Read Online All That We Are (The Commander Book 7) by Randall Farmer - Free Book Online
Authors: Randall Farmer
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protect Lori’s baby. Another piece of her urged her to dissolve in rage and self-pity, remembering her lost chance to see her own newborn grandchild. “She definitely has your nose.”
Lori smiled. She knew the danger involved. How many times could she get away with pulling on Superman’s cape before the first Focuses struck back? Despite the protestations of the Arms and the Crows, Lori wasn’t an inhuman machine. She was a real live Focus, who firmly believed that if any eggs needed to be broken to make the future’s omelet, she would be the first egg. She even had, these days, an all-volunteer household. This made her, in Tonya’s eyes, the quintessential Focus.
“Let’s talk,” Lori said. She led Tonya through the converted mansion, to Lori’s tiny personal room, Cloud on her shoulder blowing sleepy spit-bubbles on Lori’s blouse. There Tonya and Lori talked, not about events and plans, but people. Household members. Focus politics. Tonya understood Lori’s reasons for the private talk, but she couldn’t help but notice the hot stares and the angry thoughts from every Inferno household member who had passed near them on the way there.
“What’s happened to Focus Mansfield?” Lori said. She sat on the tiny bed and rocked Cloud gently. “She’s gone from being the voice of kindness and reason to, well, what appears to me to be the worst of the first Focus mouthpieces on the Council.”
Tonya nodded. She squeezed herself into the chair by the desk, where there wasn’t enough room with the bed pulled down, but Tonya was small. “What happened to her could happen to any of us, if we stick our necks out too far,” she said. “Too many people in her household got exposed as Transforms and lost their jobs. She was forced to skirt the law, and then her illegalities got exposed. To save her household she had to sell her soul to Fingleman.”
Lori winced. “Giving Fingleman two votes in her pocket, then?”
Tonya shook her head. “Based on what I’ve seen from Connie,” Fingleman’s nominal representative on the Council, Connie Webb, “Fingleman doesn’t control her at all.”
“That’s at least something.”
Applause and catcalls echoed in through the closed window at the end of Lori’s room, half covered by the wall unit for the Murphy bed. After asking and gaining nonverbal permission, Tonya edged her way over to the window and peeked through the frosty glass, while Lori changed Cloud’s diaper.
The Arms sparred with two huge men, one with a strange red caste to his skin. All four used knives. Tonya had never seen a fight like this, at this speed, grace or talent level. More, Keaton and Hancock used each other, as props, backstops, and launching pads. As she watched, Keaton picked up Hancock as she came out of a roll after taking a nasty swipe from the faintly red-skinned man, swung her around, then up and over the second man, a twenty foot toss.
“They work together,” Tonya said, in whispered awe of the Arms and their combat. Tonya visualized their combat dance as a cross between ballet and gymnastics, only five times as fast. “Who are those men? They aren’t your Transforms – they move differently.” They didn’t metasense like anything Tonya had ever metasensed before, either.
Lori turned momentarily from Cloud. “The tall skinnier one is Earl Robert Sellers, while the shorter more muscular one is Duke Jeremy Hoskins. Once upon a time, Earl Sellers was the Pepacton Dog, the one you wanted me to kill.”
Tonya’s skin covered in goosebumps. It was one thing to snarl at Crows, but to see two Chimeras in man shape, able to hold their minds together enough to spar with the Arms without dissolving into Beasts, brought the Cause home to her in a way she had never felt before. Real. Realer than real.
And, knowing Lori and her control obsessions, perfectly well timed for Tonya’s viewing from a safe
Lori smiled. She knew the danger involved. How many times could she get away with pulling on Superman’s cape before the first Focuses struck back? Despite the protestations of the Arms and the Crows, Lori wasn’t an inhuman machine. She was a real live Focus, who firmly believed that if any eggs needed to be broken to make the future’s omelet, she would be the first egg. She even had, these days, an all-volunteer household. This made her, in Tonya’s eyes, the quintessential Focus.
“Let’s talk,” Lori said. She led Tonya through the converted mansion, to Lori’s tiny personal room, Cloud on her shoulder blowing sleepy spit-bubbles on Lori’s blouse. There Tonya and Lori talked, not about events and plans, but people. Household members. Focus politics. Tonya understood Lori’s reasons for the private talk, but she couldn’t help but notice the hot stares and the angry thoughts from every Inferno household member who had passed near them on the way there.
“What’s happened to Focus Mansfield?” Lori said. She sat on the tiny bed and rocked Cloud gently. “She’s gone from being the voice of kindness and reason to, well, what appears to me to be the worst of the first Focus mouthpieces on the Council.”
Tonya nodded. She squeezed herself into the chair by the desk, where there wasn’t enough room with the bed pulled down, but Tonya was small. “What happened to her could happen to any of us, if we stick our necks out too far,” she said. “Too many people in her household got exposed as Transforms and lost their jobs. She was forced to skirt the law, and then her illegalities got exposed. To save her household she had to sell her soul to Fingleman.”
Lori winced. “Giving Fingleman two votes in her pocket, then?”
Tonya shook her head. “Based on what I’ve seen from Connie,” Fingleman’s nominal representative on the Council, Connie Webb, “Fingleman doesn’t control her at all.”
“That’s at least something.”
Applause and catcalls echoed in through the closed window at the end of Lori’s room, half covered by the wall unit for the Murphy bed. After asking and gaining nonverbal permission, Tonya edged her way over to the window and peeked through the frosty glass, while Lori changed Cloud’s diaper.
The Arms sparred with two huge men, one with a strange red caste to his skin. All four used knives. Tonya had never seen a fight like this, at this speed, grace or talent level. More, Keaton and Hancock used each other, as props, backstops, and launching pads. As she watched, Keaton picked up Hancock as she came out of a roll after taking a nasty swipe from the faintly red-skinned man, swung her around, then up and over the second man, a twenty foot toss.
“They work together,” Tonya said, in whispered awe of the Arms and their combat. Tonya visualized their combat dance as a cross between ballet and gymnastics, only five times as fast. “Who are those men? They aren’t your Transforms – they move differently.” They didn’t metasense like anything Tonya had ever metasensed before, either.
Lori turned momentarily from Cloud. “The tall skinnier one is Earl Robert Sellers, while the shorter more muscular one is Duke Jeremy Hoskins. Once upon a time, Earl Sellers was the Pepacton Dog, the one you wanted me to kill.”
Tonya’s skin covered in goosebumps. It was one thing to snarl at Crows, but to see two Chimeras in man shape, able to hold their minds together enough to spar with the Arms without dissolving into Beasts, brought the Cause home to her in a way she had never felt before. Real. Realer than real.
And, knowing Lori and her control obsessions, perfectly well timed for Tonya’s viewing from a safe
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