Read Online Once We Were Human (The Commander Book 1) by Randall Farmer - Free Book Online

to subsist on the smell of food.”
    Bob shivered.  “How do I travel?”
    Sinclair nodded, slowly.  “Travel is always hard.  Driving will work, but you aren’t ready to drive yet.  Trains are safer than most ways, in with people if you can stand it, in a boxcar if you can’t.  There are dangerous people you might meet riding boxcars, but you aren’t defenseless.”
    “What?” Bob understood running away.  Defense didn’t make sense.
    Sinclair smiled.  “Think of a skunk,” he said.  “But there’s another danger you should know.”  The smile was gone as quickly as it appeared.  “I’ve heard rumors about another kind of male Major Transform, something like us, but dangerous .  Something else the doctors don’t know about, something halfway between a Monster and a human being.  We call them Beast Men.  If you ever run into one, stay away from it.  They’re powerful and crazy, and can sense you if you get too close.  Other dangers exist, as well; Crows occasionally vanish for no known reason.  There’s more going on than anyone knows.
    “You’re going to have to go,” Sinclair said.  “There’s not enough dross for you to stay in Orlando.  But you can spend the day.  I have an apartment you can use until tomorrow, with food, a shower and a few spare clothes.  I’ll write the address for you.  I know of a Focus west of town.  I’ve taken most of the dross there, but there should be a bit for you.  There’s a freight yard northwest of that.”
    Sinclair stood up and instinctively Bob backed up a few steps.  Sinclair began to back away. 
    “Wait!” Bob said.  He still had questions.  He didn’t know what he was doing.  He needed help.
    Sinclair turned toward Bob, and the morning sun shone on his face.  Sweat beaded on Sinclair’s temples and his eyes had narrowed.  It hadn’t occurred to him that Sinclair might also find this hard.
    “What?” Sinclair asked, tense.
    “I…I just wanted to thank you.  You didn’t have to do this for me, especially waking up in the middle of the night to help some stranger.  This is a tremendous amount of help you’re giving me.”
    Sinclair inclined his head.  “Thank you.  We’re all we have.  You’re doing extremely well for a young Crow.  Help some other young Crow sometime.”
    Bob nodded as Sinclair turned and walked away, in his clean suit and businessman’s hat, the illusion of a normal young man going to work.  Bob watched him a long time as he went.
    Then he went over to where Sinclair had sat, and found a paper with an address written on it, a key and a ten dollar bill.  By that evening, Bob was shaved and showered and looked like a human being again.  He suspected he still had a long way to go.  Someday, he would re-pay Sinclair.
     
    ---
     
    The steady clack, clack of the boxcar thrummed in Bob’s ear.  At sixty miles an hour, he relaxed enough to try to get some sleep.  Sinclair had been right.  Once he got past the terror of boarding, this wasn’t a bad way to travel.
    He had boarded this particular train in a freight yard outside Nashville, around midnight.  Nashville hadn’t been bad, but he had only stayed a couple of days.  Another Crow already lived in Nashville and he had picked the place clean of dross.
    Bob’s lack of dross left him with an edgy, unsatisfied craving.  He had to find a decent source sometime soon, because this constant emptiness was hell.  He hoped St. Louis would have something real for him.
    The noise of the countryside around him began to change just before dawn.  The train slowed as light began to creep through the cracks in the boxcar door.  If his guesses were correct, this should be a rail yard in St. Louis.  Bob braced himself; he needed to get out before the train stopped.  He didn’t want to show himself to the rail yard workers.
    As he readied himself to leap off the train his metasense picked something up to the west, at extreme range, something he had