Now We Are Monsters (The Commander) (41 page)

“Erica Eissler’s been an Arm for over six years, much less dangerous than a new Arm,” Zielinski said to Lori.  “New Arms are extremely dangerous, almost as dangerous as old Focuses.”

“Ouch,” Lori said.  “Speaking of which, what do you plan to do about that warning note?”

“Ignore it, for now,” Zielinski said.  “I think Focus Schrum is out of line.”  Just as he thought his life had hit bottom and was looking up, getting a ‘do not go meet with Eissler or else’ note from the area’s Regional President brought him back to reality.

“Out of line or not, she is my boss.”  Lori snorted.  He tried not to think about what Schrum’s ‘or else’ might mean.  “Not that I’m going to stop what you’re doing,” Lori continued.  “Of course, I’m already challenging the first Focuses and their toadies on the UFA Council, at least a little.  When it’s important.  I’m trusting your judgment that a visit to Eissler is important enough to risk Focus Schrum’s ire.”

Zielinski nodded.  “My Arm research, helping them get on their feet and integrate themselves with the Transform community, is more important than my other research.  Both Keaton and Hancock are skating close to the edge of non-viability due to problems as Transforms.  We could easily lose both of them.  All the Major Transforms need to get their acts together before the demographic bomb explodes.”

Lori nodded.  He preached to the choir here and knew it.  If anything, Lori was even more adamant about getting the Major Transforms to work together.

“So, what’s next for you?” Zielinski asked.

“Crows and the local Focuses,” Lori said, in a whisper.  “It’s time my local friends learned about the potential dangers of Chimeras and their packs of Monsters.  And how we can all be safer if we cooperate with each other.”

“Dangerous.”  The Council and the first Focuses would try to quash this.  Zielinski opened his mouth, about to say that Lori’s plan sounded like a needless risk, but then he
stopped.  Not his call.  If Lori said it was time, then it was time.

“We’re both putting our lives at risk, I guess,” Lori said, her face under iron control.  She stuck her hand out for him to shake.  “Good luck with Eissler.”

I hunted Baltimore, a full day affair because of its size.  I kept a map of the streets of Baltimore in my head, along with the hunt grid, part of my day’s preparation for the hunt.  I drove down one street after another, driving the speed limit, windows open to let in the cold fresh air and free the metasense.  At a bus stop, a quarter mile ahead during the morning rush, I metasensed a Transform.  I smiled for only a second, before I recognized the telltale pattern in the Transform’s juice of Focus Caruthers’ tag.  Just another member of the talented young Baltimore Focus’s household.  Fucking crap!

Lunch hour is a prime part of the day for hunting, almost as productive as rush hour.  If you find a good place, you can sit and watch the prey go by.  Only, again, the only Transforms I found were Focus Caruthers’ people
, and not nearly enough of them, only three.  Where were the rest?

I hated anything that messed up my pattern.

After lunch hour I started the elevator rides.  My metasense can penetrate buildings and windows – or whatever it’s detecting can penetrate buildings and windows – but office buildings often made a hash of things.  In particular, I often missed the Focus tags.  In addition, I often missed any Transforms above the seventh story of any office building.  Even Keaton didn’t know why.

Federal offices?  I avoided all of those.  Anything but minimal security I avoided.

After the elevator rides, I changed out my disguise and fake ID.  Now I portrayed myself as a secretary getting off work early.  I wore a dark red dress, so blood wouldn’t show.  I exchanged my accessories with much higher class versions.  I got all of this from my duffel in the trunk.  Keaton’s motto was contingencies, contingencies, contingencies, and I never found any reasons to disagree.

I found my freedom waiting for me in a trailer park outside of Baltimore later that afternoon.  A Transform, no tag, a perfect kill.  I brought the car to a screeching halt and parked down the first side road I found.

This was it.

For a moment, I had the shakes.  Anticipation.  I fought them off by submersing myself in the hunt.  Trailer parks were tight quarters and this wouldn’t be an easy extraction.  I cased the place, and after ten minutes of stalking through scrub, I found my kill – no, Keaton’s kill – back in the brush behind an empty trailer pad.  My target Transform was smoking, drinking beer and hanging out with a couple of his friends.  A teenage kid who should have been in school.

I ran through my pre-planned scenarios and found one that might work.  The plan was a bit complicated, but wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion.  I put on my gloves and skulked through several trailers, staying within metasense range of the Transform, until I found what I needed, a half-full bottle of rotgut whiskey.  People were about on this late summer afternoon, the tiny lawns filled with enough playing children to make me take things slowly.

My boys were still going strong.  I skulked close and waited for the prey to go pee, which didn’t take long.  As soon as he found a ditch to pee in, I grabbed him and stuck a hand over his mouth.  I had him bound and gagged in no time.  I gave him a dose of predator to keep him in line, but it didn’t take.  Teenage boys were dense that way, alas, far too often.  I needed sterner measures.

“You’ll do what I tell you, asshole,” I said, whispering in his ear as I closed my hand around his index finger and crushed it.

He screamed into the gag.  I waited until he finished screaming, now fully terrified.

“I need a car.  I’m going to take the gag off and you’re going to tell me where I can get one.  If I were you, I wouldn’t scream.”

He nodded in terror.  I took the gag off.

“Is your family’s car at home?” I asked.

“No, ma’am. My mom’s gone to the grocery store.”

“What about your friends?  Is there a car at home for either of their families?”

He nodded.  I had him point out the car.  Acceptable.  I gagged him again and escorted him to my original ride, where I bound and gagged him far more thoroughly.

Time to set up the rest.  Once I let go of him I had the shakes again, my hunting focus slipping for a moment.  My subconscious knew where this kill was going.  I squeezed my fingers until it hurt, snuck into the trailer behind my target vehicle, took the keys and heisted the car.

As I backed the car out into the road, I worried I might be giving myself away.  Everyone in this entire trailer park likely knew the cars of everyone else here.  I toyed, momentarily, with the idea of fetching my prey and making him drive the car out, but decided not to.  I would do it myself, keep my head down and hope no one noticed some stranger driving off with one of their cars.

To get out of the trailer park I had to drive around two groups of playing kids, but nobody came screaming out
of any trailers accusing me of theft.  I drove the car around back and parked by mine.

First, I set up the scene.  I made my Transform sit in the driver’s seat of the stolen car and leave his fingerprints all over the vehicle.  I also made him put his prints on the whiskey bottle.  Finished with him, I tied him up again and put him back in my car.

Gloves on, I got into the driver’s seat of the stolen car and drove.  I passed a couple of cars going the other direction on the quiet road before I found what I wanted: a straight section of road, no cars coming, and a large tree a couple of hundred yards away, just to the right of the road.  I stepped on the gas and aimed the car at the tree.  I jumped out of the car a half second before it hit, trusting my reflexes.  I rolled, but the impact with the road hurt enough to drive my anticipation and fear out of my head for a long time.

The car hit hard enough to wrap itself around the tree, right where I aimed, exactly in front of the passenger’s seat.  The driver’s side wasn’t crushed and the door remained open.  The cops would spend a lot of time wondering how my Transform survived the crash, how he got out, whether he died in the brush somewhere, or whether he ran away when he realized he
had wrecked his friend’s car on a drunk joyride.  What they wouldn’t consider was whether an Arm killed him.

By the time I returned to my car, sirens echoed in the distance.

I called two of my thugs, Donald and Bruce, to bring the hearse.  It took them twenty minutes to drive to me, twenty nerve-wracking minutes where I hovered at extreme metasense range of my captive Transform, and hoped and prayed nobody would take an interest in my nice boring parked car in a bowling alley parking lot two miles from the trailer park.

Nobody bothered my boring parked car.  Donald and Bruce bundled junior into the back of the hearse and drove off.  I followed in my car a cool quarter mile back, sweating badly and self-administering pain.  A half hour out from Keaton’s warehouse we stopped.  I took the hearse, paid them off, and never saw them again.

Even though I had succeeded on my previous test, the last half hour wasn’t easy.  I used the knife again, repeatedly, to drown out the call of the juice.  The pain aided my concentration.  When the knife wasn’t enough, I remembered what Keaton had done to me.

As I drove past the Philadelphia International Airport, I felt a hot gaze on my neck while stopped at a stoplight.  I turned my head and metasensed Focus Caruthers
herself
, along with an oversized detachment of her household guards.  Standing around, looking at everything, part of the ongoing Focus patrols.  Feeling frisky, I waved.  I did wonder what she thought of me in a hearse’s driver’s seat, with a trussed up prey Transform tied up in the back.

I made it, though.  I got all the way to the warehouse with the Transform still alive.

Arms have their secrets.  Don’t begrudge them that.  Does Macy’s tell Gimbals?  Does the United States publish its military secrets in Pravda?  Your life may depend on the Arm (who is protecting you from rogue Transforms) being able to come up with a secret talent or skill that her enemies do not know about.  Don’t mess that up.

“The Book of Arms”

“Slow down, slow down,” Tonya said
, receiver to her ear.  She waved at her people to quiet down.  They had a master map on the wall of southeastern Pennsylvania, southwestern New Jersey, northern Delaware and northeast Maryland, stuck with multi-colored pins representing unexplained sightings and sounds.  A cluster of pins surrounded all of the local Transform Clinics.

Geraldine took a deep breath that almost sounded like a hiss
over the rotten phone line.

“Good.  Now start over.”

“Okay, Tonya.  There was this Transform, a woman Transform driving a hearse with another Transform tied up in the back of the hearse.  Coming up Industrial, right by the airport.  She turned left on Island, then right on Bartram.”  Focus Caruthers took another deep breath.  “If we hadn’t been standing at the corner across from the airport, I would have never spotted them.”

“The driver was one of those part-Monsters?” Tonya asked.

“Nah uh.  She had the metasense glow of a star.  It was like someone had turned on a metasense searchlight,” Geraldine said.  “She was terrifying.”  Pause.  “She waved at me.”

Tonya gulped.  “She was an Arm, Gerry.”

“An Arm!  What are we doing with Arms in this mess?  Did you bring her in?”

“I got the Arms to investigate my sighting near Pottstown, but I didn’t recruit them for
the patrols.  On the other hand, Arms do like to act on their own initiative,” Tonya said.  The Transform tied up in the back sounded to her like an Arm’s juice supply.  “The Transform in back was an untagged Transform?”

“Positive,” Geraldine said.

The Arm turned on Bartram and into the industrial district south of the Schuylkill.  Perfect Arm housing territory.  Tonya knew the area, as some of her minor real estate empire lived down there: a few warehouses, some storefronts, some vacant lots.  Tonya distrusted coincidences.  Either Hancock, finally free of Keaton, had decided to move into Philadelphia, or the Arms had been in Philadelphia all this time, unbeknownst to Tonya.  The latter would have been a perfect bit of Keaton humor.

Or, an even worse idea, the Arms were in cahoots with the Chimeras, and all hell was about to break loose.  Quite a few of those colored pins on the map could have been Arm sightings, not Monster or Chimera sightings.

Tonya couldn’t afford to take any chances.  Three defenseless Focus households lived in the greater Philadelphia area, her responsibility to protect.  They had been running the patrols for just that reason.

“I’m going to scramble our entire crew,” Tonya said to Gerry.  “Something’s going to happen today, I can feel it.  You switch your patrol area to the north side of downtown and cover Focus Jackawitz.  I’ll call Special Agent Bates and get the FBI crew going, and I’ll cover Focus Chambers’ place south of the Airport myself.”  She would investigate the Arm sighting as well.

Tonya hung up and started to place the calls to the others in her recently constructed circle of local corporate-model households.  Focus Webb had been right.  The corporate model households, easier to coordinate than the others, formed the core of Tonya’s patrol groups.

It didn’t hurt that these households already owed Tonya a great deal for her past help, either.

“Yes,” Wandering Shade said.  “This is it.”

“What issss, Masssster?” Grendel said.  “The ssssecond Arm?  She’s got a Transform with her, doessssn’t she?”

The air outside the warehouse stank of stale pollution and heat, and of a distant storm readying to break.  The weather made Enkidu nervous.  He kept quiet, allowing Grendel to stick his snout into the conversation.

“She’s got a knife in her arm and exultation in her soul,” Wandering Shade said.  He took off his mirrored sunglasses to polish.  “Beautiful.  Think of a cat bringing a songbird in its mouth to its master.”

“You think she has a pressssent for the old Arm?” Grendel asked.

The further into his Master’s plans they got, the more Enkidu worried.  The two Arms had done their dirty deed in just a few minutes, likely not knowing what they did or who they victimized.  The
Hunters had spent too much time arranging their revenge, and he hated this hellhole of a city.  The air stank, too many humans lived here, as did far far too many Focuses.  All their sneaking and plotting didn’t feel right to him.  Hunt, find, attack!

Hunt, find, attack and lose.  The older Arm fought too well
, and he had a hard time believing they still held the advantage of surprise, not after all this planning, preparation and pussyfooting.

“A graduation present.  I believe our young Arm is about to fly the coop.”

“But she can’t give the pressssent away now!” Grendel muttered.  “The older Arm issssn’t home.”

“That’s good for us, you know, Grendel,” Wandering Shade said.  “It gives me enough time to arrange our little shambling surprise for whatever Focus bitch is going to try and interfere.”

Enkidu metasensed one of the Focuses, in a vehicle, drive across the Schuylkill and into downtown Philadelphia.  He, or his instincts, thought of the Focuses as the competition, not the Arms.  The Focuses also kept Gals.  The Arms preferred to hunt the much more prevalent unattached male Transforms, which, truthfully speaking, were useless to
his
survival.

His Master took out a handkerchief, mopped his forehead with it, and put it back into the pocket of his police uniform.  Today, his Master was bald.  Yesterday, he had short-cropped red hair.  No matter.  His Master always smelled the same, the ‘man who wasn’t there’.  “Far to the west, I sense the local head Focus bitch herself on her way toward us,” Wandering Shade said, then bellowed “Enkidu!  Get your furry ass over here!”

Enkidu checked one last time on the Crows, both feigning sleep.  He strode out from beyond the partition, making sure he kept himself between Grendel and the Crows.  Today the Crows were tied to a couple of old chairs Enkidu found in a junkyard; he didn’t want the Crows trying anything funny if the Shade guessed right and this was the day.  Enkidu wore a trench coat, hiding his immense frame, and a wide-brimmed hat low on his head to hide his muzzle.  The fact he maintained a mannish two-legged form, while Grendel was stuck on four legs, meant Grendel always looked
up
to him.  He liked that.

Grendel hissed laughter at Enkidu as he scratched his ridiculous disguise, the skins of all the dogs they killed.  Cleo had put the disguise together, saying Grendel might conceivably be mistaken for a large dog.  If she believed what she said, she was as addled as Grendel.

“Hrrrr,” Enkidu said.  “Your dreams were right, Master.  You think the old bitch Arm is going to take the Transform in her lair?”

“If she doesn’t, I want the two of you ready to follow her in the small truck,” Wandering Shade said.  “Wherever she goes, you go.  When she takes the Transform, kill her.  Stay here, though, until the older Arm appears.”  Enkidu nodded and hid a grimace.  Following the Arms required many stops to wash out their scent, and risked them being caught out in the open by normal humans and the damned Focus bitches.  However, with a Transform to kill for their juice, the Arm wouldn’t be going far, and there would be a guaranteed ending at the conclusion of their short hunt.

“What about the student Arm?” Enkidu asked.

“Leave her to me,” Wandering Shade said.  “I’ll take the large truck with your Zombie friends to head off any problems with the Focus bitches.”

“Do you mind if we do the extra Crow, Master?” Enkidu asked.  “That way, we’ll be fully juiced up and ready to roar!”

“Take them both, if you like,” Wandering Shade said, with a low chuckle.  “They’re worthless to me.  I’ll leave you to your business and get in position with my truck of treasures.”

Their Master straightened his police officer uniform, put on his policeman hat, then wandered off.  With each step he became less and less noticeable to Enkidu’s eyes and metasense, until he vanished completely, leaving behind only the sound of his steps.  Enkidu wrinkled his snout, disconcerted as always by his Master’s tricks.  At least he was better off than the Crows, who couldn’t see or metasense his Master even when he stood in front of them and spoke.

“Let’s go,” Enkidu said, and led Grendel back into their Crow habitat.  “Don’t forget:  Gilgamesh is mine.  We’re only killing the other one.”

“Hsss.”

Enkidu selected the
other Crow, dragged him over to the floor drain, and slit his throat.  Gilgamesh screamed as the other Crow died.  Enkidu couldn’t make himself care.

Feeding time.

Soon it would be the killing and raping time.

I pulled the hearse into the warehouse, shut the garage door behind me, and pulled the Transform from the back.  Keaton wasn’t home.

The Transform was beautiful and full, a fruit ripe for the picking, but – don’t think.  I had planned this out.  Don’t think.

I carried him over to the squat rack and laid him on the ground next to it.  I got shackles from the workroom and chained him where he lay.  I didn’t untie him.  He writhed in misery from the too tight bonds, but
his misery didn’t matter.  He would be dead soon anyway.

His touch was sensuous and soothing.

I looked up from him to the squat rack.  The rack loomed above me, practically radiating evil.

Don’t think.  Wait.  Prepare for my presentation to Keaton.

A car door slammed and the garage door opened only a few minutes later, long before I finished the gourmet meal I prepped.

Crap.  Keaton could metasense the prey from a quarter mile away.  Hell, if she had been within a quarter mile of any point on the route I took through the city, she would have
metasensed him.  I had dragged the kill along to the warehouse like a lure.

To my surprise, I relaxed and almost permitted myself a sardonic smile.  I no longer worried about my willpower; the kill was no longer mine.  I
had lost the kill the minute Keaton came in the door, and, amazingly, the loss no longer bothered me.  I walked out into the gym to meet her.

Keaton wore a business suit today.  She waved at my offering.

“This is your idea of a formal graduation present?”  I studied her ice-cold mask of a face.  “Something goddamned strange is going on today.  All the Focuses and law enforcement officers are on edge.  I
don’t
like my business being interrupted.”  She spoke with a soft and controlled voice.  Dangerous.  Very dangerous.

She must have been stalking the Focus patrols again, a house cat unable to give up on a porcupine hunt, despite the obvious.  She had been attempting to unravel the mystery of the patrols for over a week.  I had asked her politely why she didn’t call her Network contacts, and she said she had, and gotten nowhere
, and said she couldn’t talk to the Focus in charge directly without giving up the location of her lair.

Therefore, her chief Focus contact didn’t know where she laired
, but Hank did.  Interesting psychology all around on this issue.

“For you, ma’am,” I said, trying for the same level of control.  Keaton stayed silent, waiting for more.  “Ma’am, if you’re willing, I’m preparing a feast…”

She smiled, slightly. “Not.  Today.”

“Ma’am, it’s time for me to grad…”
In a breath, Keaton was on me and I flew across the room, the rest of my prepared statement unsaid.  I hit the center door of the warehouse with a bang, twisting to hit feet first.  I landed ready for a fight, but not initiating one.  Or initiating a grovel.

Dammit.  I always understood my graduation wouldn’t be as easy as simply filling Keaton’s stated requirement.  I was hers and she wouldn’t gladly let me go.

She grabbed me by the neck and pushed her face close to mine as soon as I landed.  “Don’t give me this shit, asshole.  Our enemies might attack today, and you’re needed.”

She wanted me to knuckle under
to her intimidation.  I was supposed to crawl and apologize.  She wanted me to grovel.  If I gave in to her, she would go easy on me.  Groveling would be the safe course, the course I had followed for months.  A part of me wanted me to follow this path now.  She terrified me.  She owned me.  My bowels turned to water and I wanted to crawl at her feet and beg for leniency.

Groveling was
her
scenario, though.  Her way ended with me giving her the Transform, gratis, and likely stuck with a worse graduation test.

No fucking way.  I feared her, but fear had been my constant companion for more than a year.  I knew how to deal with fear.

“This kill officially satisfies your graduation requirement, ma’am,” I told her, as formally as possible.  I gave nothing away in my voice, which stayed calm and even.  “I proved myself, as you yourself demanded.”