A Method Truly Sublime (The Commander) (47 page)

“Suzi
e doesn’t dream,” Polly said. “I can’t say that none of the first Focuses dream.  I do suspect some of the Focuses Suzie controls dream, and some are better than you.”  Which wouldn’t take much.  “The inner circle first Focuses control a lot of other Focuses.  Some of them dream.”

Tonya nodded, her stomach sick.
“Thank you for the warning.”

Polly waved her hand, dismissing
the thanks.

“There’s something you’re going to need to know,” Tonya said, her voice dropping to a whisper.  Polly nodded, quizzical.  “Something I picked up off of Lori, something she certainly didn’t want me to
find out.  Polly, she’s going to rebel.  Formally and soon.  Hancock’s treatment was the last straw.  Like you’ve feared for years, there’s going to be a Rizzari Rebellion, and because of her brilliance, this is going to be a bad one.  I’m afraid we won’t be able to talk her out of rebelling; the only question is whether her rebellion will be media-based, political or military, or some combination of the three.  Worse, right in front of me, Rizzari asked Keaton to join her…and Keaton said yes.”

“
Not good news at all,” Polly said.  “I hoped never to have to push you on this, but I need to hear absolutely everything about what happened in the Arm Flap, every last detail.”

“Congratulations!” Tonya said. “How big is the baby and how are you doing?”

“The baby’s six pounds, eleven ounces, and you should see her.  She’s beautiful!  She’s got this little wrinkly face and her head is pointed, but the doctor says that’s okay and all babies look like that.  She was born at nine o’clock this morning, and I was in labor for eight hours, and it was horrible, at least until they gave me gas, but it was wonderful, too.  I’m fine.  They’re going to let me out of the hospital in a few days.  So when are you coming to visit?  You’ll love her.  She’s wonderful.”

Tonya had taken the call in her office, with the door tightly shut.  Her mouth was dry and she twisted a pencil in her hands.  Around and around.  Around again.

“
I may not be able to visit you for a while, Deborah.  I’ve run into a few snags on my end.”

“Mom?  I thought you wanted to
meet your first grandchild.”  Deborah’s voice acquired an edge.  Suspicion.

“I do.  You don’t know how much I do.”

“So then, what’s the problem?”

“Look, I don’t want to go into details, but
this isn’t a good idea right…”

“You damned well
better
go into details!”

“Deborah, maybe this isn’t a good time…”

“You came into my house.  You told me you wanted to be a good grandmother.  I believed you!  Don’t you dare run away again!”

Tonya snapped the pencil in two with a crack.  “It’s too dangerous,” she said, her voice low.

“What do you mean, dangerous?”

“Dangerous.  I’m sorry.  I’m involved in some pretty dangerous things right now and I don’t want you to get caught up in
my problems.  Some of my competitors would want to hurt you to get to me if they…”

“
Garbage, mother, just another damned excuse for running away again.  ‘Oh, no. I’m just too dangerous for my own children.  For their own good, I have to stay away from them.’  Your excuse is getting old.  You said you were sorry you stayed away the first time and I believed you, but now you want to do the same thing again.”  Deborah’s voice slowly rose as she spoke.  By the end, her throat was so tight she could barely speak.

“Deborah, no!  I’m serious.  There’s real danger.  I don’t want you or your daughter hurt.”

“Garbage, garbage, garbage.”  Deborah’s voice was a whisper and Tonya could hear the tears.  “I believed you and all you do is run away.  You promised me you had come back.  You promised.”

“I’m sorry,” Tonya
said.  “I’m so sorry.”  However, Deborah was gone and Tonya was speaking to a dial tone.

Henry Zielinski:  March 31, 1968

“Jesus, Zielinski, you’ve actually got them talking?” Special Agent Bates
said.  Bates was visiting here to brief Zielinski for an interview on network television that he had arranged, and was shocked to find out about the Crows.

Bates paced Zielinski’s cell, or what was ostensibly his cell. 
The place resembled a one-room apartment more than a traditional prison cell.  Zielinski’s cellmate, Rick Goldstein, laughed from where he sat on his bed.

“You wouldn’t believe
them until you saw them with your own eyes,” Goldstein said.  “Thing is, they only whisper.  They never speak louder than a whisper.”  Goldstein had run afoul of a Federal prosecutor in Kentucky for defending a male Transform up on Federal interstate flight charges.  The prosecutor, one of those who believed Transforms didn’t deserve their day in court, had bent rules, leaned on his IRS cronies, and managed to get Rick charged and convicted on shaky tax evasion charges.

Zielinski nodded.
  He and Tommy sat at the small table.  “It’s a pure information trade, except we also satisfy their urge for dross.  Whatever dross is.  Dammit, Tommy, I’d kill to get a lab in here.  Then I could actually prove my suspicions.”  He had lost a little weight after he left Inferno and quite a lot more hair.  Enough hair to convince him to give up on the comb over.  He now had more bald spot than hair.  Stress wasn’t good for him, not with his half-transformed adrenal gland.

Bates smiled, looked around the
so-called cell, but didn’t laugh.  “Uh, Hank, this is a Federal penitentiary, despite all our little games.  No way can we get you a lab in here.  Hell, with the hammering the Network’s been taking, we’re going to be lucky to keep even this scam going.  Patrelle and his Romanians still want your hide nailed to the wall, if you don’t remember.”

“Oh, I remember,” Zielinski said, deadpan.  “Truthfully, I don’t mind not getting a lab.  I
’m surprised the FBI’s Network members were able to set even this up.”

The original agreement was to surrender into the custody of the Network’s FBI agents, w
ho would detain him indefinitely as a material witness.  The detention was to protect him from everyone who wanted to kill him – meaning he agreed not to fight the indefinite detention and his FBI contacts agreed to use their influence to quash any prosecution aimed at him.

Th
eir agreement hadn’t lasted.  All holy hell had come out of the woodwork after the destruction of the CDC’s Detention Center.  Despite the fact the New York Times article on the Arm flap the day after had only mentioned him by name twice, and only in passing, his name stirred up notice in Virginia, Washington, Boston and – to his utter disbelief – Mississippi, where Federal prosecutors were all now after his hide.  The latter prosecutor, a crony of an old time segregationist named Bull Conner and one of the staunchest of the Romanians among the Feds, had indicted Zielinski and twenty seven others for their alleged misdeeds.

I
nstead of a room in one of the regional FBI offices the Network’s FBI people controlled, he was stuck at the Addi.

For a Federal pen,
the Addi was, well, different.  Not at all what Zielinski expected.

The only good news was
that no one in their right mind in the FBI, from Hoover on down, wanted Zielinski brought to trial.  He knew far too much.  So far the Johnson administration agreed, and discretely interfered with all the prosecutors involved.  Save for the ‘kill all the Transforms’ idiot prosecutor in Mississippi, the indictments would likely all be quickly dropped.  The scuttlebutt around the Addi was that the Mississippi guy would need to be bought off.

This
was only a couple of days of legal trouble.  Zielinski couldn’t predict what the next week would bring.

“So, what information have you managed to dig up?” Bates
said.

“Quite a lot, but all of it basic.”  His new Crow friends had been willing to go on at quite impressive length in their whispered voices when they
talked about dross.  He had learned about gristle and sweet dross and spicy dross, where it all came from and the many differences in flavor.  He hadn’t learned anything about Crow politics.  Every time he tried to talk politics with a Crow, he found himself in a theoretical discussion of Marxist doctrine, or pure Adam Smith doctrine vs. its modern adaptations.  Or government theory as it affected socio-economic development, or differences in feudal systems between medieval Europe and Japan.  Or sports.

When he
finished his report to Tommy, the room grew quiet for a moment.  “In any event, Hank, your four Crows are out of here as of this morning,” Bates said, snuffing out his cigarette.  Unfiltered Camels, which always made Zielinski feel like he was about to break out in hives.  Almost as bad as Muriel Air Tips and Swisher Sweets. “Whoever’s giving them orders or suggestions…”

“Shadow,” Zielinski said, interrupting.  “Their
Guru, although we’re not quite sure what ‘Guru’ means to a Crow.  Teacher.  Inventor.  Famous artist.  Just about anything but ‘master’.”  He paused.  “So Shadow pulled them out after just two days.  Any idea?”

“Uh huh.  New project.  Got a broken Crow for you to fix by the name of Sky, a Crow who apparently went nuts.  Shadow thinks you might be able to save him.  You’ve impressed him.
”  Zielinski suspected Occum’s good word also helped a lot, especially relevant after he learned Occum also looked to Shadow to be his Guru.  “He’s going to cough up something big for the Network.  For this, you might even get a few medical supplies, if…”

“Yes!” Zielinski said, bouncing
out of his chair.  “I need juice count samplers and a juice analyzer.  The TI 1232 would do nicely, or a 1228 if you want to get an outdated version.  I’ll need cleaning equipment, a biopsy needle, a…” Zielinski continued on, requesting an entire catalog of equipment, most of which would never be approved.  All the groundwork he did with Occum had really paid off.

Goldstein laughed.  “Zielinski, you’re just unbelievable.  You’ve got a mob contract out on you paid for by one of the first Focuses.  You’ve got
a juice poisoning problem that could kill you at any time.  Patrelle’s Transform Task Force could kark you at any moment.  You’ve got Federal prosecutors after you just to make a point.  I even know of several former Network contacts who would shoot you on sight for what you do with the Arms.  And despite all that, you still act like you’re the king of the world.”  The lawyer paused.  “And pull all the strings necessary to pull it off.  Simply unbelievable.”

---

The Crow Sky huddled in the corner of the cell, still wearing the straightjacket and shackles a nervous FBI doctor had ordered up.  The Crow was ‘extremely dangerous’, in their opinion.  Zielinski just rolled his eyes and made sure he had a bunch of extra food with him and also made sure he would be left alone.  Warm, freshly cooked food.  He sat down next to Sky and talked to him in a carefully calm, considerate tone of voice.

About twenty minutes later, Sky finally nodded.  “I agree
Doc we can give it a try though this is a very strange method of meditation and I hope you don’t get tired of hearing me talk because once I get started I can barely ever stop.”

Zielinski plucked a key out of his pocket, unshackled Sky, and removed his straightjacket.  He remembered the voice; this Crow had
once been the disguised truck driver who ferried him from Montreal to Boston.  Interesting.

Sky tore into the food
as if he had never seen food before.  After he finished, he knelt in front of Zielinski and concentrated for about a half hour.

Sky looked up when he finished, frowning.  “Doc, I’m not cured I hoped I was cured but I’m not everything’s still going by at a million miles an hour and I can’t stop Doc make me stop.  Can I?”

Zielinski rubbed his chin.  “Hold out your arm.”  Sky did, but his arm shook; he grabbed his right arm with his left arm and steadied it, somewhat.  Zielinski studied the fingers on Sky’s right arm.

“Asymmetric finger muscle spasms.  You’re still technically in juice withdrawal.”  Zielinski had hoped his own personal yet meager supply of dross and the suggested meditation technique would be enough to bring the Crow out.  No luck.

“Withdrawal?  You’re not a Transform Doc you shouldn’t have any dross at all and your dross is strange like it’s watered down and skunky to start with which is impossible as dross only gets skunky after big violent things or lots of time has passed Doc what are you anyway I swear I’ve seen you before.”

Every Crow in the entire country seemed to have their own personal terminology for what they did as Transforms. 
The personal terminology was enough to drive Zielinski buggy.  He suspected a world-view difference lay behind the differences in terminology, as if the world was slightly different to the perceptions of each Crow.  Which made no sense.  The worst he had encountered was Orange Sunshine, who used inappropriate quantum mechanics terminology to explain everything.

“Technically speaking, it’s peri-withdrawal, the edge of withdrawal.  Crows must be relatively tolerant of peri-withdrawal.  Something is draining your juice, but stops when
your juice runs out.”