The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1)

by Randall Farmer

  “Your guard there is looking a little too ready, Focus. In a second, I’m going to have to do something. What I do won’t be good for your guard.”

  “Kurt, Sylvie, put the guns down!” Kurt glanced over at her, a small flickering of the eyes that didn’t leave the Arm unwatched. He edged over toward her, circling around the Arm.

  “Gail,” he said. Gail cut him off and amped up her Focus charisma.

  “Put them down. You aren’t up to tangling with her.”

  Kurt glared at Hancock, but he put his gun away. Sylvie followed suit. Gail relaxed, and realized her anger had washed away and she had let the juice flow back to where it belonged.

  The Arm ruined the moment by speaking. “In the future, you might want to warn your people not to point their weapons at me. If the situation got out of hand, I wouldn’t be the one getting hurt.” The Arm’s tone was superior and patronizing.

  Gail’s juice control slipped again.

  “Get out,” the Arm said, giving orders to Gail’s people as if she owned them. “I have business with your Focus. She’s going to learn a little bit about controlling the juice flow, and you’re going to feel it in your juice counts. Live with it. You.” She indicated Kurt. “Make sure no one disturbs us.”

  Kurt looked at Gail for direction. Van and Sylvie glowered at being ignored. Gail glared at the Arm, speechless in anger.

  “You have a problem with self-control?” The Arm sauntered close to Gail, dangerous. “Not a very impressive performance for a Focus. If you want them to stay while we do this, feel free, but I would have thought your tender pride might have a little trouble with what I’m about to do.”

  Hancock was about to make a fool of her yet again, the same as after Gail couldn’t run any farther. She really didn’t want Kurt, Van and Sylvie witnessing another verbal beatdown. The Commander was so beautiful in her juice, and so damned ugly in her personality.

  “Go,” Gail said.

  “Gail, are you sure?” Kurt said. This went against years of training and experience.

  She nodded, slowly.

  Kurt eyed the Arm, but he did what she said, and helped Sylvie to the door. Gail managed to pump Sylvie enough to be functional and they made it out. Van followed, angry, impotent.

  “Not a very impressive performance,” the Arm said. She crossed her arms and she looked at Gail as she might look at a dead mouse presented by a pet cat.

  “Well what did you expect?” Gail said. “You hauled me over half the city, left me stranded, you invade my house, you make fun of me, you…”

  “I expect a Focus to be able to move juice.”

  “I do move the juice, except when you come in here and give me hell.”

  “That’s bullshit, Focus. You have one responsibility in your entire life, moving juice, and you fail miserably when someone gives you a hard time. You’re taking out your anger with me on your household. How do you look at yourself in the mirror, Focus, knowing that you’re incompetent at the only job you’ve got?”

  “You bitch.”

  That fast, Gail found herself slammed against the wall in an all too familiar position.

  “That’s ‘You bitch, Teacher,’” the Arm said.

  Gail glared.

  The Arm’s voice was suddenly hard as iron. “Don’t tell me you discard your promises along with your control, Focus. That’s ‘you bitch, Teacher.’ Say it.”

  “You bitch, Teacher.” Teacher dropped her, and Gail staggered.

  “Now, lesson time. Fix your household’s juice.”

  Gail made the attempt. Angry as she was, she failed.

  “That is about as piss-poor a performance as I have ever seen. Try again. This time do better.” Gail didn’t think an Arm could read her household’s juice count, but Teacher’s assessment was entirely too accurate.

  They spent nearly half an hour moving juice, Teacher ordering Gail through various juice manipulation exercises. Gail did a crap job because she was upset; Teacher rode her unmercifully for the crap job, making Gail more upset, after which she did an even worse job. She got so mad she screamed at Teacher, but Teacher just mocked her anger. By the end, Gail was in tears and couldn’t control the juice at all. Teacher’s mocking turned to contempt.

  “This was a shit performance, Focus. I hoped you learned a little humility, because you damned sure need some. You might have even learned something about the need for self-control, because you sure as hell don’t have what you need.”

  Gail just cried, angry and humiliated. Teacher tossed a piece of paper on the floor. “You have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, Focus. I suggest you make it.”

  Teacher disappeared then, and Gail pounded her fist uselessly against the carpet.

  “What the hell are we doing with an Arm in our house?” Manfred Cadriel, the most recent ex-house president, said. The juice moving exercises had awakened the entire household, far too early in the morning, and most of them jammed their way into Gail’s living room.

  “Politics. Agreements,” Gail said. Her quiet words vanished into the riot of voices.

  “Arms are dangerous!” Gail thought the speaker was Ed Zarzemski, but she wasn’t sure.

  “Dangerous?” Sylvie said. She held on tight to Gail’s upper right arm, her juice bouncing around inside of her in a manic fashion, none of Gail’s doing. “Arms are useful.”

  “What do you mean, ‘useful’? They kill Transforms! That’s us, you idiot!” “They’re protection! The area is a hell of a lot safer with an Arm in the area.” “You’ve got a hell of a definition of safer!” “Forget safer, we owe her! The Commander saved Gail’s life!” “That’s the Arm that killed Matt Narbanor!” “She’s the California Spree Killer, dammit! What are we doing with someone like that in the house?” “She’ll kill us!” “Us? She damned near killed Gail!” “She sits on the Focus Council and is the person behind the Lucy Peoples’ Fund!” “She’s a murderer!” “Call the police!” “Is everyone all right?” “Is Gail all right?” “What if she does it again?” “We really need to call the police.” “Are you nuts? What are the police going to do?”

  “Quite, please!” This time Gail shouted, and she punctuated the end of her sentence with a juice slap, not something she normally did. Her Transforms quieted instantly. The others tailed off into the quiet. “The Arm’s training me. She’s rough, sure, but I agreed to this. Nobody calls the police.”

  The shouting started right back up again, as people roared protests and questions.

  “Why?” “What happened?” “How come the Commander is training you?” “What really happened to Arm Keaton?” “That’s crazy! We can’t have an Arm in the house.” “Can she train us, too?” “We really need to call the police. This is dangerous.” “She’ll kill us.” “How did you get into this?” “Why are we doing this?”

  “The agreement is a necessary cost of being involved in Focus politics,” Van said. Prepared, yes, but no less effective. The room quieted again, and he repeated his words, this time standing on his tiptoes to gather eyes. He towered over everybody, which, he said, made leading all so much easier. “You’re familiar with the threats from earlier in the year and our decision to hunker down. The situation’s changed; the Commander has relocated to Detroit and we’re under her protection now.”

  “The leadership council didn’t approve this,” Manfred said. He showed his nerves by running a small black comb through his unruly mop of hair. “We have procedures, and…”

  “We’re doing this because I said so,” Gail said, shivering the juice again and turning on the charisma. The room fell silent. “Because I said so, because this is my business.” She paused, waiting for the objections, but none came. They all knew what would happen if they attempted to cross Gail about her business: untagging, Gail’s standard last resort for getting her people’s attention. “You all listen to me. This is the Arm who saved my life in the Battle of Detroit. I owe her. We all owe her; she saved your lives, too. She’s training me because I agreed.
We’re not calling the police. No one is going to tell anyone outside of our household about this.”

  “Gail?” Manfred said. “Charisma.”

  Meaning she should turn down her Focus charisma. “No,” Gail said, and she didn’t relax her Focus charisma at all. “This isn’t up for argument. This is about my relationship with the Commander. Mine.” The household president and the leadership council normally ran her household, a loose structure of consensus and argument. Gail put a lot of work into avoiding the petty dictator role, but there was a big difference in her mind between the president and leadership council running the household and running her. She needed to settle the issue before some idiot talked too much or called the police. “Understand?”

  The nods came, Melanie and John and Sylvie, Ed Zarzemski, even Manfred, all the Transforms expressing vulnerable obedience because they knew better than to fight their Focus. The normals followed, outnumbered by the Transforms and pulled along despite themselves. Even Bart Wheelhouse. Gail eased up on the charisma.

  Her people watched her, silent, stunned by her heavy-handed authoritarianism. She had gone the wrong direction. She felt like some cartoon character, Road Runner, or more likely, Wile E. Coyote, running along only to discover that the ground had disappeared underneath her, and all she could do was keep running and hope she reached the other side. Worse, she sensed resentment against Van for not fighting her. She suspected the leadership council would yank his house presidency for this. He wouldn’t mind – household president was a chore, and nobody lasted long in the position.

  “Tonya assigned me a new project, one involving the Commander,” Gail said. “When the Commander’s around, we’ll treat her like any other Focus VIP. No one talks to anyone outside the household about this; it’s on our honor to protect the Arm from the authorities while she’s here. Because of the seriousness of this, if any of you step out of line on this, I will punish you.” Gail hated to use any of the juice weapons, but this was important enough for her to untag someone to get their attention, if she needed. “Be polite to the Arm. If you get any strange orders from me while the Arm is around, just follow them and don’t ask questions. Stay away from her unless she approaches you. If we all act intelligently, I think we’ll come out of this all right, but no one gets to screw things up for everyone else by not following orders.”

  She looked around at the unhappy faces around her. The world was now a lot more dangerous for all of them, and they slowly realized they didn’t have a choice in the matter. The nods started coming.

  Some of those nods came because they agreed with her. Most came because she was their Focus, and they followed her orders. Her personal business normally didn’t affect her household so completely. She wondered if the loose half-democracy of her household would ever recover.

  “What the hell did you throw me into?” Gail said, practically strangling the phone. “Whatever happened to the nice polite Arm I’ve met on social occasions? The Commander’s turned into the biggest bitch I’ve ever seen and that includes Wini Adkins! What the hell’s going on, anyway?”

  “How badly are you hurt?” Tonya said, unfazed by Gail’s temper.

  “What do you mean, hurt?”

  “Hurt. Wounded. Blood. What injuries did you suffer from Hancock’s visit?”

  Gail paused a moment and thought. “Well, I skinned my knee pretty badly, and I have a nasty gouge in my hand. And a sore neck.”

  “That’s all?” Gail didn’t much care for the sound of incredulity in Tonya’s voice. “What about your people? Are they all still alive? Any badly hurt?”

  “No,” Gail said. “She scared them, but she didn’t hurt anyone.”

  “You had Hancock in your house, in her current mood, and the worst you suffered was a skinned knee?”

  Gail concentrated on keeping her household’s juice count steady, which took work through her anger. In her mind, she could hear the Arm’s mocking laughter at her lack of control over her temper. The mental mocking laughter didn’t help her mood.

  “She doesn’t have any right to walk into my house and insult me and order my people around,” Gail said, but her words didn’t sound convincing.

  Over the line, Gail heard a faint gasping sound she swore was laughter. She glared at the phone one more time and slammed the receiver down. The receiver bounced out of the cradle and fell to the end of its cord. Gail caught the phone and slammed it down again. Then she sat on the bed with her arms crossed and continued to stare at the phone, suspicious that Tonya’s laughter would find its way down the line anyway.

  ---

  She wasn’t sure who this Doctor Smith was, and Gail wasn’t impressed with his office’s tenement-neighborhood location. They had driven half the day to get to Chicago to find some fleabag doctor Hancock wanted her to see. Detroit had perfectly good doctors, but no, the Arm wanted her to take an entire day to travel to Chicago. Gail wondered if this quack was competent enough to even hold a stethoscope.

  She stepped through the narrow front door into a small lobby, with doors leading to a dentist, an optometrist, a podiatrist’s office with a dusty picture window display hawking overpriced orthopedic children’s shoes, and Doctor Smith. Gail carefully avoided the damp spot on the carpet, where the ceiling had leaked from the recent rain. The lobby smelled of mildew. The door to Doctor Smith’s office was opaque and uninviting. She looked at Melanie and John, her bodyguards for the day. Melanie shrugged and opened the door.

  Gail hated leaving Van behind to deal with the fallout from last night, but as house president, he needed to rally her household. He had already told her he wouldn’t mind if he got booted from the house president position. Perhaps I would be able to get some real sleep at night again, he had said.

  The tiny waiting room was empty, except for a couple of chairs and some old magazines. Gail did a double take when she passed the magazines, and wondered why a doctor would keep copies of Guns & Ammo in his waiting room. Nobody manned the receptionist’s desk, but Gail heard a rustling in the back.

  “Hello?” she said, her voice conveying an edge of irritation.

  “Oh, you must be Focus Rickenbach,” a woman said, as she came hurrying out from the racks of files. She was a grandmotherly looking woman of about fifty or so, with teased-up steel colored hair and a Texas accent.

  “I have an appointment,” Gail said.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Come right in. The doctor is expecting you.” The woman bustled and waved her hands, flustered, which didn’t surprise Gail at all. Normals always reacted to her that way, especially when she was in a mood. She had certainly encountered more dramatic reactions in the past.

  No other patients waited in the office, which confirmed Gail’s theory about this doctor being a bottom-feeding hack. She wondered about his real name, as she found no signs of his identity, not even medical diplomas on the walls, and she specifically looked for those.

  The receptionist tried to lead her back to an examining room, but Gail balked. She hadn’t trusted a single damned doctor since she became a Focus, and she wasn’t about to start now. She stopped and looked through every doorway they passed. The first, a small office, with a desk and a couple of worn chairs, still had no diplomas on the wall. The file room on the other side showed no labels on the files. Next she found a small kitchen, of all things, with a sink, a full sized refrigerator and a tiny table. The receptionist attempted to lead her into the next room, the examining room, but Gail passed by. The next room was a different sort of room, with a big heavy table in the center, equipped with thick metal rings, and counters to the sides holding an immense variety of medical instruments, all of which reminded Gail of the outpatient treatment room in the large Detroit Transform Clinic. The room chilled and unnerved her, but after a moment, Gail identified the odd odor as the smell of old blood, not quite perfectly washed away. Enough Transforms used the place for Gail to metasense faint juice currents and less dross than a place like this should have.

  The last door
on the hall led to a laboratory, but Gail didn’t get to see much of the lab because Doctor Smith opened the door from the other side just seconds before Gail did. He stopped in the doorway when he saw her, and the nurse behind him almost ran into him. He was an older man, sixty or so, almost bald, with a patrician face and the weathered look of hard years on him.

  Gail drew herself up, all her accumulated irritation feeding an air of haughty superiority and disapproval. She knew what kind of effect she had when she did the Focus, and didn’t use the Focus often because of the ick factor, but this situation demanded she play the Focus. She expected the quack doctor in front of her to go into tailspins of agitated worry and concern.

  Instead, he merely blinked.

  “Focus Rickenbach, I presume?” he said, all self-contained and manifestly unflustered. She recognized his voice, but she couldn’t place where. Had he looked different when she met him before? She decided she had met him, at least once, and perhaps a second or third time in various disguises. Clearly one of the many parasites hovering around to take advantage of Transforms.

  “Yes,” she said, a bit discommoded by his lack of response to her Focus presence.

  “Good,” the doctor said. “I’ve been looking forward to properly meeting you. If you’ll come to the examining room, we can get started.”

  He led the way and Gail followed, watching him carefully.

  By the time they got to the examining room, Gail recovered her composure.

  “I want to know exactly what you plan on doing before we start, Dr. Smith,” she said.

  “Certainly, Focus,” he said. Gail found his reserved composure irritating.

  “I have quite a variety of tests I would like to run,” Smith said. “I expect this to take about two hours. Today, we’re establishing a baseline, so we know if anything that you and Arm Hancock are doing has an effect on you. This is a safety measure among other things, to allow us to identify any problems before they become significant.”