The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

muscle.  He came to greet his Focus.
    “Ma’am,” he said, standing straight.  Tonya always
suspected he had the urge to salute.  She nodded back.
    “Can you do me a favor, Shot?” she asked.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Tonya liked Shot.  She liked his competence and his
efficient willingness to do what she asked of him.  She also liked the respect
he gave her for her capabilities as a person, not just as a Focus.  She felt
like he had judged her once, as he judged any superior officer, and that she had
passed.
    Tonya smiled to herself.  It was funny to have one of
her own people judge her on her personal competence in something besides being
a juice jockey and a politician.
    She did like Shot.
    “I’m going to need Johnny today.  Could you get him up
and take him with you?  Get him started on the day?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Shot said, without hesitation.  As he
turned to go wake Johnny, he frowned.  He thought Johnny was a flaming asshole.
    Tonya shared his opinion.  Johnny was a half-competent
crook with an attitude problem, as well as a Transform.  Her job?  Straightening
him out.
    A Focus household wasn’t like the rest of the outside
world.  Too many people lived too close together, with no privacy, always living
inside everyone else’s skin.  Someone who wouldn’t get along made life hell for
everyone else, a hell without any easy escape.  Johnny had no desire to get
along, he refused to do any work to contribute to the household, he harassed
the other people in the household and he refused to obey his Focus.  His
original Focus had tried to reform him, and thought she made progress, until he
started stealing small items from the other members of the household and
selling his loot at pawnshops.  She gave up, pleading for help from the Council.
    Help, alas, named Tonya.  The Focuses called her the
Wicked Witch of the East and told each other stories about the horrors she
perpetrated.  However, when they found themselves with a problem Transform, they
turned to Tonya.  The Council had even made it official, another of the many
responsibilities wearing her down.  Therefore, she taught Johnny a few new
social skills, a long, slow process.  When she finished he would be a
productive, livable member of a household.  The household would be happier. 
Johnny himself would be happier.  Tonya would be happy, too.  Johnny would be
gone.
    She did the adjusting pro bono.  His original Focus had
been too new to cope with him and too poor to pay her fee.  Typical.
     
    Ten minutes later, Johnny staggered up, looking half-awake
and sullen.  He stood just under six feet and lean, in a gangly sort of way. 
He slouched.  Shot stood five feet back with his arms folded.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Johnny forced out.  He had learned a
little courtesy, a hard lesson for him.
    Tonya looked up from the last of her pancakes.
    “You’re going to help serve at my meeting with Focus
Rizzari today,” she told him.  “You’ll be polite and respectful to Focus
Rizzari, serve food and drinks whenever necessary, and stay in the kitchen
until you’re called for.  Delia will be running the kitchen and the cooks as
normal, so you do what she tells you.  Do you understand?”
    Johnny drew a breath to protest the job.  Tonya drew his
juice down in threat, to the thin line between discomfort and pain.  He thought
better of his protest and shut his mouth.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, after a pause.  Tonya let the
juice flow back into him.
    Twenty-eight other Transforms in her household, and
every one of them would treasure this task.  Focus Rizzari wasn’t a Council
member, but she was the Vice President of the Northeast Region, and held in
high esteem by many of the Transforms because of the cause she followed.  More people
transformed every day.  Many feared that soon there would be too many.  Focus
Rizzari was one of the few Focuses willing to work to prepare for that day and
her cause attracted quite a few