Chapter 4
“All victims of the chronic phase of Transform Sickness (‘Transforms’) produce a new chemical in their bodies called para-procorticotrophin. This chemical is commonly referred to as ‘juice’. Unfortunately, male Transforms produce too little of it and women Transforms produce too much of it. Luckily, a special type of Transform has been discovered, the Major Transform, who is able to move juice from women Transforms to male Transforms. Without the Major Transform, commonly referred to as a ‘Focus’, male Transforms quickly run out of juice and go into withdrawal and women Transforms quickly accumulate too much juice and become overdosed. Withdrawal is fatal; overdosing transforms a woman into a literal monster. It is the fate of the woman Transform that is the source of the name of the disease. It takes two women Transforms to support one male Transform.” [CDC pamphlet, 1957]
Rover (Interlude)
Rover remembered his mistake. That’s why these creatures hunted him, he was certain of it.
He shouldn’t have made the mistake, but he needed the good loving. He had gone so long without the good loving he had gotten stupid, careless, and heedless of danger.
In the same way he sensed Monsters, he sensed the ones who hunted him from a long way off. Save for one, the ones who hunted him had so little of the good loving in them. The one? The one scared him, a something far more dangerous than a Monster. The something held almost as much of the good loving as a Monster, but if the something wanted to kill him, it would, he knew. He also knew the something was a woman.
Why did he make his first mistake?
He had been stupid from lack of good loving, that’s why. The Monster hadn’t acted like a normal Monster. It hid among a herd of sheep, for one thing. It appeared different from the newspaper pictures of Monsters he remembered – not a snake, a dragon, a wolf or a tiger. A sheep. A sheep with ripping, tearing teeth like his.
He had held back and watched the sheep Monster for days. He had been stupid and he even told himself so at the time. The sheep Monster hid in the herd of sheep, protected by a man, a teenage boy and three dogs. The man and the boy had guns. Rover remembered guns. Guns were dangerous. They could hurt him from far away.
The sheep Monster didn’t eat anywhere near as much food as Rover did. When the man and the kid worked elsewhere, or especially at night when they slept, the sheep Monster hunted rabbits, squirrels, mice, snakes, frogs, anything small and edible. At first, Rover wondered how the sheep Monster had fooled the man and the kid, but then he figured it out. The sheep Monster had eaten one of the sheep and taken its place. The Monster even fooled the sheep dogs.
Rover figured the men who made newspapers didn’t know about such things as the sheep Monster. If they did, it would have made a good story.
He should have run when he figured out the mystery. Heedless of danger, Rover instead plotted the sheep Monster’s demise. He gave in to temptation, attacked at night, but the sheep Monster fought back. The other Monsters he had loved tried to fight back, but this one succeeded. The sheep Monster hurt him. He hurt it back. They made enough noise to attract the man, the kid and the rest of the family. Out came the guns.
That’s where his memory failed him. The next thing he remembered, he was eating. Famished and eating. He had been eating the family. The people. His second mistake.
He still hadn’t gotten over the horror of that discovery.
Now these creatures hunted him, these Monster-like non-Monsters. He knew they weren’t Monsters, because he sensed their shapes, their human shapes, with his extra sense.
They tracked him. He tried all sorts of tricks to lose them. He walked on paved roads through the piney mountains. He doubled back on his trail. He kept to the rocks. He walked in streams.
Still they followed.
He had to leave the area. Leave the big water behind.
That night, he got himself on one of the paved roads and ran. He hid from cars and trucks, instead of chasing them. Eventually, when morning came, Rover found himself far far away from his old territory. He went up into the hills and low mountains in his new territory and cowered. Waited.
He no longer sensed the ones who tracked him.
Now he had to avoid any more mistakes.
Dr. Henry Zielinski: October 7, 1966
Dr. Zielinski stopped in his tracks when he found Tommy Bates huddled up in a corner of the Detention Center’s impromptu gym, by the dumbbell rack, deep in conversation with Larry Borton. He assessed the situation carefully. Tommy’s hand wasn’t on either of the two sidearms he normally carried. Larry’s weapons remained hidden as well. Dr. Zielinski decided it was safe to join them.
The two of them glanced at him quickly as he walked over. Dr. Zielinski noticed a large red mark on Tommy’s pale cheek. Tommy seemed more nervous than normal.
Dr. Zielinski licked his lips. “Do we have a problem?” he asked.
Larry shook his head, but Tommy nodded. “The damn bitch Hancock slapped me,” Tommy said. “For no good reason. Our friend Larry here seems to think this is a positive sign.”
He promised himself to tell Tonya about this one. She would appreciate the story. He hadn’t realized Tommy was in on their little secret. “Hancock is progressing much faster into the second stage of Arm post-transformation adjustment than my only,” clear throat, glare at Larry Borton, “Arm charge who survived to this point.”
“You need to get her out of the Detention Center more often,” Larry said. “The one obstacle course test wasn’t enough. She needs to burn off those bad chemicals her body is producing and she can’t do it penned up in this hellhole.”
“I shot my bolt with the obstacle course idea,” Dr. Zielinski said. “If everything goes according to plan, we can repeat the test at the end of October, for another set of data on the improvement curve, but I can’t think of anything more along the ‘test the Arm to predict Stacy Keaton’s current capabilities’ line that would get her out of the Detention Center.”
Tommy Bates turned a most amazing shade of green.
“I don’t think Focus Biggioni would be amused to hear that one from you, Hank,” Larry Borton said.
“I see you two know each other better than I realized,” Tommy said.
“Ditto,” Dr. Zielinski said. He wished he had his camera with him. This would make the most delicious photo.
“I’ve got an idea along those lines, but my plan might take me a couple of weeks to set up,” Tommy said.
“I’m all ears,” Larry Borton said. Dr. Zielinski glared at Borton and Bates, and Tommy shrugged.
“My plan’s nothing like that. I think I can get Hancock invited to a Monster hunt. There’s a huge ruckus going on about some overly talented Monster in the Catskills,” Tommy said. He relaxed when his comment appeared to reduce the tension. “I’m not sure how long my plan will take to set up, though. I need to convince my superiors that Hancock’s not going to escape, and that’s proving to be a big problem.”
“Escape is the last thing you need to worry about,” Borton said. “You’re supplying her with juice. If you dropped her in the middle of nowhere, she would come back to you voluntarily.”
“Stacy Keaton escaped, and she was being supplied with juice,” Tommy Bates said.
Borton shook his head. “You’d have to talk to her about that in private someday, if you want the real story. Me, personally, I’d rather not be there when you pop that question to her. She’s psychotic, remember? On the other hand, I overheard Special Agent Patrick McIntyre say he broke her out of the FBI’s special Arm prison out of the goodness of his heart.”
“Which is why McIntyre hunts Keaton like a man obsessed?” Tommy said. Borton shrugged.
Dr. Zielinski echoed Borton’s shrug. He ought to be a nervous wreck from a conversation like this, but, truthfully, he enjoyed it. He was good at it and he knew it. “So, Larry, do you know of any additional equipment we can get for
Hancock’s gym to help her with her issues?”
“I have a list,” Borton said. “But it won’t do us any good unless she somehow acquires the motivation to use it.” Borton walked off, leaving Dr. Zielinski shaking his head.
Carol Hancock: October 8, 1966 – October 14, 1966
On Saturday, seven days after my last draw, Mom came by to visit after my afternoon exercise session. She knocked at my door and stuck her head in.
“How are you doing, Carol?”
I shrugged. Down on juice, I was depressed. Not as bad as the last time, and I hadn’t been reduced to begging yet. This time I had escaped into violent fantasies.
“I have some bad news,” Mom said. I looked up and paid attention to her. She had been crying, and she held a manila envelope in her hand.
“What, my euthanization order?” I asked. “How are they going to do it? Firing squad or confinement until I go into withdrawal?”
Mom turned white. “Carol?” She paused. “If this is a bad time, perhaps…”
“It’s always a bad time, Mom. What would make you think there’s ever a good time?”
“You’re not making this any easier,” she said. Sighed. She pulled over a chair, sat down, and handed me the manila envelope. I tore it open, sending papers everywhere and dropping a white letter envelope on my bed. I looked in the envelope and found Bill’s wedding band.
“Give me those,” I said to my mother, as she tried to gather up the spilled papers. I grabbed them from her and read. Divorce papers. I ripped them up and dropped them on the floor.
“Fuck. The bastard bribed my guards. I’d wondered how that twit Artusy managed to get into my room.”
“You did what Bill is accusing you of doing?” Mom asked. She put her shaking hands in her lap, clenched tight together.
“Hell, yes. That was the only sex I’ve had since I became an Arm. The only thing wrong with fucking Artusy was the fact he ran away before I finished. I’d like to break his neck.” Bill, that is, but I didn’t bother explaining.
“What is wrong with you, Carol? You never…”
“Shut up, Mom. You have no idea what things are like in this place or what I’m going through.”
“Well,” she said. Sniffed.
I took my engagement ring and wedding band off. “Here, take the goddamned rings. Bury them with me when they kill me. If I kept them here, one of the nurses would steal them.” I wanted to do more than rip things up. I wanted people to hurt. I wanted payback. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Bill would win if I got angry with him. I couldn’t let him win. I took another deep breath. Better.
I looked Mom over and saw something disturbing. I wasn’t sure how I knew. Something in her fidgeting fingers, the slight furrowing of her brow, perhaps.
“Last visit, huh?” I said. “Is your deceit the price for seeing Billy and Jeffery again?”
“You’re mistaken, Carol. They…”
I had her. I knew her secrets. I couldn’t help but rip them open. “You were always weak. You act like you’re strong, put on a good show, but you always do whatever the last man you talked to asks you to do.” Her face flushed and she backed away from me. “Dad has you marching around with ‘Death to Monsters’ signs, doesn’t he? It didn’t take you long to betray me, did it? I’m surprised you were able to hold out for three weeks.”
“I’m here to comfort you, Carol. You…”
“I’m supposed to cry? Perhaps I don’t feel like crying today. That’s what you trained me to do: cry whenever the going got rough. Some man will always take care of you if you cry, right? How can you stand to see yourself in the mirror?” Mom took the letter envelope with the rings and stood. Her face flushed, she walked to the door, her step a little unsteady.
“Goodbye, Carol.”
Bitch. My own mother was just like the others. I stared at her, imagined slapping her the same way I had slapped Nurse Givens. Mom turned wide-eyed and pale faced, stumbled back across the hall, and ran.
I laughed.
How could everyone betray me so easily?
I opened my Bible, took out Bill’s picture, and ripped it into tiny shreds.
A half hour later, I realized what I’d done and broke down in tears. Only then did I want to apologize. By then it was much too late.
I never saw my mother again.
Once I composed myself, I walked down to Dr. Zielinski’s office, trailing the usual guard, and stuck my head in to see if he was there. He sat at his desk, talking on the phone. I sat. He wasn’t pleased to see me and put the phone down in its cradle. I swore Zielinski spent every spare moment talking on the phone.
Dry eyed, I told him what I had done.
“Doc, is there a medical reason why I’m behaving this way, or am I just losing it?”
“There’s a reason.” He studied me carefully. “Are you interested in learning why?”
I nodded.
“We don’t understand the details behind all your changes in behavior, but we do have some information. Your body is producing testosterone in incredible quantities, as is normal for an Arm. Testosterone is the male hormone we think is linked to aggressive male behavior. We don’t believe the testosterone is the only cause of your behavioral changes, but it’s at least part of it. If a normal woman was producing testosterone in these quantities, she would be shaving twice a day.”
I reflexively rubbed my chin. No stubble at all. “Not Arms,” I said.
He nodded.
“I’m getting dangerous, aren’t I?” Earlier, before I insulted my mother and chased her off, I shoved aside another nurse and hurt one of the orderlies, Mr. Kelsey, after I grabbed his arm and squeezed.
Dr. Zielinski nodded, again.
“You’d better get me a draw immediately, Doc. I need more juice. I don’t want to kill anyone by accident.” On purpose, yes, by accident, no.
“Special Agent Bates is working on the problem. Unfortunately, he’s being interfered with.”
Interfered with? Guess people didn’t like Arms. Not surprising with the damned Antichrist Arm, Keaton, on the loose. Nevertheless, they were the professionals at this, not me. “So?”
“I can’t say any more. Save for your exercise sessions, I think we need to lock you down for your own and our own safety.”
I shrugged. If my rages were due to me being an Arm, they were something I would have to learn to live with. Eventually, I hoped, control.
This reminded me of the promise I made to myself several days ago.
“I apologize for the way I’ve been behaving,” I said. “Perhaps since I now understand what’s happening to me, I can control the rages.” Dr. Zielinski didn’t respond, but kept his face stone blank. No encouragement. He didn’t think it would be easy for me to control my rages.
Of course it wouldn’t be easy. Nothing useful was ever easy.
“So, Dr. Zielinski, what can you tell me about the other Arms you’ve worked with? Did they have the same problems? All these changes I’m going through are difficult to cope with and I do value your experience.”
His stone blank expression stayed unreadable. Perhaps I’d laid it on a bit too thick with that trowel. “I’ve worked with four other Arms after their transformations,” he said. “I can tell you about my experiences, but you may find them disheartening.”
“I coped with the movie of the man in withdrawal. I can cope with your earlier failures as well.”
Dr. Zielinski nodded and leaned forward with his elbows on his desk. “Very well. The first Arm I worked with was Julie Bethune, back in ’61, the second known American Arm transformation. I’d been called in to consult; I had no real power over the situation. The people in charge of the CDC’s Virginia Detention Center were of the opinion that since she was a female Transform, she would eventually start to make her own juice. I predicted otherwise. After she exhausted her initial juice supply, she slipp
ed into withdrawal and went on a psychotic rampage inside the Detention Center. After they managed to restrain her, she died of the wounds she suffered during her rampage.”
I shivered. “Idiots.”
Dr. Zielinski nodded. “The second was Rose Desmond, about a year after Julie. I’d recently been installed as the head of the new Transform Research Department at Harvard Medical.” Whoa! I was impressed. I sat up straighter and paid more attention to his story. I’d had no idea. “I managed to snag Desmond out of a Detention Center and set her up at Harvard. She survived six months, but died in an accident.”
Six months. Hell. I hadn’t survived a month. Six months was a hell of a long time. I hadn’t known any of the deceased Arms had lasted so long. “What sort of accident?”
“Like you, Carol, Desmond was bothered by the morality of her juice draws. She convinced me to try to find a way to save the Transform she was drawing from. Over a six-week period, Desmond found a way to slow down the juice draw from instant to several minutes. The plan was to remove the woman Transform after Desmond had drawn about a quarter of her juice. We tried, but the plan didn’t work. Instead, Desmond snapped and went berserk. The woman Transform went into withdrawal and Desmond didn’t snap back when we returned the Transform to her. She grabbed a guard’s gun and shot up the lab, and in the melee that followed she got shot in the head and died. If it wasn’t for the head shot, I’m convinced Desmond would still be alive today.”
Dr. Zielinski’s mask of indifference broke, and I could tell he was still upset about what had happened. “The idea to remove the Transform was yours?”
He nodded. “Experimentation with Transform Sickness is very dangerous. Anything new we try with any Transforms runs the risk of blowing up in our faces.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “In far too many cases, we don’t have the option to avoid the new.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t kill you, Dr. Zielinski.” Even if Desmond had agreed to the experiment, he was the one who had arranged everything.
“She tried and damned near succeeded.”
“You got shot.”
He nodded.
“How dangerous is a six month old Arm? How strong?” What did I have to look forward to?
“About the same as a year old tiger with a human intellect…but remember, this was before Stacy Keaton and no one had any idea how dangerous an Arm could become. Not only did we test for the wrong things, we trained the wrong things as well: metasense and draw techniques instead of physical activities.” Her muscles must have come in slower than mine did. “Desmond was restrained during the experiment and she broke restraints strong enough to hold the world’s strongest human men.” He paused for a moment, chewing over something. Ah. He blamed himself for the weakness of the restraints.
Great. Just great. Not only was I was going to be some monstrous killer, I was going to be pug-ugly and muscle-bound as well. What was the purpose of an Arm, anyway? Why, for heaven’s sake, did God create Arms? Were we nothing more than Satan’s spawn, doomed to howl like animals and kill?
Why were we so strong?
Dr. Zielinski met my eyes and grabbed my attention. “You need to know that her musculature developed about a third as fast as yours is developing, Carol, and that her rages came most strongly in her third and fourth month.” Ah hah! I’d been right. “By the time of her death, she only lost control if her juice count fell below a hundred.”
Blessed hope. What I was going through now was not permanent. If I progressed as fast on the control issues as with the damned muscles, I would be back in control of myself in a month or two. “The other two?” I asked.
“Both in ’64. The first, Francine Sarles, was stuck in the Bakersfield Transform Detention Center in California. I wasn’t in charge. She couldn’t cope with her first draw and refused to kill again. The people in charge of her case offered her a man already in withdrawal for her second draw, and she accepted. I argued against the plan, got ignored, argued that she should be heavily restrained and got ignored again. Her mind snapped when she took the man in withdrawal. Afterwards, she freed herself, got hold of a gun, and put a bullet through her head.” Bullets are faster than juice. I had heard that story from Borton. “The second, Elsie Conger, transformed in New York City and had problems from the day she woke up from her transformation coma. She weighed over three hundred pounds before she transformed and the transformation tried to convert her fat to muscle. Her body couldn’t cope and she fell back into a coma less than a week after she awakened. Eventually her kidneys and liver failed. By then, she had been moved to Harvard, under my care, but there wasn’t anything we could do to save her. By the time she lost most of the fat, her muscles had hypertrophied and shattered her arm and leg bones. We amputated, but it was too late: her ribs shattered and she died.”
Elsie Conger must have been the Arm that Borton warned me about to goad me into more exercise. “What about Stacy Keaton? She survived.”
He nodded. “She survived. I wasn’t involved with her transformation. No one was. An FBI team captured her about a month after she transformed; they used a live male Transform as bait and trapped her like a wild animal. She got whisked to a secret FBI facility and supposedly cooperated with them for several months until, for unknown reasons, she went insane and escaped. There are rumors that her captors messed up her care, but I’m not sure how much faith I have in those rumors. The FBI refuses to pass any information along about Keaton. Truthfully, I must admit that nobody knows how to handle an Arm transformation. Not even me.”
I wasn’t impressed. “So it’s been one failure after another? Have you had any successes with anything?”
He wasn’t angry at my words. Too arrogant for that. Instead, he smiled, happy to talk about a better subject. “Plenty. Besides the Arms I’ve told you about, I’ve been working with male and female Transforms, and Focuses, since ’57.”
“Since before the Focuses broke out of Quarantine?”
He nodded. “Did you know the St. Louis Detention Center was one of the main Detention Centers where the first Focuses and their Transforms were held during the Quarantine?”
I shook my head.
“I know quite a few interesting stories about how the first Focuses managed to get out of Quarantine”, Dr. Zielinski said. “Their plight was bad enough to gain the sympathy from many of their captors, and those who worked with them, including myself. They even convinced their captors to help them send messages to each other, even messages from one Detention Center to another.”
Oh. I leaned forward and made sure Dr. Zielinski knew he had my full attention. “How did they manage to do that?” I asked.
“Notes under plates and in their laundry,” Zielinski said, with utter nonchalance. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. He was flat out telling me how to get around the authorities! “It’s amazing what sort of cooperation Transforms can get from the staff members at Detention Centers if the staff members think the Transforms are being mistreated.”
I sniffed. “So this is some sort of hint I should stop slapping around the nurses? If they treated me right to begin with, they wouldn’t have any problems with me at all.”
Dr. Zielinski’s face darkened, but I smiled at him and tapped my lower leg, right where my knife would go. His eyes widened and he nodded back when he realized I hadn’t meant what I said. If he could be cagey, so could I. If someone listened to a tape of this conversation, they would conclude I’d rejected his advice.
“Carol, what do you want to do when you get out of here?” Dr. Zielinski asked.
I hadn’t been prepared for his question. I could think of only one answer, though. “Survive.”
He nodded. “Anything else beyond survival?”
“I’m not stupid enough to consider anything beyond survival until survival is assured.” To agree to anything less would be foolish.
Dr. Zielinski frowned again.
“For Transforms of any stripe, survival is not a sure thing. Focuses die as well, though not often. Transforms die in droves every day. No one can guarantee the survival of an Arm at this point.”
“I’ll take anything close to the survival rate of Focuses,” I said.
My answer pleased him more. I half expected him to make me an offer, as Bates and Dr. Manigault had done. “In that case, Carol, I think I might be able to find a way for you to give yourself a chance of survival.”
I waited, but didn’t say a thing. I wasn’t sure what to say. His comment didn’t sound like an employment offer, but I couldn’t tell what it actually was.
“I can’t talk about it, yet,” he said. “Later.”
I nodded, depressed.
---
Immediately after my conversation with Dr. Zielinski the orderlies manacled my legs and put me back in the suicide room. Punishment for shoving the nurse and hurting the orderly. The next day, they put me in a new room. This one was padded. After my exercises they put me in a straitjacket. Apparently, the only one who could handle me was Larry. The rest of the time, I was a prisoner again.
Agent Bates wasn’t able to get me a draw until a few more days had passed, more than ten days after my second draw. I don’t remember the days in between. I’m told that I was loud.
I lay on the floor of that rubber room, and there was nothing left of me but need. I couldn’t even speak words anymore there was so little of my mind left. The world was pain, and need, and endless, eternal agony.
They were smart, this time. They sedated the draw, a poor male Transform, into total unconsciousness before they brought him into the Detention Center. I don’t remember when they removed me from my straitjacket, or even who did it, but I suspect they did it before my draw was in range. I do remember the moment when they wheeled him into my padded cell. I do remember when I ripped his clothes off and drew the juice.
That I never forget. Never.
They left me in the padded room after the draw, save for the necessary exercise sessions. Agent Bates provided the entertainment this time. Not personally. He brought me an entire box of sex toys, which drew embarrassed guffaws from the orderlies and a red-faced stammer from the much more puritanical Dr. Zielinski. My amorous advances strained my exercise sessions with Larry. He was interested in my advances but was not in a position to carry through. Instead, he pushed me to exercise so hard I nearly had to crawl back to my padded cell. Luckily, Bates’ sex toys, some of which I had never before imagined, had taken enough of the edge off to allow me to function with a semblance of normality.
---
Two days after my third draw, Agent Bates had me dragged away from my solitary entertainments and into an unused office. I hadn’t had a bath or shower since they tossed me into solitary, and I had no way to redo the chipped nail polish on my toenails. I knew I smelled like a cathouse but I didn’t give a crap anymore. The only pieces of normality I craved were the pictures of my children. The rest could go hang.
“Mrs. Hancock, have a seat.”
“Hell, Bates, just close the door and fuck me, why don’t you?” I said, with a smirk. “You understand my needs. Do it.”
“I thought you were over that,” he said, and lit one of his Camels.
“Yah, but since you’ve been so nice to me, I thought I’d offer. Last time I checked, men liked sex like this.”
He laughed. “Tell you what,” he said. “You take me up on my employment offer, and once I get you out of this damned place, I’ll make sure this lack goes away.”
“Is that a personal offer?” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“No. I’m a married man, but several of the agents working for me are unmarried. Some of them like it rough.”
I smiled. He did understand.
“In a few weeks, I think I can temporarily free you for a trial run on my employment offer. We’re billing it as a way to get you some more exercise and as proof that you can work with FBI agents and other authorities,” Bates said.
“So, what’s the damned offer?” I asked.
“A Monster hunt.”
“You want to employ me to hunt Monsters?” I’d wondered what possible job the FBI might offer me, and I had to admit Monster hunting sounded better than I expected.
It still sounded lame.
“What’s the fucking catch?” I asked.
“Before you can be let out of the Detention Center in such an unsupervised manner, I need at least a verbal agreement that you’re going to accept the employment offer,” Bates said. “It’s the only way I can get around the local Missouri legal problems.”
Fucking blackmailer.
“Well, I’ve got a catch as well. I need juice. Much more often than I’m getting it here.”
His face fell. Bates tried to hide it, but failed. “Sure. No problem.”
“You’re lying.”
Bates turned away from me. “If I can get you out of here, and mobile, I’m sure we can fix the sort of problems we’re currently having.”
Another lie. “You’re just guessing. You have no idea how to get me Transforms regularly, do you?”
“I’m…
“You’re just leading me on. Dammit, Bates, without juice I die! With low juice I end up doing insane things, like slapping people around all the time. You get the juice problem solved and I’ll sign on. Not until then.”
“We can’t afford to wait.”
Now he told the truth. “How come?” I asked, with as much control over my emotions as I could muster.
“Politics. Politics in the FBI.”
“Solve them.”
“I need you first, Mrs. Hancock. I don’t have enough to bargain with.” Bates took a drag and polluted the air. “You’re not a housewife anymore. You’re starting to get rough and tough. Not enough, though. You need training, you need experience. You’re not getting any of that here. Only way out of here is to take chances and get out in the real world. Your best chance is going to be with me.” He was telling the truth with his assessment of my expertise, but just guessing about the last.
I laughed. “Without juice, going with you is suicide. Fix the juice problem and I’m yours.” I had an idea. “You’re wife is a Transform, right? She’s got a Focus, right? If worse comes to worse, then…”
He turned back to look at me, his face livid with anger. “Transforms under the care of a Focus are off limits to you. Any household Transform belonging to any Focus,” he said. I’d never heard Bates angry before. He growled like a bear. “The whole point of the job I’m offering you is to protect those household Transforms, Mrs. Hancock. Taking them for your juice would be murder. I’d kill you if you even tried to take one of them.”
“You would try,” I said with a growl of my own. I wanted to fight. I looked him over and noticed he had drawn his handgun and had it pointed at me. A big handgun, with a barrel wide enough for me to stick one of my fingers down. Probably made to take down Monsters and Arms.
“Get out of here, Mrs. Hancock. Our conversation is done, today.”
I had the urge to fight him for the hell of it. Luckily, I’d drawn juice two days ago and wasn’t feeling stupid. I could control my urge to fight. Barely. Yes, there was a little voice inside me that screamed that I was an idiot to think that I, Carol Hancock, former housewife, might be able to fight a big strong man with a gun.
“Fine,” I said. I stood and backed away toward the office door. “You want me for your FBI program, arrange for the juice first. Then we’ll talk.”
“I doubt I’ll have the chance, Mrs. Hancock.”
On that ominous note, I left. The orderlies chained me up and I remained chained the rest of the day, even during my exercise sessions.
Bob Scalini: October 9, 1966 – October 16, 1966
Bob Scalini sat in the Medical section of the downtown branch of the St. Louis Public Library. He had a favorite table at t
he far end of the stacks that escaped most people’s notice. One small table, with two chairs. He could surround himself with books and periodicals, and study to his heart’s content.
The library was an excellent place, once he got used to the idea, silent and solitary. No one bothered him, even if he spent long hours there. He had been able to do all sorts of reading, especially research on Transform Sickness.
He didn’t trust what he read. The books and articles sounded so confident and authoritative when they talked about the Shakes. Yet, so much of what they said did not match the things he experienced. The literature didn’t mention dross. They talked of men and women Transforms as if they were all the same, but he saw variation among the Transforms when he looked at them. Not only was he convinced there were things about Transform Sickness the researchers didn’t understand, he was sure most of what they wrote was mistaken.
Today, he wasn’t reading, he was writing. After finishing the letter, he realized he had slipped up and signed his name as Bob Scalini. He angrily ripped up the last page of the letter. He wasn’t ‘Bob’ anymore. Gilgamesh, he thought to himself. Gilgamesh!
He had to stop thinking of himself as Bob.
Bob Scalini was dead.
Gilgamesh rewrote the letter. Letters were a wonderful idea, and he had already thanked Midgard for suggesting them. They had exchanged two letters, and it had turned out to be a pleasant way to exchange information. The letters provided human contact and information, but without the stress of a physical meeting.
Midgard’s letters were a delight to read.
---
Midgard
Congratulations on taking dross from the Detention Center. No, I don’t mind, and no, it’s not just you – it was disturbing to me too, the first time I took from the Center. I’ve been spending time in the library and I’ve found out a lot of information on the Transform woman held in the St. Louis Detention Center.
She’s an Arm, and her real name is Carol Hancock (I like Tiamat better). She’s what they call a ‘victim of Armenigar’s Syndrome’, a ‘failed Focus’. They’re fools. She’s no more a ‘failed Focus’ than I am.
All but one of the previous American Arms died soon after their transformations. The one who lived is Stacy Keaton – yes, Stacy Keaton the serial killer. I’m convinced she’s Zaltu. I’m not surprised both of us fear her, despite the fact that as best as we can tell, she can’t sense us.
Hidden in the far back of the library, I found a book on Transforms you might enjoy: “The Transformation of a Species” by a Dr. Earnest Hammel. To him, Transform Sickness is not just a disease, but a single mutation caused or activated by a disease trigger. He says the differentiation of Transforms into male Transforms, female Transforms and Focuses is an example of specialization, a natural next step when a species evolves. He also says: “Although the problem of female infertility among Transforms would normally preclude the specialization event’s success, we do believe that the Transformation Sickness is not finished with humanity, and that something will turn up to address this problem”.
I find his thesis interesting, even if he doesn’t say anything about Crows, but I have a problem with the idea of a single mutation causing the six known Transform varieties (if you count the Beast Men rumors as true). And multiple simultaneous mutations seems to me to be beyond the bounds of probability. So I suspect no one knows what Transform Sickness is in truth.
Take care.
Gilgamesh
---
Gilgamesh
Thank you for the information on Tiamat and Zaltu. I cowered for several hours after I realized that we might be playing with Stacy Keaton, but I came out of my panic when I realized that to her – like to everyone else – we Crows are invisible. I don’t know if you’ve run into this little treasure before, but there are times when I actually have to attract a normal’s attention before he’ll notice that I’m standing right in front of him.
I should warn you, though, about the rumors that Focuses can sense us if we get too close to their households. I’m not sure how long their metasense range is but according to the rumors it’s around a hundred feet.
I need to think of a more calming subject, so why don’t I tell you about my past. I transformed in Birmingham, Alabama in mid-September of last year. Another Crow, by the name of Phobos, found me just after I awoke from my coma. He took me to his home and calmed me. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you during your transformation, out on your own and in the world-hell of panic. He taught me the basics, and then sent me on my way because there wasn’t enough dross in Birmingham. As if there’s ever enough dross anywhere.
I’ve never found a spot to settle down. I’ve run into other, older Crows during my wanderings, and it’s strange, but the older the Crow, the more abrupt and less kind they were to me. Still, even the older Crows speak kindly about the ones they call the ‘senior Crows’ – likely the first Crows in America. I know of two living somewhere in the New York – New England area: Thomas the Dreamer, who lives in a cabin in Maine and Shadow, who owns a stationery shop in New York City.
Crows I’ve met include your acquaintance Sinclair (he sure does get around – I met him in Memphis), Hephaestus in Dallas, Rook in Baton Rouge, and a scary older Crow named Wandering Shade in Kansas City.
I think you can count the Beast Men rumors as true. All the older Crows warn you to watch out for them, and several have met and fled from them. According to what I’ve learned, Beast Men are dangerous because they can sense us – and because they are as mindless and violent as these Arms.
Take care.
Midgard
---
Midgard
Thanks for the information on Beast Men. If my suppositions are correct, they’re the predator who preys on Crows. On the other hand, I’m not sure the Arms are mindless. I’ve read the newspaper articles that refer to them as the Monster version of Focuses, but from watching Tiamat, I believe she can still talk. Zaltu goes shopping and bar hopping, for gosh sakes. I suspect the Arms can even pass as normal women.
What do you know about Monsters and psychotic men? The papers say how dangerous and mindless they are, but I do wonder how correct these reports are, given how incorrect the papers are about everything else.
I’ve found quite a few puzzling spots of dross scattered around St. Louis, unconnected with any known Transform activities. They are located…
… and so those two spots in the hospital are my fault. I hadn’t meant to kill the two men who attacked me. I’m not so sure how sorry I am, though.
Good luck.
Gilgamesh
---
Gilgamesh
As far as I know, we’re as invisible to Monsters and psychotic men in withdrawal as we are to normals. Not something I’d bet my life on, though. I went and looked at the hospital where your two attackers died. It turns out they made normal transformations before they passed away – something in the transformations went wrong. I fear we’re as deadly as Focuses and Arms – you did know that Focuses can kill the Transforms they care for if they’re not careful? I’m not sure how to take being deadly. It’s very disquieting. I’m also not happy that we have the power to do such things as induce transformations. How can we, us always-scared Crows, be at all powerful?
I can’t figure those dross spots, either. I’ve seen Monsters, though…
…and Crow terminology is more messed up than normal language. For instance, if you look at the roots of a many words like ‘lukewarm’ you learn they mean ‘warm warm’. Waste dross, for instance.
As you said, I do have some amazing benefits from my transformation. Illness isn’t a problem anymore. Nor is cold. I can run for miles without tiring and I can leap about ten feet in the air if I’m startled. I only need a few hours’ sleep, and as you wrote about yourself, I too need to eat more than I used to. But I can eat nearly any meat or plants, save grass
and wood chips, and I think my reactions may be faster than they were before. No, I don’t have anything like your bald spot that’s growing new hair, but I don’t need to shave as often as I did as a normal…and I’m losing – rapidly – my facial hair.
I think this is all from the effects of juice. According to what I’ve read, even men and women Transforms get healthier than they were before. Focuses are much more amazing, almost as if they discovered the fountain of youth. All Focuses are young in appearance, even the ones who transformed in their forties, and if what I’ve read is correct, they don’t age, either. Compared to what’s happening to this Tiamat, though, our changes are minor.
Have fun studying at the library.
Midgard
Tonya Biggioni: October 14, 1966
After getting no answer at his hotel room, Tonya tried Hank Zielinski’s office at the Detention Center.
“Dr. Zielinski speaking.” He had picked up the phone on the fifth ring. Slow for him. He was likely noodling with his photographs again.
“Stalker.” Tonya moved papers around on her desk. Where had that note gone? She swore it had been on top of the pile before she dialed.
“I phoned in a report to Rhonda yesterday,” Hank said. He paused. “Sorry, I forgot. I phoned in the report two days ago. Do you have some questions about it? I still haven’t been able to get the details of why Tommy’s so pissed off at Hancock.”
Dr. Zielinski would be a treasure if he didn’t have a little problem about his own personal agendas, Tonya decided. He was cooperative, friendly and liked Focuses. He didn’t have to fake it and he wasn’t the least put off by the often un-human peculiarities of Focuses and their households.
Ah, there was the note, right under the Rolodex she had flipped through to find the Detention Center phone number. Tonya smiled.
Delia, on kitchen duty since her improbable transformation, brought in a tea service platter. She sat the platter down and asked wordlessly if Tonya needed anything else. Tonya waved her away.
“We’ve got a problem, Hank,” Tonya said. “Your old sparring partner from the Mary Beth Julius affair is going to be coming by your current job site to take over.” Special Agent Patrick McIntyre, to be exact. Nadine, a Network contact as well as a secretary in the FBI secretary pool, had provided the information, as well as a comment that McIntyre had blown a gasket when he realized how many Network people were at work on the Hancock project. A ten-minute temper tantrum, according to Nadine.
Hank groaned. “He’s in a real bad mood about what’s going on,” Tonya continued.
“That’s not good,” Hank said. “Are you going to be warning our other friends?” Meaning Keaton and Special Agent Bates.
“The official one already knows. The other I’ll take care of.”
“Thank you,” Hank said. It was much safer to speak with Keaton about such a thing from the other end of a telephone. They both understood Keaton’s loosely held temper.
“Good luck, Hank,” Tonya said, and hung up. He was going to need all the luck he could gather, as was this new Arm. McIntyre and his boys didn’t appreciate Transforms. No, not at all.
Carol Hancock: October 15, 1966
On the day the world fell apart, Dr. Zielinski called me down to Dr. Bentwyler’s office. The guards followed me in and I sat down in one of the chairs opposite the desk. No Dr. Bentwyler.
“You may leave Mrs. Hancock with me,” Dr. Zielinski said to the guards.
“If we’re going to leave her alone with you, we’re supposed to lock her down,” the tall blond guard responded. His name was Ole Strommen, and I didn’t know much about him.
“Very well,” Dr. Zielinski said. “Probably a good idea.”
The guards chained me securely to the chair and left the room. I was tired of the chains, but didn’t say a thing.
“Carol, I’d like to talk to you about something,” Dr. Zielinski said.
I grunted. Three days after my draw gave me an almost normal temper. The chains only made me irritable, not homicidal.
“We have a problem,” Dr. Zielinski said. I didn’t pay attention to him and glared at the chains. He hesitated. “Your situation here at the Detention Center is about to get worse.”
I didn’t respond for about thirty seconds. “Worse?”
“Much worse,” Dr. Zielinski said, and licked his lips. “I’m afraid we’re about to lose control over how we’re treating you. I can guarantee that the next obstacle course session and Special Agent Bates’ plan to get your help on the Monster hunt aren’t going to happen.”
“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to the obstacle course session. I can’t say I was looking forward to the second, as Bates was trying to blackmail me with it into accepting his employment offer.”
“You don’t have to worry about the employment offer anymore,” Dr. Zielinski said. He tapped a pencil eraser on his desk. “Special Agent Bates has been reassigned. In addition, your trainer, Mr. Borton, has quit.”
I sat up straight and paid attention. Something was wrong, bad wrong, wrong enough to scare Dr. Zielinski. “What’s the reason for all these changes?”
“I’ll get to details in a few moments. As we talked about before your last draw, you know that nobody understands how to handle an Arm transformation. However, there’s someone who’s more of an expert on the subject of Arms than any of us here.”
“Another doctor?” I asked.
Dr. Zielinski ran his hand through his thinning hair. “No. The person who understands the most about the subject of Arms is another Arm.”
Of course. The Antichrist herself. “Stacy Keaton,” I said in a whisper. I leaned as far back from Dr. Zielinski as my restraints would allow. What was Zielinski trying to do, get me killed? Get all of us killed?
“Stacy Keaton,” Dr. Zielinski said. “She’s psychotic, murderous, and dangerous. However, she has survived as an Arm for three years, and I know how interested you are in survival. The fact that she is alive and has eluded the best efforts of the FBI to capture her implies a lot about her knowledge of survival. Unfortunately, she won’t talk to me about it. She’ll talk to you, though.”
“You’re in contact with Stacy Keaton?” I asked, astonished. I remembered watching him help in the effort to capture her, back at the military base.
“She wishes to speak to you,” Dr. Zielinski said, evading my question. “She’s going to be here in two hours. She’ll be speaking to you alone.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Why? Why are you doing this? Aren’t you going to get in trouble with the FBI?”
Dr. Zielinski looked at me, face blank. “Later today, a different group of FBI agents will be showing up. These Agents are members of the Arm Task Force, the group hunting Stacy Keaton. Special Agent Patrick McIntyre, a man obsessed with hunting Keaton, leads them. I’m not privy to their plans, but they’re not here to help in your care. Special Agent Bates’ superiors had unrealistic expectations and when Bates didn’t pull off a miracle, they reassigned him and brought in the Arm Task Force. McIntyre and I don’t get along, and he has a radically different opinion of how Arms should be treated. I can’t guarantee I’ll be your doctor after McIntyre and his men take over.
“You do need to keep this quiet,” Dr. Zielinski said, before I could get a word in. “If Special Agent McIntyre finds out about any meetings with Stacy Keaton, he will shut down the whole research effort and take you into his custody. You would never see the light of day again. Don’t talk to anyone else about this except me. This is dangerous for everyone involved.”
That explained why Dr. Zielinski chose Bentwyler’s office for this conversation. If any place in this building was free of surveillance, Bentwyler’s office was. Nothing important ever happened here.
I shook my head again, trying to understand the changes whirling around me. “Why is she doing this?”
“Liste
n to her, listen to her experience,” Dr. Zielinski said, evasive as usual. “She may have an offer for you. Listen to the offer closely. It may mean the difference between life and death.”
---
I sat alone in the stark bare conference room. The plain curtains over the closed and barred windows needed replacement, worn with age. A covered bulb in the ceiling illuminated the room and two guards stood on the other side of the door. I sat in a chair on the far side of the conference table and listened to the heater ping as I tried to understand what I’d gotten into. Outside, I overheard the low murmur of the guards as they talked about Ole’s new pickup truck.
What kind of a person was Keaton? She was a killer, they said, but I had no idea if she shot her victims, or seduced them and killed them in their sleep, or did it some entirely different way. The press had reported several horrible massacres they blamed on her, bodies dismembered and other atrocities, but I no longer trusted those press reports.
The door shut. I looked up and found Larry Borton, my former physical trainer, standing with his back against the wall. I started to say something, but Larry shushed me, climbed on the conference room table and pulled the cover off the light. He reached into the socket, pulled something out and dropped a tangle of wires on the table.
I examined the tangle and found a strange bulge at the end of one of the wires. A small microphone. “What…” I started.
Larry kicked the chair out from underneath me, grabbed me and slammed me against the wall, holding me by my throat. With one hand. My feet dangled and my neck stretched painfully.
A nasty smile, nothing like his normal expression, covered Larry’s face. “You. Will. Be. Respectful,” he whispered, not in his normal voice.
My bowels turned to water. “Yes, sir,” I said. Respectfully. I’d been right, back in the beginning, when I decided something ugly lived behind those eyes. “Are you going to be here, sir, when Stacy Keaton shows up?”
He paused. “I am Stacy Keaton,” Larry Borton said.