Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) Read Online Free

facial stubble like Nixon.  He had a round face and a solemn look of professional competence, which I might have believed more if he hadn’t been so callous in the bus. 
    I’d killed my daughter Sarah.  My thoughts hurt too much to face, so I turned my mind away from them.
    “As best as we can determine,” Dr. Peterson said, “you contracted Transform Sickness and started to make a Focus transformation.  However, something unexpected happened soon after you slipped into a coma, while your friends and daughter were trying to call for an ambulance.”
    “Transform Sickness did something that killed two friends, a neighbor, and my daughter.” A Focus transformation induced transformations in nearby women, but didn’t affect children.  Sarah must have been barely old enough. 
    Phooey.  I didn’t believe my own words and rationalizations.
    “Yes, that’s the right way to look at it.  You’re not at fault, Mrs. Hancock, save that under the archaic laws of the state you still might be prosecuted after you’re released from the Detention Center.”
    “What can you do for me here, Dr. Peterson?” I asked.
    “You’re of course familiar with the fact,” Dr. Peterson said.  He paused and brought his hands together on his desk to make a little church steeple.  “That if a Focus cannot be found for a Transform, he’ll die.”
    I nodded.  “Men go into withdrawal and go psychotic, women turn Monster.”
    “We can predict to within the hour, these days, when this is going to happen.  A day ahead of time, the authorities take unfortunate unwanted Transforms from a Transform Clinic and ship them here.  This Detention Center also deals with the aberrant cases, of which there are plenty.  For instance, there are two women Transforms on the third floor who…”
    All of a sudden I knew their location.  That’s what had been bothering me.  I wanted them, a strange sexual arousal mixed with a deep hunger.  I needed them.  They could satisfy my mysterious craving.
    “Yesrightthere, Doctor,” I said, turning swiftly and pointing up.  We must have been on the ground floor.  “Let’s go.  I need them.”
    Dr. Peterson blinked at me.  “You need them?”  He backed away, white as a sheet and breathing rapidly, and slowly rose to stand with his back against a window.  Thin stripes of black shadow from the thick metal grate on the outside of the safety glass dappled his white lab coat.  Terrified, he slid along the glass to stand next to an armed orderly.
    “I need them.  Now ,” I said, and hissed. 
    “Mrs. Hancock,” Dr. Peterson bellowed.  He gathered himself.  “You have just been reassigned as a status six prisoner,” he said, with authority.  “Bend forward and place your hands on the desk.”
    “Will that get me to those women?”
    “Yes, yes,” Dr. Peterson said.  “Absolutely.”
    Sure.  Anything to arrange a visit with those two women Transforms.  I bent.  They shackled me with heavy shackles.  When I looked up, Dr. Peterson had left the room.
    I waited and examined my situation, suspicious of Dr. Peterson’s smooth assurance.  There were little half-moons cut in the office carpeting.  I had noticed them when I came in.  The guards had peeled one of them up, revealing an eyebolt embedded in the concrete floor.  They had shackled me to it.
    A few minutes later I felt the woman Transforms moving closer to me, arousing my desires.  Then, to my appalled anger, they moved farther away.  When they left the building, a couple minutes later, I howled in agony and danced around the embedded bolt, pulling furiously at my restraints.  I don’t know what I would have done if I’d actually managed to break free; the armed guards watched my manic performance with cold indifference.  Eventually, the women went so far away I couldn’t sense them anymore.
    I swung the chain at the floor in a futile display of anger and sat back down in the chair.  I cried, furious and miserable