it for
a while, a full bore howling psychotic break.

I wasn’t supposed to have psychotic breaks – that was Keaton’s thing.  Eventually, mentally shaken, I went to sleep
, my dreams memory-fueled nightmares all starring Keaton.