by P. S. Power
Lancaster patted Cal on the back, since he knew the man from back in the day, and spoke softly moving them all into the room.
“No shit. If she starts kicking your ass I suggest begging. She’s tough, but tends to give in, if you cry enough.” He wasn’t kidding and it showed on his face, but it was clear the new guy wasn’t convinced.
“OK, sorry. I’m just a bit giddy from lack of sleep I guess. So, what’s the plan?”
“I agree, a bit of a heads up would be good. If this is an impromptu orgy, we might want to take it somewhere else. Bridget’s a little young for that, isn’t she?” Warren had stood by his bed, in actual pajama’s, but just the bottoms, his upper body thin and hairless. With his hair thinning on top like it was, he kept it pretty short, so he looked a lot shaper than someone that had just woken up normally would. Bridget tilted her head and relaxed her stance, the look on her own face echoing the question.
Marcia just held a finger in front of her lips, which amazingly got everyone to go quiet for a few seconds, and then Bridget nodded and stepped back, so everyone could come in. She waved with her left hand, then hurried across the room to Marcia’s bag and started pulling out the equipment to check for bugs or monitoring. It was the right thought to have, but Marcia didn’t really like the fact that the girl just opened her stuff. Of course she’d probably gone through everything earlier, being both curious and having a hard time controlling impulses like that. Marcia knew it was one thing for Bridget to fight for control on some specific issues, another for her to do it all the time. It wouldn’t help to blame the girl for being who she was.
On the good side, everything was there, and it still worked correctly. At least as long as no one had altered it in some fashion, to give false readings or ignore certain types of input. That was possible, but unlikely. Anyone smart enough to do that would realize that she’d be doing a physical check at the same time, and might catch their work anyway, making her way more wary than she already was. The easiest thing to do would be to get the room next to hers, or above or below and drill partway through, using a physical pick-up for sound. It was the high tech version of holding a glass to a door to listen to the conversation on the other side. It was the problem with unsecured situations like this.
If someone wanted to really hear what you said, they could. No widows in the room at least, so those couldn’t be used as listening devices.
She swept the room carefully, then, on a whim, decided to check Cal too. The man made the device in her hand light like a Christmas tree. He blinked and looked worried for a few seconds.
“I can explain that, I…” It was a device taped to his chest, or possibly in his shirt pocket. Marcia couldn’t feel anything through his shirt with her hand, but that didn’t mean anything. Carefully she lifted the shirt, and found the device, a flat pad with a membrane on the top, like a doctors stethoscope. It was about the size of a silver dollar and three times as thick. Much larger than what she was used to seeing. Most bugs were just tiny anymore. That meant it was probably something a lot more high tech than she suspected. Meant to listen to them and monitor his heart rate perhaps? It was stuck on with a bit of adhesive she thought, and started to pull it off, but Cal screeched.
“Fuck! Stop that you stupid cunt, it’s super-glued on. Kind of burned the skin underneath too. It’s just… in case.” He mimicked writing, pretending to do it on his hand. Bridget got him a pen from her own gear and a pad of paper. It had unicorns on it.
Cal scribbled on the paper, looking down the barrel of three guns as he did. IPB agents had special training that caused them to shoot as soon as they drew their weapon as a rule, or to be really ready for it at least. That none of them had fired was half miracle, half something else that Marcia wasn’t sure she really got. It was a close situation though, that was for certain. Cal was about to die, if he did the wrong thing.
What he wrote got passed to her first, and did come pretty close to being good enough to save the man. The pad just had one line on it.
It said, “they have my daughter.”
That was all. No details provided at all. He hadn’t had a lot of time to convince them though, so that might be forgiven, to her mind he’d bought some time for himself.
Marcia didn’t bother writing, just mouthing a single word, “wait”, as the others got showed the pad in turn, including Bridget and Warren. Leaving people on the scene out of the loop was insane and had cost more missions than it had ever saved. It pretty much meant that they were in on things now, at least on paper, and had to be treated as such, but they were both solid, in their own way. She hoped so at least.
The chubby guy took the paper back and wrote carefully, then showed the others the sheet.
He didn’t know, but he suspected it was one of the three they were looking for that had grabbed his daughter. It took a while but it was clear he couldn’t remove the device on his chest. The voice on the phone had told him that if he did, if he warned them, the girl would be killed. Not that she was some child, being twenty already.
That Cal had a daughter that old made her suddenly feel ancient. It was out of place, but it hit pretty hard for a few seconds. She had to have been born at about the time that Marcia had popped Infected then. That was probably why she hadn’t known about her. She’d been a little busy at the time after all.
What were they supposed to do? That answer took a while to get at, but it seemed they were supposed to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the others, if possible. Starting with those no doubt phony credit and bankcard purchases. It took a while to work out why Morris though that the whole thing might have something to do with the missing men. The answer was simple enough. Weathers had hired him to do some work just before he vanished, which was why the man’s wife had known to get with him to see if it was an unplanned trip.
The next day the others vanished, then a day after that, his daughter. Right from her college dorm room. One of the men that took her sounded a lot like Harpo, with his fluffy main of golden hair. Whatever was going on it was certainly related.
Somehow.
For the time being though it meant that they couldn’t discuss anything with Morris in the room. If it was Braid and her crew, they wouldn’t have bothered with a listening device. They didn’t need it. That meant it was slightly more likely to be someone else doing this at least. That wasn’t a hundred percent, of course, since Braid was famous for plans so complex that no one could see them happening at all, but those worked perfectly for the most part. It was her power, a kind of extreme precognition that was almost impossible to really understand. As the Director had put it, she got results with it, but other than that, it was a cipher.
Marcia couldn’t do the math on it all, but figured that if someone like her could even question Braid being a part of it, or even see it as possible, that probably meant she wasn’t. Not directly. Given everything, that probably meant it was something to do with the old missions, possibly an enemy they’d failed to kill.
What she did know for sure was that whoever was behind this had asked for her by name, Lancaster and Reyes too. All the people from the old crew that worked with the IPB. For certain missions at least. No one had mentioned Jason Monroe though, so that narrowed the window they needed to look at first. They’d only been on about ten missions together, over the course of five years. It had been nearly twenty years before, more than that really, but back when she was just in the field as a CIA operative, and wasn’t Infected yet.
When she’d had her first code name still.
Cast Iron.
It had been a joke nickname then, short for “Cast Iron Bitch”, given because she was so loving and charming all the time. It had been given to her by the commanding officer of the unit she’d been attached too, a covert ops team so exclusive it didn’t really even have a name. It had just been called Six. Not Team six, Unit six, or anything clever like that, no other designation or code either. Just a number. One that showed up for a while in some files and then w
ent away.
They’d done some shit though. In that five year period three world leaders had died of one thing or another, and three Columbian drug lords were killed by “rivals”. There would be a few people that might be a bit miffed at them still, if they ever found out that they’d been involved.
There were thirteen others, all men, if they were still alive… and her. Girls weren’t allowed in the special forces, but then she’d just been attached to them, not really one of them. She’d managed to get the job done and ended up married to one of them. That last part was probably one of the main reasons for not letting women in when it came down to it. That was going to be her next call of course. If anyone not in the IPB should be involved in this it would be him.
Conroy. Her ex-husband, Mike.
The idea didn’t thrill her all that much. It wasn’t Mike that caused her to feel that way, he was great. Better than she was in most ways. His only mistake had been marrying her before she became Infected. When she’d turned he’d been willing to try and make it work, but her new first mode had been fierce back then and she hadn’t had any skills to manage something like that. She’d always been pretty careful before that, but suddenly she saw the potential for danger everywhere. In every situation, no matter how tame it really was to everyone else. Some of it made sense, because there really was danger everywhere. Some of it was just way over the top, like thinking that the paperboy was a covert operative in disguise, because he kept coming to the house each day. She could see he was young, but wouldn’t a twelve year old be the perfect cover for intelligence gathering?
Over the years she’d learned to cope with it mainly, but in those first few months it just didn’t happen. Marcia had spent half her time wondering if her husband was going to kill her for being Infected and the rest of the time planning how to stop him.
That turned out to be hard on a relationship.
No, the hard part was that she still loved him. She always had, even when she thought he might really want her dead for being Infected. It wasn’t that great romantic love of youth, but the feelings were still there every time they met. Half of her wanted to just chuck the government job and take up with him again, move off to the woods or wherever he’d set up for the time being and just stay there until he died.
That would be sad, but every day she was losing time that could have been spent on that, being with him. Of course there was a problem with that. A real one that she feared had nothing to do with her being too cautious at all. Identified Infected with abilities higher than class three had to be in the system, or they’d be killed. It wasn’t public knowledge, and even most of the IPB didn’t know it was the case for certain though there were rumors, but if they wanted to stay alive they had to either play ball with the government one way or the other, or hide in a hole so deep no one could ever find them.
If she left, they’d try for her. They’d fail too, most likely, but anyone too close to her would probably go down. So she stuck with the Infected Protection Bureau. It was a job and it allowed her to do some good in the world. Plus she already had twenty years in, which made her senior to everyone except Martin Joabs and Director Moore.
Some day’s it didn’t feel like enough, but since she wasn’t planning on retiring any time soon, it would have to do for the time being. She didn’t like the implied threat hanging over her, but she understood the general idea. Everyone was afraid of the Infected. That honestly made sense, because most of them were monsters. Killers of one kind or another, or people driven to do things no one else could understand. If they were too powerful and went off the rails, almost no one could stop them.
It was why they had the IPB.
She shook her head just a little, forcing herself to pay attention to the moment, since Burke was busily slapping Morris around a bit. The heavier man tried to fight back, but it wasn’t working too well. Neither spoke though. After about thirty seconds Warren stepped between them, covering his head at first, getting hit by Cal on the arms as he pushed the obviously angry agent back. Burke didn’t strike Warren though, he just moved a bit when pushed and managed to hit Morris in the face again with a backhand.
Marcia winced. She’d gone so far into her memories that she’d lost track of what was happening? That couldn’t be allowed. That kind of thing just got people killed. The memories and thinking about Mike always did that to her, but now really wasn’t the time for such things. It was horrible, but she wasn’t even sure what had happened, until Lancaster pointed to the note the other man had written.
It said, “no F-ing Infected!” on it. Underlined.
Well, that would do it, given that they were all IPB there at the moment. Bridget glanced at the paper too and shrugged, doing something that none of the adults had thought of even trying.
She asked about it.
“Why not?”
The man stopped his pitiful attempts to hit Warren on the back, even though the guy was keeping him from having his ass handed to him, and wheezed for a bit. When he could speak again he waved his hand for the pad again and wrote a note quickly. Then he pointed at it, glaring at Burke the whole time.
“They said. When they called yesterday. If I let you get the Infected involved, they’ll kill Bethy. I can’t risk it.” He rubbed his jaw, which was red from being hit at least a few times already.
He spoke out loud then, worried about the people listening or not.
“Besides, you can’t trust them. Who knows what an Infected person would do? They might just freak out and get my daughter killed. Or find her and rape her instead of getting her free. Maybe eat her at the same time. Only a fool would work with them.” He was clearly agitated, but didn’t seem to get the fact that he was talking to two of the evil Infected at the moment. Adrenalin made you stupid though, so it might not be his fault. That and sleep deprivation might just account for the lack of caution on his part.
Marcia half expected one of the others to jump him again, but Bridget just took the pad, talking and writing at the same time.
“Oh? Well fuck you then. If you think you’re too good for our help, why even come? Make sure to let us know when you find your friends and daughter so we can send flowers for the funeral. Jerk.” She sounded angry, like an Infected about to lay the hurt down on someone for being insulted, but she flipped the pad around so they could read it.
It said, “we’re being monitored. We can use this?”
Lancaster nodded, then looked at Cal, who shook his head. He was serious as far as his part went, it seemed. A lot of people would have felt that way, but it didn’t make a lot of sense at the moment. The man needed their help. His kid was probably already dead and so were the others and given his background he had to know that. If they weren’t behind it in the first place. If that wasn’t the case the best chance they had would be using all the resources of the IPB, which included Infected operatives, if they were willing to help.
The man just kept shaking his head as he left. Not even bothering to say goodbye or explain what he thought they should do as far as he was concerned.
It was a bit of a letdown, but she made sure the door was locked behind him, feeling like she’d wasted a lot of time coming in the first place. The cooking show people could use the publicity, so it wasn’t a total loss that way. Tobin could too. She made herself think through things, trying to understand it all before she spoke.
“Was that weird, or is it just me losing my mind?” She asked the room, not looking at anyone in particular.
“I mean, does anyone understand what’s really going on here?”
Lancaster stared at her for about half a minute, thinking.
“Not really. We need to check out what Morris said first. He used to be pretty solid, but he’s clearly had a rough time lately. I don’t even know if he has a daughter for certain. We should check on the others as well and see if anything is really going on that way. We… should probably get on that and rest too. We won’t do a better job just because we’re tired. I’ll ta
ke the first shift. You four here get some rest. Turner, meet us at eight in the morning please? I should have something by then. It’s going to be hard juggling this plus work. Maybe we should call in some of the local boys for support?” He glanced at Reyes who lifted his chin once and then Burke who pulled out his cell phone. It was black and plain, IPB issue, but had the local office information already programmed in. It had all the district offices for the entire country in it.
“Call now, or in the morning, when we know what’s actually going on, if anything?” He sounded a bit sharp when he spoke, but then he clearly wasn’t all that happy with Morris at the moment.
Marcia wasn’t either, to tell the truth. The guy had never been exactly pro-Infected, but this was a bit harsher than she’d expected from him after getting her in specifically, especially if his daughters life was on the line. He’d always seemed willing to do whatever it took to get the job done in the past. Maybe he’d just gone soft?
Or just as likely he felt that for some reason he had to make a fool of himself in front of two high powered Infected? He really didn’t seem to want their help though, but he’d called her in… Or at least he’d been told to do it. It was pretty clear that was what he was claiming at the end there.
It just didn’t make sense.
Luckily for her, for what seemed like the first time in years, everyone else agreed with her. Even Warren was baffled at the whole thing.
“Is he just nuts, do you think? Morris I mean. Or… I don’t know, I need to get some sleep, like Daryl said. I don’t think I’d act on what he’s said so far. Not without other proof. I’m not in charge though, so…” He shrugged and moved to get back in bed, even though Marcia had to doubt sleep would come easily for him. Not after being part of a fight, no matter how lame it really was. Burke had looked ok and even Warren had seemed to handle things well enough physically, if fairly non-violently, but Cal had been flapping around like someone had electrified the floor. Sure, he was out of shape, but he used to be decent at hand to hand.