Gilgamesh sighed. He had hoped Phobos would be more open-minded on the subject, but Arms were dangerous and anything dangerous and unfamiliar disturbed a Crow. Many Crows thought of the less familiar Arms as they thought of the more familiar Beast Men and Monsters: mindless animals.
“Chicago is large enough so she rarely needs to hunt outside the metro area,” Gilgamesh said, letting his voice become louder than theirs in irritation. Neither Chrysler nor Phobos seemed willing to approach any closer. “Even less likely now. She’s been attacked by Beast Men herself and believes they’re hunting her, attempting to force her out of Chicago.” The other Crows concealed themselves among the trees and he couldn’t see them with his eyes.
“Few believe Crow Killer is a Beast Man,” Chrysler whispered. “Beast Men can’t think and can’t use dross to hide themselves.”
“Some Beasts think,” Gilgamesh said. “Enkidu can think and talk very well.”
“We have only your word on that,” Phobos said. He moved a little farther away, and his faint voice became fainter still.
“Send a letter to Tiamat. She’ll tell you of her encounter with Enkidu. Enkidu spoke words to her, as well. Would you like the address she uses?”
Chrysler moved back as well. “No.” Horror filled both Phobos’s and Chrysler’s glows when they realized Gilgamesh was in contact with Tiamat.
A moment later Chrysler and Phobos ran.
Gilgamesh shook his head. He needed to answer Shadow’s letter. He had to convince the other Crows that Tiamat was the least of their problems before some idiot Crow got brave enough to stick his nose where it didn’t belong and tell the authorities where Tiamat lived.
Enkidu: February 8, 1968
The armored car drove up to the 1st Federal Savings and Loan on Cass Avenue. Enkidu had cased the St. Louis bank’s procedures for a week. The armored car contained seven grocery stores’ worth of cash, enough to keep his pack going for a year.
He drove the Apollo Electrical truck up behind the armored car, ignoring the stench of vomit, blood and entrails in the cab. The previous owner hadn’t been interested in letting Enkidu take the truck. The pack had taken care of that little objection.
He felt strange to be undertaking an operation in his man form. Man form had its advantages, though. He passed for human, for one, after a shave. He could use guns. Drive trucks.
He had sold the pack on the heist by promising them they would no longer have to live in poverty. The Gals weren’t as fond of the country life as he and Cleo, and petty theft didn’t supply enough to keep them happy. They needed money, and money meant the use of reeking machinery like this truck. He had grown to hate the things. Hell, he had grown to hate every aspect of urban life with a passion. It stank.
When the Hunters took over they would burn the cities. Depopulate them. Return everyone to a more natural rural lifestyle. Enslave what few normals survived to raise farm animals for the Hunters to eat. Modern America didn’t support near enough game anymore and Enkidu wondered if there would ever be enough game to support the Hunters and their packs’ needs. They needed agriculture, or at least ranches.
The Wandering Shade refused to alter the Law regarding eating humans. That would solve many problems, but since it was the Law, it wasn’t open for debate.
Enkidu barked out an order. His pack sprang from the back of the truck, led by Cleo. Seven Gals now capable with hand guns and a Pack Alpha who used heavy caliber weapons would make short work of the two armored car drivers. If the heist went according to plan, he wouldn’t have to lift a finger. He would just drive.
So many changes. He didn’t have to physically fight constantly for absolutely everything any more. He had an intelligent partner, someone to talk to when he needed to plan an operation.
The attack was over in a moment. He sprinted to the armored car, already opened, grabbed the keys from Cleo and took off. Several of the Gals needed healing, but he would do the healing later. As long as the Gals didn’t do too much bleeding on the money everything would be just fine. He had a second truck set up only six blocks away, inside an abandoned store. He drove the armored car in, moved the money, and left. The police were on their way, but Enkidu and his pack finished the switch to their new truck before the police even arrived at the bank.
Henry Zielinski: February 10, 1968
“I can’t, Doc,” Autumn said.
Zielinski walked over to her, wishing he had remembered to put a sweater on before he entered the cold gym. The heels of his shoes clicked on the wooden floor of the undersized basketball court.
Autumn Idoux was sixteen and still had the adolescent gawks, with slender legs showing between baggy gym shorts and oversized sneakers. Sweat stained the old Buffalo Springfield t-shirt she wore and dripped from her temples down the sides of her face. Even her perky brown ponytail drooped with exhaustion. She was one of his better Transform trainees and had been cleared to start bodyguard training just after he discovered the training optimum. She and Parker Maybray had quit a local private high school in late September after nine of their schoolmates hazed them to the point of almost killing them for being Transforms. The school gave Inferno an ultimatum: take legal action against any of the nine and we’ll never let any of your children into the school again. Inferno didn’t have the staff to teach all the children attending the school and the younger kids, especially the normals, encountered far less trouble than the older teens. The two had made mistakes of their own, though not mistakes enough to justify what happened to them. Parker and Autumn had let the other students learn they were going steady or whatever term the kids used these days, and their peers realized the two didn’t have to worry about nasty side effects like pregnancy if they indulged in sex, because of the Transform infertility problem. Such a minor flicker of abnormality, but the other students became inflamed enough to beat the two almost to death. Unfair? Massively. Typical? Sadly.
Autumn had caught the Cause from the event. She wanted to contribute however she could, perfect for Zielinski’s experimentation.
“Your legs may be tired, but that’s when your Transform benefits kick in and allow you to train as a Transform. Access your juice. Incentive two.”
‘Incentive two’ cued a juice pattern. Lori had applied Focus technology to the training effort and now Zielinski worked with a complex juice pattern specifically made for training Transforms. The pattern at base maintained the Transform at their training optimum no matter how much juice he or she used. As a little extra, Lori built in pain stimulation triggers, to allow Zielinski to add the necessary stress without resorting to his crude faux-Arm tactics. Now he needed to figure out how to induce his Transform trainees to use enough juice to make a difference.
With the joy of progress motivating him, he had poured himself into his uncompleted project, living it at every moment. The project helped him ignore his fears: that Focus Schrum controlled Lori and might order his death at any time, and that Chimeras hunted Carol, who wouldn’t abandon her new home.
Behind his back Inferno now called him Doc Pain. Despite the nickname, as results started to pile up, all the bodyguards wanted his training. He wasn’t ready for them yet; he hadn’t codified nearly enough of his results. Besides, his only significant results came from the adolescents. Jim, his single adult test subject, hadn’t made any noticeable progress. The other bodyguards would just have to spend their time on the waiting list until he figured out why not.
Lori had a suggestion for training Jim, which Zielinski did not intend to try without Jim’s explicit permission. She had built the necessary capabilities into the juice pattern anyway, just in case.
“Owwh!”
“Get up and jump, Autumn. You can do it.” He had learned his lack of sympathy from the Arms. Even when Carol’s guts peeked out when he redid her stitches, she hadn’t wanted sympathy, just results. Arm behavior had remade Zielinski’s world, hopefully for the better.
Besides, his bedside manner had always been fake.
Autumn got up from the dusty wooden floor of the court, steadying herself against the wall, legs shaky. She jumped. Jumped again. Parker walked over and stared. Amy, at work on the uneven parallel bars, continued her practice. She halted when Jim, acting as her spotter, called a stop. They both walked over to gawk.
On Autumn’s twelfth jump, Autumn put a chalk mark on the wall at ten feet five inches. When she landed, her legs gave way.
“Incentive done,” Zielinski said. They let Autumn recover for a few moments, heaving deep breaths, wiping the tears of pain from her eyes.
“I hate incentive two,” Autumn said, clenching her fists. “Don’t you dare try incentive three.”
He nodded. “Given what you just did, that would bring on a juice overuse situation.” She glared at him, annoyed by his clinical coolness.
Zielinski had discovered juice overuse two years ago. He had published his paper on Focus juice overuse in the JAMA three months after Carol transformed. He wouldn’t be publishing any more papers, ever. Lori had mentioned to him that one of the first Focuses, Faith Corrigan, had actually complained to the Council about his juice overuse research and wanted it quashed. The Council hadn’t obliged, but Zielinski doubted that little episode had done much for his stock with the first Focuses. It almost certainly contributed to his current problems.
The amount of juice use required to put a Transform into juice overuse was much smaller than for a Focus, proportional to the amount of supplemental juice a Transform could stabilize. Still, Zielinski smelled the faint odor of juice, the first time he had gotten an actual sniff of success from a Transform working at the optimum training point. Stressing a Transform into using their juice while at their training optimum was the key to increasing their training rate as well as the key to allowing them to go beyond normal human limits.
“It worked this time?” Autumn asked.
“Take a look for yourself,” Zielinski said. He let the clinical chill fade and grinned.
Parker helped his lover to her feet, and she shrieked with delight when she saw her mark, a full foot higher than her previous best jump.
“That’s beyond what’s humanly possible, doc, for someone who’s five foot four,” Jim said.
Zielinski nodded. He hadn’t pointed out every little impossibility as it went by, but there had been several so far. His trainee Transforms weren’t functioning at Major Transform capabilities, but they were creeping solidly into the post-human realm. It appeared intensive training could indeed turn a Transform into a mythological hero. Certainly, Autumn’s muscle tone and muscle efficiency had become quite impressive.
“How?” Parker said. Like several of the local adolescents, he emulated his Focus and delved as deep into as many branches of biochemistry as his young mind could handle. No longer satisfied with the ‘what’, he was now trying to learn the ‘how’ aspects of Transform science. His first lesson, alas, was that Zielinski didn’t know many of the answers either (another lesson from Arm training: if you don’t know the answer, don’t obfuscate, just say you don’t know). His second lesson had been that in many cases, no one knew the ‘how’ answers.
“Basic juice property, Parker,” Zielinski said. “Remember the technical name of juice: para-procorticotrophin. Juice is a corticotrophin precursor and corticotrophin is a stress-active hormone that cascades through the adrenal gland, initiating the release or production of many other hormones. Stress amplifies an Arm’s or a Focus’s capabilities immensely and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t help Transforms as well. In this case the stress unlocked her ability to efficiently use juice while she’s training.” Stress: the polite euphemism for pain.
Zielinski had no problems with causing pain, if for a good reason.
Jim took of his sweatshirt and started some extensive stretches. “This is ridiculous, Doc. I’m tired of these kids making me look like a fool. I think it’s time to see if the Focus is right and the adults need more stress than the kids.” Zielinski couldn’t claim credit for all the breakthroughs in this training research project.
Once the distractions from Lori’s personal life had eased, she had thrown in dozens of useful ideas. One led her to build three higher incentives into Jim’s juice structure. Incentive six was harsh enough to drive a Transform unconscious in a standard situation. Worse than any punishment Lori ever dished out to any of her Transforms.
“Incentive four,” Zielinski said, when Jim was ready. He jumped
He fell short. Well-trained adult Transform bodyguards knew how to handle pain.
“Incentive five,” Zielinski said. Jim topped his personal best mark by an inch, at ten feet five inches. Extremely good for someone who was six foot two. Not impossible, though. Jim tried several more times with no more improvements. “You can do it,” Zielinski said. Limp, but he had never had Keaton’s instinctive drill sergeant mouth.
“Hit me,” Jim said. Zielinski winced. Jim, at incentive five, already produced a strong juice smell. Incentive six might cross the line into overuse. Zielinski decided to take the risk.
“Incentive six.”
Jim didn’t collapse as the pain nearly doubled him over. He jumped. Then he collapsed.
“Incentive done,” Zielinski said, quickly.
“How far up?” Jim said, looking up from the ground, sweat dripping in ribbons down his face
“Eleven foot six,” Autumn said. A full thirteen inches over Jim’s previous best. Well into post-human capabilities.
“We’re going to need some more trainers,” Zielinski said, walking around with a barely repressed bounce in his step, a big smile stealing across his face. The bodyguards would soon be breaking down the doors.
Enjoying his success, he lost the monomaniacal focus he had been maintaining on this project for the last week.
Suddenly, he knew how to help Carol.
---
“Henry, what do you think you’re doing in my office?” the Focus asked. He looked up and smiled. He had commandeered Lori’s desk and office because that’s where she kept the information he needed. He had hoped for a little more time to put the information together the way he wanted, but he had the basics.
“I’ve figured out where Hancock is, and what we can do to help her.”
Lori walked over and looked over his shoulder. “You know, we do have protocols and procedures you’re supposed to follow if you need additional equipment or information.” She gave him a charismatic nudge that moved him out of her desk chair. “Now – grab one of the other chairs and tell me what’s going on.”
He did as the Focus ordered. He played with fire by baiting Lori, but he needed to get her attention. Diplomacy wouldn’t get the job done this time.
“I was going through the Monster sighting information, under the assumption that many of the sightings are associated with the Chimeras and their packs. I also needed to pin a name and location on the Focus that Hancock is using to keep in contact with you…and as I suspected, the Focus and her people are behind many of the Monster sightings.”
“Carol’s not living in Milwaukee,” Lori said. Dammit. She knew where Carol was, but she wouldn’t say where, or how she had located Carol.
“I think she’s close,” Zielinski said. “Based on my knowledge of Arm personalities, I’m positive Milwaukee is part of Carol’s hunting territory. I’m also positive given what Hancock has said about the number of Chimeras she’s encountered that several Chimeras and their packs are camped near where she lives.”
“That’s probably true,” Lori said, the anger leeching out of her voice. He counted on Lori’s buried affection for Carol. One of the ways he planned to save himself was by proving himself as useful to Carol as he was to Inferno. “What are you proposing?”
“You and Inferno hunt Monsters for bounties,” he said. “I think you should go hunt down some Monsters near this Focus Warren. She has asked for help.”
The heat of her gaze almost melted his face. He had her full attention now. “She’s ISF, not UFA,
and my Monster hunting job is hunting Monsters for the UFA, not the ISF,” the Focus said.
“You’ve done it before.” He had done his research. Inferno had done one Canadian Monster hunt last year. He suspected others, but Lori had interrupted him before he got to the older records.
She frowned. “That’s also Midwest Region, not Northeast. Our hunting’s in the Northeast.”
“Jurisdiction over Milwaukee is clouded,” Zielinski said. “Helping an ISF Focus is well within your rights, given you’re the ISF liaison.”
“The UFA claims all of Wisconsin, and the Midwest Region already appointed a Monster hunting Focus to handle it.”
“That is…” Hank hurriedly leafed through his notes. “Focus Singer, who hasn’t successfully hunted down a Monster since her appointment to the position last year.” He paused. “In addition, a Monster hunt would also be a good test of the training regimen.”
Lori tapped her fingernails on her desk. A ‘who do you think you are?’ look crossed her face. “You thought of this on your own?”
Her question was backed by enough charisma to make his eyes water. “Yes,” he said.
She relaxed. “Luckily for you, the Madonna of Montreal agrees with you.”
“I swear I didn’t come up with this until earlier today.”
“I’m sure her reasoning and factual backing are quite different,” Lori said. “You’re calling in your favor?”
“If I must,” he said. He had hoped he wouldn’t need to use his Transform training-based favor, but he would if he needed to.
“My answer to you is: not yet, but soon,” Lori said. “The timing is probably more important than the action.” Lori was counting on information gained via the Dreaming, with Anne-Marie’s help, for the timing.
“Thank you,” he said, trying not to grin too much. They were going to help Carol!
All Beasts Together (The Commander) Page 31
