Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (42 page)

He kept his delight off his face, but only barely.  He didn’t dare open his mouth to ask a question, because he knew a grin would escape.

Fortunately, other people asked for him.  “What the hell happened?  I thought McIntyre had that place locked up.”  The question came from the agent with the loud voice.  Dr. Zielinski thought his name was Cozart.

“Out the window in the bathroom,” Bates said.  “She knifed McIntyre on the way out.”

“Shit,” somebody murmured.  “He going to live?”

Bates shrugged and his eyes landed on
Dr. Zielinski.  “They’re sure she had help, though.  You don’t know what a lucky son of a bitch you are that you’re here tonight.”

Dr.
Zielinski nodded and let the men continue their chatter.  Some agent in the far corner said, “We’ve only ever lost two damned Arms, and that jackass is responsible for both of them.  You’d think they would finally cut that lunatic loose.”

“He’s got backing,” someone else said.  “They don’t care if he’s…”

She escaped.  Dr. Zielinski still marveled at it.  After all these years, and all those dead Arms, he finally had one who might live.

Dr.
Zielinski turned away from the cluster of men around Bates, so they wouldn’t notice the sudden moisture in his eyes.  He had dedicated his life’s work to saving the Arms.  Sacrificed what appeared to be both his career and his marriage.  He had wounds, nightmares, and a life infested with terrible people.  Yet, right now, it all seemed worth it.

Carol Hancock, his problem child, his temperamental, superstitious, over-sexed housewife, might live.

He laughed to himself, when he thought about what he had been doing this evening.  The Arm and her male counterpart, both finding a way to live and grow up, both surviving what appeared to be certain death sentences.  This was progress, immense progress.  Better, he had found a way to help the Major Transforms cooperate with each other, necessary if the Transform community was to grow and thrive.  Now, if the Major Transforms could just learn to cooperate in a public fashion…

He wondered what they would grow up into.

Tonya Biggioni: November 16, 1966

“…and no, Tonya, you can’t fucking pay me enough, either.”

“What’s this, the Little Red Hen story?” Tonya asked.  So much for Keaton’s recent spate of kindness.  This was unacceptable.  It didn’t help that Focus Shirley Patterson, Tonya’s political backer, had predicted Keaton’s response.  “According to our agreement, I get to help you with this new Arm.  You owe me.”

“Our goddamned agreement was for us to work together to
grab
the next Arm.  What fucking work did you do to help me?  A couple of safe phone calls?  Fuck you, Tonya!  She’s mine, now. 
Mine
!”

Click.

Tonya put the phone down and grimaced.  Keaton could get so touchy about things she considered hers.  Tonya wondered if this was a Keaton personality trait or a characteristic of all Arms.  If extreme possessiveness turned out to be an Arm personality trait, dealing with Arms would be a living nightmare.  “Sorry about the interruption,” Tonya said, after she turned back to the person she had been talking to before the phone call. 

Lori shrugged.  She sat on the other side of Tonya’s desk and sipped on a cup of honeyed tea.  Tonya glanced at Delia, who had drawn waitress duty today, and signaled her to leave the room.  This conversation had to stay secret.  Delia shut the door behind her.

Tonya had called Focus Lori Rizzari down to Philadelphia for a personal debriefing on the now finished Rover affair.  Lori had complained but she had showed up anyway.  Tonya could have done without Lori’s screwy super-athlete bodyguards, but they were part of the package that made up Focus Lori Rizzari and her Cambridge Zoo.  Tonya also could have done without Lori’s shallowly hidden arrogance, her belief that her household was a decade ahead of Tonya’s, and her assumption that anyone who didn’t follow her path was a fool.

“No problem,” Lori said.  She had been in a foul mood to start with, but her mood brightened after she learned what Tonya wanted from her.  “Quite educational, actually, as I’ve never had the chance to deal with any of the Arms.”  Lori paused, and she smiled for a moment.  Her eyes went vacant as the Focus metasensed Tonya’s household.  The pit pat of cold raindrops on Tonya’s office window, along with the gurgling of the old hot water radiator in the corner of the office and the smell of pies baking announced the sudden onset of winter. 

“You sure you want to do this information trade?” Lori asked.  “My information is disturbing.”

“Positive,” Tonya said.  “We may not agree on much at all, but we do share one thing in common: we work with Major Transforms who aren’t Focuses.  Someday, I predict, you’ll end up working with Arms and I’ll end up working with these Crows and Chimeras.”  Tonya smiled.  “As always, none of the information we talk about today leaves this room.”  Meaning Lori couldn’t share the information with the other Focuses.  Tonya wasn’t even going to try to convince Lori not to talk about it to her household leaders.  Lori would tell whomever she chose to in her household, and Tonya couldn’t do a single thing about that.

“How about Dr. Zielinski?” Lori asked.  “Hancock’s escape will land him in trouble on many fronts, and I invited him to join my household as one of my non-Transform adjuncts if things get too hot for him.”

Tonya shrugged.  She had a bad feeling Secret Agent Zielinski knew everything they were going to be discussing anyway.  “Tell him only what you need to.”  Tonya took one of the slices of the meat pie.  Normally, Tonya wouldn’t serve such heavy fare to another Focus, but even though Lori was improbably petite and stood an inch less than five feet tall, the Boston Focus was an athlete and enjoyed such food.  “First, I’d like to learn about your household’s work on the demographics of Transform Sickness.”  Lori raised an eyebrow, surprised about both Tonya’s knowledge of the work and Tonya’s interest. 

Tonya filled Lori in about the reason, the induced transformation she had witnessed back in September.

“We call it the Transform Apocalypse,” Lori said, after Tonya had finished her story.  “If you want, I can forward a couple of technical papers on the subject to you.  After considerable investigation, we concluded the number of induced transformations occurring outside of major transformation events is rising – and the curve is exponential, not linear.  At some point, the number of Transforms will explode, and everyone who isn’t immune to Transform Sickness will be transformed.”

“My God,” Tonya said.  Years ago, Lori had predicted the number of induced transformations would overtake the number of regular transformations, but Tonya hadn’t realized the increase rate of induced transformations was exponential.  “How soon?”

“Unclear.  Our data depends on the growth of infection-based transformations, which makes the numbers a little suspect, but sometime in the mid to late seventies, the number of induced transformations will pass the number of infection-based transformations.  Three years after the induced transformations become dominant, the number of induced transformations will increase by an order of magnitude, and three years later, the curve goes straight up.  Then, everyone who can transform will, or, my guess, the curve is wrong at that point.  We call the point where the number of induced transformations passes the number of infectious transformations the apocalypse point, because the spread of the Transformation Sickness can no longer be stopped, even if the infectious agents are eradicated.
We have no idea how long the transformation apocalypse might last.  In nature, exponential growth curves eventually flatten out, but we don’t possess enough data to give us a feel for when the pure exponential growth curve will begin to flatten.”

“That’s the end of the human race, then,” Tonya said.  Transform women were infertile, or close enough it didn’t matter.  She once worried the induced transformation problem would cause a holocaust endangering the lives of her grandchildren.  Ten years was soon enough to catch Tonya and her children as well.

She hoped to hell Lori was wrong. 

“Not necessarily,” Lori said.  “Enough immunes exist to repopulate.”

“It’s not just the die-off, it’s the fall of civilization that will doom us,” Tonya said.

“I know, even though that’s not science, just hand-waving,” Lori said.  “We need to find a way around all these problems.  I’m positive a solution exists.  That’s what keeps me going.”

“Why?” Tonya asked. 

“I can’t give you any hard science on why I have hope,” Lori said.  “But my household and I, in conjunction with a researcher in Europe, have come up with a hypothesis you need to hear about.  Brace yourself, Tonya.  This is wacky, even for me.”

“Any hope at all is better than no hope,” Tonya said.  Lori began, and spun out a tale of nonsense about myths and recurring episodes of Transform Sickness in the past, and why the established models of the Transformation Sickness didn’t work.  This was the worst bit of Lori-land nonsense Tonya had ever heard, but the fact that Lori didn’t fully accept the story made the hypothesis much more palatable.

“Hopefully, someday, I can come up with some hard proof of the Myth Hypothesis,” Lori said, and Tonya nodded.  Tonya wouldn’t be convinced until she saw the hard proof, as well.  “So, if you’re good with this, we need to plan on how to convince the Council…”

Tonya waved her hand.  “No.  Absolutely not.”

“You’re going to sit still?” Lori’s face turned ashen.  “We have to unite the Focuses in order to fight the apocalypse, Tonya, otherwise we’re all dead!” Tonya shook her head.  “My household even uses some tools to increase household size; the number of Transforms I can support is not due to that pack of lies the stodgy old Focuses force me to tell, and we’ve learned all sorts of tricks: Buddhist meditation, vigorous athletic training, reduction in the frequency of moving juice, vacating the house and letting the Crows at it, but we’re just one household and Tonya, you’ve…”

Far, far into Lori-land.  “The time isn’t right to even contemplate going public.  I wouldn’t keep my political career if I exposed even the tiniest bit of this.”  Lori refused to acknowledge political reality.  Neither of them would be any use to Transform civilization if they were dead!

“Then what’s the use?  Why bother to listen to me, if you don’t believe me!” Lori said, an emotional wail.  She stood and glared at Tonya, her anger palpable enough to fill the air.

Lori was too young and naïve, both as a Focus and as a person; Tonya was old enough to be Lori’s mother.  “We have a decade, and I expect you to
continue
the work you’re doing, even if we can’t mention anything now to the outside world.  I can’t predict when we’re going to get the chance to push any of this, but trust me, I’m certain the time will come.  Not fast enough to please you, but too fast to please me.”  This is what the Canadian letter-writer had meant.  The choice?  To work with the other Major Transforms or not.  To work to survive the ticking demographic bomb or ignore the predicted disaster.  The choice fit, finally, and Tonya understood.  “I’ll handle the Arms, at least for the moment, and you work with the men.  Now,” Tonya said, meeting Lori’s eyes and working her charismatic will on the other Focus, “Sit back down and compose yourself.”  For a moment, Lori didn’t budge.  Tonya realized she had slipped beyond Tonya’s ability to control.  “It’s my turn to give the spiel, and you’re not going to like what I’m going to tell you about the Arms.  About Stacy Keaton.  She has Carol Hancock now, or soon will, for good or for ill.”  Tonya hadn’t been able to tell, from the conversation, whether Keaton had grabbed Hancock yet.  “I fear, because of this, none of us can afford to ignore the Arms.”

To Tonya’s surprise, Lori sat of her own choice, when she could have stood and fought Tonya in another of their little contests that Lori never won and only occasionally tied.  A conscious choice Tonya recognized.

Lori had gotten advice from the Canadian as well. 

So Lori got to learn – wide eyed and half terrified – how Keaton was something else entirely, something new.

Epilog

Karen: “How dare you!  A Transform woman!  If you’re going to be deluded, at least make me a Focus in your delusions.” (fluff hair)

Luke:“I know your secrets.  You can’t hide them from me.  Those trips out at night, your strange hours, the knives you carry.  Level with me, Karen.  Please, for the sake of our love and our friendship!”

Karen:(laughter, then spoken in a much deeper voice)  “If that is what you want, then I shall oblige!  You are right – I
am
a Transform.  But I’m no ordinary Transform.  I’m an Arm!”

Luke:
“No!  It can’t be.  No.  I won’t…”

Karen:
(grabs Luke and begins to suck at his neck – then looks up) “It is the last of your many mistakes.”

(Cut to: darkness)

[from “Nights of our Passion” (daytime soap opera premiering January of 1967)]

Carol Hancock: November 15, 1966

“Clumsy idiot,” Keaton said, and took a good look at me.  Once she had driven us away from the rail yard and warehouses, she slowed down.  “Makeup, freshly painted fingernails and toenails?  What the fuck’s going on in your head, Hancock?  You’re an Arm, dammit.  You smell like chocolate éclairs.”

“It was part of my escape,” I said.  I caught her sudden anger, “Ma’am.”

I sat, tense as all get out, and waited for the other shoe to drop.  Nothing.  Keaton drove, the beat-up car rattled and shook, and I slowly calmed down.  She didn’t want to talk to me. 

I studied her, anxious for any sign of what she expected me to do.  Except for the hair and the fake moustache, she looked exactly like Larry Borton.  She hadn’t clouded my mind with her Larry masquerade and her supernatural Arm tricks.  Nope.  All those muscles were real.

Keaton had curly dark brown hair, shoulder length, almost certainly a wig.  Her gaunt face was recognizably female.  Her eyes were blue.  Her skin had the same perfect smoothness mine now had.  Above the neck, she might have even been attractive if she wasn’t so gaunt.

Below the neck?  She wore a sleeveless dress with a matching jacket, and she had taken the jacket off and draped it over the back of the seat.  Underneath her female exterior was Larry’s perfect body-builder body.  Shoulders like footballs, biceps bigger than my calves, forearms a mass of thick cables of muscle, wrists as thick as both of mine put together.  Even her hands were heavy with muscles.  The muscles continued from her shoulders under the narrow sleeve of her dress and on to her chest.  They bulged out at the top of the dress and sloped up from her shoulders to her neck.  Below her dress, I made out her massive thighs, calves, and hamstrings, all larger than most men had. 

Keaton had no layer of fat over her muscles to smooth them out and hide them below her paper-thin layer of skin, giving her the appearance of an anatomy model someone had covered with flesh-colored spray paint.  The fine details of her near shoulder, with its complex network of interconnecting musculature, amazed me.  As Larry, she had taught me the names of those muscles, and on her, I recognized every one of them: the anterior deltoids, the posterior deltoids, the medial deltoids…and the deep gaps between them.  And where each muscle attached to the bone.  And where the biceps and triceps muscles started and terminated.  Her pectoral muscles in her chest bulged, but the gap that ran down the center of her chest was as big as a canyon.

I found it insanely incongruous to see such a male caricature of a body wearing a dress.

She wore my future shape.  If I survived.

As Keaton drove the car, I watched her muscles move.  They flexed and extended, and slid over the bone in a pattern both complex and engrossing.  Helpless and riveted, I studied in horrified fascination.

Keaton noticed my reaction.  I could swear I amused her.

“Ma’am,” I whispered, desirously polite.  “Thank you for coming.”

“You and your friends paid an expensive price to get me here,” she said.  Different voice, harsh, one I hadn’t heard before.  Angry.  “You’re mine, now.  Why?”

“Ma’am, I want you to train me,” I said. 

She growled and tensed.  I hadn’t given her the answer she wanted.  The front seat shrank around me as my stomach clenched in sudden terror.  Keaton was a puma, a tiger, a lioness.

“I can help you,” I said.  “I’ll do whatever you want me to.  You’ll have another Arm…”

She moved her head to the side and back, a tiny motion.  She didn’t want my help
as an Arm
.  Dammit.  I needed her to train me how to hunt, how to prosper as an Arm.  Save my life.  I would do whatever it took to get me that information. 

She hadn’t yet decided to help me.  Hell, she hadn’t yet decided to let me live.

“I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Keaton didn’t respond.  I didn’t understand her silence any more than I understood her question.

“I won’t get involved in anything you don’t want me to, ma’am.  I’ll do whatever you want.  Just tell me what you want from me.”

Keaton twirled the steering wheel of the car with one finger and whipped us around a corner.  She didn’t respond, and more silence commenced, which left me with a very bad feeling I’d failed some sort of test. 

Not a good start.  I had this strange giddy desire to kiss Keaton’s feet and humble myself to her.  Only I was too terrified to move.  Given her reaction to my earlier thanks, I couldn’t risk any such demonstration of gratitude.

“Right now, cunt, I want to know how you escaped,” she said, several blocks later. 

I obeyed without a thought, despite a flinch at the insult.  I told her the story of my escape from the start, where I started to befriend the staff, to the end, where I moved everyone around on my mental chessboard and found a clear path out without having to fight. 

Then I told her about McIntyre’s surprise and the fight I hadn’t expected.  Her anger grew.

“You’re useless!  You’re no Arm,” Keaton said, eyes straight ahead.  “With the FBI gone for the evening, you just should have taken my knife, slaughtered them all and fucking walked out.  Without your goddamned parlor tricks.  You should have at least made sure McIntyre was fucking
dead
.”

She turned to me and snarled the last.  I backed away from her, up against the passenger side door, and froze in complete terror. 

She shook her head in disgust and went back to driving.

I hadn’t met any of Keaton’s expectations.  I had bought myself another chance to gain her help and here I went, messing up again.  Despite the work I put into my escape, she would kill me for my stupidity.

Now I understood what her ‘You’re mine.  Why?’ question had been about.  I hadn’t met her expectations when she first offered to help as herself.  “Ma’am, I apologize for not going with you when you had to leave the Detention Center,” I said.  “I was a fool.  You were right.  I’ve learned my lesson.”  Sweat poured out of me in earnest now. 

Keaton didn’t answer.  My apology came too late.

My heart skipped a beat, and another.  Her anger filled the car.  I smelled my death on her.

“How can I make this up to you, ma’am?” I said.  “I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Keaton didn’t answer and I waited, sweaty and terrified.  She didn’t think like me or anyone else I’d ever met.  I didn’t understand her.  After my success in the Detention Center making friends and identifying enemies, I expected I would be able to read her much better than this.  She was an unknown and unknowable abyss, opaque and terrifying.

“Anything?” she asked, her anger no longer palpable.  Keaton licked her lips and gave me a strange hungry sideways stare.  She had made a decision, but for the life of me, I couldn’t tell if she had accepted me.

“Yes, ma’am.  Anything.”  My life as an Arm, my soul, sold to the Antichrist in exchange for survival.  Keaton turned away, a contemptuous dismissal of my secret thoughts.

“Do you have anything you can
do
?  I don’t need someone to organize ladies’ church socials and I certainly don’t need someone to organize fattening cocktail parties for me.”

“I can sew.”  My offer sounded ridiculous, even to me.  “I can cook and clean house.”  That sounded worse.  “Um...”  I tried to think.  She already knew everything I could do.  I was a housewife, dammit.  If my untrained potential as an Arm wasn’t good enough, I had nothing.

“You can cook?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, confident.  I could have cooked everything at that party.  Mine would have been better, too. 

Keaton turned to study me, again.  She stared at me for a long time.  I found it hard to believe she cared whether I could cook or not.  It seemed so small.  Keaton paused for long seconds before she spoke.  “You’ll obey me absolutely, do anything I ask of you.  The only way you get away from me is if I say you’re done, or you die.”  She smiled, and I finally realized she had accepted me.  “I’m going to enjoy hurting you.  You will not complain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.  “Will you teach me to survive, ma’am?”  I would do it all in exchange for the training. 

Keaton studied the traffic ahead and shrugged her shoulders, a small, barely visible, motion.  “I think there’s a decent possibility I can teach you to survive, even for an Arm as pathetic as you are.  My god!  Chocolate éclairs!”

She held my life in her hands.  I wanted to live.  I so badly wanted to live.  I would drown her in chocolate éclairs.

“Ma’am, what is an Arm?  What am I?”  The longer I lived as an Arm, the less I understood.  Keaton knew the answer.  I read the answer in her confidence.

Keaton laughed.  “That’s what you think this is all about, dipshit?  Academic questions even a fool should know to leave to the highbrow types like Zielinski?  I don’t fucking care what an Arm is as long as I can find us a way to survive.”

Her answer to my question, her understanding of the purpose of the Arm: survival.  I didn’t believe her answer, but I didn’t say anything.

Survival. 

And she had said ‘us’.

“Thank you, ma’am.”  I would take survival in a heartbeat.

A quick glare from her pinned me back against the car door again.  After she turned away, my mind went back to work.  Keaton accepted me as a student but she still threatened my life.

To learn to survive as an Arm, I would need to learn to survive Keaton.