Free The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four by Randall Farmer Page B

Arm failures?”
    Hank nodded.  “Rose Desmond developed them in her
wrists, and the Focus on the far right, Mother, developed them in her hips.” 
He went on to explain Mother’s unique medical history, the only Focus ever to
transform while suffering from early onset dementia.  Until her mind
redeveloped, she couldn’t walk, and had been confined to a wheelchair.
    “Wrists, though?” Keaton asked, about Desmond.
    “Rose liked to run, and did no other exercise until
after her wrist problems started.”
    “So, somehow, I’m exercising the wrong muscles,” Keaton
said.
    “Yes.  To find out what, I’m going to need you to strip
down, ma’am, and…”
    Keaton flung him to the hard concrete warehouse floor
and put her right foot on his chest.  “Motherfucking pervert.”
    Hank closed his eyes for a moment, attempting to catalog
all the pains and aches caused by the toss to the concrete.  Left shoulder and
hip.  Back of his head.  Left hand and wrist.  He looked up at Keaton in fear. 
Inhuman anger spread over her face, her nostrils flared, her blue-grey eyes
cold daggers as she continued to press down on his chest with her foot.  He readied
several arguments, but decided waiting out the Arm would be safer.
    “So you’re a real doctor, not just some fancy
researcher?” Keaton said, barely a question.
    “I served as a general practitioner and surgeon in the
Korean War, a surgeon after the war, and after I began to work with the
Transforms, I’ve done an extensive amount of GP work.”  Just the facts.  No
emotions.  Not with Keaton about to go Arm berserk on him.
    “Fine,” she said.  She took her foot off his chest. 
“Get up.” 
    Yes, there was an Arm equivalent of the Focus lie
detector trick, and Arms got it sometime after six months as an Arm, as Rose had
never showed any sign of it.  Keaton must have had it in his earlier encounter
with her, but he hadn’t noticed. 
    He stood.  She disrobed down to her panties and bra.  He
stopped in astonishment and gazed, spellbound, at her body.  Amazing.  She
showed nearly as many muscles as his anatomy diagram, her skin almost
translucent in its thinness.  Every exterior muscle showed precise definition,
her veins standing out so much he could count her pulse as he watched.  “This
level of Arm development is new to me, ma’am,” he said, slowly, almost
reverently.  “If you don’t mind, I would like to take a picture of…”
    “Will it help me?”
    “Yes, absolutely.”
    “No head,” Keaton said.  She smiled, happy at his
awestruck reaction to her near naked body, and took the Abernathy poster,
flipped it around and covered her head.  He took his pictures.  “You really are
fascinated by us Arms, aren’t you, Doc.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said.  “Arms are my calling, and, I
believe, a level of human perfection beyond that of even the Focuses.”  Her Arm
beauty, all those precisely sculpted muscles, would be a lot more striking if
her muscle development wasn’t so asymmetric.  “If you would, ma’am, I would
like to show you, in the mirror, where your problems lie.”
    She complied, eager now.  He suspected, deep in the back
of her mind, she thought of herself as a monster, not as a woman or as a Major
Transform.  The fact he saw her differently helped immensely.  He suspected,
now, that Keaton was able to read him better than just ‘truth’ or ‘lies’.  To
some small degree, she was able to discern his deeper emotions, at least enough
to sense his true wonder at her mature Arm body-form.
    “As you can see, ma’am, the muscles on the left side of
your body are visually smaller than those on the right.”  He measured around
her biceps, lower arm, calf and thigh, carefully wrote down the measurements,
and shared them with Keaton.  Her left thigh was only an inch less in
circumference than her right thigh, but her left arm was an amazing 3.2 inches
smaller around the biceps than her right arm.  She,