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

by Randall Farmer

  Lori shook her head. “Not a thing. Sorry, Carol. Not a thing. If she used a juice trick, it wasn’t anything I’ve encountered before. I don’t want to bring this up, but the best answer to your question of the identity of our unknown enemy is Haggerty’s theoretical hidden uber-Major Transform. Arm Bass is too junior for such advanced juice tricks.”

  I turned away, annoyed. Life was definitely turning into a bed of shit-stained roses.

  Henry Zielinski: August 2, 1972

  Zielinski arrived at Gail’s household’s dilapidated student housing apartment just after dawn. Half the household was awake and stared at him from doors and hallways as he came in, not what he wanted to see. Too many people knew he existed already. He really hoped Gail kept tight control over her household, but given the household dynamic he saw, he suspected the wish was futile.

  Focus Rickenbach had called him at two in the morning, the standard time this year for a Major Transform crisis. “Your Arm just tortured one of my people. You can damned well get your ass over here and take care of her,” she had said. So, he came.

  The woman, Melanie, wasn’t in bad shape. She had been in good physical condition even for a Transform, and Carol had been a little bit restrained, at least for her. Melanie wasn’t coping emotionally, though. Damn it, what could Carol have been thinking?

  “She’ll be all right,” Zielinski said as he pulled the sheet back up over Melanie and stood up. Melanie’s bed was in the small single women’s dorm bedroom, where she huddled under the covers in a bottom bunk. “The damage appears to be superficial, meant to cause pain rather than any lasting effect. I’ve given her a painkiller and something to help her sleep.”

  Gail nodded once, still angry and still glowing with righteous rage. Focus charisma poured off her in waves. Five other women watched uneasily from their own bunks, concerned for Melanie and concerned they might be next.

  “Don’t worry about me, Gail,” Melanie said, her voice groggy and weak. “I’ll be fine.” According to his measurements, Gail kept her at a juice count of 24.7, too high for Melanie to function, but just right to make her feel high as a kite. Exactly what he would have recommended.

  “If your Focus keeps caring for you the way she is now, you should be on your feet by this afternoon,” Zielinski said.

  Melanie smiled faintly before she closed her eyes and drifted off. Gail glared at Zielinski and twitched her head toward her office. He followed, pliant for now, fearing this would be a bad one.

  Gail’s office was on the east side of the building, and the early morning sun illuminated the shabby furniture too clearly. Zielinski blinked at the sudden brightness while Gail pointedly took the power symbol position behind her desk. He sighed and settled into the wooden folding chair opposite.

  “How do you manage to live with yourself?” Gail said, fixing him with her gaze. Zielinski winced, feeling like leftover refuse despite himself. Damn, she was powerful with her charisma.

  “That Arm tortures people, and you know it. She enjoys the torture! That’s sick! And you support her anyway! What excuses do you use to convince yourself you’re a decent human being?”

  Zielinski sighed. A powerful Focus with a mad on. Never easy. Old memories of mistakes and failures nagged at him. “I support Carol because I agree with her goals. I don’t support everything she does.”

  Gail glowered at him, whatever small amount of trust she had in him now gone.

  “So you can walk away from Melanie after seeing what that Arm did to her, and still support her? What happened to your humanity, Dr. Zielinski? Or did I forget, it isn’t Doctor any more. Isn’t this sort of inhumanity the reason you lost your medical license in the first place?”

  Oh, both nasty and hurtful. If he didn’t pull himself together she would take him apart in pieces and he would end up as a candidate for one of those nice cheerful wards where they fed you happy pills all day. He wondered if Gail even knew her own strength.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he said.

  “Oh, your Arm mistress didn’t brag? I’ve learned how to control my own pain, so she needed someone else to masturbate to. She’s now insisting that one of my people be in the room every time she trains me, so she can torture them every time I screw up. Every training session. Three to five nights a week, indefinitely, or at least until she comes up with some new and different torture.”

  Zielinski froze and slipped helplessly under Gail’s charismatic control. He thought he understood Carol’s cruelty, but arbitrarily torturing some random innocent? No, Carol must have needed a reason, though Arm training techniques were almost impossible for him to figure out unless Carol walked him through the logic first.

  “There are steps you can take as a Focus to help your people through pain and stress,” he said, only habit keeping his voice steady and confident. “You’ll have to learn them, so they won’t be of help immediately, but they may be useful if she keeps this up for very long. That would be on top of the normal support you provide, of course.” Was this some sort of combat training? No, combat training would only make sense if Carol wanted Gail’s household to be active mercenaries. Which she didn’t, as far as Zielinski knew.

  “Listen to yourself! Your Arm is torturing my people, and all you offer is ways to make the pain hurt less. I don’t want this to hurt less, I want this to stop. Figure out how to make her stop!”

  Of course, Gail was correct, something this cruel couldn’t be tolerated. Zielinski started to summon ideas of ways to derail Carol from her obviously incorrect course. Difficult and dangerous, but he knew a few arguments Carol would respond to…

  Wait a minute. If Gail was in the room when Carol tortured Melanie, then the amount of damage Melanie showed didn’t match her emotional state. With her Focus supporting her and keeping her high on juice and resistant to pain, Melanie should have been tough as old shoe leather.

  “Did Carol interfere with your ability to support Melanie?” Zielinski said, and frowned.

  Gail’s jaw dropped for just a second and she flushed bright red. “This was all Carol’s fault,” Gail said. “She tortured Melanie! This was her fault!”

  Of course, he wanted to say, but his treacherous mind couldn’t help seeing the connections. Melanie didn’t show the signs of someone well supported by her Focus during the torture. Gail’s fury and defensiveness reminded him of someone who felt guilty about something.

  “Why weren’t you supporting Melanie, Focus Rickenbach?”

  Gail froze. “I did support her,” she said, the protest in her voice weak. “I tried.”

  Of course you did, Zielinski wanted to say, and comfort her. She still held him with her charisma, even with her confidence gone. His heart didn’t care at all, and knew only that she was hurting, and needed him.

  “The support didn’t work well, though,” he said. He spoke as gently as possible, because that was what the Focus wanted.

  “I got upset,” Gail said. Blotches covered her flushed face now, and tears leaked from her eyes. “I sometimes lose control of the juice when I get upset.”

  Zielinski didn’t say anything. His heart ached to help, but she remained stiff and unapproachable.

  “Tell me about these other techniques you know of,” Gail said. A preemptory order.

  Gail had grown cold, hard and controlled. Effects of Carol’s training, almost certainly. Zielinski told her all he knew of ways that Focuses supported their people in stressful circumstances. Gail listened attentively.

  Zielinski sat in a booth in the far back corner of the shabby Railway Diner. At least the waitress brought an infinite supply of coffee, and the apple pie was surprisingly good. He put his head in his hands and tried to contain his own tears.

  He had forgotten his own mistakes could hurt so much. There had been so many of them over the years, so many losses, so many compromises. He still heard Gail ask ‘How can you live with yourself?’

  Guilt. Sympathy. Rickenbach had tied him in knots. She had become much more
dangerous since Carol began training her. He hoped, fervently, she would get over her anger at him and this hadn’t completely ruined their professional relationship.

  He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes after eleven. A little early for lunch, but he had been awake since two. Not to mention the ability of old familiar smells, such as apple pie, to interfere with the olfactory component of Focus charisma. An old trick, but oftentimes the oldest tricks were the best.

  He needed to stop by to see Carol, but he knew enough to wait. She would know if he showed up under some Focus’s sway. She would fix the problem, but Zielinski preferred his own methods, much less efficient, but certainly less painful and less humiliating. Maybe he would find a hotel and take a nap for the afternoon before attempting to deal with Carol. No, better yet, he would stay with Tom. Maybe by evening, he would be safely free of Gail’s effects and could be ready to see Carol. Male pheromones, from a strong male presence, would attack the hormonal component of Focus charisma. He really wished Occum’s White Mountains Barony was close by. A dose of Noble hormones would go a long way right now, even if all they did was discuss the latest Noble practice combat. Even the memory of the strong comradely smell of Nobles helped him a little.

  The waitress slapped the apple pie down in front of him, and refreshed his coffee. The smell of both was refreshing. Was hormone balance the reason why the Major Transforms needed each other? Household hormone balance? The idea came out of nowhere, and had promise, but oh, hell, would that be a tough sell. Even Lori would laugh in his face if he presented his idea without some decent proof. He would have to think about the problem and use the issue to take his mind off his ongoing problems with the juice pattern project.

  But first, a nap. He hoped Tom was in town.

  Expected Battles

  “Major Transforms by rumor possess different capabilities outside of the US and Western Europe, such as Focuses able to borrow other Focus’s tricks via the Dreaming. Are any of these capabilities at all real?” – from Arm Haggerty’s Speculative Projects List

  Gail Rickenbach: August 3, 1972 – August 4, 1972

  “Gail?”

  Gail turned back toward the door into the little courtyard.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” John Guynes asked. He was one of her primary bodyguards, and had been for years. He was about thirty, medium height, dark brown hair, and a tight-coiled way of moving possible only for a Transform in peak physical condition. Even here in the safety of their home, he remained eternally alert.

  Gail couldn’t help noting how more pronounced the coiled motion effect was since Teacher started training him.

  “Sure. What’s up?” she said.

  One of the children, a three year old boy, screamed “Daddy” and came running. John picked the boy up, but never lost his focus on Gail.

  “Gail,” he said, and hesitated. He raised his free hand in the air in an aborted motion, and then started again. “Gail. I’ve been thinking about what the Arm did to Melanie.”

  Oh hell. Thinking. Along with everyone in her entire household. What the damn Arm did would tear her household apart.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I was thinking, after Buddy takes his turn, you’re going to need someone else. I was thinking, well…” He stopped and took a breath. “I was thinking, I’ll volunteer.”

  “What?” Gail said. “Why?” Behind her, she could hear Sylvie suck in her breath.

  “Well, I’ve been fighting, too. It wasn’t just Buddy.”

  Gail shook her head. She had been the one who assigned the next session with the Arm to Buddy. Punishment, but she knew very well she wouldn’t have assigned him such a nasty punishment if she hadn’t needed someone to suck up Teacher’s cruelty. “You don’t have to.”

  “Somebody’s got to be the one. Who else is it going to be? Helen? She’s got to be almost sixty by now. Trisha? She would probably have a nervous breakdown and need to quit her job, and then where would we be?” He shrugged. “I don’t see a better idea.”

  Gail thought about the problem for a moment, and then nodded. “I’ll give this some thought.” Her sudden affection for him boosted his juice count and she didn’t fight the slip.

  “Thanks,” he said, awkward again. He put his son back down on the ground. “You go back and play, Matthew. Daddy has work to do.”

  “That’s a good man,” Kurt said, as the door shut behind John. Gail sat on the ground beside Sylvie, and noticed that Sylvie’s eyes were swollen and red. She was watching the younger children play in the courtyard. There was a small swing set and a sandbox in the area, plus the usual collection of balls, tricycles, and miscellaneous other toys. Plus five small children, ages six months to five years. Sylvie sat on the ground, holding the youngest, and Kurt sat beside her, holding her in turn.

  Sylvie always helped with the children. Despite her duties as Gail’s aide, her investigatory work and her occasional free-lance writing, she always found time to volunteer to take care of the children. Four years ago, back before she transformed, she and Kurt had wanted a whole house full of kids. Six of them. Their dream died when she made her transformation and lost her fertility. Gail remembered how hard Sylvie cried when the adoption agency people had told them her transformation disqualified them as prospective adoptive parents.

  So now she helped with the children. Even though the Transform women were infertile, the normal women of the household kept producing babies.

  “Gail,” Kurt said. “If Sylvie ever draws the short straw, what would you think if I were to…”

  “Absolutely not,” Gail said. “Transforms only. I know you want to, but Transforms are better equipped to take the pain, and I can support a Transform while they’re being tortured. I can’t support a normal.” She thought of Melanie and felt like a liar when she said the words, but dammit, she would do better next time.

  She wished someone would torture the damned Arm. In the entire time Teacher had been training her, Gail had never been so completely angry. She expected to take abuse herself from the training, and accepted the risk when she agreed to the training. She never agreed to let the Arm abuse her people.

  “Gail?”

  “No. Besides, it’s going to be a few days. I got mad at Buddy a little while ago and told him he was next.”

  “Oh, you did?” Kurt said. Sylvie just rocked the baby and wouldn’t look at her. “Good. You got anybody else that’s really screwed up recently you can put on the block?”

  “Aren’t you bothered about my choice?”

  “You should have chosen him in the first place instead of Melanie. The guy’s an asshole.”

  Gail leaned forward and rested her chin on her knees. The playing children watched her warily.

  “Look, do you guys have a minute? I need to talk to you about something.”

  Sylvie shrugged and Kurt raised his eyebrows.

  “Things have been rough since I started working with that Arm, and now with the latest, well…” Gail shrugged. “How’s everyone holding up?”

  Sylvie looked over at her, finally, and there were tears in her eyes again as she gently rocked the sleeping baby. “Whadda you think? Every couple of days Hancock comes through and the juice goes haywire, and she terrorizes the crap out of everyone. Now she starts torturing people, and we all get to look at Melanie and wonder…”

  “Hell,” Gail said, and could feel tears gathering in her own eyes. “I’ve got to find a way through this, don’t I?”

  Sylvie nodded. “You’re strong, Gail. Be stronger.”

  Gail didn’t answer. She retreated to her office, forced the tension out of her, and composed herself. The training took so much out of her that she hardly did anything more for her people than move juice.

  Her people were falling apart.

  So much for being the local expert on Focus mentoring and household dynamics.

  ---

  “Van?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Would you mind terribly if I turne
d into a Nazi?”

  “At this hour of the night?”

  “Oh, well, I was thinking about maybe in the morning.”

  “What kind of Nazi?”

  “A corporate Nazi.”

  “Oh. Any particular reason?”

  “Well, it seemed like I needed something a little more authoritarian to keep everyone from going nuts. I talked to Tonya, and she thinks that the corporate Nazi thing ought to work pretty well for what we’re going through.”

  “Huh. It’s pretty clear we need something. I suppose corporate Nazi is as likely to work as anything. Although leftie authoritarian might suit you better, El Commandante Rickenbach.”

  “Okay.”

  “Gail?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You aren’t going to expect me to do the authoritarian thing, are you?”

  “Nah.”

  “Good.”

  “Some things are just plain impossible.”

  “Hey!”

  ---

  “All right everyone, pay attention,” Gail said, and the voices died down all around her. They gathered in the courtyard between the wings, the only place large enough to hold everyone. The weather was unseasonably cool and cloudy, and people pulled their jackets close against the wind. They stood, sat, and leaned against the swing set. The teenagers watched the children inside the apartments.

  “Okay, you all know we’ve been having a pretty rough time,” Gail said.

  Voices interrupted her. “Yeah!” “Somebody needs to do something about that Arm.” “Did you see what she did to Melanie?”

  “Hush.” Gail spoke the word quietly, but put her full-on charisma into the word. The commotion fell into a sudden stunned silence. Gail smiled; this was the first time she had hit her people with her newly honed charisma. “I didn’t give you permission to interrupt.” Her comment surprised most of the people in her household. Most got nervous.

  “Okay, look. We’ve all had a hard time since the Arm first came through, and everyone’s afraid, and a lot of you are real pissed.” Nobody interrupted her now. “You need to know a few things. First, she isn’t going away any time soon, so we need to learn how to deal with having an Arm among us.