Now We Are Monsters (The Commander)

by Farmer, Randall

  Grendel hissed at Enkidu’s words and charged. Finally. Enkidu roared at the older Hunter and leapt into the fight.

  Grendel bit and hissed. He grabbed Enkidu and rolled. Enkidu flipped Grendel off and kicked him in his scaled belly, which slammed him back into a tree. Enkidu followed with a bowel-clenching roar and leapt at the other Hunter, grabbing his throat. Grendel sunk his claws into Enkidu’s belly and pulled skin. Enkidu held on tight to Grendel’s throat with his teeth.

  The other Hunter kicked back with his legs and forced himself up, trying to gut Enkidu. Grendel’s throat ripped under Enkidu’s bite, blood flying everywhere.

  Grendel staggered for a moment, unable to breathe. Enkidu circled faster than Grendel could follow, pounced on his so-called master’s back, and dropped Grendel to the ground. Enkidu’s left front foot pinned Grendel’s neck and triumph filled Enkidu.

  “By the Law, acknowledge my victory,” Enkidu said, exactly as Wandering Shade, their Master, designed. Their Master suspected a fight like this might someday occur. He called it a challenge fight.

  Grendel, who couldn’t talk or even move his neck, let his body go limp under Enkidu’s foot. Yes! Victory! Enkidu roared, his roar suffused with power. Grendel’s bladder cut loose. Cleo prostrated herself to Enkidu as well.

  “I’m the boss. I give the orders now,” Enkidu said. His sharp-toothed smile spread wide. He liked the feel of being the boss better than anything from his current or previous life. “Our latest hunt got us two more prime Gals, one each.” Their newest acquisitions were still hogtied in the back of Enkidu’s Ford pickup (the fact that Grendel couldn’t drive a truck also proved his unworthiness to lead). “We need more, but from now on we take the Gals when we hunt. Once our packs are built back up, we will politely ask the Shade if he knows where those two Arms lair. Revenge calls and I’m going to answer.”

  “They might not be Arms,” a voice said. Enkidu swiveled his wolf-man form to find the speaker, not recognizing the voice. The speaker was Wandering Shade, and he was furious, actually shaking in anger. Enkidu had never seen Wandering Shade furious before, or heard him lose control of his voice.

  “Master,” Enkidu said, and hunched down. “I abase…”

  “That enemies attacked is not your fault, nor that of Grendel.” Wandering Shade’s voice trembled as he spoke. “I was nearby when you returned, attempting to calm myself and think through what happened. I foresaw your challenge fight and didn’t want to interfere. Interference would have been improper.”

  Enkidu understood. He wanted to accuse Wandering Shade and challenge him, but he couldn’t. The Law wouldn’t let him. The Law reduced him to asking questions.

  “Who did this, if not the Arms?” Enkidu asked.

  “The Focus bitches, of course,” Wandering Shade said. He wore a county sheriff’s uniform today, with a big-ass pistol at his waist. “There are over a hundred and fifty of them, and some are as evil and violent as the two Arms. We’ll have to approach this carefully and you’ll have to use your noses to identify these honorless attackers.”

  “What’s our itinerary, Master?” Enkidu still spoke from his crouch. The situation, despite the horror, demanded formality.

  “Baton Rouge, Detroit, Pittsburgh (but with care), Philadelphia, and lastly Boston.” Wandering Shade clenched his fists as he spoke, still radiating fury. “If all of those prove to be failures, we may need to check out the other Focus bitches in Seattle and St. Augustine.”

  “Boston, Master?” Enkidu said. “That’s where the other non-Hunter Beasts live. How can we…”

  Wandering Shade appeared next to Enkidu, moving almost too fast to see. “How do you know of this?” he demanded, his hand on Enkidu’s head. Enkidu’s own bladder almost cut loose. He hadn’t realized his Master could be so terrifying. His Master might be small in stature, but the immense threat of his juice tricks, which right now squeezed Enkidu’s metasense tight, more than compensated.

  “I’ve seen the truth in the underside of the morning clouds,” Enkidu said, quiet, cautious and apologetic.

  “Oh, good, very good,” Wandering Shade said, cuffing Enkidu’s head in kindness. “This will help. You are coming into your power, aren’t you? A terrifying and potent Hunter. I like.” He paused. “You don’t need to worry about the Boston Beasts. Not at all. That situation is well in hand.”

  Carol Hancock: March 30, 1967

  Keaton wouldn’t explain our mission of the day, which meant the mission was a test. In fact, she kept rather quiet for her high juice count. Normally the only time she talked, outside of profanity, grunts and orders, was when her juice count was up. Now? Stone face.

  She was pulling something on me.

  Her quiet meant I had nothing to do during the car ride but think. Male Arms dominated my thoughts, but occasionally they turned to brainstorming Keaton’s graduation requirement. I felt no hurry about the project, given all the good things I had been learning recently, but it would be good to come up with something.

  We didn’t stop in New York save to pick up food and to exercise. We got off I-95 in Boston, but didn’t start in on a hunting grid. Instead Keaton took us directly to our destination, a quiet Cambridge street lined with large trees and old brick houses, reeking of misbegotten Yankee wealth.

  Keaton parked the car two car-lengths away from a fire hydrant and motioned for me to get out. I followed her down the street, then around a corner. She took us to the second house on the left, with three huge old Elm trees in front. We ignored the brick walkway leading up to the white front door, went up the driveway and around back, where she pointed to a locked door.

  A test. I quietly picked the expensive lock and opened the door. We were in.

  Keaton pushed ahead of me and snuck through the impressive house. This was the sort of place I had tried to imitate in my housewife days. Old, elegant furniture. Rich, thick rugs. Oil paintings on the walls. Crystal vases on shelves. The place had everything but wallpaper made from twenty-dollar bills and anyone with juice.

  I watched Keaton intently, on the lookout for what she wanted me to do. She went into a dark room and began to sift through papers. I followed. The room was a library, with many medical books on floor to ceiling shelves, a masculine desk covered with papers, a credenza opposite, a stool on casters and two low back leather armchairs.

  All right, then. This was a spy mission. I started in on the credenza and found two photos, the first of three young adults, two men and one woman, who all looked related, the second, face down, a photo of an older woman, probably the man’s wife.

  I picked up the topmost paper from the top of the credenza and my eyes went wide. The letter started ‘Dear Dr. Henry Zielinski’, and was from some damned Focus who whined on and on about ‘bad juice contamination’.

  Well, this changed everything. Keaton didn’t have to spy on Zielinski; she could just call the bastard and he would cough up whatever she wanted to learn. That is, unless he had been holding back. I thought about Dr. Zielinski and his personality for a moment, decided what sort of information he might hold back, then opened up a file drawer in the credenza and quickly found my target, a file of personal papers.

  The top one explained everything.

  Dear Hank,

  For thirty-two years, I have been your wife. I have lived in poverty with you and our three young children while you were in medical school. I’ve raised your children while you were away from home for weeks and months at a time in the war, and working on your research. At the time, I told myself you were saving lives and advancing medical science as you did so. I thought that I was helping humanity by supporting you. Now I find I was wrong. I am not a doctor, as you are, and I never understood the work you do, but I do understand the difference between right and wrong, and …

  I cleared my throat almost inaudibly to get Keaton’s attention, not bothering to read the rest of the letter. She took the letter and file from my hand, pointed to the door, then started in on the rest of Zielinski�
��s personal papers.

  I got the hint and left the library to continue searching the house. On one wall just around the corner I found, framed, the title pages of several of his published articles. I had no idea Zielinski was as important a researcher as these articles made him out to be. Three caught my eye. The first was a paper on the difference between fundamental and supplemental juice, which he had discovered, as Special Agent Bates intimated once. The second dealt with how Focuses could drive themselves into withdrawal by moving juice too much, which I hadn’t thought possible. For Focuses, withdrawal was an unnatural state, impossible unless somebody caused it. The third article described how Arms drew juice. He had explained this to me once, in baby talk, but here was the real explanation, complete with chemical and mathematical formulas. No, Arms didn’t draw hardly anything volume-wise, just a bunch of trace chemicals mixed in with juice. Still fatal to the victim, of course, because without those trace chemicals ‘juice’ wasn’t juice any more, but a poison.

  The house was a mess. Remnants of a female presence echoed through the place, but I found no sign of a woman living here, now. The master bedroom closet had no women’s clothing, just piles of dirty laundry strewn everywhere. I found the jackpot on the dining room table: mounds of medical, legal and business papers strewn about, unkempt, unsorted. The papers told the entire story, and I whistled a soft signal to Keaton.

  Henry Zielinski wasn’t a happy man, nope, not any more. No longer a doctor, no research career, no medical practice, no prestigious teaching position, no wife, a public scandal, and on top of everything else, medical problems. All of these papers dated from after he left St. Louis. Great. Not only do Arms hunt and kill Transforms, they kill the personal lives of those who help them.

  Keaton walked in and nodded to me. After five minutes of sorting through papers, she shook her head. “Just like he said,” she said. “Looks like he kept his part of the bargain.”

  Her cryptic comment was the first she had made today. We made ourselves comfortable and waited, presumably for the good former-Doctor’s arrival.

  Zielinski came home three hours later, well past dark. He came into the kitchen from the garage and turned on the light, moving with a tired slowness, looking ten years older than he had in St. Louis. His shoulders slumped and bags sagged under his eyes. He dropped his briefcase on the kitchen table and went to the refrigerator, where he pulled out a bottle of milk.

  When he turned back to the kitchen table he almost climbed out of his skin, as Keaton and I had crept into the kitchen and taken him by surprise. I caught the milk bottle he dropped by its little plastic handle before it hit the floor, and gave it back to him.

  He moved back, away from us, and reached into his jacket where he kept his weapon. Keaton took his weapon from him and handed it to me, a Beretta M951 pistol, not quite what I expected. “Hi, hun,” Keaton said, in her mock sexy voice, as she followed him and pinned him up against a kitchen cabinet. Gave him a hug. Stepped back.

  I covered my reaction, as I thought it unprofessional to hug your prey. Keaton caught my reaction, but didn’t react with more than a twitch.

  “Arm Keaton, Arm Hancock. Ma’ams, what can I do for you today?” Zielinski asked, already over his initial surprise. Well, it was nice to know that despite his troubles he hadn’t lost all of his arrogance or his spine. In the time since I last saw him in St. Louis, I had come to realize how rare those traits were in men with an Arm in their face.

  I did wonder, though, where he picked up his screwy ‘Arm Hancock’ honorific.

  Keaton turned and led us to his library without saying a word, although I could swear some kind of communication passed between the two of them. Keaton absconded with the God position behind his desk. Zielinski sat on the low stool with casters, apparently without permission. He could barely hide his excitement.

  “Tell me all you know about male Major Transforms,” Keaton said.

  “Anecdotal or scientific?”

  I didn’t like his attitude, though it didn’t bother Keaton. I let it show. The skeevy old bastard didn’t even notice.

  “Scientific of course,” Keaton said. “If I wanted anecdotal, I would be talking to someone else, wouldn’t I?”

  “Ma’am,” he said, the most perfunctory ‘ma’am’ I had heard in a long while. “Although I’ll gladly give you the scientific information, you shouldn’t discount the anec…”

  “Fuck you, Zielinski,” Keaton said, and shook her head. “It’s gotten to the point where I don’t trust anecdotal information, even when the anecdote happens to me.”

  Huh? Was she talking about the Monster Arms encounter?

  “Well, we could always trade our tall tales after I pass along the scientific information,” Zielinski said.

  Keaton laughed.

  I’d had enough of his attitude. I leaned forward out of my chair and half snarled, giving Zielinski my nastiest predator pose, visualizing him peeing in his pants.

  He didn’t move, but his heart rate spiked and he slowly licked his lips. “Ma’am. Let me…”

  Keaton held up a finger after giving me a hot intolerant glare. I sat back down and Zielinski shut up. The tension felt cuttable while Keaton thought, hard, for two minutes. While she thought, I replayed my own reactions in my head and didn’t like what I saw. Despite Zielinski’s provocations, I had overstepped my place. I made ready to grovel and prepared my mind for a merciless beat down.

  “Hancock has a point,” Keaton said, surprising me. She stood and caught my eyes. “You grill him, however it suits you. I’ve got some work to do. I’ll expect a full report afterwards.”

  I moved as I followed her gaze, ending up in the chair of power. She then left. I felt the weight of responsibility fall on my shoulders and decided I had better not screw up, so I turned to Zielinski and gave him the full predator treatment. Zielinski nervously ran his hand through his thinning hair and inched his low stool slowly backwards. I wondered if he realized.

  “Two months ago the downtown Atlanta Transform Clinic picked up a man who showed all the signs of making a major transformation,” Zielinski said, his face icy. “He came to them comatose, running a high fever. They smelled juice, tested him, and found he possessed a juice count similar to a Focus. Several days later, he woke up, killed four of the clinic staff and fled.”

  Perfect. I wondered if this was how Male Arms got their start. “Killed? How?”

  Zielinski shrugged. “No one knows. A nurse and an orderly were in the room when he woke up. After the man ran from the clinic, an orderly and a doctor found the first two victims in convulsions. Within hours, the first two victims began making normal transformations, except the transformations were accompanied by high fevers and the convulsions continued sporadically. They brought in a Focus and she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with those two. The room, she said, was filled with what Focuses term ‘bad juice’. After two days, the victims’ hearts stopped.”

  “You said four deaths,” said.

  “Yes. Both the orderly and doctor who came into the room contracted Transform Sickness the following day and died the same way, even though they hadn’t been near the man after he woke up. No one else was affected.”

  “Nothing else extraordinary about the male Major Transform?” Zielinski shook his head. “I want more information on this. You’ll get it for me.”

  Zielinski got up from his stool. “Sit,” I said. “I didn’t say ‘now’.” Zielinski sat back down. I smelled his tension and saw sweat on the back of his neck.

  Good. As long as I didn’t kill or maim him, I doubted Keaton would mind. This fool thought he was competition? I would put him in his place. I had to. “So, was he the male equivalent of a Focus or an Arm?”

  “Focus, ma’am.”

  I nodded. “Do you have any information about male Arms?”

  “You mean Chimeras?” Zielinski said, with haughty arrogance.

  “I want information, asshole, not a vocabulary lesson!” I leapt over the
desk to get in his face, bleeding anger, death, dismemberment, torture, and as much terror as I could force out. “You get your shit together and answer my questions or you’re going to get hurt badly. Not killed. Hurt. Baaadllly.” Zielinski turned white, shock finally breaking through whatever crap filtered through his brain.

  “Fine…” he said with a croak. Sighed. “A couple of pre-prints on Chimeras came through, recently. I can try to dig them up.”

  He comment satisfied me for now, save for his reactions. I had given him everything, predator wise, more than had killed Keaton’s toy. He barely reacted. Asshole. Inured to Arms. Guess it took all types.

  Zielinski slowly worked through his library, rooting through the journals and making more of a mess. Forever and a day later he finally found what he had been looking for and tossed the article to me.

  “The author says the authorities have been mislabeling Monsters with male genitalia as female since 1958,” Zielinski said. “His evidence showing the ‘male Monsters’ are Major Transforms is that their juice counts consistently fall within a narrow range, the same range as Arms. Monster juice counts vary over a wider range and the authorities haven’t bothered to do any Monster autopsies in a decade.” I nodded. Zielinski went back to searching through his crap piles and found another article twenty minutes later.

  I looked the article over. Junk. Monsters with male genitalia spotted near Chicago, Kansas City and Minneapolis. “Don’t you have anything better?”

  He paused a beat and his stone face turned harder. “Well, I picked up through the rumor mill that Johns Hopkins had a Chimera corpse to play with.”

  “Why didn’t you mention that first?” I asked. He shrugged. The bastard, playing his old games with me. I put some predator into my gaze to get him to speed up. This time I didn’t think he even noticed.

  “Somehow, they kept the Chimera corpse out of the media,” Zielinski said. “The people who encountered the Chimera found nothing unusual about him. He never spoke and he didn’t act either sane or intelligent. The police killed him, at considerable loss of life. The Chimera was in every way a standard Monster, except for the fact he had male genitalia. Because of the first paper I mentioned, some researchers at Johns Hopkins grabbed him for an autopsy. The juice count on the Chimera was ninety-eight, and to their surprise, they found a metacampus, nearly a twin of the Focus metacampus.”