Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (10 page)

His career hadn’t yet recovered.

Dr. Zielinski wanted his reputation back.  He wanted his standing in the medical community back.  To get either, he needed a success.  His most obvious prospect for success was to shepherd an Arm through her transformation and adjustment period and graduate her as a free and independent Arm.  An Arm who could do good in the world and erase the horrific public perception of Arms created by Stacy Keaton.

He turned to Gauthier.  “If you want Mrs. Hancock to live,
give her to me
.  The Transform Department in Harvard Medical has a much better setup than this place.  She’ll be much less exposed to the vicissitudes of life.”

“There are too many Missouri legal issues,” Gauthier said.  “We can’t do that.”

Dr. Zielinski frowned.  “Make them go away and I’ll get you your Arm.”

Gauthier shook his head.  “I’ll look into it, but Stacy Keaton’s made it a lost cause.  Until we can first show that Arms aren’t unredeemable killers, we’re not going to catch any legal slack.”

“Speaking of which, any information we can get on Arm capabilities would be much appreciated,” Tommy said.  “The FBI bosses would love to find a way to kill or capture Keaton.”

“What about our friends?”
Dr. Bentwyler said, referring to the Focuses.  “They’re not going to be happy if you do that.”

“If we can present Mrs. Hancock to them as a replacement for Keaton, they’ll be fine,” Gauthier said.  “Keaton’s a serial killer, remember.  Bringing her to justice for the non-Transforms she’s killed is still our goal.”

Dr. Zielinski wasn’t so sure about how ‘fine’ the Focuses would be if Keaton got arrested or killed.  He knew of at least two leading Focuses who would be livid if either happened.  He needed to be careful himself; his own contacts with Keaton were far more extensive than either of the two FBI Agents knew.  From the expression on Tommy’s face, Dr. Zielinski suspected the other FBI agent didn’t agree with Gauthier’s assessment.  Tommy’s comment about information to help catch Keaton was window dressing, simply for Gauthier’s consumption.

“In any case, we need Hancock,” Gauthier said.  “That’s up to you, Hank.  You’re in control of this Arm’s care from now on.  Make me a plan.  Tell me what you need.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dr. Zielinski said, and let a small smile creep across his face.  He could do this.  He was positive he could do this.

Rover (Interlude)

He ran through the trees, up and down the rocky hillsides and steeper mountain slopes, chasing the blowing early fall leaves.  The pain was gone.  Yesterday, he found love, in the form of a Monster.  He had loved the Monster to death, fulfilling some need he didn’t understand.  Hungry, he had eaten the Monster as well and fallen asleep in a faint.

Perhaps he slept for more than a day.  The day he loved the Monster to death had been hot and sticky.  Now, it was cool and crisp and pleasant.  He didn’t care.  He could move without pain for the first time since he had been a man.  All because of the good loving.

There was only one problem:  his man memories were still fading. 

Why worry now?  The world was filled with scents and noises and places to run.  A world filled with cool breezes and wet earth, with foxes, songbirds, squirrels, chipmunks, hawks, and deer.  He knew them all by their scents, which struck him as strange.  He ran, along an abandoned trail, and caught another scent.  Human.

He hadn’t lost enough of his human memories to forget that humans might be dangerous.

He went the other way, farther up into these pine forest hills.  Into the mountains whose tops came deliciously close to the clouds themselves.  Hours of padding up switchback trails, following power lines, jumping fences.  He wondered what he was that he could move this way. 

He stopped under an immense fir and looked himself over.  The air smelled safe here under the towering pines, safe enough to stop moving.  He no longer had hands.  His arms were now legs, his hands elongated, large paws with nasty looking short claws on them.  With a little difficulty, he bent himself around to glance at his rear.  Yes, he had a tail back there.  His waist was narrow, his legs huge and muscular, ending in paws.  His dick had grown huge as well, sheathed like a dog’s.

He was a dog.

He sure as hell hoped he was a big dog.

Hours later, the creek he followed plunged over a small waterfall into a pool.  The pool was a little thing, a few feet across, edged with mosses and ferns.  The sun crept lower in the west, the last of the high clouds having cleared.  It would be pleasant tonight, near freezing but not quite.  Clear tomorrow; rain the next day and warmer.  He just knew.

He studied his reflection in the pool.  Yes, a dog, but not a dog’s head, a man’s head with a snout and floppy dog ears.  His gray fur had red highlights.

He thought dogs were color-blind.  Well then, he wasn’t quite a dog.

Below, he heard a car chugging up the mountain.  He ran toward where the noise came from, unable to stop himself.

Several hundred feet below, a road gently switch
backed up the mountain toward a low pass and went on by.  Another road came in from the left, several hundred feet lower down.  That road paralleled the mountain slope, and ended at the first road in a complicated intersection.  He crept down toward the road, anticipating.

Anticipating fun.

He hid himself in the overgrown tall grass by the side of the road and waited.

The next car didn’t come until the sun fell to within its width of the horizon.  A small car, a…
Mustang
.  A young woman and her daughter rode inside.  After the car passed him, he took off running, barking in pleasure.  The hard running exercised all his muscles. 

The woman in the car saw him in her side mirror and screamed, but couldn’t speed up.  Not on this twisty road.  In fact, soon she would get to the stop sign where this road met the second.

He caught up with the
Mustang
at the stop sign.

Nope.  He wasn’t a small dog.  He was a large dog, pony sized, taller than the
Mustang
but not as long.  He expected the woman to peel off, drive away, but he sensed something wrong with her.  She wouldn’t look at him.  He sniffed.  Terror.

“Mommy!  Doggy!” the little girl said.  She wasn’t terrified.

He didn’t want to be terrifying.  He missed people.  He had been a man once.  Being around people quieted the ache inside, made him feel like he wasn’t slipping slipping into a world of no words.

“Hello,” he said.  Poorly.  He didn’t get the ‘h’ sound right, and the ‘l’s weren’t there at all.  In fact, it sounded more like a bark than a ‘hello’. 

The woman squinched her eyes shut and held the steering wheel with corded muscles, unmoving.  No fun here.  He went around to the other side of the
Mustang
and tapped his nose on the window.

“Play?” he asked the girl.  Her eyes lit up.  This time, his word sounded better, more like ‘blay’ than ‘play’, but much more of a word than a bark.

The little girl opened the Mustang door and stepped out.  She was about eight, and cautious.  He bent down to just below his shoulder level and licked her face.  “Nice doggy.  Where’s your house, doggy?  Where’s your collar?  How do I know what to call you if I can’t find your dog tag?”  Inside the car, her mother started to make strange mewling noises.

The little girl petted him. 

He shivered in pleasure, the shiver reminding him of something else: sex.  His dick grew hard.

“Name?” he asked the little girl for her name.  The word sounded perfect when it came out.

“I’ll call you Rover,” the little girl said, misunderstanding his question.

“Rover,” he repeated.  A good name, even though when he spoke, the word came out more like ‘robber’ than ‘rover’.

“You’re like that huge dog in the books for babies I read last year,” the little girl said.

“Uh huh,” he said.

The little girl’s mother ran out of the car, screaming like a lunatic.  Rover couldn’t resist.  He turned away from the little girl and chased her mother down.  He nuzzled the woman and screwed her, which didn’t take long.

After he finished he licked the woman’s face.  Nothing.  She didn’t have any of the good loving the Monster possessed and he wanted more of.  He
had just raped the woman, hadn’t he?  Quickly, not dog-style.  He backed away, scared of himself.

He couldn’t figure out why he
had raped the woman.  Had he lost the will to stop even his most miniscule impulses?

“Bad Rover,” he said.  The woman, who had curled up in a ball after he raped her, began to scream again.  “Sorry.”

He turned back to find that the little girl had climbed back inside the car and locked the doors. 

Good for her.  Scary things prowled the darkening night. 

He couldn’t think of any way out of his mess.  Fun as it was, he couldn’t live this way for long.  Hungry again, he scented food in the trunk of the
Mustang
.  He padded back to the
Mustang
’s trunk.

No hands.  Angry, Rover growled and clawed at the trunk.  To his surprise, the trunk gave with a horrid rip and opened awkwardly.  Now the little girl screamed as well.  “Bad Rover,” he said.  His stomach rumbled anyway.

Other humans would come.  That wouldn’t be good.  He gobbled food with a few choice bites – they had hamburger! – and fled up the mountain.

This was no way to live.  What was he going to do?

Carol Hancock: September 19, 1966 – September 22, 1966

Right after breakfast, Nurse Fitzpatrick told me to get ready for my first exercise session.  I shrugged.  After three days of tests I didn’t care what they did to me, as long as it was quick.  Nurse Fitzpatrick gave me some exercise clothes to wear, out of her infinite stash of institutional clothing, and led me downstairs to where the center’s staff had converted a lounge into a gymnasium.  Orderly Cook followed behind, hand on his gun.

I glanced at the gymnasium and its contents, turned around, and demanded to see
Dr. Zielinski.  The nurse and the orderly shrugged, and led me off.  He had settled into his office, with books on the shelves and diplomas on the wall.  Along the wall to the side he had littered a table with a microscope, slides, photographs, a slide rule, dark glass jars filled with chemicals and other equipment I didn’t recognize. 

He glanced up from his paperwork and indicated a chair.  “Carol, you have to use the gym and exercise your body.  I know you don’t like it, but it’s necessary,”
Dr. Zielinski said, before I had time to state my complaint.

“I don’t have any problem with the bicycle.  I don’t have any problem with the treadmill.  I’ll do jumping jacks until I’m blue in the face.  But that thing in the corner just scares me.  I’m not going to lift weights.  I don’t want to get all muscle-bound and ugly!”

“I understand, but exercise is still necessary.” Dr. Zielinski tensed, as if he had gone through this argument before and lost.  “Carol, trust me on this.  The exercise will be good for you.  You’ll only harm yourself by refusing.”

I glared at him and didn’t say anything.

He frowned.  I thought for a minute he might get angry with me, but he drew a breath and brought himself back under control.  I felt foolish about my petty complaint.  He was right; he was the expert.  My argument was unreasonable.  I didn’t care, though.  I was
not
going to lift weights.  Only men lifted weights.

“Alright, Carol.  Let me explain why this is important,”
Dr. Zielinski said.  “Arms are physically oriented Transforms and they grow muscles.  You’re already growing muscles, and your muscle growth is responsible for your aches and pains.  We can’t stop your muscle growth unless we put you on a starvation diet.  If you exercise enough you develop those you need to use.  If you don’t,
the muscle buildup will happen somewhere else
.

“If the only muscles you use are in your legs, your legs will swell up with muscle, like balloons.  Maybe the growth will all go into your jaw muscles, from eating.  You’ll develop several inches of muscle buildup on your jaws.  It will hurt, too.  Your bones can’t adjust to muscle growth of this magnitude in an instant.  If you exercise, the muscles will build up evenly.  Otherwise, you’ll get uneven muscle buildup and, eventually, death.  I understand your viewpoint.  Weight work isn’t womanly, not at all.  Unfortunately, you can’t think about this from a normal woman’s viewpoint.  You’re a Major Transform now.”  When
Dr. Zielinski got emotionally involved, he really got going.

I studied the floor, visions of Monsters in my head.  The sweat doesn’t bother me,
Dr. Zielinski, I wanted to shout.  Proper women did not lift weights!  Besides, muscular women were ugly and I didn’t have much slack in that department to start with.  Not that I’d say anything of the sort to any man.

“You go back into the gym and do what Mr. Borton tells you, Carol,”
Dr. Zielinski said.  “Perhaps you’d like to examine some pictures?”

I went.  One of the Arms in his care had died of this muscle buildup problem; I saw her death on his face.