Dr. Josephs tapped his pen on his notepad. “This Professor Rizzari you mentioned isn’t listed in my Boston College directory.” He said the last with a sneer. Dr. Joseph’s office surrounded him with chilly austerity, the only decorations his diplomas and surgery pictures. All with his face cov...
“The Life of Crows” Carol Hancock: August 15, 1968 – August 18, 1968 I toweled off from my shower, reviewing my latest set of recruits. The Brickman family, I decided, would be perfect fronts for my nascent car dealership project. They owned a cheap dingy thirty parkin...
#4, Chicago, Illinois. Upon arrival, I met a White Female {name redacted} DOB, 02/07/1930. She was crying and had five large cuts on the right side of her face and was bleeding. I immediately requested rescue and an ID-Unit to respond for photos of the injuries. She claimed that a Transform Mo...
“Things got damned interesting again.” – Carol Hancock, the Commander Stasis Undone “I have found six confirmed reports of a Focus gaining extra personal juice in non-stressful situations, for no explainable reason. Why?” – from Arm Haggerty’s Speculative Projects List Carol Hancock (Janua...
Four men rode in the back of the truck with me, laden with weaponry and stinking of fear and aggression. I lay flat on a steel slab, three feet wide, six feet long, and an inch thick, set with heavy rings and with wide holes drilled around the edges. Wide metal bands held me around my chest and...
On the other hand, this little experiment involved the senior Crows as well as the Arms, and it was a good test of the Cause and the Arm-Crow alliance. Guru Arpeggio had been willing to meet Keaton in person, but only on neutral territory, for which my place counted. If one senior Crow could do...
[CDC pamphlet, 1962] Dr. Henry Zielinski: October 24, 1966 Dr. Zielinski wasn’t sure he was interested in establishing a new Focus contact so soon after the debacle with Hancock. His highest priority was the Keaton payment problem, and solving it required a disproportionate number of phone cal...
she told this author. “Lives of the Focuses” Tonya Biggioni Tonya awoke with a start, dream screams echoing in her mind. Before she realized what she was doing, she was out of bed, moving, waking her people up. As she knotted her robe tight, she...
He missed Tiamat, and to be so close but not be able to visit hurt. He tried not to think about his Arm too much, because his memories made him both cranky and sad. All the time he had spent comforting her had grown on him. He just hoped his love for her didn’t mess up his judgment. He worrie...
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The Mighty Heroes Return Triumphant “Never was anything great achieved without danger” – Niccolo Machiavelli Gail Rickenbach: August 18, 1972 “Reach for infinity,” the Madonna signed. “Open yourself up completely.” &...
She had never faked an orgasm with Van before. She wondered if Van knew. It would be like Van not to say anything. Buried in the back of one of the brochures on being a Focus had been an ominous statement that still haunted her, long after she lost the brochure. “One of the side effects of be...
Tonya said. Young Stalker, her current cat, wound his way between Tonya’s feet while she talked on the telephone. She sat in what would eventually be her office, now nothing more than studs and construction materials. Her office currently took up a full suite in the Bridgeport, a turn-of-the-c...
– Charles Lamb Chapter 3 “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – The Buddha Carol Hancock: December 29, 1968 – January 1, 1969 Keaton now lived in a two-story house on the outskirts of Detroit. Her house and...
She was forty-nine, but she appeared to be nineteen. Her olive complexion was flawless and unlined, framed by a cascade of black curls. She stood lean and tall, with the smooth curves and glowing energy that came from a strong body and excellent health. Her household’s early morning quiet wou...