No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) (3 page)

Sky

Gilgamesh figured out, a couple of minutes later, ‘Focus Pissed Tuber’ must be the nasty Focus who lived in Pittsburgh.  He paced his apartment and tried to figure out what to do.  He didn’t want to skip out on Carol; his Tiamat had improved, but hadn’t recovered yet, and she still needed him.

Gilgamesh was as juiced up as he had ever been, every last ounce from Arm dross, over eighty percent from spicy Arm dross.  High on juice, he was significantly smarter than normal, his memory better and his ability to understand things while meditating far more extensive than before.

For instance, he now knew somebody who thought of his or herself as a religious icon (or so this person appeared in his meditations) watched over both himself and Tiamat.  He hoped this watcher meant well.

He also realized he couldn’t trust the other Crows.

He felt bad for contemplating holding back information from Shadow.  Because of the evil canker among the leading Crows, he couldn’t take the chance Shadow was
the bad one
.  Often, he feared there might be more than one
bad one
.  Sometimes, when his thoughts turned particularly bleak, he looked at the misery of so many of the Crows he knew and wondered how necessary their misery was.  Again, he had no evidence the misery of so many Crows was intentional on anyone’s part, just a nagging suspicion his nerves wouldn’t let go.

Shadow was his friend, and helped him, and Gilgamesh liked Shadow, but friendship was no guarantee that Shadow’s interests were anything like his own. The only thing he understood, now even more than ever given the official letter he just received, was that Shadow was part of the hidden Crow leadership.  Perhaps Shadow was as wonderful and good-hearted and helpful as he seemed.

Gilgamesh wouldn’t bet his life on it.

He would rather bet his life on the Arms.  Not counting book learning, he had learned more from the Skinner in his short time as her ‘pet’ than he had learned from anyone else, save perhaps Wire.  Assuming the Arms didn’t turn on him, he was safer with them than anywhere else he had ever been.

However, no Crows had been willing to talk to him civilly, face to face, since he left Shadow.  His loneliness weighed him down more as each week passed.

He steadied himself against the kitchen counter, and took some time to call Sky’s phone in Toronto.  Nothing.  He tried Focus Rizzari’s household and the person who answered told him Sky no longer lived there.  He did convince the stern phone lady his call was important enough to transfer, after a five minute wait, to Focus Rizzari’s work phone.

“Yes?”  Pause.  “Gilgamesh, right?  I’ve been waiting for you to call me.”

Here we go again.  “You have?  Uh, I need to talk to Sky, uh, and…”

“You need his advice.  I understand.  Sky warned me that you’re his student, sort of, and would be needing help,” Focus Rizzari said.  She always seemed to live five steps ahead of him.  He couldn’t imagine what she must be like in person.  He suspected he would find out soon: his mission almost required him to interview Focus Rizzari, and the phone wouldn’t give him what he needed.  “He’s not available.  Somehow he blew out his mind in our little, um, mission.  He’s stashed somewhere safe with a talented medical friend of mine, and…”

“You have him with Dr. Zielinski?  I’ve heard nothing but praise about him, and I’m sure the Good Doctor will be able to figure something out.”

Focus Rizzari laughed, perhaps recognizing the Crow’s new name for Zielinski.  “You are a rather feisty Crow, aren’t you?”

“I try.”

More laughter.  “So, I understand it’s not safe for either of us, but perhaps I can help.  I’m frankly so pee owed at the Transform leaders, both Focus and Crow, that I’m no longer interested in following the normal rules.”

“I find myself in much the same pickle,” Gilgamesh said.  “I’ve recently accumulated a large stack of problems.  First off, the senior Crows have given me a crazy mission far too dangerous for a young Crow like myself.  Second, I’m sort of stuck here as an Arm pet of Stacy Keaton, helping her put Carol back together.  Third, I keep seeing things when I meditate and it’s beginning to scare me.”

The sound of a pen clattered on the other end of the line.  Focus Rizzari didn’t respond.

“Focus?”

“With a stack of problems like yours, you’d better call me Lori.  Do you need rescuing?”

“No, no, nothing like that, Lori.  Did Sky ever tell you anything about his Arm captivity?”

“Uh huh.  The Arm who owned him, who he referred to as ‘Arm’, always kept him shackled when it was just the two of them.  Later, when they were part of the Lost Tribe, the hold was emotional.  Threats against his friends.  Neither ever trusted the other.”

“This is more like a common cause thing,” Gilgamesh said.  “With veiled threats and emotional manipulation.  I’m not shackled or otherwise physically restrained.  I swear I’m being out-thought, though, by a master manipulator.”  Which bothered him.  He survived as a Crow by being able to outsmart the opposition.  Not this time.  Not when the Skinner was the opposition.  The damned Arm was good enough to keep him guessing on even such a basic question.

“This sounds like the Keaton I know.  She teaching you anything?”

“Yes, Lori.  Did the two of you hit it off, then?”

“Not even slightly.”  Lori sighed.  “Anything for the Cause, though.  And if you can look past her sadistic psycho tendencies she’s not half bad as a companion.  She’s also a compulsive information trader and she’s real smart, not at all what I expected.”  She paused.  “About your other topics?  Although I check this phone and my office for bugs regularly, neither of those topics is safe to talk about over the phone.  I’ve kicked over too many hornet nests recently to safely speak about such topics, and I suspect you have, too.”

“True,” Gilgamesh said, hearing a familiar code.  Lori worried about the Feds as much as she worried about the senior Focuses.  She was far more active in the outside world than he was.  “I’m just not sure what to do about anything.”

“Crow society is based on favor exchange and implied tests.  I doubt you’ll get anywhere trying to decipher the secret Crow capabilities without personal visits to the senior Crows.  My guess is that any Crow who’d panic at the thought of such a visit isn’t worthy to learn the big secrets.”

Gilgamesh laughed.  “After what Keaton’s put me through, I don’t think panic is going to be anywhere near as much of an issue as it used to be.”  He thought for a moment, realizing what her comment about the senior Crows implied about herself.  “And I accept your invitation to come visit as well, Lori, as soon as I’m free to travel.”

---

“I didn’t do anything,” the Skinner said.  She metasensed as harried, distraught, and angry, a typical Skinner mix of good and bad.  “She was trying to tell me something, right after dinner, and couldn’t even get a word out.  She ran here and collapsed.”

Gilgamesh found Carol curled up on the floor of the garage, clutching like a lover the ratty shit-ruined blanket from her first three days here.  Gilgamesh looked at Carol, and back at the Skinner, who twitched the affirmative.  He went and held Carol.  She broke down in sobs.

She had held it together all day, but without him, the first time she ran into a challenge she broke down.  Gilgamesh sympathized, given the letters in his pockets.  Carol wasn’t Tiamat yet.

Carol grabbed Gilgamesh’s arm and studied its wounds.  “Mine?”

“Yes,” Gilgamesh said.  He had tried to defend himself from her.

Carol wiped her eyes and studied his face.  She slowly raised her hand and touched the shiner around his right eye.  “Mine?”

He nodded.

“Crap.”  She laughed.  “Stupid Carol.”  Gilgamesh’s eyes opened wide, happy.  Down to one or two words, Carol still exercised her wit.

“It was my fault,” the Skinner said, to Tiamat.  “I thought the Crow would make a good bed partner for you.  You weren’t ready.”  Gilgamesh didn’t want to think about the episode in question.  Nope, not at all.  Of all the stressful panicky things that had happened while in the Skinner’s estate, the bed event had been the worst. After the bed fiasco, though, the Skinner had gone so far as to be pleasant, which she needed to be, to talk him down from his hiding place on the mansion’s roof.  He hadn’t realized she had ‘pleasant’ in her.

“Oops,” Carol said.  A hint of a smile crossed her lips.

Keaton rolled her eyes.  “Yah, ‘oops’.  That’ll teach me to over-scheme.  I should leave that to the two of you.”  She looked at Gilgamesh.  “Normally you look better after a few hours away from here.”

He had thought things through and made his decision.  Instead of answering, he handed the Skinner the official letter.  She read it and handed it back to him.

“Those old Crows are just as bad as the old Focuses,” the Skinner said.  She rubbed her temples.  “Motherfucking puppetmasters.  What do you want to do, Gilgamesh?”

“After Carol recovers, I need to do this mission.”

Keaton shook her head.  “I was in withdrawal for two hours under the FBI’s tender care.  I never fully recovered.”  Pause.  “I’m still working on it.  I don’t like those little episodes any more than anyone else does.”

Her psychotic breaks.  He had pushed those out of his mind; even thinking about them brought up the panic.

“So, ma’am, when should I do it?”

“I don’t know yet, kiddo.  However…”  Keaton gave him her damned sardonic grin that meant she was about to verbally sucker punch him again.  “I’ve got my own mission for you, for tomorrow.  You and Hancock are going to visit my West Coast Focus.  She assures me she can help Hancock.  I won’t be there.”

He met the Skinner’s eyes.  Yes.  This was no joke.  This was a test – had he learned enough from the Skinner’s lessons to cope with a Focus?

He worried that even with all his progress, he still hadn’t lived up to the Skinner’s expectations.  Despite the panic inherent in the task, he saw no way to refuse.

Keaton studied him.  “Make that the day after tomorrow.”

“Tell me what to do, ma’am,” he said.

Carol Hancock: April 11, 1968

In the end, we drove with the radio off and Gilgamesh behind the wheel.

We also started with Gilgamesh behind the wheel, the radio playing soft jazz, and me curled up in the back seat, emotionally drained.  The previous day’s exercises and whatever internal healing I still did had dropped my juice count much lower than should be normal for a single day of work.  I also had no sense for my juice count, or even what numbers meant.  I knew a count of 125 meant ‘fun’ and ‘good times’, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what a count of 114 had to do with a count of 125.  Of all my mental problems, this one annoyed me the most.  Anyway, Keaton thought 114 meant I should be doing fine.  I certainly didn’t feel fine.  Gilgamesh said I leaked dross like a sieve whenever I exercised.  He also said my glow was fragile.  I think those two had something to do with each other, but cause and effect had turned into a random function for me.  Now if I only knew what a function was, I would be fine.  The whole damned world had turned into magic.

I started to miss Keaton by the time we got a quarter mile away from her mansion.  A different sort of magic.  At first Gilgamesh’s driving felt fine, until we got on the freeway and headed south.  No longer fine.  The soft music grated on my nerves.  Eventually I gave up on my moping and sat up, too curious.

Gilgamesh drove safely, at the freeway’s minimum speed.  Vehicles zoomed past us, and whenever one pulled in front of us our car pulled back, as if the car itself was afraid.  I breathed down his neck and gave terse one word advice that only made my Crow agitated.  I told him I wanted to drive, probably not clearly, as I conveyed my desires one noun or verb at a time; he ignored me but I kept badgering until he gave in.

My driving was better, save the vehicles around me slowed down and started honking their horns at me.  Gently nudging the other vehicles out of my way also elicited horn honks.  I found a jangly country station I liked and cranked up the radio volume.  Gilgamesh’s hands, already tightly gripped on whatever car surface he found, gripped tighter.  Soon he began to sweat.  Not much later, his eyes closed and he started to moan.  He didn’t start barking at me, though, until after I decided to beep the horn in time with the music.

This ended up with Gilgamesh behind the wheel again.  Somehow, my driving hurt him.  I couldn’t have that, even if I didn’t understand why.  The radio stayed off, though.

He told stories about his life.  I liked his stories.  He appeared worried when I told him to repeat them, though.

Gilgamesh found Focus Lupe Rodriguez’s place soon after sunset in whatever absurdly large city Focus Rodriguez lived in.  The sky didn’t look healthy.  The air was foul to breathe, too.  Also, a whole bunch of cars had decided to occupy the streets for no particular reason and the traffic sucked as well.  Gilgamesh assured me these facts were related, but I was having none of that.

Focus Rodriguez’s place was a dump but fit in with her community, which Gilgamesh named East Los Angeles.  I couldn’t place the town into my mental map, but I provisionally put it next to South Dakota.  It didn’t feel right to put the town east of South Carolina.  The place crawled with anti-war protestors, demonstrations, local toughs wearing brown berets, police, and even one small detachment of National Guard troops.  Something about a Chicano Blowout during my incarceration last month.