Now We Are Monsters

By Randall Allen Farmer

The Commander (Book Two)

Carol Hancock is a victim of Transform Sickness, a Major Transform known as an Arm. After her escape from government detention, an established and mentally unstable Arm, Stacy Keaton, trained her in the Arm basics. The basics are not enough, though, and Carol’s training continues, now with an explicit graduation test she must pass to get out of Keaton’s hands and become a free Arm.
During Carol’s training, the two Arms annoy one of the hidden powers among the Major Transforms, a master of Chimeras known as Wandering Shade. Wandering Shade and his Chimeras plot to take their revenge on the two Arms, in the process endangering Carol’s hidden male Major Transform companion Gilgamesh as well as Keaton’s Major Transform backer Tonya Biggioni.
Carol must solve her graduation test before her own teacher suffers a psychotic break and kills her, and before the dangers of the outside world collide with the two Arms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Allen Farmer
• Release date: Feb 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465829160

Randall Allen Farmer

Greetings.I am an author, science nerd, an amateur photographer, a father, and a pencil and paper game designer and gamemaster. My formal education was in geology and geophysics, and back in the day I worked in the oil industry tweaking software associated with finding oil. Since I left the oil industry, I've spent most of my time being a parent, but did have enough time to get two short stories published (in Analog and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine). Now I'm giving epublishing a try, and I have an ample supply of novel-length publishable material to polish and publish.

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Now We Are Monsters

Book Two of The Commander

Randall Allen Farmer

Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by Randall Allen Farmer

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form. This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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Now We Are Monsters

Book Two of The Commander

The Arm has different motivations than a normal human. Different goals. Different needs. Different loves. Different hates. Yet, the biggest mistake you can make with an Arm, the biggest lever you can give to an Arm, is to forget she is human. Arms are very human – they are just the predatory aspect of humanity writ large.

The Book of Arms

Part 1

Sprees and Setbacks

If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death. – Pythagoras

Chapter 1

Writing an Arm off as an insane killing animal is stupid and often fatal. An Arm is perfectly capable of walking away from a fight she knows she cannot win. She is also perfectly capable of figuring out who is after her, finding their address and telephone number, and threatening to harm their spouse and offspring – if those who are chasing the Arm don’t back off.

The Book of Arms

Enkidu: March 4, 1967 – March 21, 1967

There.

Enkidu metasensed ahead. At the far end of his range he found the Beast Man, as predicted by this strange Transform who now walked beside him, Wandering Shade. Low on his stuff, what Wandering Shade called élan, Enkidu barely understood what else he metasensed. He picked up Women Transforms, several of whom might be Monsters as well as Transforms. Impossible. Worse, one of these prey women was a stable part-Monster.

Wandering Shade’s looming presence, and the enigmatic Major Transform’s hand on his wolf shoulder, kept Enkidu from charging this other Beast Man. Enkidu needed élan so much.

However, Wandering Shade controlled him now. Galling, but true. Enkidu bared his teeth and sniffed. He picked out the reek of the Beast Man, as well as the stench of the women Transforms. The forest and farmland odors couldn’t hide it.

Enkidu sat on his haunches under a bare-branched hackberry, a dozen feet from the barren expanse of a plowed-under field. Tell me more about this Law you keep talking about, he said. He retained his ability to speak as a wolf, which had originally amazed Wandering Shade. He spoke now to distract himself from his ever-present anger. You said it would prevent me from going fully over into beasthood. But you and Gilgamesh implied that’s a problem, and I don’t agree. My mind’s clearer than ever, Mr. Shade, and I swear I’m smarter than I was as a human. A cold wind whistled through the still-bare trees, a fine cooling breeze, a contrast from the muggy and too warm early spring Tennessee weather of the past several days.

You are a special one, indeed, Wandering Shade said. He wore the uniform of a Memphis police officer but didn’t act like one. He acted like a Transform, but wasn’t visible to Enkidu’s metasense. Enkidu’s confusion didn’t help his temper. But the fact you can talk and reason doesn’t mean the Beast won’t win in the end. Without the help of the Law, each time you change your shape you’ll lose more of your humanity. You appear to have the willpower to prevent yourself from inadvertent shape changes. Good for you, but it won’t save you. You’ll never be more human than you are now, a bristly wolf with the black and white fur markings of a domestic cat. All you’re doing is slowing down the decay, and your human mind will eventually be consumed. Probably soon.

Enkidu growled, a beastly growl from a beastly throat. I already think nothing except rape, murder and cannibalism. How much farther from humanity can I go? This damned police officer had somehow taken control of his mind and body, casually, easily, with no sign the task cost him even a drop of sweat. Sheer frustration made Enkidu want to go berserk, lose himself in his Beast, and slay the world.

Death, Wandering Shade said. You’re not bulletproof. How many of your adrenaline-fueled escapades can you do before men like me hunt you down and kill you?

Enkidu’s attempt at self-control collapsed in fury. He growled louder and turned to snap at Wandering Shade for suggesting such a thing. Wandering Shade didn’t flinch and froze Enkidu in place before he even started his snap, leaving Enkidu with one foreleg half-lifted, his rear poised six inches above the ground in the beginning of a leap, and the grimace of a snarl on his face. He stared helplessly at the non-descript police officer, unable to look away.

Enkidu attempted to reason through his fury, to understand what he was dealing with in Wandering Shade. A Major Transform, certainly, but he didn’t match any of the types Enkidu knew of. His power over Enkidu was total, yet he had no metasense glow, he left no scent trail and, in fact, smelled like nothing.

The Transforms had masters who successfully hid themselves from the rest, it seemed, and Wandering Shade was one of them. Nothing else made sense.

Worse, Wandering Shade was right. Too many humans came armed with guns, and Enkidu found his love of battle too difficult to control. Someday, one of these humans would get in a lucky shot. Enkidu attempted to speak and Wandering Shade permitted him. If I let you put the Law on me, sir, would that allow me to have my own harem? Enkidu asked. With a harem of his own, his constant need to hunt for his élan would stop being a problem.

Yes, Wandering Shade said, less certain in his tone. I believe so. Would a harem mean that much to you?

Of course, sir, he said. This élan stuff is my life. I would give up my, um, escapades in a minute if it bought me a steady supply of élan. Enkidu paused and thought. You don’t know if any other Beasts can do this Beast Man’s trick that keeps his harem alive, do you?

Wandering Shade released his hold on Enkidu, who sat down on his haunches in an effort to calm himself. He hated being a prisoner of this man. With Transform Sickness, there are no sure things, my overly brainy friend, Wandering Shade said. I believe it’s a gamble worth taking.

Enkidu studied the other Beast Man’s pack again with tingly lust. He didn’t trust Wandering Shade, and he didn’t particularly like him, either. He didn’t like the idea of the Law, whatever it turned out to be, living in his head and controlling him. He did want to live and prosper, however, and Wandering Shade’s arguments made sense. He wanted to be able to choose when he leapt into battle, not be forced into battle by his uncontrollable Beast Man emotions. He did want a harem. His hunger for juice of any kind was overwhelming.

This deal, bad as it was, was indeed worth the risks involved. I will accept the Law, sir.

Prepare yourself, Enkidu, because there will be pain, Wandering Shade said. "When you wake up, you will be a Hunter."

Enkidu readied himself…and the juice inside him vanished, replaced by an agony that made the word ‘pain’ seem inadequate. Unconsciousness claimed him a moment later.

Enkidu awoke outside the ruined shack of the other Beast Man. The other Beast and Wandering Shade huddled by the remains of the door. Enkidu ached, as if he had been run through a meat grinder. With a very small spout.

…but thisss isn’t fair, Massster, the other Beast Man said. Theeessss are my Galsss. The other Beast was a lizard-man, and far more lizard than man, with green scales and a tail. Only the top of his head remained vaguely human, and only his improbable human ears appeared fully human. Enkidu barely understood the Beast’s speech because of his lisp, and he didn’t sound intelligent.

You only have to endure until the two of you can collect more of your women Transforms to enslave, Wandering Shade said. He stood from where he knelt and walked over to Enkidu. Enkidu, meet Grendel. He is your master as a Hunter.

Wandering Shade was the master of all Beasts, or so said the Law. The Law lay heavy on his mind, telling him how to react and even how to think. It kept him from growling at this Grendel creature, but Enkidu saw a way forward. First, he had to say: I acknowledge you as my master, Grendel. Enkidu did so, got to his feet and charged Grendel.

They fought, but not a real fight, more of a snapping and growling contest. Enkidu continued to press his ‘attack’ until he scented himself on Grendel. All was well then, the urge to fight gone.

Hssss, that wassss fun! Grendel said, after they finished snapping and rolling around. Welcome, Enkidu, to my humble abode. Enkidu slunk back, unsure what to do now. The fight hadn’t worked as he hoped it would. Somehow, he would have to figure out this Law stuff and its limits.

Grendel turned to their Master. Cleo’sss ssstill mine, Grendel said.

Was Grendel’s comment a question or a statement? Enkidu couldn’t tell. Their Master frowned, but slowly his frown turned to a smile. Let’s see, he said, wiggling his fingers.

An older woman crept out of the shack, slowly, then raced over to Grendel and gave him a hug. The old woman Transform wasn’t much to look at, save for the Monstrous parts of her, the scales on her face and the vertical bony ridge on her forehead, above her nose. Enkidu studied her with his metasense and realized that in some screwy way her glow matched Grendel’s glow. The glow of the other members of Grendel’s harem didn’t.

I acknowledge Cleo as Grendel’s, and not for sharing, Enkidu said. Their glows are linked.

Their Master snorted in surprise, and smiled. Well! Score one for the Hunters. You do have something my competition doesn’t have.

Their Master hadn’t been able to sense the linkage between Grendel and Cleo. Very interesting…and this pointed out some holes in this Law. Specifically, on this subject, Enkidu could think and react instead of following some screwy script. Perhaps he might be able to use the Law. He didn’t like things that made him stupid.

Grendel was a Beast of a different stripe, though. Competition? he asked. Isss it sssomeone we can fight?

Perhaps later, Wandering Shade said. First things first. I need to teach Enkidu to draw from your harem women without killing them. In the meantime, you go hunt. I think we’re going to need more of your, um, Gals.

---

The trees made tangled shadows in the darkness, and the March night surrounded him, cool and comforting. Clouds hid the moon and a moist tension filled the air. A sporadic wind threatened rain before morning.

Enkidu ran, fleet as a deer through the shadowed trees, in a moonless darkness so deep no human would have been able to walk. He loved the whisper of the wind and the brush across his fur, running naked like an animal. He wished for a moment he remained a creature of four legs instead of two. A night like this was made for wild animal abandon, stretching out all his limbs in a ground-eating lope, taking him miles from home and from all the problems he didn’t want to worry about.

The older Hunter, Grendel, paced him easily. Enkidu thought Master Grendel was a fool, but he couldn’t say his thought out loud. The Law in his mind kept him from going all out when they play-fought. He thought this unfortunate, because he thought he might be able to take Grendel.

If only Enkidu had more élan. The more he got, the smarter he became, enough so he no longer thought the Law made him stupid. He had mastered Wandering Shade’s tricks and learned how to draw from the harem Gals. Five days ago he had even drawn from one of the Gals without Wandering Shade’s assistance, taking her just over the edge of withdrawal, destabilizing her juice, and guiding it as it turned into élan. Then he had the élan, and then her. She lived, but only barely. Enkidu still had much to learn about élan drawing.

After the élan draw, Wandering Shade started teaching Enkidu how to change his shape. As he learned, Enkidu experienced the power of the Law, guiding him as he changed. His human shape and his Beast shape both existed inside the Law, and over several days he regained his man-shape.

He hadn’t regained his man-looks, however. He was a wolf-man now, through and through. It made him laugh to be so Hollywood-cliché.

If only he could convince both his masters that when one of the Gals went fully Monster she didn’t have to be killed. Grendel completely dismissed Enkidu’s ideas, but Wandering Shade at least listened, willing to try some experiments once the harem got larger.

The Gals were good, but Grendel’s house was a trap. Stuck in the shack, they waited for one of the Gals to go over, just so they might have just a little more élan. Stuck in the shack, they lived in unending fear of making a mistake that would cause their minds to be sucked down and lost. Endless boredom consumed them, trapped by their fears and the ceaseless need for the élan. It drove Enkidu crazy. He wanted to do something dangerous, just to add some flavor to the endless days of trapped sameness.

They were Hunters! Hunters hunted. They were dangerous.

What they needed, what they all needed, was some sort of cause. They needed enemies to fight and defeat. If he proved himself better than Grendel while fighting their enemies, he would prove himself Grendel’s master.

The Law allowed that.

Enkidu smiled.

Carol Hancock: March 22, 1967

I drove a bright red Ford Thunderbird through the deserted streets of San Francisco, a big smile on my face. At just past two o’clock in the morning, almost no one was out. It had been one hell of a week. Everything I had repressed during Keaton’s sadistic training had come roaring out like a hurricane. I even found a kill in Oakland five days in. To my professional embarrassment, my depredations left a trail a mile wide, but I never stayed in one place long enough for the police to catch me.

How could I have failed to understand how wonderful it is to be an unconstrained predator? After four months under Keaton’s brutal thumb and learning only the bare basics of how to be an Arm, finally, I had a payoff. Pleasure arced through my body just from the thought.

Keaton had arranged the travel and given me a hundred dollars of walk-around money. I acquired plenty more on my own once I got here. She had sent me to California to get the violence out of my system. If you’re a predator, well, expect to occasionally leave carrion behind.

She was sooo right.

My name is Carol Hancock. Last year I became an Arm, a Major Transform, a member of biochemically altered humanity. A victim of Armenigar’s Syndrome, though I didn’t feel much like a victim these days. It’s cliché, but it had been the longest six and a half months of my life. In my earlier life, I had never given any thought to the idea of becoming a Transform, especially a variety of Transform as rare as an Arm. But here I was. The authorities grabbed me and stuck me in the St. Louis Transform Detention Center just after I woke up from my transformation coma. I got poked, prodded, experimented on and in the process learned I had left my humanity behind: to survive I had to take juice, the chemical substance that makes Transforms different, from living Transforms. They don’t survive the process. Neither did my naiveté. I was helped in the Detention Center by a Dr. Henry Zielinski, a spectacularly arrogant research doctor, and by the Arm Stacy Keaton, in disguise as a noxious ass of a physical trainer. I didn’t understand her disguise required her to be what she considered pleasant.

Then Dr. Zielinski got his ass fired after a new crew of FBI researchers showed up to stress test me to death. Keaton revealed herself as an Arm but I refused to go with her. Stupid me. After being half tortured to death on a daily basis, I changed my mind; I found a way to befriend the Detention Center staff and send a message to Keaton for help. She sent back ‘successfully escape and I’ll teach you’; I did so, severely wounding but not killing the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of Torture Patrick McIntyre on the way out.

I had been under Keaton’s care ever since and I learned what the FBI did to me in the Detention Center was nothing compared to what a real master of sadism can do. Even so, despite my suffering, Keaton’s lessons were worth every horrid thing she did to me and every horrid thing she made me do. Survival’s funny that way.

A week ago, I had a light bulb moment: I figured out I was evil. Yes, a pretty stupid thing to miss for someone who killed another human being every week or so just to survive, but I had invested a lot into thinking of myself as a good person. I enjoyed the killing, too. My transformation gave me ecstasy when I took juice, and killing became the greatest pleasure in my life. In addition, I was aggressive, competitive, and controlling; I had a ferocious temper, and ugly things grew in the dark places of my mind, which I fervently tried to ignore. Eventually, the dissonance between my self-image and my experiences got so bad my sanity began to crack. Not good stuff.

In one blood-soaked orgy of cruelty and destruction, I gave up on my delusions and accepted what I was: an evil predator. I didn’t understand how much of my evil was from my transformation and how much was my own doing, but I didn’t care. I accepted everything predatory, wallowed in my brutality and gloried it my savagery. No more self-hate, no more shattering sanity. I was a powerful dangerous predator who preyed on human beings! It was wonderful.

God! We have a saying now, with the experience of many young Arms behind us – ‘There’s nothing stupider than a baby Arm’. I should have been locked up tight in a damned cage until I grew some sense.

Instead, Keaton, when she came home, found what I had done and sighed a sigh of profound relief. She had been trying to rouse my beast since the start of her training. My reward was the starter money and the permission to take a week to find myself. One glorious week.

I had just finished a day and a half of fun with the hippies, as they called themselves, and with the tourists who came to their zoo down in the Haight. Yes, Gray Line actually ran tourist busses down to the Haight for the show. Simply amazing.

These innocents were such good prey, though I wished their clothing styles revealed less. My transformation gave me a lot of enhancements, including muscles, and as an Amazon woman, short skirts, blue jeans and I no longer got along, if we ever did. My current preferred clothing style involved a checked poncho over an ankle-length dress. Those huge shoulders of mine were damned hard to disguise.

I had a problem. A big problem.

It was time for me to go home.

I growled as I drove through the dark streets. I didn’t want to go back to Keaton. I loved my week of havoc, loved being strong, and free, and a predator. I loved when people feared me. I loved when no one beat me. I loved freedom.

Keaton wanted me back in her den of degradation and pain. I couldn’t even think about returning without my body shaking with remembered abuse, so I parked the car in the first parking spot I found. I had to calm down. I put my head in my hands and steadied my breathing. She had warned me back when I signed on: ‘I’m going to enjoy hurting you.’ At the time I nurtured a baseless hope she might go easier on another Arm, but it hadn’t worked out, and she realized early on I could survive things that would kill a normal. She loved her sadism so much it turned her on, aroused her. Worse, she was psychotic. The cruelty appeared possibly be part of being an Arm – not a given, but at least you could make the argument. She certainly thought cruelty was part of being an Arm, and she put work into making sure I picked up those same tastes.

She succeeded.

Sensitive readers can now go upchuck off in a corner. Readers who believe I was some kind of saint can go off and nurture your shattered delusions. I learned a lot from Keaton in those early months of my transformation, and her sadistic cruelty was definitely part of it. When I accepted my being evil, I accepted the cruelty along with the rest.

I had been naïve about a lot of things in the Detention Center, but when I recognized my decision to go with Keaton as selling my soul to the devil, I was dead on.

Keaton’s psychotic episodes, however, were another thing entirely. When low on juice, she occasionally let her mind slip away, and some nightmarish demon moved in. I had survived one major episode and several minor ones, but those episodes scared the living crap out of me.

Keaton wasn’t God. I knew enough now to vanish into the night and become someone else. I knew the Arm basics: how to hunt down my juice, kill it, and make the dead body vanish. I knew how to fight and kill normals. Hell, my spree week had proved to me I could do just about anything I wanted.

It was oh so good to be an unconstrained predator.

Rage at Keaton’s psychotic breaks buried my predatory pleasure and I lost my temper. My ride squealed out of its parking place, unbidden, in gear and my foot on the gas before I realized what I had done. The car screeched over the curb and plowed right into the window of the tobacconist’s store. The bumper rode over the windowsill, the car made an awful screeching and crunching noise as the bottom rode over the low brick wall under the window, and the wooden Indian fell on the hood. The car only came to a slamming halt after the wheels hit the brick wall and I jerked forward to bang my head on the steering wheel. I had achieved a tactical victory over the wooden Indian, but he had captured the strategic victory by taking out my car.

Damn, that was stupid.

I had gotten better at controlling my temper over the last several months, but well, I still had room for improvement. My head was bleeding, my neck hurt, and if I wasn’t an Arm, I would probably have injuries I needed to worry about. What’s more, I had ruined my ride. It was going to be a bitch finding another one to steal at this time of night. Yet another dropped breadcrumb waiting for the police to find.

Pissed, I forced the door open and pulled myself out. As I did, I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the window I hadn’t crashed. Damn. I hadn’t been good looking to start with, but being an Arm didn’t improve things one bit. My face was younger looking, yes, but I had become gaunt and fierce. Below the neck I might pass for a man, a well built and athletically chiseled man. The deltoids in my shoulders looked like melons and my trapezius was large enough to shingle. My pectorals bulged out nearly as much as my now flat breasts once did, meeting in the center with a canyon that only wished it was grand. Below, my abs were tight enough to bounce a penny. The circumference of my calves was nearly as large as my waist had been, pre-transformation, and my biceps weren’t far behind. Even my lower arms and hands had turned inhuman, far far beyond unfeminine, looking more like the caricature of a robot arm and hand from a bad science fiction TV show.

Keaton’s musculature, of course, made me look normal. She thought in time my muscles would dwarf hers in size and I still hadn’t lost anywhere near as much body fat as she had. Her skin was so thin she looked like an anatomy model.

Still, these changes made me angry. The mere thought of Keaton ate at my self-control. I sneered at the reflection, grabbed my backpack from out of the back seat and started to wipe the car for prints. As I did, three restless natives, men in their late twenties and early thirties, ambled over. They reeked of pot and cheap booze.

Hey lady, need some… the scruffiest one said, from the back.

I didn’t need this. I turned to them and glared, letting my body stiffen and filling my mind with well-practiced predator thoughts: the stalk, the chase, the kill. The back two turned and ran, instinctive fear. The third, the numbass in front, stopped cold, a distant streetlight barely illuminating his dirty jacket and torn blue jeans.

What the fuck are you?

Dammit. Namvet.

Go. I focused my rage at Keaton and the whole damned fucking universe at him, and let my mind fill with every vile thing I had done in the past week. My California swath of murder and mayhem had made the national news, brought in the FBI and police from around the country, and the newspapers and criminal textbooks still reference my work as a case example of spree killing. Yes, I was the California Spree Killer. I’m not going to try and excuse myself. I let my beast out completely, abandoned all restraints and indulged in every vice and evil deed I thought of. I even broke up a Monsters Die protest in Berkeley all by my lonesome self. Alright, I’m proud of that one. Much of the rest of what I did I’m still embarrassed to admit to.

Mr. Half-drunk Namvet’s bladder let loose. He turned, stumbled, slowly backed off until he found a corner to put between us, and ran like hell.

Fuck this, I laughed. I gave up on the car, backing off ten paces before I emptied a clip into the gas tank. The car caught fire before I had a chance to toss a lit match into the leaking gasoline.

I took off down the street at a jog, flames warming my back as I ran. I needed to be far away from here by the time the police arrived.

A mature Arm would understand instinctively my love of being a predator. I doubt anyone else would, no matter how good the explanation. How can I explain what it really means to be a predator? To enjoy the kill, but not only the kill: to enjoy the hunt, the power, the helpless terror of the prey as it falls, and the feast that follows. The freedom to do absolutely anything.

There is no greater pleasure than the juice. Juice is the Arm’s life; she can’t live without juice and the only way an Arm can get juice is to take juice from Transforms. An Arm can’t help but love taking juice and everything associated with the taking, including the hunt and the kill. It’s natural for an Arm to be a predator and it’s natural for an Arm to enjoy being one.

I denied everything at first. I did everything possible to lock away the terrible, cruel predator within me and lock the beast inside. I chained up the instincts my transformation gave me like a child who tries to deny the dangerous urges of puberty. I told myself I was demon possessed and invented irrational supernatural explanations for every change I went through.

Locked within me the beast had festered. Now, the beast was out.

How cruel is a sane, healthy predator? How sadistic is a hunter meant to be? What is ‘normal’ for an Arm? The jury is still out on that. Psychologists have been studying us for years. The biology of an Arm is different and how much that is responsible for an Arm’s predatory mind is an open question. Keaton, all alone as the first Arm, hadn’t found real sanity. How much sanity had I found? More than I had when I tried to pretend I was a normal. Less than some of the Arms who came later. Someone has to be first, though, Hank!

When I faced the predator within me and took it for myself, I healed a part of my mind Transform Sickness had torn away from me. I was whole again for the first time since I transformed. Stronger. But I took in poison along with the cure.

How much of what I became was healthy, natural? How much was poison?

Some, at least. Even back then, some part of me realized I had gone too far. How far was too far, though? I didn’t know, and still don’t. Even the normals can’t figure out what is sane and what is madness when they consider themselves, and they have had thousands of years to consider the question. For me, I had nobody to compare myself to, except Keaton.

An hour later, in a new disguise and a new ride, I got back on the road, driving south out of San Francisco. Thinking and weighing options. I wasn’t stupid. I understood that if I went back to Keaton I would be prey again.

One fact, though, had seeped in past my gut-churning terror of Keaton: the Arm basics were just the start. I knew nothing about the other Transforms, or how to interact with them; Keaton did, extensively. She had Arm tricks I didn’t understand in the slightest, and several she had tried to teach me that I painfully failed to learn. She controlled people with scary ease while all I did was confuse and terrify them. She knew far more ways of fighting than she had taught me. Lastly, she knew enough about how to work with money that she only had to do petty theft and robbery when the mood struck her.

I cruised past San Francisco International Airport on the 101, then the nearby side streets, on the lookout for extraordinary police activity. I found none, despite being less than fifteen miles away from my latest tour de violence. I found none inside the airport, either, after I had parked the car and cased the place. My disguise was of an overweight woman; I couldn’t do men because I had failed to learn how to disguise my voice.

My plane didn’t leave for two hours. More time to think.

I sat in an overpriced airport coffee shop, sipping hot chocolate and eating stale coffee cake while I considered. If I bugged out now I would leave with Keaton as an enemy. She expected me to return. If I didn’t leave America I would spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for Keaton. If she found me, she would likely kill me.

Now that I had given up on my delusions of goodness, I found it a lot easier to understand myself, and what it meant to be an Arm, including one important thing I had figured out while on my spree: Arms don’t tolerate competition. Period. I learned to express this during my spree, in Arm fashion, to anyone who annoyed me. I chased people out of my way whenever I chose. And the intolerance for competition was a big part of why Keaton abused me, so she wouldn’t regard me as competition when she trained me. No, to leave Keaton I had to convince her to let me go. My dreams of disappearing into the night were just that, dreams.

But how? The Arm inside my head said ‘When you go back Keaton’s going to beat the crap out of you, just to make sure you don’t look like competition’. I ignored the voice. If I let fear make my decisions for me, I would be the mindless shell again, as I had been in those initial weeks with Keaton, reacting like a robot to whatever button she pushed.

If I wanted Keaton’s actual cooperation, I needed to offer her something in return. I needed something to give Keaton.

It took me the full two hours in the airport before my battle lust-addled head figured out what I had to do.

Gilgamesh: March 22, 1967 – March 23, 1967

Gilgamesh climbed off the train in Philadelphia and waved goodbye to Midgard, who he had met up with again in Boston. Midgard was on a mission given to him by Vizul Lightning and Occum, to search out the source of some rumors of a Beast Man on the Delmarva Peninsula. Gilgamesh still hadn’t met the fabled Occum, who had recently tamed a second Beast Man, a tiger-oid named Shere Khan. Before embarking on his, um, quest, Midgard spent time in New York City with the senior Crow, Shadow, and hung out with Zero, a Crow who subsisted on the dross left in subway cars.

Gilgamesh metasensed four Crows in Philadelphia, but no Arms. Annoying, as the Crow letters and rumors placed Zaltu here, and