The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four Read online

  “She’s not supposed to,” Tim said. “Not that we could stop the Focus if she used her charisma with subtlety. She plays a game with us, trying to portray her charisma as this big hammer no one can miss if she uses it, when everyone knows she can do all sorts of devious and subtle crap with it when the mood strikes her. Which is rather often, ever since…” Whatever ‘it’ was, Tim wasn’t saying. He let his comment trail off into nothing.

  “In any event,” Zielinski said, “Ann cornered me and told me she wasn’t making any commitment to me or anything. She wouldn’t let the Focus talk her into this if I thought I was entitled to sleep with her. I told her I was going into the situation with the idea I wouldn’t get physically involved with anyone. Ann thought I was a fool, as she knew of at least three women who had set their eyes on me, and because it’s nearly impossible to control yourself in such a situation. She admitted she normally let her body do her thinking for her on Friday nights, and she might end up with me anyway. The ‘letting one’s body do their thinking for them’ was the part Ann thought I needed to experience, how the various pairings and combinations set up. She seems to think there’s something screwy going on with your household superorganism.”

  Tim frowned at the word ‘superorganism’, an Ann term either he didn’t recognize or didn’t believe. “I don’t know if the Focus does it on purpose or not, but there’s a tendency for people who’ve been fighting with each other to end up intimate on Friday nights. She swears she doesn’t do a thing and I tend to believe her, because those pairings don’t seem to happen between the non-Transforms. Whatever is going on, it’s part of the household juice dynamics, happening on its own.”

  “Interesting,” Zielinski said. More evidence undercutting the Focus’s doubts about the household superorganism ideas he and Ann were working on formalizing. He made a mental note to pass it on to Ann; this bit of evidence was something she was better equipped to further examine and document.

  “Anyway, Ann and I went into orgy time with the idea we would take notes on what was going on.”

  “Right,” Tim said. “I saw her sitting on your lap once things got started. Taking notes, eh?”

  Zielinski blushed. “The lap trick was Ann’s idea. She said there was no way for her to avoid giving in to the sensuality of the situation. Human contact is important. I agreed.”

  “All well and good,” Tim said. “What did you do to cause the problem?”

  “You’re not going to let me off the hook, here, are you?” Zielinski said.

  “Nope.”

  “I treated orgy time as a training exercise. Took the ‘we’re going to take notes’ idea seriously, as opposed to an excuse for the Focus to get me involved in something I’m too old and staid to really enjoy.”

  “Doc, what did you do?” Tim glared at him with exquisite exasperation. Hank had to admit, he was being more than a little difficult.

  “Let’s say I used the fact that Ann has been doing a little work with the enhanced training methods. She already had the training keys. We started at intensity one and kept going from there. The induced pain worked, taking Ann’s mind off the proceedings. We took good notes.”

  Tim blanched. “Cute trick,” he said, with a shiver. “I still don’t understand the problem. Ann wouldn’t have let you torture her if she didn’t agree with the idea.”

  “At the time Ann thought it was a brilliant plan, a good way of getting back at the Focus. She didn’t get pissed at me until afterwards. She hadn’t realized how much she needed the stress release she got out of orgy night. I think I invalidated nearly every idea she had come up with to understand and justify what happens on Friday nights. Same for the Focus. She had bought into the idea her Friday night practice was completely good for Inferno; by moving the juice that way she avoided the addiction problems she rightly associates with juice.”

  Zielinski paused and lowered his voice. “Unfortunately, there’s no escaping the juice.” Six years of working with Arms had convinced him of that, beyond any of his earlier doubts.

  “So in the end we’re all just a bunch of goddamned juice junkies,” Tim said. He turned away from Zielinski and sighed. “Now I understand why they’re pissed: a ‘thanks Doc, we took you in and protected you, and in return you’ve just destroyed our household’s most cherished illusion’.” Tim shook his head. “Remind me to never get you angry at me, Doc Pain. You’re way too dangerous for your own good.”

  “I truly meant no harm,” Zielinski said. Save perhaps to the Focus.

  (4)

  Hank leaned back on the ancient Bob’s Barn break room couch, a cold wet washcloth over his eyes. Headaches had plagued him on and off ever since he sprung the plan to help Carol on the Focus, and having to watch the Inferno bodyguards train with his techniques, with him no longer holding the training triggers, hadn’t helped. He had a bad feeling that holding the juice triggers for the training had somehow interacted with his chronic juice poisoning issues. He hoped he would get over these headaches soon.

  In the distance, he heard Einstein chatting with someone, heading toward the break room. Someone female; probably Autumn Idoux. Einstein had a hopeless crush on her, and she was interested enough in Einstein’s regurgitated Zielinski lessons she hadn’t chased him off for good. Yet.

  “…and in specific, there’s a trade-off working among the Major Transforms: they’re trading off communicable disease resistance and poison resistance with increased odds of getting cancer,” Einstein said. “On the other hand, cancers are a statistical rather than a chronic or degenerative disease, you know. From what I figure, this means that given a large enough Transform population, you’ll find a few Major Transforms who will live much much longer than normal humans can live.”

  “So what you’re saying is despite the lifespan reduction expected among Major Transforms, some of them are going to be immortal anyway?” Autumn said.

  Zielinski took off the washcloth over his eyes and sat up, just in time to see the two of them walk into the break room.

  “Hey, Doc, the kid genius here has been trying to fill me in on the gory details of Transform evolution,” Autumn said. Einstein nodded. “What bugs me is how this ever got started.”

  Zielinski turned to Einstein, who shrugged. “All I know is it’s a pheromone arms race,” the kid said. “Beyond that I don’t know squat.”

  Ahh! An invitation for a lecture. Perhaps a good lecture would take his mind off his headache.

  “The primary human pheromone system, like any other mammal, has to involve mating receptiveness,” Hank said. “Somehow, deep in the dark early days of humanity, millions of years ago, probably in the population of Homo Habilis that evolved into Homo Erectus, a mild version of the pheromone arms race you’re talking about got its start. This early pheromone arms race likely began as a side effect of Listeria-produced bacterial meningitis, the same way polio survivors often end up with neurological damage. When it first got started, there was likely just one Transform variant. We have no idea which one, of course, and the effects were likely only a tiny bit beneficial, most likely just a better shot at surviving Listeria and its side effects. However, the survivors of the first plague carried a solution within them involving the rudiments of juice chemistry, all based on a pre-existing brain stress hormone called corticotrophin, which we know is involved in many obscure brain functions and dysfunctions, including schizophrenia.” One of his untested hypotheses postulated that schizophrenia, a human-only mental disease, arose as a byproduct or side effect of the Transform gene or genes inside each human being. “The process started small, but over many infection cycles, over many millions of years, the effects produced true transformations, likely without anything like Major Transforms or the fertility problems associated with transformations. When a Transform variant eventually arose with enough juice to cause problems – secondary transformations into Monsters, or withdrawal effects – this put an additional pressure on the system, taking something oriented toward Listeria resist
ance into something both dangerous and beneficial on its own. The transformation effects started to complexify, and the real pheromone arms race started.

  “Ann and the Focus link the pheromone arms race to the absurdly rapid – in evolutionary terms – cranial development of the human lineage, especially during the Homo Erectus era. This cycle of Transform Sickness will likely do the same, leaving the final survivors with some minor new cranial developments twenty or thirty generations down the road.”

  “So you think the mosaic evolutionary model of Homo Erectus and Dr. Van Reijn’s fourfold model of Major Transforms is going to put to rest the Goldschmidt and Hammel explanation of Transform Sickness?” Einstein said.

  Show off.

  Autumn blinked in utter non-comprehension. Jim, hearing a Zielinski lecture, slid into the room and booted Einstein from his chair.

  “Logically incorrect,” Hank said. “The mosaic evolutionary model of Homo Erectus is itself just a hypothesis, one we should consider only as a possibility, not a certainty. Though it does support the Chiron – Rizzari theory on the subject.”

  “I’m familiar with Hammel,” Jim said. “He’s the one who wrote that nearly unreadable book, ‘The Transformation of a Species’, back in ’60, wasn’t he? Who’s Goldschmidt?”

  “Goldschmidt wrote a book back in 1940, before Transforms were known, titled ‘The Material Basis of Evolution’,” Hank said. “Goldschmidt claimed species arose in several ways, one of which involved saltation – sudden branching – by the production of what he termed ‘hopeful monsters’. The community initially rejected Goldschmidt’s ideas as unscientific, but his hypothesis rose to prominence in the mid ‘50s simply because his theory was the only one offering any explanation regarding the sudden appearance of the Transforms. Hammel adapted and updated Goldschmidt’s theory to incorporate the discovery of DNA and the early information on Transforms. I must admit, with more than a little embarrassment, to being a Hammelite. At least until Van Reijn put forth his alternative explanation. In strict Hammel terminology, the Listeria variant disease is triggering a single pre-adapted gene to act abnormally…that is, a gene that arose for a different reason. The analogy is to the sickle cell anemia gene, which when only one copy is possessed, provides a fair amount of malaria resistance, and when two copies is possessed, triggers a chronic illness.”

  “Why does Van Reijn’s work invalidate Hammel and Goldschmidt? Also, what the hell is mosaic evolution in Homo Erectus, anyway?” Jim said.

  “Well, Hammel’s model, currently the standard model explaining the Transformation Sickness, posits only one gene is involved with all things Transform. In the Hammel model, the different Transform varieties are a continuous variation on a theme. Van Reijn’s hypothesis states the Transform varieties are discontinuous variations based on at least three factors – sex, juice abundance, and presence of a metacampus – and his hypothesis requires at least three separate genes. That, in and of itself, invalidates Hammel and Goldschmidt, because triggering three simultaneous pre-adapted genes with this magnitude of coordinated effects is too improbable to accept. Van Reijn hypothesized Transform Sickness is a recurrence of a dormant aspect of humanity, active since the Homo Erectus era, which developed over time via the standard slow methods of natural selection, and is linked to the rapid brain growth seen in the Homo Erectus fossils. Chiron and Rizzari hypothesize that outbreaks of Transform Sickness sporadically continued into the Homo Sapiens era and the modern era, resulting in many of our myths and legends regarding gods, heroes and monsters.

  “The link to the mosaic evolution of Homo Erectus is a stretch, in my opinion. The term mosaic evolution is applied to Homo Erectus because the known Homo Erectus fossils are a mess. Erectus was the first of our ancestors to leave the one tiny area of Africa where our previous ancestors lived. They spread throughout Eurasia and Africa. The Erectus fossils show an extremely complex pattern of evolution, where cranial size and shape rapidly alters within the species, over the million plus years of its existence. The term ‘mosaic’ is used because these fossils hint that many local developments occurred, in different parts of Eurasia and Africa, which spread throughout the totality of the Erectus populations like waves through water. This is not proven, by the way – it’s just one explanation of many. However, it does show what you might expect if Transform Sickness had been active, locally altering small groups of Erectus, the improvements then slowly spreading out from each small source area.”

  “Strange,” Einstein said. “You’d think the Transform benefits are so positive they would never die out.”

  “We don’t have a good answer to this question, yet. Perhaps the development of agriculture, and increased food abundance, is masking the major detriment of Transforms. Transforms eat too much, relatively speaking, to last too long,” Hank said. “Before agriculture, being able to get by on less food was a rather important benefit. Pre-agriculture Transforms likely ate out their food supplies and died out. Only when the strengths of Transforms outweigh the food detriment problems will a Transform flourish…and only when the disease trigger is present, as well.”

  Sky Comes to Boston to Collect the Freed Sports

  “Master Sky, Master Sky!”

  He had been grumpy all week from bad dreams and the fact his goddamned assigned government housing broom closet now felt far too cramped.

  Sky had spent too much time in Inferno, too much time listening to Bill and Tina explain how the Inferno philosophy was naturally correct. Government stipends to Transforms meant government control over Transforms. In their perfect world every household would be self-supporting and be able to ally with friends to fight foes – the only way to go. Stuck in his broom closet home, he had begun to wonder if perhaps they were correct.

  “Yes, May.” May came up to him and gave him a smooch on the cheek.

  “I’ve got a message for you, Master Sky.” She reached down into her brassiere and pulled out a note. “A Miss Ann Chiron is inviting you to Boston on Saturday. She’s even wired plane tickets. She says there’s been success. Does she mean what I think she means?”

  “If she wired plane tickets, yes. Gong and Molson have been freed.”

  “Ooh, ooh, wait ‘til I tell Hennie! Ooh!”

  May ran off, shaking her ample rear end. “I’m sure gracious lady Russell will be quite pleased,” Sky shouted after May.

  Norm, husband of Nannette, surnamed Normal, stuck his unshaven fat face out the door across the hall from Sky’s broom closet. “Shut the fuck up, you fairy poofta, or I’ll pounda crap outa you.”

  “Me too!” said Nannette Normal, her voice several octaves above a piccolo screech. They slammed the door, together, both of the stormin’ Normals. They weren’t Transforms, weren’t part of anyone’s household, and Sky didn’t actually know their real names. They were just stuck here because they were too stupid to live anywhere else.

  Their presence made an excellent argument for leaving this dump.

  Three weeks, no Lori. Oh, they exchanged letters, and Lori apologized profusely, but they had made no progress on the little problem that lay between them. He had even suggested to Ann, over the phone, that she carefully go over the demographics with Lori again, and remind her of the necessity of Crow fertility. Ann had told him to stick his dick in his ear and sharpen it.

  Tina waited for him at the airport. “What’s wrong?” Tina said, when she spotted him.

  “Uh, uh, wait just a minute.” Sky staggered into the men’s room and puked his guts out. After puking twice more he washed his face with icy water and staggered back out to where Tina waited.

  “Whatsamatter with you? Get airsick? Geeze, Crow, you’ve certainly got a strange bunch of head problems.”

  “I don’t think Crows were meant for airplanes,” Sky said, his voice a pale echo of his normal tenor.

  “Well, make sure you vomit out the car window. Sky, you piece of shit, you’ve messed up the Focus so bad she’s virtually unlivable whenever you’re about to sho
w up. You’ve got to find a way to fix the mess you’ve made.” The obvious answer was ‘never return’. He could live with that.

  They found Tina’s pickup truck in the snowy parking lot. It looked like a puzzle, put together from a half dozen different vehicles, well seasoned with dried slush and old road salt. “You like?” Tina said. “Got a hydraulic snowplow attachment I’d love to show you.”

  Tina was making a pass at him? He had been positive the muscular woman was a lesbian. Learn something new every day.

  “You’ve lost the face control thing again, Sky,” she said as she climbed up into the truck. “You gotta stop being an open book or you’re in deep shit. There’s two other Focuses visiting today, Focus Ackermann and Focus Biggioni.”

  “You want me to go there!” he said, his voice a high squeak.

  Tina leaned over and opened the passenger door for him. “Hey, don’t panic, Crow. I’d just have to stop and hog tie you if you did. You’re taking two of those Sports back to Canada with you, remember.”

  “On an airplane!” Surely there was a Zen koan somewhere to meditate on while sitting Zazen regarding airplane travel.

  “What else?”

  The handoff occurred at Inferno and involved several hours of mind numbing Focus pleasantries and politics, including an extended formal dinner in the household dining room. Focus Ackermann was a perky overweight nineteen-year-old looking Focus whose vocabulary betrayed the fact she was really about Sky’s age, while Focus Biggioni was an imperious and unreadable dark haired Italian prep-school bombshell who stood eye to eye with Sky in her high heels. Focus Ackermann was real smooth, augmenting her Focus charisma with exceptional normal style charisma. Focus Biggioni exuded nightmarish magnetic willpower, with oddly mismatched eyes Sky suspected only he possessed the color sensitivity to spot. Sky could practically see the blood dripping from Focus Biggioni’s hands. He couldn’t focus his metasense on her for more than five seconds.