Read Online No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) by Randall Farmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Randall Farmer
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problem. I’ll take care of you, get you put back together, tag you like you want and send you off. You’ll be fine. Just don’t get yourself fucked up like this again, okay?”
She was going to tag me! Her words felt so good. I wiggled in pleasure. “Ma’am.”
I almost understood. She felt for me. Much of it came from the twisted logic personal to her alone. I had been the victim of her tortures and she loved me for my pain. I was weak now and in her power, and she loved me for my weakness. Some of her affection came from the more normal psychology of an Arm. I was her possession and she loved me for being a possession, too.
The logic was too complex for me, but I did understand the emotions. This was Stacy, my lover, the aspect of her I loved most, and she did love me back. I snuggled against her, warm in the knowledge she cared for me.
A little while passed before we started talking again. “You’re shedding,” Keaton said.
“Ma’am?”
“Your fur is falling off.”
She was correct. I picked at my fur, and, indeed my fur was falling off. “So this wasn’t a permanent change?”
“Apparently not.”
I took a shower, changed the sheets and swept the floor to get rid of my fur. I had looked natural with fur. I looked natural without fur. I had no earthly idea what was going on.
Henry Zielinski: April 14, 1968
Sky hadn’t liked Zielinski’s approach much, but his trick had worked. Zielinski, sitting cross-legged on a cheap vinyl chair beside his bed, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall of his cell while he waited for Sky to wake up. Zielinski might have thought of this latest approach earlier, but he hadn’t been thinking of Crow weaknesses, just their strengths and talents. He shook his head at the amount of time he had wasted looking for a purely physical solution. However, each bad idea had brought him closer, ever closer to the point where Sky’s withdrawal cycle would be broken.
He had believed Sky in the beginning when Sky had said he couldn’t turn off his metasense. Sky’s statement should have tipped him off. The other Major Transforms had to concentrate to turn on their metasense. Why were the Crows so different?
They weren’t. They fooled themselves. The ‘always on’ metasense clue, and the realization each Crow seemed to be fooling himself about so much else as well, led Zielinski to the idea Crows might be more than a little bit suggestible. That, and a book on the subject, was all he needed.
Sky groaned from where he lay curled in a ball on the small bed. Zielinski opened his eyes and paid attention. In a moment, Sky opened his eyes. The old Crow had been out nearly thirty-six hours. He sat up and blinked.
“It worked, Hank. Your hypnotherapy worked this time.”
“Good. Is your metasense back?” Zielinski said. The secret to fixing Sky was to get him to relax his Crow vigilance, to turn his juice-intensive metasense off, and give him a chance to rest and naturally heal whatever obscure damage he had suffered from the bad juice. Or at least some of the damage.
Zielinski had fixed Sky with hypnosis. If he ever got to the point where he wrote papers again, he had a winner. Although Crows were juice producers, when you added in their powerful metasense they turned into net juice consumers. They got extra juice by converting dross, a juice waste product, into usable juice. Efficiently, too, though most of them were so tolerant of skating on the edge of withdrawal they nearly all ran low juice counts. The long-term effects of Sky’s bad juice contamination in the CDC had somehow damaged this efficiency.
“Yes,” Sky said. “I can damp my metasense down so I don’t use up dross so quickly, even turn it off when I want to.” Sky shivered. “I don’t want to, though. It’s dangerous.” Sky reached over and gave Zielinski a big teary hug that
She was going to tag me! Her words felt so good. I wiggled in pleasure. “Ma’am.”
I almost understood. She felt for me. Much of it came from the twisted logic personal to her alone. I had been the victim of her tortures and she loved me for my pain. I was weak now and in her power, and she loved me for my weakness. Some of her affection came from the more normal psychology of an Arm. I was her possession and she loved me for being a possession, too.
The logic was too complex for me, but I did understand the emotions. This was Stacy, my lover, the aspect of her I loved most, and she did love me back. I snuggled against her, warm in the knowledge she cared for me.
A little while passed before we started talking again. “You’re shedding,” Keaton said.
“Ma’am?”
“Your fur is falling off.”
She was correct. I picked at my fur, and, indeed my fur was falling off. “So this wasn’t a permanent change?”
“Apparently not.”
I took a shower, changed the sheets and swept the floor to get rid of my fur. I had looked natural with fur. I looked natural without fur. I had no earthly idea what was going on.
Henry Zielinski: April 14, 1968
Sky hadn’t liked Zielinski’s approach much, but his trick had worked. Zielinski, sitting cross-legged on a cheap vinyl chair beside his bed, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall of his cell while he waited for Sky to wake up. Zielinski might have thought of this latest approach earlier, but he hadn’t been thinking of Crow weaknesses, just their strengths and talents. He shook his head at the amount of time he had wasted looking for a purely physical solution. However, each bad idea had brought him closer, ever closer to the point where Sky’s withdrawal cycle would be broken.
He had believed Sky in the beginning when Sky had said he couldn’t turn off his metasense. Sky’s statement should have tipped him off. The other Major Transforms had to concentrate to turn on their metasense. Why were the Crows so different?
They weren’t. They fooled themselves. The ‘always on’ metasense clue, and the realization each Crow seemed to be fooling himself about so much else as well, led Zielinski to the idea Crows might be more than a little bit suggestible. That, and a book on the subject, was all he needed.
Sky groaned from where he lay curled in a ball on the small bed. Zielinski opened his eyes and paid attention. In a moment, Sky opened his eyes. The old Crow had been out nearly thirty-six hours. He sat up and blinked.
“It worked, Hank. Your hypnotherapy worked this time.”
“Good. Is your metasense back?” Zielinski said. The secret to fixing Sky was to get him to relax his Crow vigilance, to turn his juice-intensive metasense off, and give him a chance to rest and naturally heal whatever obscure damage he had suffered from the bad juice. Or at least some of the damage.
Zielinski had fixed Sky with hypnosis. If he ever got to the point where he wrote papers again, he had a winner. Although Crows were juice producers, when you added in their powerful metasense they turned into net juice consumers. They got extra juice by converting dross, a juice waste product, into usable juice. Efficiently, too, though most of them were so tolerant of skating on the edge of withdrawal they nearly all ran low juice counts. The long-term effects of Sky’s bad juice contamination in the CDC had somehow damaged this efficiency.
“Yes,” Sky said. “I can damp my metasense down so I don’t use up dross so quickly, even turn it off when I want to.” Sky shivered. “I don’t want to, though. It’s dangerous.” Sky reached over and gave Zielinski a big teary hug that
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