Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) (14 page)

Dr. Zielinski hesitated, his face unreadable.  “Yes.  I’ve tried.  Unfortunately, an Arm can’t be taught to sense the difference.  However, even if the Arm could sense the difference, think about how difficult it would be for an Arm to learn to take only fundamental juice when she’s down on juice and drawing.  How much control did you have?”

“Um,” I said.  “None.  What use is the fundamental juice, anyway?”

“All Transforms benefit from being transformed, and fundamental juice makes the benefits possible.”

I frowned.  “Benefits?  Oh.  You mean the demonic powers Transforms are said to get.”
I’ll admit, I was yanking his chain a bit, but he reacted so nicely whenever I suggested there might be more to Transforms than science could explain.

“Transforms don’t possess any supernatural powers, Carol,”
Dr. Zielinski said, predictably exasperated.  “The benefits a Transform gains are not overwhelming and are easily explained by science.  Transforms are more heat tolerant, can go without water for about twice as long as a normal person, can function better on starvation rations, and appear to be more acutely aware of their surroundings.  This is true of Focuses and Arms as well, of course.”

‘Easily explained by science,’ he said.  Well, he was entitled to his opinion.  “Surely the extra sense I have, what you called a metasense, is supernatural.”

He gave me a surprised look.  “The metasense is primarily an olfactory sense.  Smell and taste.”

Right.  Smell and taste let me sense through walls.  Not hardly.  I shrugged. 

“May I ask where you learned that term?” he asked.

“You used it when the orderlies wheeled in the Transform.  I thought the word sounded neat.”

He took copious notes for a minute but didn’t explain.  I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.  He was surprised, not angry.  “So, if I wasn’t demon possessed when I took juice, then what was going on?  From a scientific point of view, that is.” My voice was sarcastic and wicked.

“Demon possessed?”

“I didn’t have any choice in the matter, Dr. Zielinski.  I didn’t consciously
do
anything.  I touched the Transform and the juice flowed into me.”  I hated not being in control of my actions.

“Ah.  You possess a great many hormones that are unique to Major Transforms.  These new hormones and the other purely physical alterations of your transformation work with existing behaviors to create what we term Arm instincts.  For Focuses they create Focus instincts.  They will shock you upon occasion because of their unfamiliarity but they are not supernatural.  These new hormones cause effects similar to the instinctive ‘oh how cute’ feelings most of us get when cuddling a baby.  Your instinctive juice drawing is but one example of an Arm instinct.”

“Humans don’t have instincts.  Only animals have instincts.  We have rational minds, instead.  That’s what God gave us to separate us from the animals,” I said. 

Dr.
Zielinski looked unhappy and didn’t explain further.  “Any more questions?”

I nodded.  “When I took the juice there didn’t seem to be anything physical involved.  How sure are you that this isn’t supernatural?”

Dr. Zielinski’s unhappiness deepened.  “A thin plate of glass could have stopped your juice draw.  Physically, you took less than a drop of water from the man.  Just because the quantity is small does not mean that it can’t be measured.  Anything else?”

I shook my head.  These fools couldn’t see the supernatural even when it hit them between the eyes.

“Alright.  The techs are waiting for you, Carol.  We have a whole series of post-draw tests to perform.” He smiled encouragingly at me.  “Things are going just fine.”

So off I went to do tests and to exercise.  I think I managed to make a serious pass at every male technician I saw.  Whatever Dr. Zielinski had said to them had been effective, though, as I didn’t have any luck.  Borton, the creep, had come up with a yardstick, and prodded me or hit me with it when I got fresh or slacked off my exercises.  I didn’t know what to do about it so I ignored it for now.

Only one of the men, a tech named Mike Artusy, showed any interest.  When we were in Lab One for a blood test and no one was looking, he grabbed a fistful of my rear and squeezed.  In response, I smiled, moaned and pushed myself up against him.  Things didn’t go any farther, as we were in public. 

Sadly, Mike’s shift ended at dinnertime.  I didn’t return to my room until after midnight, and I was so frustrated I was tempted to swear again. 

I wanted Bill.  I wanted to do what a married woman was supposed to do in this condition.

Except, I had to admit, I was deluding myself.  A night of Bill wouldn’t solve my problems.  The lust I felt wasn’t remotely normal.  Despite Dr. Zielinski’s reassurance, I recognized the touch of Satan.  He wanted my soul and his offer was endless pleasure.  If I gave in, I would be his creature, a slave to my own body’s lusts.

I got up out of my bed and paced the length of the room.  I wanted more juice.  I needed more juice.

However, if I let Satan take me I was gone.  I had to resist this for the sake of my own soul.  No matter how fiercely my body’s needs drove me, I had to reject my weakness.  If I didn’t, I’d become nothing more than a mindless demon, a soldier in Satan’s army.

In the last several days, three magazines had turned up at the Detention Center, each with articles about Stacy Keaton.  I suspected the staff was expressing their opinions of me, but I read the articles anyway.  She was a brutal monster, mindlessly killing, torturing and raping.  The articles recited a litany of her horrors: killing police, killing innocents, torture for the fun of it, and some of the most spectacular atrocities in modern history.  Rev. Smalley had called her the antichrist and I couldn’t disagree.  Keaton had succumbed to Satan’s call, and now Satan called me.

I wasn’t going to go.  If Satan filled me with lust, then fine, I would resist.  No more indiscriminate advances on whichever man came near.  No more private masturbation.  I was a human being, not a monster.  I refused to give into temptation, no matter how alluring.

I knelt down by my bed, to ask God for his forgiveness and his help.  I folded my hands and bowed my head, and almost started to pray.

Almost, I dared to face God.  Almost.

For long moments, I knelt and gathered my nerve.  Yet, every moment I hesitated, I thought more of what I was and what I’d become.  I
had
killed.  Worse, I’d enjoyed doing so.  I had given my body over to lust.  I’d already lost control and fallen into Satan’s grasp.

Worst of all, I wanted more juice.  Even though it meant the death of another human being, I wanted more juice.  I needed more juice.  Hell, right this instant, I would sell my soul for more juice. 

How could one such as I dare approach God?

God was not for such as me, a monster who lived on the deaths of other people.  God could not forgive that.

I didn’t pray.  I didn’t dare.  Instead, I laid my head down on my bed and let the tears come.  I told myself that if I regained my self-control, maybe then I might slip from Satan’s grasp.  Maybe God would love me again. 

Just control myself.  I had to.

In the morning, my only burning desires were for juice and breakfast and I worked at being as pleasant as possible.  I behaved myself, but the damage had already been done.  As Nurse Wilson put it, “She has some nerve calling anyone
else
a cheap whore.”

Some of my pleasantness paid off.  Doris Trotter in the kitchen slipped me an extra waffle.  Almost as good, I convinced Allen Patz, one of the other techs, to give me some information about my thrice-daily blood tests.  The Doctors were measuring my juice level.  He showed me a graph of my juice level since I had come out of my coma.  The curve showed a steadily decreasing amount of juice.  My juice level shot up all at once when I took the juice, and then started to fall again, quite quickly.  Today, of all things, the rate of decrease had slowed to the same as before the juice draw.

In the evening, Mom came to visit, bringing me the family pictures I’d requested.  I apologized for my behavior after my draw.

“No need to apologize, dear.  That nice Dr. Zielinski explained it all to me,” she said, turning away to blush.  “I brought Reverend Akins with me.  He’s out in the waiting area.  He wants to talk to you, but I didn’t want to have him barge in on you.”

Meaning ‘who knows what my daughter is rubbing up against, so I had better make sure she’s presentable’. 

Reverend Akins had been my childhood preacher, the longtime pastor at Pilot Grove Baptist.  I was surprised he would speak to me, first because of how I had fallen from grace, and second because his opinion of me hadn’t been positive.

“Sure, Mom.” I followed Mom out to the waiting area, followed by one of the armed orderlies.  I was polite, as I’d decided to resist my animal tempers, but I didn’t expect this to be pleasant. 

The Reverend waited alone in the waiting area.  At the sound of our footsteps he turned.  “Hello, Carol.  Mrs. Stephens.”  He looked uncomfortable.

“It’s so wonderful of you to come and visit,” I said, polite again.  The waiting area was small and the chairs were cheap, standard for this Detention Center.  I sat as far away from him as politeness allowed.

“No problem, especially after I heard.”

“Heard what?”

He looked at Mom, who shrugged.  “Your own pastor…”  He paused.  “Reverend Smalley has been insulting you in his sermons.”

Reverend Smalley firmly believed Transform Sickness was an affliction of sin and the devil, God’s righteous punishment upon the wicked.  I had a little trouble with his beliefs; while I might be a minion of Satan now, I had a hard time thinking of myself as having been wicked before I transformed, especially compared to my behavior
after
I transformed.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I don’t believe in his brand of self-righteous moralism,” Reverend Akins said, pursing his lips.  “Or in anything that tempts us to label some other group as more sinful than ourselves.  All people stand as sinners before God and all of us stand in need of God’s abundant grace.” Reverend Akins, fortunately, didn’t know how sinful I’d been since my transformation.

After he made his point clear, we talked of my old church, the people, church politics regarding a little petty theft by the organist, and the lives of a few of my childhood friends who never left Pilot Grove.  For a while, I forg
ot my personal problems.

“Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with yourself afterwards?” the Reverend Akins asked, unexpectedly.

“After what?”

“After you leave here.”

I turned away.  “Truthfully, Reverend, I hadn’t given it any thought.  My condition isn’t going to go away.  There’s no cure for Transform Sickness.”

Reverend Akins laughed.  “You’re alive now, Carol.  I know you.  You never let anything stop you.  There aren’t many girls in Pilot Grove who have the gumption to go to college, even these days.”

The Reverend had a point.  I could be tenacious, a trait I thought he didn’t appreciate.  “If I ever get out of here, I’m likely to get thrown in jail.”

“For what?  Being a victim of a disease?  I’ve seen the reports.  What sort of case would they have?  ‘She killed four people while lying in a coma’.  Several Focuses have been tried for involuntary Transform Sickness conversions, but there hasn’t yet been a single successful prosecution.  Despite the prejudice against Transforms.”

Focuses often triggered transformations in a few women around them when they made their own transformations.  I ignored the question of the guards who shot each other as I ran past them.  “Say I can get out,” I said.  “I guess I’d go back to being a housewife.” Flee Satan and this miserable place and go back home.

“Carol,” Mom said, in a familiar exasperated tone of voice.  “Could you?  Where would you get that juice stuff from?”

Right.  “I have no idea.”

“Seems to me,
there may be another option,” Reverend Akins said. “I read a few of the articles on Arms, seeing as though we had one in the family.” His eyes twinkled.  “The accounts I read all mentioned bright lights and voices when people transformed.  I was reminded of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  Carol, have you given any thought to the idea that you might have just been called by God?”

“No.  No I hadn’t.” The thought was ludicrous, but I did remember my nightmares.  In one recurring image, I spoke to a surly crowd.  Preaching?  Still, the bright light I’d seen had been nothing more than normal light.  All Transforms are light sensitive, especially early on. 

Yet the Bible said Paul was blind for three days and did not eat or drink anything.  Same as I.  As if Paul was a male Major Transform, save there were no such things.

“It’s worth some thought,” Reverend Akins said, and pressed on.  “God’s call can take many forms, and can lead someone into a totally new life.”

Reborn in Jesus?  A juice-sucking killer Arm?  “Reverend, Arms have to kill to take juice or they die.”  The call came from the other side.  I didn’t have any control when I took the man’s juice.  Arms were demon possessed.