The Infected 3: Cast Iron

by P. S. Power

  Finally he started nodding.

  “That… Yes, I think we can arrange that… OK. Yes sir. I’ll arrange that. He’d better. We can have people in place today sir. In the mean time, if you could request an increase guard and maybe stay in a bunker or something? No? I didn’t think you’d go for that one… but it was worth a shot. On it.” His voice was cold as he spoke, but his eyes glinted and when he hung up he sighed at Marcia.

  “OK, Lawrence is with us and will accept a guard for himself and his family. He requested Bridget specifically for his daughter. They’re about the same age and she can go anywhere with her. We should send Scott too and probably Rachel. By my preference we’d send you too Marsh, but I don’t think we can spare you from here. It feels important.” He shrugged.

  “Lauren is a bit too high profile I think, though why anyone wouldn’t want her guarding them if they were in danger I don’t know. I’d want her on my side. Anyone have suggestions?” He sounded firm enough that no one spoke for a few seconds.

  Bridget was the first to speak, fidgeting and not able to hold the words in.

  “You know the President and can just call him up on a whim? I mean and he takes your calls and listens to you? How cool is that!” She hugged him again and whispered something to him.

  He answered out loud though.

  “You’ll do fine. Just remember what Hobbs taught you. Anyway, suggestions?” That he’d gone from crazy cop killing spree mode to calmly chatting up the President wasn’t the amazing part. No, it was how many people wanted to actually avoid being on the duty at all.

  Marcia would have thought they would have all been volunteering left and right, since a lot of them viewed Lawrence as one of the best things to happen to politics in the last sixty years or more. That didn’t mean they wanted the public scrutiny though, which being on a guard detail for the man would no doubt bring. Ideally whoever did the task could be hidden, but the IPB mainly had two types of people working for them. The first team members who were, in general, pretty famous in their own right, or had powers that really didn’t belong in a fight like Pixy or Whistler. A lot of the others had first modes that were really nice over all, but made them kind of hard to use in a real fight. Like Argos, who was probably the fastest person in the world in raw speed, but was so humble it constantly affected his ability to do anything involving other people.

  Team two was just as bad, if in a different way. They were all tough, and not that famous, but that was because they were largely hidden from public view. The uglies. People like Lauren, who anyone that wanted to live should love to have guarding them, or Tweek, who was darned near as fast as Argos and had a tractable first mode, which was just a sort of obsession with collecting tiny objects. She sat and stared at them for hours sometimes. The problem there was that she looked, and acted, like a crack whore. Not he selling herself cheaply part, just the face and how she moved in a spastic fashion all the time, but the look was all wrong for Presidential duty.

  It didn’t leave a lot of people really and they needed about twelve of them. Three shifts of four people each. Who though? Finally she started listing people off, and waited for the reactions, expecting a mutiny. It probably wasn’t the best idea in the world to do it on camera, in a hotel lobby, but everyone would know who she wanted for it anyway. Of course what they really had to do was run a list by the Director first. Or at least as soon as possible. Dumping stuff on him was never good, but delaying it would probably be worse. The man wasn’t a tough boss most of the time, but he had feelings and was even a little bit of a sentimentalist. Marcia was almost certain that was part of his first mode. Nostalgia or something related to it.

  She made the call, and got a gruff answer from the man, almost barking.

  “Are they dead?” He sounded like he knew the answer, but he was wrong on that score, thankfully.

  “All alive. Well, the ones that left here at least. I don’t know about the ones at the hospital, though they should live. That’s handled for now. Bridget seems to have worked Proxy out of a first mode loop. Brian got with the President, and set up a special protective detail. Oh… right, I guess I haven’t told you why yet. Um, oversight, not me trying to hide anything from you. Let’s see…” She spelled it all out quickly and got ready for the man to hammer her for keeping secrets and sneaking off on personal business. It would only be fair.

  Instead the line went silent for a while.

  “I see. Very good. Who’s going so far?” He sounded relieved when she explained that they hadn’t decided yet. The man had asked for Bridget, which kind of recommended the other Chambers except Charlot, who they couldn’t afford to let run off to the Whitehouse. She was just too important to them.

  Oddly enough Scott nodded along with that when Marcia said it.

  “That’s true. We’d all be lost without her. Maybe Christian could lend us her jet for commuting purposes? We’ll have to hide her from them though, or they’ll want to keep her full time.” His voice was a little playful when he said it, but it was a real enough point. The woman probably would have had a job there or someplace similar if it wasn’t for her being Infected. As it was she was so astute at her PR job that they’d taken her off of Team one to do it full time before Bridget was born. When they’d almost left some months back the office was a lot more worried about losing her than Scott, though no one was ever supposed to say that out loud where the man might possibly hear.

  Chris just nodded.

  “Of course. We’ll schedule weekly trips to and from the area, so that personnel can travel in comfort. I take it Mark is going?” She didn’t say it as if it were a question.

  The idea was good though, wasn’t it?

  “Yes. We need Penny here, and Mark and his show crew are needed for the conference, but as soon as that’s done, we should send them in. That still leaves us a little light on the ground there, but I don’t know who else should go. I… We should get Tweek, if… can that be done?” She looked at Charlot, who tilted her head and blew out a huge, somewhat frustrated breath of air.

  “With difficulty. She’s not an attractive woman, but a lot can be done with make-up and she’s easy enough to get along with. If we’re going to paint people like clowns we might send Ink too. He just needs a good cover of foundation and he’d be fine.” The words lacked tact, but no one mentioned it.

  Mark shrugged and then looked at Denis who tilted his head and finally shook it.

  “I can’t. Still on probation, remember? I don’t think anyone wants the President guarded by a would-be killer. I say though, if they want our help they can accept a few of our other people. Lauren and that guy with the white eyes from Team two for instance. I don’t know his name, but he’s good and not a lot gets past him.” He looked around, which got Brian to nod.

  “Crandall. I can see that. He’s tough and could blend with some hair dye and sunglasses. Lauren… I agree she should be there. We might have to decorate her like a flag or something, which actually might be a good look, that or something in a nice cream color to match the Whitehouse? The kids love her though, so that will probably work. I also think we should get Martin Joabs out for this. Being able to tell who might be lying would be a great asset. If he’ll do it I mean. I know that he’s getting ready to retire, and I don’t want to jinx him or anything.”

  It took a while to come up with a full team, but everyone was satisfied enough, at least from what they said. Charlot clearly thought sending anyone from Team two was a mistake, but even the Director thought it would work if they were willing to play down their natural appearances a bit. The first team was going to head out immediately, from both the base and the hotel where they were. It meant losing Scott though, so he could go with his daughter, or Marcia thought that would be the case at least.

  Scott didn’t… and neither did Charlot. She told them that with a bit of pride in her voice.

  “Scott’s needed here for the time being and so, I think, am I. Bridget isn’t a child anymore, and she kn
ows how important this mission is. She’ll be fine.” If there was worry in the words anywhere it didn’t show.

  Bridget nodded.

  “Yeah… I’ll…” Swallowing visibly, she looked at Lauren. “I’ll take Level with me and Ink. We can set up the first watches. I wish we had Penny with us though, but I get we can’t take all the cool people with us. Not at first. We’ll do fine.” She sounded like she believed it, even though she still probably wanted to kill Lauren. That hadn’t just gone away after all and wasn’t related to impulse control issues. That was just anger, like anyone might have felt. Hatred maybe.

  If they could work together though, it might help them repair their friendship. Not exactly the situation Marcia wanted to try it in, but hey, she didn’t have much choice. It was all about covering their collective asses now and if that’s what it took, then it would just have to work.

  That was enough to get people back to work, or in some cases, off to bed, since it was nearing two in the morning by the time they were wrapping up. She had to call in the bus that had brought them to the hotel, which meant that Sammy, the man that had passed them the original notes from Morris showed up, dressed in a flower print shirt and unshaved, like he’d just crawled out of bed.

  It took about ten minutes to get Christian out to meet the man, shaking his hand warmly and talking smoothly the whole time, even though she was cleaning his mind out in regards to everything he knew about Cal. It was embarrassing, but Marcia had kind of forgotten about the guy. If he knew anything at all, it would be worth doing. If not, well, it was a pain for Chris, and she’d be sure to let Marcia know that. It made her feel better knowing what was up anyway, which hopefully would be enough for everyone.

  The woman didn’t say anything, letting the man drive off with the others, getting all the way out of the parking lot before speaking.

  “He isn’t in on anything, but Morris had them meet at a shopping center a few times, trying to recruit him I think. Sammy there didn’t get it. Not exactly the brightest person on the planet. Not evil either, so I think we can deal. These meetings took place before Sammy was hired by the Food Network as a driver, however, which states that someone involved knew that he’d be hired. At one of the meetings he met with Morris and a man that was just called Lyle. From what I’ve picked up from you, Lancaster and Reyes, it’s the man you know as Mic? From your old team? Not that useful, but I have this…” She had to get something to write on from the front desk, but they gave her a pen and a small pad with the hotel name on each sheet.

  “It’s the license plate number of the car he was driving. Probably a rental but…” She yawned hugely, patting her mouth as she did.

  Marcia did it too, grinning afterword. The darned things were contagious if you didn’t fight them. Chris closed her eyes for a moment and waved at her.

  “I’m going to bed. Anyway, if you can find out the rental company, they might have information you can use? A long shot, but it’s better than nothing, I’d think. I’ll try to make time to hunt your old friends down directly tomorrow. I can’t do it right now. Too tired for clarity.” Then, without saying more, she turned and left. It was the kind of thing she did, related to her first mode, Marcia thought. That or being so rich God took out loans from her when he ran short.

  She ran the paper to Lancaster, so that he could run the plate, and explained how they got the information. Pulled from the man’s mind it was likely several times more reliable than if he’d told them the number himself. It was part of Mind Reader’s powers. She could find what was there, if she looked hard enough and knew enough to find a person. That part was difficult for her, since what she needed was more of a sense of who the person was, not a description, but maybe enough people around her knew the right people to narrow it down? If so that would help a lot. If she could find Weathers or Mic, they might break the whole thing open and actually learn what the heck was going on.

  If not, maybe they could use the rental car information to do it? One way or the other, hopefully something would break fast. It was killing her to have this hanging over them all like it was. She hated mysteries. Mainly because they so seldom reflected real life. Things weren’t this kind of complex jumble most of the time. Real mysteries were hidden things generally, but were really simple once you figured it out. Almost boring. This might be that way, but so far it was taking them through too many steps for a really elegant plan. On the good side that meant more places for whoever was behind it all to mess up.

  Of course that only worked if it was someone capable of making mistakes. If it was Braid, Marcia had an odd feeling they were just kind of screwed.

  She got her own bed that night and slept pretty well, all things being taken into account. No one snored too much and they were left alone until nearly eight in the morning, when a pounding came from the door. She shot up, bounding out of bed, getting to the door first, ready to fight if she had to, but used the peep hole to see who it was, expecting Lancaster.

  It wasn’t him. Not at all. Instead it was Alan. The cooking guy with glasses.

  He might have been there to ask her to breakfast, or even ask Warren, but he wasn’t. She got that instantly from the clipboard he held. He was talent on a show, but for some reason did a lot of organizing too. She’d have to ask someone about that if she got a chance. She pulled the door open, not realizing her oversized shirt was riding up until she followed his gaze down to her underwear. He fought for eye contact after a bit, smiling cheerily.

  “Good morning. Is this Warren’s room? I didn’t know you two were together. Thought he was gay to tell the truth. Well, rumors and all that. He’s needed in chalet two in an hour, doing a breakfast demonstration? I do have the right room, don’t I?” He ignored her as she corrected her clothing, but turned as she did it, using his body to shield her from the view of people opening their doors to see what was going on. Too many combat vets for them to let banging go ignored.

  “This is the place and no, we’re not together. We just didn’t have time to book more rooms and came with a large crew, so we’re sharing. We have Penny Cooper in here too. Um, the invisible one? She’s single if you’re interested.” She wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying, which was due to tiredness and laziness on her part. Alan had certainly taken the time to check her out though the moment before, even though he was polite enough about it. So he probably wasn’t gay.

  Her head smacked into the wall suddenly, her whole body shifting to the left.

  She laughed as Alan looked concerned.

  “God Marcia, why not just offer me up for sex while you’re at it.” She sounded angry enough that Marcia didn’t do that, just waving her right hand at the air.

  “That’s her now. Don’t worry she doesn’t normally try to bash people’s heads in. Anyway, Warren… I’ll get him up and going. What’s this about a chalet? Is the one of the fake kitchen set things or is there a little house out back I don’t know about?”

  Warren stumbled over, pulling his shirt back on, making him look a lot less homosexual than the situation should have. Apparently he’d gotten warm in the night. It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal for her, except Conroy walked up to the door just in time to see it. His face went a little flat, but that couldn’t be helped. No one wanted to see their ex with someone new, especially a younger person like Warren was. It wasn’t what was going on, but explaining it all would be awkward in the moment. They could at least do that in private. Later. After they all got out of this thing alive. If that was what happened.

  She couldn’t trust it. There was just a little feeling in the back of her mind that she was about to lose someone that she loved. Or liked at least. She already had, though Morris and Harpo weren’t exactly on her Christmas card list, they’d been friends of a sort once. People that she’d trusted her life to, back when even a stray bullet could take her out. Whatever they’d gotten themselves into, it was bad. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. Even having a rogue CIA agent after t
hem meant they were sticking their fingers in where they shouldn’t and Marcia was beginning to wonder if Wilson was really legit. Normal people doing normal things, even illegal stuff, didn’t get that kind of attention. Not as a rule. You could rob banks and art museums all day long and the CIA wouldn’t care.

  The worst part of the whole thing was that she didn’t know if the others could be gotten out of it, or if they were a part of it. Most of the time that was a simpler thing to answer than most of the television watching public understood. The spy shows had complex plots with people forced to take illegal actions to save others. A bad guy often turned out to be an innocent good person forced into a position they didn’t want to be in. It was what this was being made to look like even. Most of the time people got caught up in things like that because they were crooked though, nothing else. All the guys knew enough to not be easily taken in too. They’d been trained for it, to resist tricks and cons. To prevent themselves from being turned against their will. That meant it was probably something that they’d all planned, worked on together and were trying to use the rest of them for.

  As patsies for an assassination maybe? She didn’t know, but the thought haunted her. People could change, but for all her old buddies to turn against their country so blatantly… It just didn’t seem right. Like a trick. She knew those men. Or she had. A long time before. It was hard to remember that, since she’d been busy the whole time. It was all still so fresh in her mind that it felt like it had just happened, but that wasn’t the case at all.

  Even Conroy, standing in front of her with a slightly cold expression looked old and worn now. She still loved him, but soon it would go from just looking a little wrong in public to being hard to explain if they were out together. He could already have passed as her father and in ten years that would be grand dad. Not that she cared, but he might. He’d always been a lot more sensitive to what people thought about him than anyone had guessed. He affected a casual look, with his long hair and lumberjack clothing style choices, but it was an act. One meant to get everyone to think he wasn’t dangerous.