The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) Read Online Free

the effort would be worth the results: information on older Crow capabilities he wouldn’t have a chance of stopping anyway.
    “Only if you think about stopping them directly.  So don’t.  Stick close to our women Major Transforms.  Use dross constructs to enhance your metasense.  Put up more metasense shielding.  I’ll get more of the local dogs and cats to be watching out for strange things.  Talk our security people into pushing out our defensive perimeter.  Neither of us can do much to protect ourselves against the top Crows, but if we can put up enough chaff to make them think twice, make them think the risk trade-offs are bad, maybe they’ll back off from a direct assault.  They may be ultra-powerful from our point of view, but those old Crows are still Crows.”
    “I can do that.  However, I see one problem.”
    “Yes?”
    “To convince the security people to extend their perimeter would require them to listen to me.  The inter-household tension is bad enough to make my suggestions suspect in their eyes.”  They needed to return to the real issue, the orgy debacle.  “Gail’s people aren’t at all happy about how they and Gail got sucked into Inferno’s activities last night.  They were quite loud about the issue at breakfast this morning.”
    Sky scratched his forehead, and leaned back in his chair to study the ceiling.  “I guess we’re not going to leave well enough alone, I take it?”  Gilgamesh didn’t respond, and after a moment, Sky continued.  “Do you know why Carol decided to stick our households in the same building?”
    “She said that one location was easier to defend than two.  Actually, what she said was two was easier to defend than three.  If feasible, I think we would all be living in Littleside now.  I don’t think she ever gave any thought to the idea that physically combining Focus households might be a problem.”
    “The fact Focuses don’t normally combine households wasn’t clue enough?”
    “We know Focus Patterson does.”
    “But how?  Knowing the psychology of the Firsts, and Patterson’s capabilities, my bet is that she’s got the other Focuses tagged and subordinate.  I can’t see either of our two gracious ladies being willing to be subordinate to the other.”
    “We could get them to tag each other,” Gilgamesh said.  “Mutual tags.”
    “Right,” Sky said.  As if Gilgamesh was being an idiot for making a suggestion like that.
    Gilgamesh shrugged.
    “I’ve heard Lori talk about the dangers and disgust associated with Focus-Focus tags.  Convincing her’s going to be a steep hill to climb.”
    Gilgamesh shrugged again.  “Necessity will outweigh disgust, if we present the case correctly.”
    Sky snorted.  “Consider, my friend, that we don’t have each other tagged.”
    “Crows don’t do that!”
    “Oh, that’s going to be a wonderful argument point, mon frère.”
    Gilgamesh turned away and winced.  He could just hear the argument in his head between the two Focuses: juice experimentation is too risky and might endanger the households, you never know what the juice is going to do, yak yak yak.  He could also hear Carol’s response if they asked the Arm her opinion: no way, never, nuh uh, no new juice crap when we’re all stuck in deep deep shit…
    Yet, Gilgamesh knew of one example where Major Transforms of the same type coexisted within a single household.  He smiled, thinking about it, and Sky returned the smile.  Improbably, two white rats ran up Sky’s leg, leapt on Sky’s sleeve, and studied both of the Crows, noses twitching.  So, Dan Harper’s rats were out again, eh?  They had always seemed to be out whenever he and Sky held one of their tense confrontational conversations back in Inferno’s old Boston home.  However, the ten year old Inferno kid and his rats weren’t Gilgamesh’s problem anymore.
    “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, old friend?” Sky said.
    “Noble households.”
    “Yes.