The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight Read Online Free PDF Page A

take us back to the days of the Quarantine, and…”  He was still shook up about Robert Kennedy’s assassination.  There were damned few people out there who would speak up for the rights of Transforms.  It hit him hard to lose one of the few.  It wasn’t as if either of us upstanding citizens was going to be voting, though.
    “So,” I said, “it’s time you told me what you were doing at the CDC when I was incarcerated.  What was going on there, anyway?”
    The interruption caught him off guard, and he started to talk before he had a chance to worry about how I was going to take it.  Hearing the story from his perspective chilled me, even though he left before the good part started.  That is, before I broke and starting spilling all I knew.  By that time, he had arranged for Agent Bates to take him into protective custody.
    Some of the things he mentioned I couldn’t recall, even after burning a little juice to heal my mind.  I told Zielinski about this, and he wasn’t surprised.
    “All major trauma done to a Major Transform will involve memory problems, as will low juice,” Hank said.  He then threw in some technical explanation of why this was to be expected for all Major Transforms, due to the fact the metacampus was nothing more than an enlargement of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controlled the acquisition of memories.  I boiled it down to ‘when the metacampus is busy healing a sucking chest wound or a blown off leg, it’s too busy to aid in memory production’.  He followed that with a digression into something he called ‘allostatic load’, the fact that all Major Transforms were so loaded down with stress hormones that we all were an adrenaline surge away from a psychotic break.  Having suffered too many of those at Keaton’s hands, I interrupted him with a more pertinent question.
    “I’d also like to know about your history with me,” I said.  “I remember you from my time at the St. Louis Detention Center, and visiting with you with Keaton, while I was training with her.  You implied there was more.”
    He blinked at me, shocked, and then turned away, in a futile attempt to hide his hurt.  “Okay, Carol,” he said, then paused to take a breath.  “Well, I found out about your transformation the day before you arrived in St. Louis…”
    I kept the weeping hysterics hidden until later, when I was safely alone.  There had been so much history between us, and he had helped me so much.  What I had done to Zielinski when I recruited him had been horrible repayment for all the good he did for me.  I had mentally misplaced so much, even the crucial episode where we broke into Focus Rizzari’s lab so he could sew me back together after Keaton had taken me apart.  I owed him, and I wasn’t sure how to make it up to him.
    “I think I’ve figured out what I want to do about Focus Biggioni,” I said.  Keaton had forbidden me from revenge on the people who abused me in the CDC, but she meant murder, or torture.  I had other things in mind for Focus Biggioni.
    Hank closed down, wary.
    “Yes, ma’am?”
    Formal, because he was ready to argue against it. “Since Focus Biggioni was the Network representative at the CDC, the only information the average Focus knows about what happened is her version.  Is that a safe guess?”
    Hank nodded.
    “In that event, I want to present my side of the story.  Say, in a letter sent to as many Focuses as possible?”
    “A political attack?” Hank said.  I had him off guard, until he remembered what sort of life I led before my transformation.  This wouldn’t be the first time I had used letters as a tool.  Large numbers of offended parents could have quite an effect on school boards and school administrators.  “That does sound appropriate, although I think you’re going to shock some of the Focuses who still believe that Arms can only talk in grunts and curses.  Tonya does need to be reminded every so often that