The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) by Randall Farmer Page B

behind.  When at last Zielinski shuffled in half-asleep, to a withering glare from Carol, Gail stripped off her blouse and lay down on the familiar bed.
    The room was a plain place, just a spare bedroom in the huge hotel that still wasn’t completely full.  Sylvie had set it up with the intent of housing the occasional visitor, but there had been no visitors.  Just Carol and her experiments, and the rare moment for Carol and Gail with no experiments at all.  The room housed an uninspired painting of a couple of ducks that even the previous owners didn’t bother to take with them.  Sylvie’s crew had dropped a double bed here, one of the Wheelhouse’s old beds that the household had carried around uselessly ever since.  The bed sported a deep trough in the center, and anyone who lay on it couldn’t help but roll toward the middle.  There was an old children’s dresser, another hand-me-down, and nothing else.  The room was sterile and passionless, except for the lingering scent of old lust soaked into the walls and bedding, remnant of juice cycles and Carol’s intimate experiments.
    Gilgamesh retreated into a corner, and Gail almost lost track of him.  Zielinski set up his equipment and Van knelt near Gail, notepad in hand.  Carol snuggled up next to Gail, bare skin in contact, such hot, smooth skin.  Gail started playing juice music.
    What she wanted was one last attempt at the Arm juice transfer.  This time she was sure she possessed the correct bit of juice music.
    Her first step was to make the juice buffer accessible.  Gail got the buffer on her second try.  Next, Gail attempted to establish the link between herself, Carol, and the juice buffer.  The flowing juice stroked her mind and tried to seduce her into its pleasure, but Gail did her best to ignore the distraction, and managed to establish the link.  Finally, once all this settled in, she belted out the tricky part of the tune, the juice pattern to move the juice.  The score was an incredibly difficult variation on a simple pattern, a quartet of instrument voices straining her juice music capabilities.  Gail played quickly because the music needed to be quick, and she played as carefully as possible, doing her best to ignore the tingling stimulation of the juice flowing through her.
    Slam!  She hit the opposing wall with a dull thud and sank to the floor, her head spinning from the sudden impact.  Her training took over and she forced herself groggily to her feet.  The juice-stroked pleasure was gone, and for a moment she couldn’t remember what she was doing here.
    “Keep your hands off my juice, Focus,” Carol said, with a predatory snarl.  Before Gail could blink, Carol snagged her clothes and was on her way out the door.
    “Damn,” Gail said, as her memories settled back into place.  Gail had yanked Carol’s juice around so many times in this project that it surprised her to see Carol so horsy about such a simple little mistake.  Gail opened her mouth to make her usual comment about lack of commitment, but bit her tongue before she spoke.  Given Carol’s mood, she would be lucky to escape with her life if she made an angry comment.
    Gilgamesh, fast on his feet, got between Carol and the door before Carol made it out.  Gail’s eyes opened wider than wide.  She had never seen Gilgamesh do anything like this before.
    “Get out of my way, Gilgamesh,” Carol said.  Carol glared at the lot of them, and the itchy cloying feel of Carol’s basement filled the room.  The blood and gore didn’t drip down the walls and across the floor – yet – but suddenly it sure felt that way.  Hungry hyenas crawled around behind Gail; she could practically hear them laughing at her, ready to gnaw the marrow out of her bones.  Gail used one of her simple juice music pieces to steady herself and fight off the madness.
    “Given the process, if she can move the juice one way around your native resistance, she can move the juice the other