Free The Shadow of the Progenitors: A Transforms Novel (The Cause Book 1) by Randall Farmer Page B

Gilgamesh said.  “Now wouldn’t be a good time for any of our old personal problems to resurface.”  He had gone off against my wishes once before.  I had nearly permanently disowned him for doing so.  Arms don’t appreciate disloyalty or betrayal, and I was especially prickly on the subject.
    “You have to.  I’ll have to cope.  Given what Haggerty’s dumped on my plate, I’m not going to be getting much free time, anyway.”  After doing a bunch of thinking, and after Keaton’s move to California, Amy re-upped the priority of my ‘rebuild the Arm tag hierarchy’ project.  She, too, was starting to get nervous about the boulder she had started rolling down our great big hill.  In typical Amy style, she didn’t lower the priority of anything else to make room.
    We said our goodbyes, and Gilgamesh was off.
    Months of work stared down at us, and had won, taking dominance over us both.
     

Dark Clouds, Big Storms
    “Where do self-sustaining dross ‘clouds’ come from, why are they never seen near urban areas, how long do they last, and why and how do they vanish?” – from Arm Haggerty’s Speculative Projects List
     
    (Five months later)
     
    Sinclair: June 6, 1972 – June 9, 1972
    “Squire Chet on the phone for you, Master Sinclair,” Callie said.  Crow Master Sinclair looked up from his bill-strewn desk, bleary eyed.  He would cover the month’s electric bill with money conjured from nowhere, again, but as often was the case the food would be a little lean.  He ran his hands through his wavy butterscotch hair, stood, and stretched.
    “Ahh.”  He sighed, as his stiff back cracked.  “On my way.”
    “Great!” Callie said, then stopped and put her clawed hands on her hips.  “What was I doing before I answered the phone?”
    Despite being a Crow Master for nearly eighteen months, the mental problems of his commoners never ceased to sadden him.
    “I believe you were knitting,” Sinclair said.  He patted Callie on the shoulder, and went to pick up the phone.
    “Long Island Barony.  Is there a problem?” Sinclair said.  He wasn’t yet used to the household’s new name, or the ‘barony’ term, or even the term ‘commoner’ for the household Transforms.  The term changes were the Nobles’ response to Arm Haggerty’s call to ‘force the Cause’, in this case regularizing the Noble’s terminology.
    Sinclair heard yelling in the background over the bad connection.  “Master Sinclair,” Chet said, his deep voice cutting through the yelling.  “I have a problem.  She’s very distraught.”
    “Who’s distraught?” Sinclair asked.  “What have you gotten yourself into this time, my lord?”  Sinclair hastily appended the ‘my lord’ on at the end, to soften his ire-tinged comment.  Squire Chet was a never-ending source of trouble.  He was supposed to be on a proving mission to prove he could pass himself off as human.  Success would give him the Noble rank of Knight, at which point Sinclair would ship him off to Watchmaker’s Diamond Barony in the Ozarks.
    He had failed his last ‘proving mission’, nearly destroying a gas station.
    “Master Sinclair, it’s this lonely lost nearly-oversupplied Transform woman.  I don’t know what to do with her,” Squire Chet said.  “She doesn’t have a Focus.”  Interesting.  The burr of distress in the Noble’s voice meant Squire Chet had taken responsibility for the woman.  As Sinclair was fully aware, neither hell nor high water would keep a Noble from carrying out his responsibility.
    Squire Chet Davis’s proving mission had been to purchase some bulk staples for the Barony from a Transform-friendly grocery supply firm in Centereach and pass as human.  Not to go hunting for Transforms.  However, saving women Transforms who didn’t have Focuses always took precedence.  Without Major Transform support from a Focus or a Noble household, unattached women Transforms always transformed into Monsters, and