Logistics, that black art, that turns battles into victories or armies into a
starving rabble. Raymond Jones had allocated the four available rooms
between the six people in his group the rooms were purchased with his credit
so it was his decision. Jones elected to share a room with Register. Weed
would share with Jacob Isaac. Gena O'Donald and Jeffery Gould had the
two singles. Jacob was in their "war room" the room that Gena had
originally procured. The room was decorated with an assortment of maps,
white boards and communications equipment. It's centerpiece that night was
the snoring Isaac. Jacob was the only member of the group that had driven
in. He came in, set up all the equipment, made a watch schedule, procured a
load of maps and tour books along with a pizza, ate and fell asleep. He slept
through the news on the TV, the phone conversations and all the other
comings and goings in the room. He did not snore very loudly.
Regulars of the 24th Infantry Division began reinforcing National Guard
units around midnight. Unfortunately riot training for Guard and Regular
Troops had not been a major priority since the early 70s. Troops learned the
hard way while politicians and news commentators pointed fingers and
people were hurt. The publicity around the riot had drawn many on the
political fringe eager to feed on the feast of hate and paranoia. The riot like
the fires fed itself.
Gould was roused from a sound and blessedly horizontal sleep by the phone.
The caller was Agent Stewart. He had arranged to have Gould's people
sworn in and credentialed as deputy federal marshals so they could move
about through the riot area. He also needed them for a 7:00 AM staff
meeting. Gould looked at the digital clocks and the numbers four, five, and
nine slowly registered on his brain as 4:59 AM. It would be his job to rouse
the others.
Gould found his work as an alarm clock partly preempted. An air courier
service had delivered packages to Weed and Jones. Sara Jones had gotten
Ray's new sizes and did some shopping. Her care package for Weed was a
result of raiding Raymond's closet. The courier arrived at five AM. Weed
had proved as adept at sleeping through the noise in the war room as Jacob
had. Jacob had the last shift on the night communications watch and had
been up since four. After a few phone calls between rooms the crew began
preparing for the day. Only Gena was actually awoken by the calls.
Getting ready for another day in Weeds body still had that air of total
wrongness about it. The normally automatic mental list of morning hygiene
operations was filled with edits, erasures and inserts. Gena dwelt on tooth
brushing for three times her normal simply because it was still very
much the same. Other thing she dwelt on because of their novelty, like being
able to target ones piss. Today's greatest aggravation was shaving without
reopening yesterday's cuts. Cash and Ray had other problems each had
discovered a sudden need for a privacy that was beyond one room's
capability to provide. Worse for Ray was the fact that the outfits Sara had
picked out for her looked to good on Holly's body. More than once that
morning Ray dammed his wives flair for fashion. Cash spent a lot of time
hiding in the rest room. He felt so incredibly guilty and embarrassed. He
was turned on looking at Ray. He was turned on looking in the mirror. He
kept thinking where was the line drawn between being a man trapped in a
woman's body and being a horny lesbian. Was there any such line? Then
there was Gena they got along so well.
