Free The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Nine by Randall Farmer Page B

had been real, or whether it had been some sort of obscure juice-powered illusion.  Tonya had lost three bodyguards out of the ordeal, men who felt what had happened to her through the juice link.  After the ordeal, they were no longer steady enough to be bodyguards; the first Focuses had kept her bodyguards within range on purpose, to torment them.  The ordeal had left her with nightmares for months, and drove a wedge between her and Polly that still had not fully disappeared, even after all these years.
    Gail still thought the Adkins episode had been wrong.  Tonya had the urge to shake Gail, and scream in her face that she had no right to complain about what she had gone through.  Doing so wouldn’t have been right, though.  Experience did matter, and Gail would get all the experiences she could ever want over the years if she decided to play with the big girls.
    “Ma’am,” a man said, coming up to them.  One of Focus Katie Anderson’s Transforms. Tonya and her people still sat where they had eaten dinner, a large round table they had shared with Judith Stell and her people.  “My Focus, Katie, isn’t feeling so well.  Too much stress from too many Focuses here at the reception.  She would like to postpone the meeting until tomorrow.”  The man eyed her with distaste, the same way you might boggle at some demon from the bowels of hell.
    The meeting was a piece of business both she and Polly were arranging, attempting to figure out how Katie’s household had started making a profit for the first time ever.  Polly suspected something foul was going on.  They planned to sweet talk the information out of Katie with their combined charisma.
    “I understand,” Tonya said.  “Would eight tomorrow morning be fine?”  Her household would have to postpone its trip back to Philly for an hour or two , annoying but not impossible.  “I’ll tell Focus Keistermann.”
    The man nodded, and backed away as swiftly as courtesy permitted.  She wondered which of her many contretemps the man knew her by.  Most likely the Wicked Witch of the East, breaker of recalcitrant Transforms.  Of course, there was always the Arm Flap.  Or possibly the little scene in Houston regarding a gift surplus Transform that bombed onto the national media during her set-to with Hancock.  Hopefully, he wouldn’t remember back when she had found her face on Time Magazine in ’63 for her Monster hunting prowess, or remember the rumors of her role in the subduing of the renegade Focus Martine DeYoung and DeYoung’s people in ’64, in the middle of her not-at-all-public befriending of Stacy Keaton.
    Too much business.  “Look at Wendy’s people,” Tonya said to Delia, pointing.  Several of them were off in the corner, getting serious at the bar.
    “What about them?” Delia said.  In a while, Tonya would get up and mingle, but right now she wanted to continue people-watching.
    “You can get a feel for the household by watching the people,” Tonya said.  “ For instance, Wendy’s household.  They’re new, their Focus has gone the dictator route, and they’re working with an Arm, so they’re all jumpy and walking wounded, and downing large quantities of alcohol.  As with Focus Rickenbach’s household, about a third of her women Transforms are bodyguard trained.”
    Delia nodded.  “All right.”   She paused.  “That’s a bit obvious, now that I think about it.”  Tonya’s lessons were intended to train Delia’s Transform-enhanced senses to picking up more subtleties.
    “ Okay.  Compare them to Grace Johnson’s people.  See how Grace’s people watch everything around them.  The household seems to be functional now, although not exceptional, but something awful happened in the past there, and they still haven’t recovered.”
    Delia frowned.  “All right, there’s something different about her household, but I don’t know if I could have put my finger on the difference.”
    “Look at Wini Adkins