Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (13 page)

Bob metasensed more details than when he
had first arrived in St. Louis.  He followed the bright hum of the juice as it flowed from the women (who all produced a surplus of juice) to the men (who used more than they produced).  The intricate pattern of the juice within the Focus herself and the dimmer juice inside the Transforms was a skeleton that supported it all.  His metasense even caught the precise shape of bodies, almost good enough to recognize faces and expressions.  He followed every breath they took and every move they made.  He metasensed them use the toilet, make love to their spouses…and sometimes make love to people who weren’t their spouses.  He felt uneasy knowing so much about other people. 

He watched. 

His improved metasense also kept track of Tiamat in her solitary glory in the Detention Center.  He was glad they kept Tiamat caged; a couple of days ago she killed a Transform man by taking his juice, in an instant of brutal violence.  The dross had flowed from the victim like blood afterwards.

Bob had never seen someone killed before, not even in the War.  The death of the Transform had been swift and brutal, without hesitation, with no hint of any reservations.

Tiamat was indeed a good name for that one.

What was
wrong
with those people?  Didn’t they have any conception of what they were doing?  Didn’t they realize some monsters were too dangerous to hold?  Hell, had they forgotten the story of King Kong?

Tiamat’s growing inhumanity reminded him of what he was going through as a Crow.  He only used a fraction of the juice Tiamat used, though, making his changes only a dim echo of hers.  He hadn’t run in fear, now used to Tiamat and her blinding metasensed brilliance, so dangerous and so starkly beautiful.  Her radiance held far more allure than Ishtar’s dimmer glow.

Every evening he went out to sip from the deep sea of dross that seeped away from the Detention Center.  It was disconcerting to think of something so wild, so dangerous, as the thing that gave him life.  It was also disconcerting to realize Tiamat lived in a place so foul with sludge dross that it made Ishtar’s old hotel home look new and fresh.  It couldn’t be good for her, either, and he wondered what so much sludge dross and juice was doing to her. 

He doubted he would ever know.

---

Two days later, he gave up on the wretched Ishtar and her flaws.  The dross she and her household produced was too meager to sustain him unless he risked himself to come up right to her house.  The more he metasensed her, the less she seemed a Goddess and more a normal human woman trying to do something too hard for her.

Ishtar’s dross reminded him of yesterday’s oatmeal.  Tiamat’s reminded him of pizza with extra cheese oozing off the crust, topped by far too much red pepper.  An acquired taste, one Bob quickly learned to appreciate.  Tiamat’s dross even seemed more potent than Ishtar’s.

Tiamat now attracted his full attention.  The juice affected Tiamat differently from the way the juice affected him.  He took in so little, so slowly, with no great highs and no great lows.  By extrapolation from the juice’s effect on him, he figured those great highs and lows were enough to drive Tiamat insane.  He sympathized with her, his Goddess of destruction, despite the danger she posed.

After the sun set, he crept out of the burned out restaurant to take his own dross from Tiamat’s sacrificial alter that was the Detention Center.  He crept into the shabby old-industrial part of town south of the city center, a bustling place of warehouses and rail yards during the day, much quieter at night.  Occasionally the smell of roasting hops from one of the beer distilleries on the far side of the old-industrial district would waft over, which Bob found homey.

He sipped from Tiamat’s dross as it imperceptibly oozed to the north, away from the Detention Center.  Like some watery lava, the dross flowed away from the Detention Center along a channel set in foul sludgy dross almost too old to sense.

For several days he had sensed something else in the Detention Center.  The ‘something else’ only appeared at the edges of his metasense and disappeared when he focused his attention on it.  The ‘something else’ bugged him, and he kept trying to get a better look at it.

While he sipped dross, concealed in the comforting shadow of a Burlington Northern boxcar, he let his metasense wander…and there it was again.  He stopped sipping dross and concentrated his metasense on the flickers.

Bob froze in utter terror.  He shrank back in on himself in some instinctive juice-powered reflex, unable to move.

This new thing walked across the Detention Center parking lot, got into a car, drove off toward the inner security gate, and then south through the outer security gate.  Not, thank heavens, toward him.  This new Major Transform wasn’t another Crow or a Focus. 

This
Major Transform had found a way to hide from Bob’s metasense.  Bob hoped he had just done the same, because he
knew
this other creature was a predator, perhaps the predator that preyed on Crows.  He metasensed the predator drive off into the night, eventually out of his range.

Relieved, he could move again.  His first instinct was to run, run and never look back.  Danger!  Yet, the predator showed no sign it had noticed him.  “What’s a predator like that doing at the Detention Center?” Bob asked himself.  “Who did it hunt? 
What
did it hunt?  How often did it hunt?”

The predator felt female to him, and she had a human shape.  Her metasense protection prevented him from metasensing anything more.  She walked around the Detention Center as if she owned the place, which meant the center unknowingly held a viper to its breast, a trouble-maker.  Bob thought, and decided to name the predator ‘Zaltu’, a Goddess of strife. 

He went back to sipping dross.

Tiamat was a predator as well, he decided.  She killed for her juice.  Unlike Zaltu, she wasn’t hidden at all, but her metasense glow was similar, if not the same.  These Major Transforms could exercise and drive cars and such, so they had to be invisible to society.  Evil and dangerous.

He lived well because he lived off Tiamat’s leavings, but she was a clear threat to humanity.  He ought to condemn her completely.  He didn’t.

What did that make him?

The next day Zaltu returned.  Bob found her with little effort, now that he knew how to look.  She still showed no sign she knew he even existed.

He weighed options, and his mouth went dry and his hands shook at the idea of leaving Tiamat’s sea of dross behind.  He decided Tiamat’s dross was worth the risk.

How could he stay, though?  Whenever Zaltu appeared to his metasense, Bob froze in terror, hour after hour, cowering in fear. 

He found it difficult to believe he had found
two
of these predatory women.

“An experienced Crow probably wouldn’t be this stupid,” Bob said to himself.  “But I can’t bear to leave just because of some predator who doesn’t even know I exist.”  He couldn’t give up on this sea of dross…and he
had never liked to be pushed around.

He just hoped a
third
one didn’t show up.

Chapter 3

“Transform Sickness is manifested differently in men than in women and doesn’t appear at all in children.  A person must be past the age of puberty to fall victim to it.  Most victims are between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, and it’s extremely uncommon among the elderly.  Symptoms of the active phase of Transform Sickness may include shaking hands (from whence the common term “the Shakes” derives), high fever, depression and irritability, joint aches, sensitivity to light, and coma.  Ten to fifteen percent of those inflicted with Transform Sickness do not survive the initial active phase of the disease.  Five to ten percent of those who do recover are immune to the chronic phase of Transform Sickness.  Thus, about eighty percent
of those who contract the initial phase of Transform Sickness progress to the chronic phase of Transform Sickness.  A person with the chronic phase of Transform Sickness is commonly known of as a ‘Transform’.” [CDC pamphlet, 1956]

Dr. Henry Zielinski: September 23, 1966

The phone rang. 
Dr. Zielinski lay on the hard hotel bed and massaged his temples, trying to banish his headache.  He thought he had seen everything with Arms, but Hancock took the cake. 

Carol Hancock, supposedly brilliant, educated and refined, a society leader among women, had regressed to about the social and emotional skill level of a four year old.  Even though he treated her with kindness, she still behaved like a superstitious spoiled preschool brat.  Her test results said she had a genius IQ, yet she often sounded and acted borderline retarded.  The worst new Arm he had seen.  No matter what he tried, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.  His leading hypothesis was that she had a new transformation problem, one he hadn’t encountered before.  Perhaps she just didn’t like him and was being uncooperative on purpose, which didn’t feel right.

Whatever the reason, Hancock’s reactions made his project twice as difficult as it should have been at this stage.  Dr. Zielinski sighed and rubbed his temples.  The phone rang for a second time.  He ignored it.

The St. Louis Transform Detention Center could be, for some unknown reason, just a bad place for Transforms.  Focuses complained all the time about certain places ‘going bad’, and although he had never been able to find any physical reason for it, he couldn’t dismiss their complaints.  He looked through the Detention Center records and found several other anomalous reactions.  Nothing similar to Mrs. Hancock’s reaction, though.

The phone rang for a third time.  He sighed and picked it up, hoping it was his wife. 

No such luck.

“Tell me about it,” the beautiful voice on the other side of the phone commanded.  The voice belonged to Focus Tonya Biggioni, his highest ranking contact within the Focus Network.  She was his boss, at least for Transform community issues.  He had many bosses, starting with Dr. Josephs, the head of the Transform Research Department at Harvard Medical, Dr. Jeffers in the Communicable Disease Center, Gauthier with the FBI, and a revolving set of National Science Foundation bean counters.  Biggioni thought she had a stronger claim than the rest.

He didn’t argue her claim.  Biggioni had enough raw power to turn a normal’s bowels to water – and unlike many of the leading Focuses, she was a decent human being.  At least some of the time.  When she remembered.

“If she lasts to her next draw I’ll be surprised, Stalker,” Dr. Zielinski said.  Stalker was the name of the Focus’s cat.  They had used this ruse several times before, a tip off that he thought someone had bugged his phone.  After his conversation with Paul Gauthier, he suspected as much.

“That bad?”

“She took a swing at
me
, even before her first draw.  She thinks Transforms are an abomination, Transform capabilities are supernatural, and of all things she’s decided she’s become a minion of Satan.”

“I see.” Biggioni paused.  “Someone we know is interested in Hancock.  A certain someone of a similar persuasion that you’ve spent time hanging around with.”

Hanging by one foot, head down over a fifty-foot drop.  Dr. Zielinski broke into a cold sweat at the thought of that person getting personally involved.  She was the proverbial bull in the china shop.

“How interested?  Can she help us with, um, our supply problem?”  Every time Bates found a surplus Clinic Transform, something would go wrong.  Bates blamed bad luck, but
Dr. Zielinski suspected enemy interference.  Figuring out which of the Arms’ enemies to blame for the seeming jinx was beyond his skill level.

The woman on the other end of the phone laughed.  “Your friend is much more likely to swipe your supply out from under your control before you can get it to your new charge, you know.  No, I think she may be interested in trying her hand at training.”

“You’re joking.  Tell me you’re joking.” Dr. Zielinski shivered.  That would be like giving the Easter Bunny to Stalin for training.  No, more like giving John Glenn to Che Guevara.  He had no idea what
she
could turn Hancock into, if Hancock survived.

“No joke.  The Network concurs, as well.”

“The Council?”

Another laugh from Biggioni.  “We’re all a little hesitant, but we’re willing to give this a try.  For the moment.  A vocal minority of Focuses wouldn’t mind at all if your new charge died.”

He was surprised it was still a minority.  “What should I do?”

“This person of similar persuasion will contact you.  I’ve given her your phone number at the hotel.  If she doesn’t contact you and you want to talk to her, use your normal contact methods.” Tonya paused, and
Dr. Zielinski heard her footsteps as she paced around her Focus household in Philadelphia.  “For the moment, I’ve convinced her to be patient, not to go John Wayne on us.  She’s muttering about cost.  I think to get her to do it our way we’re going to have to provide some, um, incentives.”

“Jesus wept.”

“Oh, and Hank…” Tonya paused.  Paper rustled in the background, over the phone.  “I have a list of three St. Louis Focus households that you might want to visit while you’re in the area.  They need reassurance that everything is under control.  You know how it is.”  They feared an Arm going after the Transforms they protected.

The Focuses wanted the Arms on their side.  Or dead.

Focus Biggioni’s request would take him away from his more important work with Hancock.  He sighed, and thought.  Could he afford to annoy Focus Biggioni and say ‘no’?  He didn’t receive any grant money from the Network, but when the Network was active on his side, things seemed to work better, especially when dealing with government or academic bureaucracies.  The Focus Network had friends in high places these days.

He could not afford to say ‘no’ if he wanted his reputation and academic career moving again.

Carol Hancock: September 23, 1966 – September 26, 1966

The bed was a mess.  I found wads of tissues amid the tangled sheets piled on the floor.  I was sweating, wet and sticky.  The room reeked of sex, despite the fact I was alone and my husband nowhere in sight.  I wrapped myself in my robe and went down the hall to the bathroom for a shower.  The robe rubbed against my nipples and my loins still ached with need.  My mind buzzed and an ocean of juice, drowning and loss still buried whatever reason or rationality I once possessed.

The orderly followed me to the bathroom an extra two paces farther back than normal.  I turned to enter the bathroom, showing him my knee and calf, and looked over my shoulder at him with frankly bedroom eyes.  He blushed, I winked.

Somewhere deep inside me some remnant of sanity screamed, a remnant buried deep beneath layers of lust and sensation.  My act was sinful and wrong, but I couldn’t make myself care. 

“I think you should go take your shower, Mrs. Hancock,” Mr. Cook, the orderly, said.  Distant and formal.  I turned away from him and moaned in frustration.  I’d issued many invitations to my little party, but had gotten no takers yet.

Inside the bathroom I fell against the shut door and groaned my frustration.  The morning sun shone brightly through the only unbarred window in this place, a tiny window high above the commode, but it didn’t cheer me.  I took my shower and dreamed about the juice.  In the soapy shower, one of my hands brushed against a nipple and sent fire through my body.  Another touched between my legs.

The shower took a lot longer than usual.  Even after I finished, it wasn’t enough.

---

“So, Carol, tell me what you’re feeling,”
Dr. Bentwyler said.  He had me lying on a couch in Dr. Zielinski’s office.  Across the room, Dr. Zielinski sat in a chair, a notepad on his knee, his camera on the floor beside him.  He had taken several pictures of me, for “immediate post-draw comparisons”, in his words.  I was a bit frisky, and they both had to talk me out of stripping. 

“I’m more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life,” I said, my voice lusty. 

“Yes?”

“It’s like there’s an electric current running through me, lighting me up like a light bulb.  I’m alive, alert, and filled with energy!  So much that it’s impossible to contain and it’s bursting out at the seams.  I can see everything.  I’m aware of everything.  Every nerve in my body is tingling and the juice inside me is like an orgasm that just goes on and on and on.” I smiled an open invitation to the Staff Psychologist and he blushed.

“Did you enjoy taking juice, Carol?” Dr. Bentwyler asked, red-faced. 

The memory of taking juice came back to me again.  I lost myself again in the ecstasy. 

“Carol?”

“Oh, yes.” I breathed.  “Oh, yes.”

“Good,” Dr. Bentwyler said.  “You can expect to feel quite good for the next two days.  This will gradually fade, and you can expect to have about two days of relative normality.  You’ll only gradually go back into the depression and irritability that you’ve been experiencing for the last few days.”

How unfortunate.  “How soon do I get more?” I asked, huskily.

Dr. Zielinski looked up from his notes.  “We’re aiming for every ten days.  This isn’t something we can completely control, as I’m sure you can understand, so your juice draws will sometimes happen sooner and sometimes happen later.”

“Can’t you get me juice any earlier than
ten days
?  What if someone becomes available tomorrow?  We wouldn’t want them to
suffer
, now would we?” I spoke the last with a deep throated whisper, as I rolled on my side and stroked my left ankle along the inside of my right leg.

Dr.
Zielinski shook his head.  “This is a tricky enough legal situation to begin with.  You’ll get another draw when the time’s appropriate.  Not before.”

I sighed a coquettish “Please?”

“No.”

Dr.
Bentwyler took a deep breath.  “I’m sure you can tell that high juice – what you have now – causes an increase in libido.  Your libido is excessively high for your juice count.  I trust you’re attempting to control it as much as you can, but we all understand the power of juice.”

I adjusted my blouse under my ample breasts, making them bounce.  “Your libido will fade over the next couple of days as your juice count goes down,”
Dr. Bentwyler said.

Dr.
Zielinski tapped his foot on the ground.  “I’ve already warned the staff what to expect from you,
and to behave
.”

“Darn it.”

“I hate to mention this, but what form of birth control do you prefer to use, Mrs. Hancock?” Dr. Bentwyler said, deadpan.

“What?” I said, shocked out of my vamping. 

Dr. Bentwyler didn’t respond and waited me out.

“I would never,” I said with a sniff.  “That would be immoral.”

Both doctors raised their eyebrows.  “We don’t know if Arms are as infertile as Focuses,” Dr. Bentwyler said.  “We can’t take any chances.  Some Focuses transform when they’re pregnant, and several of those pregnancies ended in disaster.  You need some form of birth control.”

Hmm.  He expected me to be able to trip someone up.  I sat up on the couch, smiled and stretched.  With an extra little sensuous wiggle.  “Well, okay, how about the Pill?”

“That won’t work because of the vast changes Major Transforms go through,” Dr. Zielinski said.  “I’m going to get you fitted for a diaphragm this afternoon – hmm, no – tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll give you a supply of condoms, in case someone around here…it’s up to you to use them.”

I nodded again, this time more intelligently.  “I understand.” If I was immoral enough to trip up someone besides my husband, I could be immoral enough to use birth control.

“You can control yourself.  Several of the other Arms I worked with learned self-control.  Think of something pleasant, such as art.” He had a book of abstract expressionist art under his camera.  German abstract expressionists, of all things.  The cover was an apocalyptic Kadinsky.

“I’ll do that,” I said, and grabbed his book.  I wasn’t interested, just perverse.

“Good,” Dr. Bentwyler said.  “Do you have any questions about what’s been going on?  I understand how difficult this has been for you.”

I firmly kept my mind on juice.  “Can an Arm be trained to tell the difference between fundamental juice and supplemental juice?  I mean, there are all those stories floating around about Keaton’s wicked supernatural powers.  The stories imply that she trained herself, that Arms can learn new tricks.  Hasn’t anyone tried to teach an Arm to take just supplemental juice?”