“What is it?” Mr. O’Donnelly asked. Dr. Zielinski shook his head, composed himself, and took a deep breath.
“Divorce papers. My wife’s suing me for divorce. More work for you, more grief for me.” Dr. Zielinski shook his head again. “So the last bit of my old life has fallen away.”
“You’re not bankrupt and they haven’t found your offshore accounts,” Mr. O’Donnelly said.
“Yet.” He didn’t expect much to be left in them when this whole charade ended.
Gilgamesh, Watching
Gilgamesh puzzled again over the nature of the metasense. Something like telepathy, maybe? Gilgamesh wasn’t a believer – he had never bought into religion, or UFOs, ESP, eastern meditation, or even Freudian psychotherapy. At times, he thought the situation humorous that he possessed an extraordinary sense without a realistic explanation for why the crazy thing existed. He and the other Crows had talked about the metasense being akin to a sense of smell. The metasense did have many smell-like properties at short ranges, including being stronger when downwind of something. On the other hand, his metasense didn’t seem to be affected by wind or weather at longer ranges, but at longer ranges, buildings affected it. He struggled to find an explanation for any form of sensing at multi-mile ranges. Nothing he came up with satisfied him.
He nursed a cup of coffee in a rear corner of the 34th Street Deli and pretended to read a newspaper. The deli was miles from 34th Street, and he wondered sometimes why they chose this name. Outside, rain had poured since morning. The Arms were, as always, engrossing. Hancock didn’t exercise, but she did move purposefully around the warehouse. Gilgamesh metasensed her for several minutes and finally realized that she was cooking and cleaning house. Fast. He swore she walked faster than most people ran.
A little while later, Hancock went to a different part of the warehouse and began to exercise. He found her exercising amazing now, at times almost like ballet. There had to be ropes or something way up in the air; he couldn’t believe she had learned to fly. When she got to her weight work, the dross seeped off her far less than in St. Louis, but he knew she worked with far heavier weights.
Hancock was high on juice, a day or two post-kill, but she hadn’t killed in Philadelphia. Somewhere dross in quantity waited for some brave Crow.
The older Arm, Keaton, arrived that evening after Gilgamesh returned to his haunted house. He metasensed her and froze in place. Keaton, low on juice, radiated a foul mood Gilgamesh flinched away from, from where he sat, nestled in a pile of blankets on an old mattress he had found. Gilgamesh guessed she had been out hunting and hadn’t been successful.
After the two Arms talked for a moment, Keaton sat and ate. Hancock waited on her, waitress style, only eating after Keaton finished. She ate quickly and after she finished, she cleaned up the dinner dishes.
With no warning, with her appalling, inhuman speed, Keaton struck Hancock. Struck her again. Again several times after that. She drove Hancock to the ground and kicked her once she fell. Hancock didn’t fight back, and Gilgamesh realized Keaton didn’t use her full strength. After Keaton finished kicking Hancock, she leaped on Hancock and struck her several more times.
Only a minor amount of dross leaked from them. This had to be one of their strange rituals.
After three minutes of this, Keaton stood up and Hancock struggled to her feet. Keaton barked something and Hancock went off toward the exercise equipment. She worked for over an hour, straining at those intense exercises, while Keaton hunched at a desk, fidgeting and irritable with low juice. After an hour, Keaton returned to Hancock and beat her some more, forcing her into exercises even more intense. Now the dross started to flow. None of the Crows moved, all filled up from yesterday’s trip to Keaton’s oft-used graveyard.
Minutes later, Keaton turned to her own exercises while Hancock took a breather, went to the kitchen, and ate a snack, likely the cold remains of dinner. Keaton worked at her exercises even harder than Hancock, until a thin film of dross began to seep from her. In a manner of speaking, she sweated dross.
Finished with her snack, Carol went back to her exercises. Keaton barked again and hovered over Hancock, but didn’t do anything terrible. After Hancock finished her exercises, she showered and cleaned some more. She masturbated in the shower. Her shower pleasures were one of those personal things Gilgamesh had no business observing but did anyway, because he observed everything. Gilgamesh wondered if she would kill him for nothing more than metasensing her private moments, if she knew what he always did, and she got her hands on him. He wondered how many other things she would want to kill him for. He knew so much about her.
After her shower, Hancock and Keaton talked. Keaton was angry, pressing Hancock on something, but Gilgamesh couldn’t tell what. His metasense was good, but not that good. He had heard a rumor that at least one Crow could use his metasense to eavesdrop, but Gilgamesh didn’t believe it.
Gilgamesh did metasense it when Keaton snapped, going from angry to livid. In a moment she drove Hancock down to the floor, in another moment she tied Hancock down on some apparatus. Finished, Keaton went to another room and came back with something. Her torture tools, most likely.
Keaton said something to Hancock, while Hancock grew angry inside but subservient outside, a strange emotional state. Keaton extracted some sort of tool from a tool belt she wore and held it against Hancock’s neck. Hancock tensed and now showed fear. A few moments later Keaton used the tool on Hancock, ripping into her in some obscene fashion.
Now the dross began to flow in quantity. Tomorrow night, or the night after, once the dross matured, the Crows would have a feast.
After several minutes of torture Keaton stopped, stood, and freed Hancock. Hancock didn’t stand, but crawled, cringing in terror. His blood ran cold to metasense her. She crawled with her belly to the floor, and licked Keaton’s feet.
Gilgamesh didn’t move, glued to his metasense in appalled fascination. Something both repulsed and engrossed him to metasense someone so completely dehumanized. He understood predators. This was more than that. This was evil, raw and cruel.
He cringed at Keaton’s cruelty. The torture bothered him more than the first time he metasensed one person kill another, Hancock killing for her juice. At least Hancock’s action reflected her needs. This was nothing more than sadism and barbarism. Thousands of years of civilization meant there were things men simply did not do to one another. Limits. Boundaries you didn’t cross. You even treated enemies better than this.
Hancock was Keaton’s pet animal. Her degradation sickened him. Hancock, an Arm capable of such extraordinary feats, didn’t meet his Tiamat hopes and dreams. Not under Keaton. All those months of following her trail, all his dreams of paradise and infinite fountains of dross hadn’t come true. She was supposed to save him and bring him back from the edge of animal desperation.
Instead, she cringed and cowered at Keaton’s feet, nothing more than her pet dog.
The thought made him physically sick.
They were predators. His source of dross. Not necessarily any more human than the Beast Men. Just Beast Women, acting like animals, nothing he should let bother him.
He told himself so, firmly.
Keaton went to another part of the warehouse and slung something over her shoulder. She headed out back to the other end of the warehouse. Hancock got off her belly and followed orders, moving this and that, and loading something into the older Arm’s vehicle.
Gilgamesh froze. Keaton opened the warehouse door and drove the car out. Hancock closed the door for her. Gilgamesh didn’t move until Keaton drove away.
He sighed, relieved. Hancock, after her abuse, went back to her exercises. He had followed the California Spree Killer’s rampage in the newspapers, convinced his Tiamat had come into her true power. What she did was appalling and terrifying, but not unexpected. Not for a goddess of death and destruction. He had metasensed, somehow, back when he first encountered her, that she had this in her. Inhuman, terrible, a
goddess of death walking the earth. The world didn’t know what it was in for.
Then he found this.
Was this training, or was this nothing more than destruction, one jealous goddess destroying an inferior? They both possessed such power and such inhumanity. What was Keaton doing, and why?
What was her goal?
Gilgamesh had no idea, and when he figured it out, he didn’t expect to like it.
Gilgamesh’s Repair Service
“No, Gilgamesh. I think it’s time for you to get your own vehicle,” Sinclair said. Seven children ran by the park bench where the two Crows sat, talking, under an old red oak. The children continued on, to play on a nearby swing set. “You’re supposed to be the great heroic Crow. Surely you can drive.”
Gilgamesh had been asking Sinclair once a week for help from him and his truck. At first, Sinclair had begged off, one excuse after another. Later, Sinclair refused to answer with more than a patient look. Now, firmness and ire.
“I’ll think about it,” Gilgamesh said, not letting his annoyance show. The Philadelphia Crows no longer granted him the slack of a beginner and there were more than a few wry comments along the lines of ‘the great Gilgamesh, Crow adventurer’. He had told them too many stories.
His need for Sinclair’s truck wasn’t huge. He had spotted a couple of old washing machines out in a junkyard six miles from home. Perfect to fix up, save for the fact he had no way of getting them back to his apartment.
Gilgamesh went home and thought for a long time. Driving didn’t need to be unreasonably dangerous, if he drove slowly, and stayed away from busy streets and rush hours. Hard, certainly, but not impossible. Having a vehicle would make life more convenient…and more profitable. Hell, he ended up giving half of his profits to the other Crows, in gratitude for what they had already done for him.
And he did have enough money saved up to buy a truck.
The next evening he read the automotive classified ads in the newspaper, taking notes as he went. Two days later he bought a ’59 Chevy pickup, 67,000 miles, dark gray and rusting. The truck turned out to be a maintenance nightmare. He spent nearly as much time tinkering with the truck as he spent with all his other appliances combined, but he could keep it running most of the time.
After he bought the truck and drove it slowly back to his apartment, he spent the next hour curled into a ball with the shakes. A week passed before he managed to drive without curling up in a ball afterwards. Driving would never be easy.
The truck opened up a whole new world for Gilgamesh, more places to go for junk.
Once he fixed the junk, though, he had to sell it.
---
After going through the hassle of getting his truck working again, carting around washers and dryers two at a time, and fixing them up, and returning them to the thrift shop, he decided the thrift shop, although convenient, didn’t pay him enough for his work. Three miles from his apartment, though, he found a store specializing in used appliances. The place was barely more than a barn on a dirt lot, but they charged much more than the thrift store, and they paid more as well. He took his latest truckload of refurbished washers and dryers to them, and of all things, they offered him a job.
Gilgamesh said no without thinking about it.
Later, home in the peaceful dark, he reconsidered his decision. A job wasn’t an impossible idea. He had special needs as a Crow, but if he found a way to make everything work…
The next day, Gilgamesh went back to “Smitty’s Used Washers & More”, and talked to Smitty. The day was hot, and the dirt parking lot was dusty. Gilgamesh nerved himself up, and walked into the cavern of a building.
“You come in at 9:00 in the morning,” Smitty said in his Virginia drawl. “We open at 10:00, and you can do some fixin’ beforehand. Then you can keep on workin’ in back, an’ jes’ come on out when we got some customer bringin’ in somethin’ t’trade. Take a look at what’s been brought in, ‘n let me know, so’s I know how much t’pay ‘em. You keep on workin’ while there’s work to be done, an’ then you can go on home. I’ll pay you two dollars an hour for every hour you’re here.”
Gilgamesh stood silently listening to Smitty’s drawl, and tried to keep control of his nerves. Dammit, he hated the panic that ate at him. Why did this always have to be so hard?
“I’ll work at night,” Gilgamesh said, his voice far quieter than he intended. “No customers. Leave me the work that needs to be done, and I’ll do it at night. You’ll have the work done in the morning. And I need to be paid in cash.”
Smitty looked down at Gilgamesh. Smitty was a big man, several inches taller than Gilgamesh, and nearly twice as heavy. He wore a crew cut and a pair of overalls that looked more like a tent than simple clothes. He shook his head at Gilgamesh.
“No good. I’m not payin’ you for hours worked unless I know you’re there an’ workin’. An’ I need you lookin’ at the trade-ins as they come.”
“You could pay me piecework for each item I fix,” Gilgamesh said. His voice shook, and sweat beaded quickly under his shirt.
Smitty shook his head again. “I’m not havin’ someone in here when I can’t keep my eye on ‘em.”
Gilgamesh nodded and turned to go. He knew an agreement was unlikely, but still worth the attempt.
He was climbing into his truck when Smitty called out from the door of the barn, “Wait!”
Gilgamesh turned back to him.
“You’re gonna walk out if I don’t let you work at night?”
Gilgamesh nodded, not trusting his voice. His nerves were collapsing under him, and he still had the drive home in the truck yet to go.
“Aw, hell. If my old guy hadn’t a quit last week, I’d never agree to this, but I do need a guy. I’ll give you a key and you can work at night. You just make sure you lock up when you’re done. You make a list of how much you want for fixin’ each ah the different machines, an’ I’ll check it over. So long as you keep fixin’ things for me, and don’t do anything funny at night, you got yourself a job. I’ll be watchin’ you, though.”
Gilgamesh nodded again.
That night, he started working at Smitty’s place. He arrived each evening around 10:00, an hour after the store closed. The barn held a workroom in the back, with tools and supplies. Much better tools than Gilgamesh had been able to obtain for himself. In addition, Smitty kept a collection of instruction booklets and repair manuals for the most common makes and models of home appliances. Gilgamesh worked eight hours for the first several nights, while he worked through Smitty’s backlog, and after that usually finished after four or five hours. With the tools and manuals, he worked efficiently, and found himself raking in fifteen to twenty dollars a night.
A hundred a week was an astonishing amount of money. Real money, enough for a person to live on. Almost enough for a man to support a family. More than enough to cover the costs of his apartment, food, gas, and repairs for his truck. He spent more time in the thrift shop, bought more clothes, and even bought some dishes and pots for his apartment.
Smitty’s was a peaceful place to work late in the night. Smitty stopped by several times in the first couple of days, checking on him, as he promised. After that, he decided Gilgamesh was trustworthy and stopped coming by. Gilgamesh enjoyed the work, long late hours happily working with tools and small machines.
The routine: Smitty’s was closed on Sunday, but every other evening, Gilgamesh went to work. He would finish around 3:00 AM or so, and on the way home stop close to the Arms’ warehouse, or one of the safe Focus households, and sip some of the dross. He usually got home around 6:00 or so, ate breakfast and got a few hours of sleep. He would do whatever business he needed to in the late morning, some occasional shopping, or more likely some maintenance on his truck. In the afternoon, he would read, or write long discourses for the other Crows, or entertain himself by metasensing the Arms or the Focus households. In the early evening, he might take dross again, or might meet with one of the other Crows.
He changed his routine if fresh dross appeared, but most of the time he puttered away the weeks at Smitty’s. Settled in, he envisioned his routine lasting for years.
Unfortunately, this would turn out to be a world-class blown prediction.
Joe
(Carol Hancock’s POV)
Okay, I understood myself. I understood Keaton. We’re Arms, uh huh. I had gone over this a thousand times. I went over it again as I pedaled through the quiet streets between the warehouses of Keaton’s neighborhood, attempting to ignore my juice monkey’s screeching counterpoint to the clatter of the cheap bike. I bumped over yet another collapsed section of sidewalk and muttered curses.
Something was wrong, something I couldn’t put my finger on. I had kept this wrongness locked up in my mind ever since I returned from California, but my blow up with Zielinski brought it out into the open for the first time: I didn’t understand my relationship with Keaton.
I didn’t know why she did the things she did. What I told Zielinski, about Keaton using me as a guinea pig and ground-breaking tool, wasn’t wrong. Just incomplete, according to my gut feelings.
I put myself in her place. If I were in her position, what would I do?
Dumb move. I almost fell off my bicycle. Some things I shouldn’t figure out when I’m this far down on juice.
In her position, I would have killed me long ago. Being a ground-breaking tool and guinea pig wasn’t enough recompense.
If true, then why the hell was I still alive? I would never have tolerated some ignorant junior Arm putting me at risk and competing for my kills. Taking my things. Sharing my space. The mine feelings were too strong. I would have given into the temptation to torture her to death long ago. God, with an Arm’s healing abilities, I could have kept her dying for days.
The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Three Page 5