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

that prisoners get in the movies?  Or am I stuck with concrete slab number six, complete with five inch grate?”
    He grimaced at my sardonic comment.  “You’ll be in a locked cell, but one far nicer than you awoke in earlier.”
    I stood, moaned from a set of unexpected phantom pains in my extremities, and waited for the guards to unhook me from the floor.  “Another thing.  I seem to be famished.  Hungry.  Can I please have some extra food?”
    “I’m sorry,” Dr. Peterson said.  “Until our expert arrives, you’re on standard Transform rations.”
     
    I hadn’t expected my second floor cell to be a reinforced hospital room, single occupancy.  The room had all the plugs, valves, sinks and do-hickies of a modern hospital room, plus an electric bed, a nurse call button, a pitcher of ice water, a vase with plastic flowers, and the day’s newspaper.  I could hardly believe it was only Wednesday, September fourteenth.  I’d probably have cards and flowers by now if I hadn’t killed all my best friends and put my family in jail.  An armed orderly stood guard outside my door, which they locked.  From the outside.
    The guards hadn’t removed my shackles, but they had done something to them to increase the slack.  They gave me a new hospital smock to wear, cut to go around the shackles.  I changed and went to the bathroom (down the hall, second left), escorted by armed orderlies.  If you ever want a challenge, try going to the bathroom in heavy shackles.
    All alone in my room, my mind turned to better things.  My old life.  My daughter. 
    I cried.
     
    I was born in Macon, Georgia, a simple town girl, named for my great aunt Carol.  My maiden name was Stevens.  My father lost his dry goods store in the middle thirties, blamed the Republicans, and moved his family to Missouri.  I don’t remember ever having a Deep South buttery molasses accent, but my mother Eunice did, a constant joy to listen to.  Ann, my older sister, always fought with Mom, and our younger brother, Jeff, always fought with Dad.  I was the good kid, the saintly middle child; I got along with everyone.
    My childhood memories centered on our home in Pilot Grove, Missouri.  Dad, or Old Jeff as everyone in town called him, bought himself another dry goods store in the early forties, which later became a combination feed store and small town grocery.  I was exceptional in school, and much to the chagrin of my siblings graduated as Valedictorian from Pilot Grove Normal.  With Mom’s blessing and Dad’s mute acceptance, I went off to college in the middle of the Korean War.  The ivy halls of Iowa State were filled with men when I arrived, ever more so in the following years due to the GI Bill, a tidal wave of older men who had been through World War II, ready to make a new life of their own.  Younger men returning from Korea soon joined them.  I majored in history and never got a bad grade.  My dorm friends and I were all studious, save when we were dating, which we did as a group as often we could.
    In my third year of college, I met Bill Hancock, a new freshman.  Wounded in the Korean War, he had finished his long military service career.  Bill was five years older than I was, bright, witty, and driven.  He knew what he wanted from life.  Later, I would realize how much he resembled Dad, not physically, but in attitude and interests.  Business was Bill’s life.  He liked nothing better than to make a sale and close a deal.  He wanted to be more than a salesman, though; he wanted to start a business, build it, and make it successful.  Bill was in college to learn how to do so.
    I didn’t finish my junior year at Iowa State.  Bill set his sights on me, won my heart, swept me off my feet, and sold me on his vision of the future.  Wife.  Mother.  Homemaker.  The works.  I was no looker, not even close.  I had no sense of fashion and my appearance had never been a top priority.  My dream had been to teach at a