No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) by Randall Farmer Page A

turned the Communicable Disease Center into the Centers for Disease Control, of which a goodly part of their budget went to Transform Sickness research.  According to Zielinski, they wasted most of their budget on Transform management and bureaucracy, not actual research.  I had never caught Keaton in a mood like this before, though the wonder of the mood didn’t even come close to papering over the agony of knowing Gilgamesh would be leaving.
    I didn’t understand my feelings.  They were too strong and involved emotions I couldn’t name.  I felt like I had agreed to give up a limb.
    “As bad as the Feds are now about Transform Sickness, the idiots who held me were worse. They understood so much less back then.”  Keaton shook her head slowly.  Five years may not sound like much, but my eighteen months as an Arm contained as many memories and experiences as my entire previous life.
    Sorry about not putting all of my experiences in these books – I’ll save the excess detail for when I do my complete leather-bound 120 volume memoirs.
    “My keepers were bastards,” Keaton said, hyena laughter in her voice.  “They published my death notice the day they moved me to the Mead, so today is also the fifth anniversary of my death.  Officially dead, they were free to do to me whatever they wanted, and they did.  They certainly didn’t ask my permission.  I didn’t know why at the time, but I learned much later the entire show happened because a year earlier Rose Desmond, Zielinski’s favorite dead Arm, shot him up just before she got killed.  The authorities now thought of us as dangerous Monster Focuses, instead of pathetic failed Focuses.  They kept me in the maximum security section of the Mead, and, as well, in a cell too tiny for exercise.”
    I sensed understanding growing in Gilgamesh, an understanding of why Keaton became Keaton.  This story was for him, yet another tie to bind him to the Arms.  Her story seemed almost inevitable to me, based on what I had gone through.
    “Their treatment made me so angry I refused to participate in any way.  As you might expect, my defiance didn’t last, as they broke me by using the juice weapon, the same way they broke you, Carol.  Only they did it by accident, as they also withheld food and water.
    “I became theirs and did whatever they wanted.  The bastards, though, kept me on tight rations, so I never had enough to eat.  Because of their treatment, I became seriously cranky.  The only defiance I had left was that I refused to talk.  My defiance proved of minimal use, as they didn’t particularly care if I talked or not and they didn’t push the issue, which unfortunately later led to the common CDC-backed story about Arms losing their ability to talk.  The worst part about those early weeks was, since I was officially dead and cut off from my husband and family, I didn’t have anyone to sleep with after taking juice.”
    Keaton had a husband.  That was an appalling thought.
    “They brought in the FBI early to run security at the Mead, and as time went on the Feebs took more control over the situation.  This was Joe Patrelle’s fief as a Division Chief, his rank back then, and his two main flunkies on the scene were Special Agent Patrick McIntyre and his partner, Special Agent David Warshauer.  As time went on my mind deteriorated from the conditions, and unlike you, Carol, I didn’t have any prior life wisdom to fall back on.  I transformed at the age of 23, married for just over a year to a rough man who had taken to beating me when he got drunk.  I’d never been to college and my only work experience was three years as a waitress.  I knew absolutely shit about anything.  I had no friends at the Mead, becoming just another lab animal, and the people who considered me human hated me because I killed to live.  The only good thing about the entire mess was that I never suffered any delusions about anyone being on my side.”
    Grim.  I