Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (33 page)

“I can’t help you if you persist in falling into these delusions, Lori.  Nor am I going to say word one about your delusionary report to the Council.  Believe what you want, just so the Catskills Monster is taken care of one way or another.”

“What I need is help.  Men and women with guns, to serve as a perimeter, and…”

“That’s your problem to solve.  Solve it.  Bye.”

Gilgamesh: November 3, 1966

The automobile-laden freight train slowed as it approached another big city.  Gilgamesh had no idea where he was; he had lost track of his exact location somewhere in Ohio.  His food had run out and twinges of need for dross had him talking to himself again.  Zaltu’s kill spots in Chicago had been too small and too old, and he hadn’t managed to eke out more than a few days’ worth of dross from any of them.  When the train slowed down to a crawl, inside the city, he rolled off onto the gravel siding. 

He stood and examined his surroundings.  The pothole-filled streets nearby crossed the train tracks with at best worn-down warning signs, and the nearby dilapidated buildings reminded hi
m of pictures of 19
th
Century cities. The air was filled with a cold mist and the eastern sky held the hint of morning.  He decided to walk, and as he went, he checked trashcans for edible garbage and ate things he didn’t want to think about.

He got to a main highway ten minutes later and followed the boulevard, warily, as far from the pavement as possible.  Ahead, Gilgamesh saw some newspaper men filling newspaper boxes.  Once they left, he walked up and read the name of the newspaper: The Pittsburgh Post.  He continued to walk, amazed at the lack of dross anywhere in metasense range.

Just after dawn, he found an abandoned factory, and caught some sleep.

He woke up in the afternoon.  The weather had cleared and turned cold.  Gilgamesh decided to go out anyway, despite the fact his jacket wasn’t heavy enough for the weather and might turn some heads.  The cold no longer bothered him; just another street bum, not worth anyone’s attention.  He could swear his beard would be completely gone in another two months.  Reverse puberty?  Surely not.

He crossed the Monongahela, skirted the city center, and headed northeast, away from the dross-desolate area he had been in.  After another two hours, Gilgamesh found himself in an older residential neighborhood, on the other side of a university campus.  Carnegie-Mellon.  Finally he sensed dross, far to the northeast, a couple of sets.  He couldn’t figure out either of them.

Gilgamesh continued on his way.  He metasensed no other Crows, nor any Focuses, although he did metasense several Transforms.  One of the sets of dross he found resolved itself into a conglomeration of several small sources, around a large older source of sludgy ick.  He recognized the pattern as that of a Transform Clinic.  Certainly worth a visit, even though it was within two miles of the other, unknown, dross.

Night fell and Gilgamesh became more careful.  City police wouldn’t be at all tolerant of an unwashed bum like him in any fine neighborhoods.  The Transform Clinic turned out to be located at the edge of a Veterans’ Administration Medical Center, a sprawling expanse of hospitals, doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics.  The other dross source, close now, gave Gilgamesh chills.  The Clinic was an abyss of black sludge, deeper and fouler than anything he had metasensed before.  There were Transforms in it, though he lost track of them if he didn’t pay attention to his metasense.

Gilgamesh had no trouble getting to the edge of the Transform Clinic, where he found two dross patches safely hidden in the parking garage.  The Clinic was a busy place, even at night, but no one noticed him.  He hid himself behind a trashcan in the parking garage and sipped dross.  Neither he nor Migdard had been able to figure out what caused these dross patches, though they had spent many hours whispering theories about them to each other.  Two patches were enough to satisfy him for the day, and he left to seek shelter.  Perhaps find some fresher garbage.

“Young friend, this town is not safe for one like yourself,” a voice whispered, from far too close.

Part 3
What Is An Arm?

“Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Transforms have developed their own terms.  When a Transform is ‘stripped’, their Focus has taken away his juice, often to punish him.  When a Transform is ‘pumped,’
hisFocus has given him extra juice, which he often finds pleasurable.  What a Focus does normally, to keep her Transforms alive is termed ‘moving juice’, which is best done imperceptibly whenever the Focus is close enough to her Transforms.  Despite all these neato terms, the scientists at the CDC expect a cure for the Shakes any day now!” [Teen Glamour, August 1963 issue]

Chapter 8

“The tragic events in Las Vegas have been linked to the escape last year of the rogue woman Transform Stacy Keaton.  This one-woman crime spree has now been linked to forty-two deaths and the theft of just over a million dollars in cash and jewelry.  The FBI has questioned several members of the Transform community and has gotten nowhere.  Several members of Congress are calling for the reintroduction of the Transform Quarantine to prevent such rogue Transforms in the future.” [UPI report on May 12, 1964]

Gilgamesh: November 3, 1966

A Crow whisper!

Gilgamesh panicked, and as a tidal wave of fear flooded into his body, he ran.  The whispered voice had come from his left, across the street and down a walkway to one of the hospital’s emergency exits.  Close.  There hadn’t been a Crow in metasense range before, but now Gilgamesh sensed him.  Gilgamesh turned into the first alley he came to, a delivery driveway for a professional building, and slowed to a stop.

The panic vanished.  Surprised, Gilgamesh flattened against the brick wall of the building, kicking aside a beer bottle in the process.  He wondered if this sudden loss of panic was some sort of attack

Or perhaps he was just a mite too paranoid.  Gilgamesh couldn’t decide.

“I mean no harm,” Gilgamesh said, to be safe.  Hell.  This had to be another of the older Crows, like Echo.

“I know.  Come over here, so we can talk.”  Confused, Gilgamesh wondered if he should run, even though he wasn’t panicked anymore.  He decided against it, despite the strange way the panic had left him.  He didn’t pick up the same feeling of
nasty
from this Crow he had picked up from Echo.  He crossed the deserted road and cautiously entered the narrow walkway.  The alley was a dark place, surrounded by tall hospital walls on three sides.

“My name is Rumor,” the Crow said, once he came in sight of Gilgamesh’s night vision.  Rumor was a tall man, six two or so, athletic, with piercing eyes.  A powerful aura of calmness surrounded him.  He looked out of place among the trash and dirt of the neglected walkway, wearing a trench coat over a businessman’s suit and a fedora on his head.  Old fashioned.  Unlike Gilgamesh in his light jacket, he looked dressed for the cold weather.

“Gilgamesh.”  Gilgamesh came two feet into this other Crow’s crevice and stopped.  The stars twinkled brightly in the clear air above, but their light didn’t make it into this shadowed chasm.

“Ah, yes.  Merlin heard of you through Sinclair.”  Gilgamesh frowned.  He met Sinclair long before he had taken his ‘Gilgamesh’ name.  “How’s life treating you?”

Soft voice, confident.  Rumor was forward for a Crow, Gilgamesh decided.  “I could use a little more dross.”

“I’m on a mission regarding that subject; that’s why I’m so forward for a Crow,” Rumor said.

“You read minds?”  Surely not.

“I read juice, and juice mirrors the emotions.  If you know what to look for.”  That made sense.  ”Unfortunately, I’m not going to answer any of your most pressing questions.  I’m a firm believer in the school of hard knocks.  Each Crow needs to make his own way in the world, discover his own place in our Transform society.  My way is harsh, but Crows are one with nature.  The need for us is not as great as the number of Crows.  No Crow has ever killed another Crow, either.”

Gilgamesh licked his lips and pondered the Rumor’s words.  Rumor was a strange Crow, filled with strange ideas.  Terrible, terrifying ideas.  To such a Crow, Gilgamesh was but a pawn, a flea.

His annoyance at his status didn’t stop him from trying to figure out what was going on.  “Your mission is to warn me against the blot of dross to the southeast,” Gilgamesh said, tilting his head to indicate that direction.

Rumor nodded.  “Sharp as a tack.  You’ll indeed need watching.  I see you didn’t need my warning at all.”

“What caused the blot?”

“A fearsome ancient Focus, one of the first, lives within it.  Several Crows have gone into her black stain over the years.  None has ever returned.  Many find the black stain alluring.  I warn them away.”

Rumor had the pattern of the blot within him, as well.

“You feed on it.”  Gilgamesh certainly had no cause to complain of any other Crow’s choice to take dross from dangerous sources.

“Yes.  There’s enough dross for twenty Crows like myself.”  No other Crows lived here, though. 

“I have no home.  Can you teach me how to take the old Focus’s dross?”

“I could, but I won’t,” Rumor said.  He paced back and forth across the width of the grimy walkway.  The huge weight of dross on him churned, and flickered through a series of half-realized patterns Gilgamesh barely sensed.  Rumor was clearly doing something with dross, well beyond Gilgamesh’s comprehension.  “Come back in three or four years, Gilgamesh.  Then I’ll teach you, if you’re still interested.  Or find another home, and never return.  Either way, this is no place for a young Crow such as you.”

Yes, Gilgamesh realized.  Rumor was right.  Pittsburgh was no place for a young Crow like himself.  “Thank you.  It was nice meeting you,” he said.  “You quieted my panic, didn’t you?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Of course,” Rumor said.  “Anything else wouldn’t have been polite.  We need the panic to flee from the many dangers of our world – Arms, Beast Men, first Focuses, doctors, the more powerful Sports, Monsters, the FBI and local police, withdrawal Psychos, perhaps even the Lost Tribe of Canada or the Purifier of Europe – but it can impede conversation between Crows.”

Gilgamesh nodded; Rumor’s name was no accident.  He turned to make his way out through the dark streets, mind working to remember the many foreign references Rumor had mentioned.  To his surprise, Rumor paced him.  They walked silently, twenty feet from each other, as Gilgamesh headed south again, through the old residential area back toward the river and the freight yard beyond it.  They were approaching the edge of Carnegie-Mellon when Rumor spoke again.

“I do wonder, though, who you ran into who gave you that?”

“Which ‘That?’” Gilgamesh asked back.

“You couldn’t tell what I did?” Rumor asked, and sighed.  “Have you run into any other senior Crows recently?”

Ah.  Confirmation.  Rumor
was
a senior Crow.  “I don’t believe so.  I did run into a Crow by the name of Echo, who chased me out of St. Louis.  He wanted to make sure the Arm held in the St. Louis Detention Center died.”  Echo’s banishment still irritated Gilgamesh.

“He did?  That’s disturbing news,” Rumor said.  “I have a friend who’d like to hear your story.  Thomas the Dreamer.  Would you mind visiting him?”

“Cabin in Maine, right?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Not at the moment.  He’s in Kingston, New York, along the freight line between New York City and Albany.  You show up in Kingston and he or one of the other Crows there will find you.”

“What’re multiple Crows doing in Kingston?” Gilgamesh asked.

No answer.  Rumor was gone.  Gilgamesh continued to walk and didn’t stop until he left town.

It would be nearly half a decade before Gilgamesh had the skills to understand how Rumor had driven him away.

Carol Hancock: November 4, 1966 – November 9, 1966

Doris met my eyes and cleared her throat as she delivered my breakfast to me in my corner of the Detention Center commissary.  I nodded, waited a moment, and ran my fingers under all my dishes.

The note was under my bowl of oatmeal.  Sharp and alert, only three days past my draw, I kept the note in my palm until I got to the weight room.  There, I read and ate the short letter.

Carol

Your sister received your note.  She was not amused.  All is not lost, though, and negotiations are occurring.  Be wary of sudden diarrhea and be prepared. 

Paul Klee

Dr.
Zielinski.  I recognized his pseudonym from the damned art book I had grabbed from him.  He was the only one of my current acquaintances who knew the names of German abstract expressionist artists.  The meaning of the note took a few moments to parse.  My ‘sister’ was Keaton, she didn’t want to help me, but Dr. Zielinski thought he might convince her to change her mind.  Sudden diarrhea – sudden runs?  Be prepared?  Ah.  I shouldn’t escape on my own.  Instead, I should be ready for Keaton.  Assuming Dr. Zielinski convinced her to help.

Which meant I had damned well better be ready to escape when the time came.  I had no idea what Keaton would need me to do, but from what I had seen of her, I needed to be ready for as many contingencies as I could think up. 
Dr. Zielinski had warned me that Keaton would never want to speak to me again, so even though it sounded like Dr. Zielinski might be able to patch things up with her, I doubted the next time we met she would be in a good mood. 

The note was good for my spirits and I spent a bunch of time during my morning exercises smiling about good ol’
Dr. ‘James Bond’ Zielinski.  Where and how had he learned all this crap?  I had a sudden inspiration that not only had he known about the first Focus’s breakout from Quarantine, he had helped.

On other fronts, I decided my self-imposed morning exercises were keeping me from getting worse.  Unfortunately, every time I went through low juice I stopped exercising and the muscle pain got worse.  Each draw took me another step farther down the ladder of destruction.  I hoped Keaton showed up sooner, rather than later.

At lunch, Doris sat down with me to talk.  She wanted to quiz me over the note, which we couldn’t do, not openly. 

Eventually, Doris asked “We know you’ve had such a hard time here recently.  Is there anything special you’d be interested in having us do for you?”

Meaning ‘if you’re going to escape, how can we help?’  I had been waiting for her question, an integral part of my plan.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said.  “It’s the staff who’ve had such a hard time, not me, especially with my growling and snarling at them when times are bad.  I think the staff here deserves a party.”

“A party?” Doris asked.  She peered at me with owl eyes, confused.

“Oh, yes.  I’m your first Arm,” and if they were lucky, their only Arm ever, “and you’ve gotten me through the worst of my transformation.  Handling me has to be rough, hard on morale, and a party would be just the thing to pick things up.  Not only that, it has to be a surprise party, say with one day notice.”

My request was perfectly stupid and female.  No idiot male FBI agent would even bother to transcribe this.

“Oh, I understand,” Doris said, and smiled.  She thought I would use the party as cover for my escape.

“A late afternoon party, so both the day and night shifts can participate,” I said.

She nodded. 

“I even have some menu ideas.”  Doris’s eyes widened as I read off my list from memory, and after the fifth item, Doris began to take notes.  She had no idea how many parties I had planned and hosted in my former life.  What I didn’t know about food wasn’t worth knowing.

I had planned the menu for this party with great care.  The menu had enough sugary sweets and heavy dishes laden with starches to put an entire US Army battalion to sleep. 

“Last, you need some of the special punch you told me your daughter made for her high school graduation,” I finished.  Her daughter had secretly spiked the punch with a quart or two of vodka.

Doris nodded and smiled.

This was going to be fun.

Patrelle’s sadistic tests continued.  The day of the note they had me fight a starving grizzly bear.  With my bare hands.  Me without the least idea about how to fight.  Know what?  I did the same as I did to the dogs.  Then I sent the grizzly after the FBI.  They shot the bear without hesitation.  Later, I realized how stupid I had been, from an SPCA standpoint as well as “don’t reveal your tricks to the enemy”.  Said grizzly bear was the last wild animal I saw at the Detention Center. 

It didn’t seem to bother the staff when I barked at the FBI.  They wanted to do so themselves.

Three days after the grizzly bear test, my captors stuck a short wooden pole in my hands and had me fight a well-padded martial arts master, a Marine.  He beat the crap out of me for two hours, and I carefully didn’t let the rage take me.  Instead, I studied his moves, especially his hands and feet, and carefully didn’t copy them.  I figured that by the end of the fight, I knew enough about this pole fighting business to beat a teenage boy.  If he had asthma.