“Duck-eee,” Sky said. Despite his agitation, he remained invisible. “So we’re nuclear bombs as well as smelly moral contaminants to the body politic?” The Focus nodded. “Why hasn’t this occurred yet, then? The Transform apocalypse, that is.”
“Because of factor four of the induced transformation equation,” Hank said. “It’s a…”
The Focus held up her hand. Right. Sky wouldn’t be able to follow his argument. “It’s because the ambient dross people carry around with them isn’t large enough,” Lori said. “Yet.”
“But that varies,” Sky said. “A lot.”
Hank nodded, as did the Focus.
“You’re right,” Hank said. “It’s possible we might see these transformation waves happen before the Apocalypse point. It’s guaranteed they’ll occur after that point. I’m afraid that the way the Apocalypse is going to occur is via repeated transformation waves.” His mental image was of an entire metropolitan area transforming in the space of a day or two. “Not too long past the Apocalypse point, this will become the dominant transformation method.” He paused. “Even better, this is something we can statistically predict!”
“You know, for someone who’s just predicted the end of the world, you’re surprisingly happy.”
He was. This was one of his better discoveries, and was even in his favorite branch of Transform medicine, epidemiology. He smiled at the still invisible Sky. “I am who I am.”
Superorganism (April 29 to May 5, 1971)
“They won,” Connie said, and hung up her office phone. “The Hunters are on the run, and out of Chicago. We’ve got casualties, but no dead.” ‘We’ meaning the Inferno household attack team.
“And that’s it? Or is the Commander chasing the Hunters?” Hank hated being on the outside of a fight, waiting for news. Nearly as bad as being in the fight.
“The chase is on,” Connie said. Connie Yerizarian, the head of the Inferno household, would normally be handling the Commander’s logistics. This time she got to stay at home, in charge of emergency reserves. Hank didn’t know the details, and as they involved recalcitrant Focus households and obnoxious Monster-hunting merc bands, he was glad he didn’t. “I know you’ve been worried, but given what I knew, the Chicago part of this was the easiest.”
“Why not go for the knockout in Chicago?” Hank asked.
“Too many Focuses live in Chicago. The Hunters use them as virtual hostages and abuse them after any of our more serious Hunter harassment missions. The Commander figured that if we tried to trap the Hunters in Chicago, we would end up with Focus heads on spikes.”
Hank nodded. The argument made sense. Apparently, Carol had found a way to lever the Hunters out of Chicago in a way as to not endanger the local Focuses. Now that he thought about it, that was a good trick.
“Get back to work,” she said. “It will take your mind off of things.”
It didn’t. Hank couldn’t concentrate enough to put further work into the Monster analysis, so after two hours of fruitless paper shuffling (and after checking in again with Connie about any war news) he volunteered to take over the general science class at the Inferno school. High school level chemistry he could teach, even when distracted.
Besides, it was a good way to introduce himself to the newest Inferno youngsters. As always, Lori made Inferno the home for unwanted teen Transforms from the east and south regions. They were invariably smart, or, as in Andy Niallo’s case, brilliant.
The Inferno school occupied a quarter of the giant Inferno basement, three small, windowless classrooms supplemented by regular confiscation of numerous other Inferno locations and facilities. On days with good weather, which this wasn’t, the entire school would be held out of doors. On days when the Focus didn’t need the lab, which this wasn’t either, all the science classes decamped to the lab to make use of the excellent facilities. On days like today, everyone sat in a closed room inhaling chalk dust.
“So, who’s the Inferno youth leader these days?” Hank asked, after class was over and a few of the curious stayed to chat with him. The former youth leader, Autumn Idoux, was now Autumn Maybray, married and in her 20s.
“Amy.”
“Amy Cizek?
They nodded. “Where is she?” Hank did the numbers; his former young student should have just turned 17. She should be here, in this class.
“She got to go to the fight,” Margot said. “She pulled some strings, the brat.” Margot Lassiter was on the low end of the class grade-wise, meaning she would have been around the top of a suburban high school class. She was 16.
“She got to be part of the Focus’s personal bodyguard team,” Antonia said. Antonia was Andy’s sister, and the system had separated them after they transformed together last year. Lori, appalled, had found a way to trade for them. Of all the things the Focus had done in the last year, that was the thing she was the most proud of. Antonia was the older of the siblings, a senior and interested in continuing on to college. Somehow. Antonia snorted. “More like Ann’s bodyguard, though.” Often, when the Focus left the house, she took Ann Chiron, her closest friend among the Transforms as well as the secretive household leader, as her personal bodyguard and aide. Ann didn’t do much leading, per se, unless she needed to, but Ann held veto power and final say over both the household and Lori.
“Why is she bodyguarding for Ann?” Hank asked.
“Because Ann isn’t bodyguarding this time,” Antonia said. She tucked a stray piece of her wavy black hair, already showing speckles of gray, behind her ear. Gray hairs on a 17 year old meant to Hank that he didn’t want to know what sort of hell her initial Focus put her through. “The Focus has both Ann and Tim up to their necks in army paperwork.”
Hank nodded. Work from the Commander, he assumed, offloading some of her organizational duties on the Inferno field leadership team. He commended the choice. Tim was smart, Hank’s peer that way, and Ann Chiron was smarter. He always got Ann’s help when he was here in Inferno, for the same reason.
“So, tell me about your lives as Transforms,” Hank asked. He pointed at the fourth member of this group, the 16 year old Mark Harper. “And your life as a non-Transform in Inferno.” He was Viola and Richard Harper’s child. “I’m not looking for gossip and dirt, I’m looking for anything interesting at the juice level.”
The other good thing about the young Inferno Transforms was that they tended to spill much better information about life as a Transform than the adults.
Hank took notes.
Connie had broken down and put up a taped-together USGS map set of northern Illinois on her wall. Pushpins and penciled notes abounded. “The Hunters tried for Rockford, but the Arms got in their way and pushed them back toward DeKalb,” she said. “Sky’s all freaked out because he got grazed by a spent bullet.”
Sky always thought of himself as invulnerable. “That’s going to slow the army down,” Hank said, chuckling. When the world reminded Sky of his mortality, he got exceptionally needy.
“Did you manage to recruit anyone else for the fight?” He knew the Commander was already demanding reserves. Several Focuses had lost enough Transforms to make them skittish and no longer front line material.
“I finally got Focus Bentlow,” Connie said. She sat with her hip on her cluttered desk, and put a hand down on a stack of papers before they slid off. “She and her team are going in under assumed names; apparently if the Arms find out she’s there she’s going to pull her people out.”
“I assume Polly and Tonya know,” Hank said.
Connie nodded. “So, out!”
He got.
He continued teaching the chemistry class and getting to know the teens. On his fourth day, after the Commander won enough skirmishes around the towns of Dixon and Rock Falls to make it a named battle, he followed Antonia’s group of friends – who now called him ‘their Doc Pain’ – to the Transform training gym class. Today, Hank’s old roomie Bill Fentress was teaching the class. Bill looked haggard and low on sleep; wi
th the Inferno ‘army’ out, he was both in charge of home defense as well as the stoutest Transform fighter remaining.
“So, this training helps you?” Hank asked Mark Harper, the normal of the group, while Bill worked on Margot’s weightlifting technique.
“It’s a technique the olders are still working on,” Mark said. “Second hand juice benefits – that is, juice-based analysis methods allowing my normal body to train better.”
Hank nodded and wrote down a note, one eye on Bill, making sure he hadn’t overheard. Inferno had recently made some quiet breakthroughs, and either hadn’t put them together, or sat on them on purpose. He highly suspected the latter.
“They’ve got’m in the Quad Cities,” Bill said, the next day. “Class is cancelled.”
Connie’s map had made its way out of her office to the oversized Inferno great room. Hank pulled up a chair and sat himself in the back, under the Apocalypse clock and next to one of the seven phones Connie had pulled from her office. Two more maps, including a huge one of the Quad Cities area, decorated the wall behind Connie’s card table desk.
Phone duty. Today, Hank wasn’t capable of doing anything more.
The Hunters had more young Hunters and student Hunters with them than the Commander found beforehand. More Monsters, too, what the Hunters called Gals. Oh, and more anomalous juice-powered troops than they knew about from before. Including a few useful male Transforms.
Hank’s phone rang. “Inferno,” he said.
“Good Doctor? So that’s where the Commander stashed you.” A Crow. No idea which one; one of the Crow tricks made all Crows sound identical over a telephone. “Dark Star. We’ve met.”
“Yes,” Hank said. Dark Star was one of Sky’s skittish adventurous Crow acquaintances. He had consulted with Hank twice in the past year; Dark Star’s metasense was capable of picking out individual juice compounds. In return, he had traded information on the Arms, in specific, Keaton. “Any news?”
“The good guys are getting frustrated. Although the Hunters have been pinned down for hours, they can’t make any headway against them.”
“Any idea why?”
“Enkidu and Montana Winter have been shadowing the Commander and Kali, and the two Hunters are using an innovation – they have the best of the Monster pack members of all the Hunters with them.”
“Damn,” Hank said. Everything they knew about Enkidu hinted at his brilliance and the quality of his innovations. The Hunters didn’t trade pack members, as far as he knew. “Thanks.” The Crow gave him two pages worth of information, which he tore out to give to Mark Harper, who carried the information up to Connie.
Using the Crows as the army’s phone service was a Commander innovation. The Crows weren’t willing to fight, but they were willing to spy. From a distance. At least the ones stout enough to hide from the Hunters’ metasense scans. The rest fled the area long ago.
The word came in four hours later. Hank waited as Connie and her people scrambled to put together what happened. Eventually Connie rearranged the map, and Hank groaned.
“We don’t know everything yet, but the Hunters found a way to break out of the Quad Cities, going west, and the Focus Council” on site, as part of the Commander’s army “decided not to follow.”
Now the entire room groaned.
Enkidu, the General, had beaten the Commander in a battle for the first time. Inevitable, as he was a ‘rival Commander’ in the eyes of the Dreamers among the Focuses and Crows. Not that a fighting retreat was much of a win for him, but it was something. Hank couldn’t believe that the Focus Council pulled the plug on their cooperation in the Hunter war. Didn’t they understand how angry the Arms were going to be because of this?
“So,” Margot said. They were back in the basement classroom, this time stocked with a couple of tables and basic lab equipment. Hank was helping them work through some simple titration exercises. “You’re taking an awful lot of notes on us. Can you tell me what you’re looking for?”
Margot Lassiter, called ‘Deadly Margot’ by her peers, played the dumb jock most of the time. She was already on the youth bodybuilder and weightlifter circuits, and had a reputation for over-the-top Friday night intimate encounters. She possessed the build of a young Arm, and he suspected she would possess the build of a mature Arm soon enough. Among the Transform training households, women with Arm-like builds were becoming almost common. He once thought the Arm-like muscle gain was an Arm special, given the lack of muscles on most women. Then he looked into the details and learned about the benefits of steroid use for women athletes, and how Transform training techniques mimicked those benefits. No, the muscles were nothing special; the speed and ease at which the Arms gained them was, as was the Arm’s superhuman speed, quickness and coordination.
“Abnormal juice benefits,” he said. “Evidence of household superorganism interactions.”
Margot nodded. “Oh, that’s what’s been going on,” she said. “All we get told when something strange happens is ‘don’t ask too many questions’.” She laughed, as did Antonia, who abandoned her Bunsen burner to pad over, ears figuratively cocked. “So, can you tell us anything?”
“Yes,” he said. “In theory, a theory worked out by the Focus, Ann and myself a few years ago, any household Transform should be able to use the household superorganism to give himself virtual Major Transform capabilities.”
“Whoa!” Antonia said. Margot whistled.
“Inferno figured out the basics, but hasn’t been able to codify their methods, or gain any more than sporadic use,” Hank said. “Household juice signaling is the base of this.” The top Inferno Transforms could use juice signaling to communicate with other household Transforms without involving the Focus – or even without her on site. Anyone able to do that would be linked enough to the SO to pull off the other borrowing tricks. The fact they couldn’t do so regularly meant there was a problem.
A problem Lori didn’t trust him to solve. ‘Guided Superorganism use is nice in theory but impractical,’ she had said to him. ‘It’s as slow to learn as it is for a Major Transform to learn to mimic the capabilities of the other Major Transforms. It’s just a way to help us understand why certain crazy things happened to Transforms, why we sometimes think the juice has its own free will.’ He disagreed; his theory said that the quality of the borrowing would be proportional to the quality of the Major Transform who loaned the capability, not the quality of the borrower. She had rolled him on that, as well.
“If you want, I can go through my notes and tell you what I’ve found,” he said. They shouted encouragement. “I’ll start with you, Margot. You said that most of the time, after a hard session, you’re nearly dead the next day because of muscle aches. Only, sometimes, the aches and exhaustion goes away. When you’re doing this, you’re borrowing the Focus’s self-healing capabilities.”
“Damn!”
Hank nodded. He had never realized that Inferno had cracked any of this. He hoped he had the time to make this real. Something like this could stave off the Transform Apocalypse.
“I don’t know,” Connie said. She was in tears, retreated into her office with the door shut. Hank had barged in anyway. “Something happened. The Focus is okay. The Commander’s okay. It’s something else. Nobody will say what.” Hank suspected Connie had been using SO-based borrowing of basic Dreaming skills, but he wouldn’t be saying anything about that topic around the older Inferno Transforms.
Anything bad enough to drive a hard case like Connie to tears had to be exceptionally bad.
“In any event, the war is over,” Connie said. She pointed at him. “Don’t you get any bright ideas.” He slumped in defeat. “You’re staying here until the Commander finishes setting up shop in Chicago.”
“I don’t have any problem with that,” Hank said, lying.
Talk Slower and Cut Faster (June 16, 1971)
Hank put down the bone saw and did a quick look-see at the partly-frozen brain, kept around 0 C to stop the tissue dec
ay. The vapor from the corpse still drifted through Lori’s basement laboratory. “They did it,” Hank said. “A fully functional male Transform, with nearly the same mental withdrawal scarring as the pack women. This one’s scarring is about a year old, so he’s as fully supported as one of the Hunter’s household Transform women.”
“Guys to go along with their Gals,” Ann said. She was back from the war, along with most of the Inferno battle team; the Focus and four of her bodyguards weren’t. Ann refused to talk about whatever had happened at the end of the fight to make everyone so upset. “Just what the world doesn’t need.”
“So, what sort of ratio were they supporting?” Hank asked.
“No idea. Given how few of the Guys there were, and how they stuck with one particular Hunter’s pack, I would say this is a new and experimental technology.” Ann paused to drop a bucketful of ice on the corpse’s now opened head. “There’s more.”
Ann wanted him to do a quick pass through the corpses Inferno had gathered. When he finished his quick examination, he and Ann were to pick one, each, and do full autopsies. She wheeled out the next one, this one packed inside one of the oversized Monster boxes. She opened the cryo-sealed container and scooped off the top layer of ice cubes.
Hank began his examination. Ann turned the tape recorder back on. “Okay, Gal, full Monster, shape non-standard,” he said. “Six mammary glands, small and non-primate in presentation. Armored skin on torso, back, hips, upper arms and upper legs. Full quadruped.” He paused and examined the head and mouth, or what remained of it after someone had blown off the left side of the Transform woman’s face with a Monster gun. “No useful vocal apparatus. Dentition is Rodentia in general form.” He examined the hands. “Front claws are 4 cm long and non-retracting, general Carnivora in form.” He went down the torso and stopped with a whistle. “Pause.” Ann turned off the tape recorder. “She’s carrying.”
Beasts Ascendant: The Chronicles of the Cause, Parts One and Two Page 11