Love and Darkness

By Randall Allen Farmer

Carol Hancock has discovered that one her fellow Arms has been plotting against her, and the new internal divisions among the Arms further damage the Arm dominance hierarchy. In the chaos, no Arm’s position is safe, including Carol’s, especially when the leader of the Arms, Stacy Keaton, is unhappy with Carol’s major project of the last three years, the Cause. Del, a baby Arm in Keaton’s training, is even less safe, as the jostling of senior Arms threatens the lives of the young and vulnerable. She will need to grow up fast if she is to survive to be more than a pawn.

Chaos is not restricted to the Arms, as hostile senior Crows attack those they see as propagators of dangerous change, such as the dangerous changes produced by all the research results now coming from the Cause. Focus Gail Rickenbach, Crow Guru Gilgamesh and Hank Zielinski make breakthroughs with the potential to save innumerable lives, but only if they can survive to spread their discoveries.

When the hammer falls, evil will have its victory. Carol’s friends depend on her, but a predator is a bad choice to lead people out of the darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Allen Farmer
• Release date: Aug 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311224767

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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Book Two of The Cause

Randall Allen Farmer

Copyright © 2015, 2016, 2020 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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The Arms

The living Arms in the United States as of August 1972,

with the year they transformed in parentheses.

Stacy Keaton (1963)

Carol Hancock (1966)

Amy Haggerty (1968)

Sylvia Bass (1968)

Florence Rayburn (1969)

Rose Webberly (1969)

Christine Naylor (1970)

Mary Sibrian (1970)

Grace Billington (1970)

Elizabeth Whetstone (1971)

Meredith Bartlett (1971)

Dorothy Kent (1972)

Theresa Maynard (1972)

Dolores Sokolnik (1972)

Love and Darkness

Book Two of The Cause

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Mighty Heroes Return Triumphant

Never was anything great achieved without danger – Niccolo Machiavelli

Gail Rickenbach: August 18, 1972

Reach for infinity, the Madonna signed. Open yourself up completely.

Gail nodded, and leaned back against one of the old oak trees in her Dreaming garden. Her subconscious mind patterned her mental construct on the Moross House walled garden in Detroit, and whenever she found time to get away from her Focus responsibilities, this is where she came, both in the daylight and in her dreams, a place of love filled with flowers and fountains. A carefully formal English garden in some places, in others, the elegant peace of a Japanese garden. She had found a quiet rock garden in her Dreaming garden once, and once, she even found a place that seemed almost like the Garden of Eden. She had searched for that place many times since, but never found it again. At times, she just sat in her dream garden, engrossed by the rippling water and the peaceful flowers. Other times, she visited – loosely speaking – with her friends, those able to act in the Dreaming themselves instead of being mere observers.

Across the way, a group of uniformed children from a parochial school examined a mound of rose bushes. She didn’t try to understand whether these children mirrored reality in any way. The Dreaming world was always screwy.

Gail triggered the opening with a simple juice pattern. In the daylight world this pattern opened her senses to allow her a better feel for one of Dr. Hank Zielinski’s repeatable juice patterns. The Dreaming world, though, fractured around her into a million broken images. Following the Madonna’s instructions, she didn’t panic or fight the fractured images. Instead, she waited. After a burst of chaos, the images coalesced around her, quickly to start with, but slowly toward the end. The rebuilt Dream vision remained the same garden as before, but now with more details. In addition, Gail heard bird songs, crickets, bees, and the whispers of the children. Before, all sounds had been the same sound and faded when Gail paid attention to other things.

Can you hear me? the Madonna said. A classic Madonna today, dressed in the robes of ancient Israel. She sat on a weathered stone bench and held a child in her arms. Today, the child looked around him with wide eyes.

Yes! Gail said, or tried to say. No words came out. She sighed and signed with the sign language used by the deaf and expropriated by the Focus community. Yes, but I still can’t talk.

Be patient, the Madonna said. Let your mind acclimate itself to the changes. Being able to talk is the next step, but progress may come without warning, or via extensive practice. Each Dreamer develops in a different manner.

Thank you, ma’am, Gail signed, sitting down on the bench beside the Madonna. She smiled at the baby. The baby smiled back.

You are most welcome, but my help was at best minor, the Madonna said. Next, you need to learn how to defend yourself in the Dreaming. Counterattacks are too showy, and reveal too much of your capabilities to our enemies. You can’t…

Gail held up her hand, and a butterfly landed on it. Strange. Why the rush, if I may ask? Offended, the butterfly flew off and landed on the big toe of Gail’s sandaled left foot.

The Madonna sighed. Your Arm teacher penetrated the mystery of her hidden enemy yesterday. Because of the ruckus this will cause, both in reality and in Dream, we may not be able to meet again for many months.

You see this? Gail signed.

I don’t see the future, the Madonna said. Gail nodded. The present, though, contains plans and unfolding events that can look like the future to those I speak to. For one, I fear your teacher’s enemy may strike at you directly, and I fear this formerly hidden enemy is a threat far more insidious and dangerous than the threats you and Tonya spoke of earlier today. Worse, the hidden enemy, an Arm, is someone we thought an ally or a neutral, and this person’s opposition to the Cause reveals weakness in the Cause, a weakness others will attempt to exploit.

The Madonna’s words brought an unseasonable chill to Gail’s Dream garden, and for a moment, snowflakes drifted by, wafted on the wind. Gail had called Tonya today, at Lori’s insistence, as Focus Rizzari believed Gail needed to upgrade her household security. Focus Biggioni turned out to be Lori’s teacher in matters of security, much to Gail’s surprise. Tonya had spoken of advanced patrol coverages, techniques for examining your own people to see if any were traitors or turned by enemy Focuses, how better to protect household assets, and methods for uncovering hidden political games. Among many other things. For four hours!

Tonya had never talked so long to Gail before. Nor had she asked for or implied any form of payment for this instruction. Both were new, and both appeared to be benefits of Gail’s new commitment to the Cause.

Who else might be coming after me? Gail signed. Tonya had warned of bitch patrol politics and senior Crow conspiracies, but beyond the usual vagueness, no specifics. And certainly nothing about Arm-level dangers.

I wish I could tell you, but I can’t, the Madonna said. She put the baby on her shoulder and turned to face Gail. Gail’s Dreaming companion Focus smelled of rich perfume and bath powder. "Don’t forget that much of what we communicate in the Dreaming involves filled-in details. Despite your progress in the Dreaming, your information transfer rate hasn’t markedly increased. In fact, the amount of detail you fill in, in your version of the Dreaming, is increasing much faster than the amount of information you’re picking up from outside. This is a hazardous stage in your development, as to some the Dreaming becomes more real than the real world, inviting a dangerous solipsism. Never forget that what you think I’m telling you is not what I’m actually telling you.

Also, I need to confess to you that I don’t know what I know. I can’t even explain what such a silly comment means. My obtuse hints, however, nearly always work better than my straight declarations. Everyone always ends up putting more work into them.

Gail smiled. I’ll take obtuse hints. Anything. Enemies dangerous enough to worry Teacher, the Arm Carol Hancock, terrified Gail.

Out by the fishpond and its lily pads, the misshapen polar bear who occasionally followed the Madonna around slapped one of the Koi out of the pond. Gail pointed and the Madonna frowned. Strange, the Madonna said. I wonder why Beast is interested enough to interact here. It must be your changes. She turned to the misshapen Monster. Hey! Beast, that’s a person, not dinner. Put the fish back.

The polar bear turned to the Madonna, grunted, and flicked the Koi back into the pond. She lay down with her head on her scaly lizard-like front legs and whined.

The bear’s a speaker? Gail asked.

Only of a sort, the Madonna said. Beast can’t speak words, but can still convey sound in the Dreaming. A mere distraction. The Madonna put her left hand on Gail’s forehead, and closed her eyes for a moment. Stalked by a discarded abomination, you must trust in your household’s bodyguards. The day of Transform ascendance approaches due to Gilgamesh’s inspiration. The true enemy is she without family. The Madonna leaned back and took a deep breath. I hope those help.

Well, Gail signed, if the purpose is to make me think, you succeeded. The Madonna’s words didn’t make any sense to her, but Gail did suspect each sentence dealt with a distinctly separate issue.

That is all I can ever ask for. The Madonna stood. Back to defending yourself. Do you see anything in your Dreaming world that looks like a place of power? Something able to protect you…

Carol Hancock: August 22, 1972

Five goddamned days.

Bass’s lair in Texas? Deserted. All my years of information on Bass’s operations? Useless. Bass had discarded everything. It was as if she had vanished off the face of the planet.

Strategically, this would be a perfect time for her to strike at my holdings, physical and otherwise, in Chicago, Detroit or Boston. Nothing. No armies, no squads, no sign of any activity at all. Why go to all the trouble to piss me off if she didn’t have a follow up plan? Did she expect me to miss the fact that the army of flunkies was hers? Had she actually expected to defeat me or kill me?

Unlikely. Senior Arms aren’t that stupid. They wouldn’t be senior Arms if they were. I suspected I missed something important.

None of my junior Arms had any new information on Bass. After I escorted Duke Hoskins and the Crows back to Detroit, the men went off together to New England, for some sort of Crow-Noble confab, safely out of my reach. I split the Chicago and Detroit guard duty more evenly between Webberly, Sibrian, Whetstone, and myself, and scheduled some time in Boston for Whetstone so my favorite Focus could toughen up Betsy. I put everyone on high alert.

My bosses were worse than useless. Bass’s treachery sent Haggerty backsliding into hyperactivity, and I nearly needed to challenge her to get her to slow down, think, and stop barking contradictory orders. After doing some of her patented mental analysis, she headed off to squeeze her FBI contacts about Bass. Keaton? I’m not talking about this over the phone. Click.

Five goddamned days of hunting, private investigator work, self-examination, pointless rumination, self-blame and a molehill-mountain of angst left me in a rotten mood. Which you should thank me for sparing you.

I stopped my rental car in the parking lot of the local K-Mart, a half-mile from Keaton’s house. K-Mart. Consuela, my slain house-manager, had loved the local K-Mart back in Chicago, and once shopped there every chance she got. The stray thought brought forth the ache of territory loss, and I pushed the pain away as best I could.

I exited the rental and sneered at the odor of hot pavement in the still blistering hot Pasadena evening. The Los Angeles area was a former territory of mine, and I still felt some remnant of affection for the place. I needed to control my emotions better. Lust for an old territory was a dangerous thing to feel, especially when this was now Keaton’s turf.

Visiting Keaton was never easy.

For years I visited Keaton once a month, and those visits had always been difficult. I won my freedom from the visits when I supported Keaton after she killed Arm Svensen in a fit of psychotic anger, after everyone but Rayburn deserted her.

Today, for some unknown reason, this felt like the bad old days, before I won my freedom. Keaton was the oldest Arm in the United States, tough and strong and meaner than sin. I wore her tag on my own juice structure the same way Webberly, Sibrian and Whetstone wore my tags. The tag meant I followed her orders, I gave her respect and loyalty, and I accepted her authority. It also meant that she took some responsibility for how she treated me, and couldn’t indulge her cruelty on me just for the hell of it.

Bass’s treachery was a failure on my part as well as an enemy attack. I shouldn’t have fallen for her lies. Her treachery left me feeling more open and vulnerable than normal.

Being open and vulnerable wasn’t something I would ever recommend around Keaton.

My name is Carol Hancock, and I’m an Arm, one of the eight known varieties of Transforms, and as all Transforms, a victim of Transform Sickness. I’m a military specialist, having led the Major Transform community in two major victories, in Detroit and Chicago, both victories against the Hunters, the beastly Chimera-variant civilization that refused to die. Those victories were the past, though. I had recently been demoted to the number three Arm, my two Arm bosses weren’t on speaking terms, the number four Arm, Bass, had suckered me into revealing too many of my tricks, and I had gained thirteen pounds on my latest mission, to pay off a restauranteur Focus’s help to my major ally, the now Crow Guru Gilgamesh. The last irked me more than I would admit to anyone else, prompting my realization that I needed a new combat methodology, one based on speed and quickness, and giving me a good excuse for some extra physical training.

The sixth anniversary of my Arm transformation, when I became a Major Transform, was in three weeks, and I didn’t think I would be doing much celebrating. For one thing, Arm Bass was now a new enemy of mine, and for a second, to survive as an Arm I needed to kill a Transform about once every two weeks. Repetitive murder didn’t lead to a life worth celebrating. I was working on a project to fix the latter issue, but I hadn’t met with my student, Focus Gail Rickenbach, in nearly a month. Last time through she was a long long way from being able to pass me juice. These days I held Detroit as my main territory and kept a shallow hold on Chicago, which I planned to move back to as soon as I extricated myself from my juice moving project.

I missed Chicago.

I metasensed Keaton and her student Arms about a quarter mile out. She had three now, the most ever, and she was down in the basement harassing one of them as I came close. Probably the newest Arm, from the piss poor way the student handled the harassment. Another student worked the weights and I found the third up in the kitchen cooking. I checked extra-special for Bass, and didn’t find her within range. I shook my head at my own silly fears, drove the rental car into Keaton’s driveway and walked right in. Keaton didn’t interrupt her activities for my arrival, nor did any of her students come greet me.

My instincts barked at me, attempting to convince me of lurking danger, attempting to convince me to leave. I ignored them, attributing my gut feelings to fallout from Bass’s treachery rattling around in my subconscious. I made my way down to the basement to pay my respects.

Keaton’s basement reminded me far too much of Bass’s basement for my comfort. The free weights and weight machines were innocuous enough, but the blood and the misery was the same. The baby Arm Keaton tormented was a hysterical wretch, forty-five years old as a person, and six weeks past her transformation. She screamed and cried with a half-mad desperation as Keaton tore off tiny bits of skin. Little remained of her mind.

This was part of Keaton’s standard training technique, perfected by trial and error and skull sweat during the training of the first five student Arms: myself, Mary Fouke, Amy Haggerty, Sylvia Bass and Peggy Svensen, two of whom were no longer among the living. We all collected terrible mental scars from the process. Bass and I picked up our sadistic impulses from Keaton’s early training techniques, and Haggerty and Svensen got warped in the head from the effort involved resisting these sadistic impulses.

Keaton first tried her current procedure on Florence Rayburn, the Arm after Svensen, and the method worked so well she used it on all the Arms who followed, starting with Rose Webberly. Essentially, a baby Arm needed to shuck absolutely everything from her former normal life before she could learn how to be an Arm. Rayburn and the following new Arms came out of their training significantly saner than their predecessors.

Not that it took much.

I read Keaton’s juice count as mid-high, maybe around 120 or so. Mine was a bit on the low side, due to the juice I used in the New Orleans fight and in my five frantic days of fruitless Bass fishing. I came in close enough to let the tag do its work, and felt my nerves relax and the calm acceptance of Keaton’s authority as it washed through me.

Keaton was a short woman, just a little over five feet tall, and the lack of height was always surprising given her power. She kept her brown hair in a crew cut, and her build was blocky with layered muscle, more male than female. She flicked her knife to me as I knelt on the floor to make my obeisance. I snapped the knife out of the air, scattering little droplets of blood. Over to the side, the other student did chest presses, stubbornly pretending ignorance of her surroundings. This one was just a kid, no more than fourteen years old. Children didn’t transform, so she must have been just past puberty when she caught the Shakes. I was surprised she had survived this far, but her eyes held cold murder, and her nerves were steady enough to work out during one of Keaton’s torture sessions.

You help, Keaton said, indicating the shattered Arm strapped to the table.

Yes, ma’am, I said, without hesitation. I didn’t like this odd order. Keaton was playing games.

Motherfuckingshit. I had been trying to keep my inner beast under control, and now I fed her twice in less than a week, adding to the dark lust I picked up during the New Orleans fight. All on top of my breaking Bass and Duval, both in the last six weeks. This wasn’t what I wanted to be doing, especially to some baby Arm I barely knew.

No question of disobeying, though. Keaton knew she fed my beast, but the order was legitimate. It didn’t even occur to me to refuse.

Two hours of my work reduced the baby Arm to little more than burbling imbecility. I had few hopes for this Arm, having learned this was the fourth time her former life had been tortured out of her. The kid doing weights was long gone. Keaton played statue, admiring the blood covering me, letting me handle the breaking on my own. Under other circumstances, I would have even enjoyed my work, but not with Keaton standing over my shoulder. The beast liked her privacy.

So, Keaton said, after I finished, you have a problem with this?

No, ma’am, I said. I could have said ‘of course not’ if I was being polite, or ‘are you shitting me’ if I wanted to challenge, but given the strangeness of Keaton’s orders I decided to just let her read my unvocalized answer on my body. This was her turf, and her student, and if you don’t understand how important those hers are, you don’t know Arms.

Hmm. You don’t have a problem with this yourself, but it bothers you when someone else enjoys herself?

Oh crap, she was pissed about what I did to Bass. I went down on my knees to emphasize my subservience.

Ma’am, I beg you to let me explain.

Keaton snorted.

What’s your problem, Hancock? Did Haggerty order you to be a girl scout or something?

Yah, Keaton was pissed, but Arm on Arm fighting wasn’t forbidden, nor was interfering in another Arm’s interests. How many of Sibrian’s katanas had Keaton taken from her, simply because she thought Sibrian’s clothing choices veered too close to her ‘Arms don’t wear costumes’ rule? Dozens of other examples ran through my mind.

Ma’am, I said, stalling for time. I apologize. I don’t understand. What did I do to displease you?

"What the fuck did you think you were doing, Hancock?"

Ma’am, I said, gathering my thoughts in a hurry. I learned, nearly a month ago, that Bass was the person behind the Phoenix Church massacre, an event that indirectly led to the deaths of two of my own, as well as the loss of my Chicago territory. I confronted her in her lair to gain recompense, and discovered she held over a dozen people, torturing them, including women and children. You know my feelings about child abuse, ma’am. I took my recompense out of Bass, tagged her, and ordered her as punishment to cease her torture experiments and find a different way. A week ago I fought off an attack on my life, and on the lives of those around me, by a company of thugs who I later learned were Bass’s twisted hirelings. I now believe she’s playing a deeper game than simple harassment, and I also suspect she’s ditched my tag. In a sane world, this should be enough to justify anything, including Bass’s murder. Keaton grunted but said nothing. I believe my actions helped preserve the reputation of the Arms, as Bass’s actions were harming the reputation of all Arms. Including you, boss…I didn’t say.

What about the orders you gave her? Keaton said. No more massacres? No more torture research?

The tag holder always has the right to make such demands, I said. I didn’t know why Keaton forced me on the defensive, except for the obvious: because she could.

Yes, but why? Keaton said.

Arm massacres are bad. They alienate our allies, make enemies out of people who might otherwise be neutral, and cause friction among the Arms. They hinder the projects I’m working on, including the projects you assigned me. Bass is going down a bad path, bad for her and bad for any Arms she convinces to join her. I believe she, if free, endangers us all.

Keaton raised an eyebrow. A bold thing for the California Spree Killer to say, don’t you think?

Ma’am. The episode from my early Arm years wasn’t one of my more stellar moments. I like to think I’ve learned better over the years. My old mistakes don’t make Bass’s actions any less of a mistake.

That’s a judgment call. Seems like you made a lot of them over at Bass’s farm.

Yes, ma’am. I repressed all my speculations about the unknown – such as the reason why, on Bass’s farm, I hadn’t asked her about why she staged the Phoenix Church massacre. I believed the calls justified at the time, even more justified after her recent attack on me, her tagged superior.

Keaton smiled a half smile. The latter wasn’t and isn’t true.

I almost lost my poise and went for Keaton. Before I got any farther than taking my knife out of its sheath, I buried it in my own arm, and twisted. Self-punishment.

Pardon me, ma’am, I said. This has never happened to me, before. Now I understood: after I broke her and trashed her lair, Bass came to Keaton and signed on the dotted line, taking Keaton’s tag and dropping mine. The shock of learning this nearly made me lose control, as Bass had been mine. Now I would need to suck shit, big time.

I couldn’t see Keaton’s face, but I felt her smile. Each of our tags reflected our own individual personalities, and Keaton’s tags allowed her to experience her sadistic jollies through them, in the appropriate circumstances. Such as this one.

Bass is mine, now, Keaton said. "The events in New Orleans she accepts as payback for the wrongs she claims of you. The dominance issues between the two of you aren’t my problem. When the two of you are working with me, here, they will not be an issue." At those words, my metasense cleared. Bass was here, upstairs in Keaton’s library, under Keaton’s protection. Visible now in my metasense, Bass gave me the middle finger. Both hands. Belying Bass’s ‘payback’ claim. She still wanted a piece of my hide, or the damn thing intact without me in it.

So much for my urge to capture Bass, torture her to death, bring her back to life and do it again. A more deserving target had never existed…and now she had bought herself some protection.

Yes, ma’am, I said. I still believe she’s playing a…

"She is not," Keaton said. I shut up about my ‘deeper game’ fears. Keaton would properly see my hypothesis as a dominance challenge.

You’re missing something, Keaton said. She motioned for me to stand, and I did. "You and your ideas. You talk about the natural order and finding our ecological niche. Our need to cooperate with the other friendly Major Transforms. You organize wars against those who declare against us, such as the Hunters, with the other Major Transforms as allies. You think Arms ought to restrain their darker urges.

Has it ever even occurred to you that you might be wrong?

I met her gaze and I paled in fear. Ma’am, you know I believe we have an important role to play, and how our role involves cooperation rather than unconstrained destruction. You yourself told me no one gets to live without limits. Has some evidence come up that this approach isn’t working?

Keaton got in my face.

How the hell do I know whether it’s working or not, when I don’t have anything to compare it to? What makes you think your way is the only way? I felt her anger now, her unceasing anger over the Focuses’ treachery during the Clearing of Chicago, treachery that had kept us from wiping out the Hunters. Something new added to her old anger, though, something I didn’t recognize. Nothing I had done, or didn’t do, and worse, a something she wouldn’t be telling me. I didn’t train all of you just to fall for the first stupid idea that comes along. For the first time, we’ve got someone with an idea for a different direction than yours, and you don’t get to fuck it up before it even gets started.

Ma’am, I said, my fear edging over into panic. Bass wanted to watch the world burn and rule over the ashes, or so she said. You’re giving Bass’s ideology serious consideration? Going our own way would be a disaster.

"Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. I don’t know, and neither do you. I do want to see some other alternative than the one you’re trying to ram down everyone’s throats, and so you will damned well keep your hands off Bass and her operation. It’s well past time we probed a few of our favorite enemy Focuses. Do you understand me?"

Yes, ma’am, I said, automatic. My agreement hurt like hell. Keaton’s order was a mistake, a huge one, and it gave Bass cover for her lust for total personal freedom and general anarchy. Worse, I feared for my boss. I feared Bass had already gotten to her.

But Keaton was my boss, she held Bass’s foul and contaminating tag, and the price and benefits for owning and using Bass were hers now, not mine.

If you want to claim your way is better, prove it, Keaton said.

Yes, ma’am, I said. What else could I say?

Dolores Sokolnik: August 25, 1972 – September 9, 1972

The woman tossed Del across the pit, into a rough concrete wall. Before Del recovered, the woman attacked her again. Worthless, the woman said. Six weeks and you haven’t snapped out of it. My goddamned graduation is tied to you, freak. Die or snap out of it, dammit!

Motherfucking asshole, get me some juice!

Kick.

You’re going to die, the woman said. Del’s battle pit opponent was one of many, and her name didn’t matter. Interchangeable. Beating on her, torturing her, starving her. Names didn’t matter in this circle of Hell, the one reserved for damned violent women.

I see teeth littering the ceiling, Del said. The words came out of her mouth in a different voice. The voices in her head, too many to count, never ceased clamoring, a constant chaotic cacophony.

Kick.

Die, then. The woman wrenched Del’s left shoulder out of its joint and Del screamed again. The woman tossed Del across the pit and she landed on her left hand, popping something. Then the woman tossed her again.

The voices in Del’s head never stopped. Sexless reject, Del said to her opponent, in yet another voice. No passion for life. That’s why you aren’t graduating, not because of my issues. She no longer remembered which of the voices was her own.

You’re faking the lust, but Ma’am Keaton isn’t fooled, Del said, this time a man’s voice, echoing a different set of thoughts. Del shifted positions as the woman tossed her again, and the woman slipped. An idea popped into her head on its own, how to make the shift and produce the slip. A gift from one of the voices. Del fell, but gently. I’m hungry, Del said. Thoughts about architecture ran through her mind. An early TV actress once owned Ma’am Keaton’s mansion, someone not smart enough to realize the people building her house had been robbing her rather than building for her. The place slowly collapsed on itself for lack of sufficient internal supports. Agriculture and brush clearing have accentuated the drought cycle, Del said, in a different voice. The woman recovered from her slip and returned, kicking at Del.

Del rolled. The woman grabbed and tossed her again. Del hit the concrete wall with a jolt, knocking the breath out of her. The pain of her dislocated arm made even partial control over the thoughts and voices utterly impossible.

She would die. Today. Unless she snapped out of it, whatever that meant. The other damned women who lived in this house knew how to keep silent. They spoke with only one voice.

Ma’am Keaton stood to the side, eyes hooded and arms crossed. She was the judge of Del’s life. The nameless woman rushed at Del again, aiming to slam her shoulder into Del’s midsection. The blow would stun Del’s heart, and if successful, well, that would be the end of that. Del rolled toward the leaping woman, enough so that the shoulder blow only glanced off her ribs.

Exhaustion sapped Del’s will to move and to fight back. Exhaustion, low juice, and the voices. The never ending voices. The woman, behind Del now, kicked at her, and Del went flying, heels spinning over her head in a full circle, to land on the small of her back. Ma’am Keaton remained quiet, always so quiet. Where were Ma’am Keaton’s thoughts, her voices? Could Del be like her? Quiet? Would being quiet save her life? Would being quiet count as snapping out of it?

The other student, not the nameless woman Del fought now but a different one, a student only a few months farther along than Del, had said Del was too smart. Too many thoughts, too much of a good thing. Del couldn’t disagree. Nearly twenty years teaching politics and social studies to high school students had engaged Del’s mind, kept her thoughts from falling back into the mush of mindless entertainment and housewife worries plaguing the minds of her three sisters. Del considered her brilliance her edge, and held on to her thoughts the same way a dog worried a favorite shoe.

Her thoughts now came in torrents. Each took a voice of its own and never stopped. The voices took over her mouth and her mind.

By any definition, she was insane.

Ma’am Keaton’s quiet was the only way. Nothing Del tried stopped the voices. Nothing.

Pain, death and insanity approached. The nameless woman snapped Del’s left arm as she tossed Del across the pit again. Bodily exhaustion threatened to use up the last of Del’s juice, threatened to send her into the horrible place without juice. More, unless she stopped the woman, she would die from this beating. Worst, unless she stopped the voices, she would die whether or not she survived the next five minutes. Soon, Ma’am Keaton would make her hunt on her own, and with the voices, she would fail.

The woman ran at her from across the pit, as Del lay prone, exhausted. The woman was her death now. In desperation, Del screamed at herself, inside, for quiet. Screamed for deliverance from her attacker.

Inside herself, inside her panic and desperation, Del sensed something new. Something akin to a lever, or a dial, on the juice itself. A way to use the juice directly, to do what needed doing. Burn juice, a voice murmured through Del’s raw throat. With an extra bit of juice, she could quiet the thoughts.

Juice she had little of now. Her instincts forbid its use.

Instincts be damned. Juice wasn’t everything. In her mind, Del twisted the dial, and in her mental hands, she metasensed power.

Quiet!

Del visualized the quiet as still pools of water and, with the juice, built the pools in her mind. She became the quiet pools, and the thoughts and voices vanished.

The woman continued to run at her, to deal her a final fatal blow. The power of the juice had other uses, Del realized, and she willed the juice into her muscles. Del stood, moving quicker than before, and jumped out of the way. Her opponent hit the side of the battle pit, attacking the wall as she meant to attack Del. She fell back in agony. Del twisted the mental dial back to its previous position before she exhausted her juice. In her quiet pools, she sensed only a few points of juice remained before she went into withdrawal.

The voices didn’t return. Her broken bones and dislocated shoulder didn’t pain her. The pain sunk out of sight in her quiet pools. Only a single self remained.

Del turned to Ma’am Keaton, and nodded. Speech was unnecessary. Ma’am Keaton nodded back, leapt to Del’s opponent, and kicked her.

Ma’am! the woman said, as she landed on the far side of the pit.

Congratulations, Arm Kent, Ma’am Keaton said.

Arm Kent was Del’s former opponent’s name, now. The Arm, no longer Student Kent, stood, looked at Del, and then at Ma’am Keaton. She bowed in full, touching her head to the ground. Ma’am, Kent said.

Your official graduation ceremony is tomorrow evening, at seven. I expect you to be fully presentable.

Yes, ma’am, Kent said. She stood, backed three steps away from Ma’am Keaton, bowed again, and then nonchalantly climbed the rusty ladder out of the pit. Del sensed the fierce pride in Arm Kent, pride over her success at yanking Del out of her madness.

Ma’am Keaton turned to Del. Juice count?

93, ma’am. Dangerously low, and painful. Del’s voice echoed through her quiet pools and vanished alone, raising no other voices in return.

Huh. Ma’am Keaton looked Del over for quite a long time, unreadable as always. This is your last free Transform, Del, Keaton said. Next time, you hunt.

Yes, ma’am.

The thoughts and voices still did not return.

---

Would you like to explain your hunt to me? Ma’am Billington said.

The passionate heat of the post-kill lust flooding Del’s body vanished into her quiet pools, as did all distractions since her discovery of the quiet pools a week and a half ago. Her left arm ached from the still-healing break, but her other injuries had healed. Nothing disturbed the quiet peace of her mind.

They returned to the school past cast-iron fences hiding expensive homes. Del wondered why Ma’am Billington had shadowed her on her first hunt. She assumed she would succeed or fail on her own.

Ma’am, I located my assigned territory, found a Transform, approached him in his car, persuaded him to drive me to a secluded location, took him, and then drove his remains to the student graveyard. I then entertained myself for the allowed eight hours. Del paused, savoring the stillness in her mind. So quiet, so controlled. Did I do anything wrong, ma’am?

Ma’am Billington shook her head and stopped by the cast-iron fence hiding the extensive grounds of Ma’am Keaton’s Arm school. Follow your routine until I call for you, later. Ma’am Billington was a medium-tall heavily muscled woman, about five-seven, with light brown skin. She didn’t approve of Del.

Yes, ma’am.

Del exercised, careful of her newly healed left arm, ate, attended a lecture by Richard Kerwin, a normal, who spoke today about police procedures. After the lecture she exercised some more, ate again, and then went to the library to study. She signed the reading logs, took down some books on military organization and began to read.

A half