by P. S. Power
She decided not to mention it as an option.
Not for her anyway. Maybe on the fucknuts that used to be her friends if they didn’t have a really good explanation that didn’t involve hate groups or getting their grandkids killed for no reason at all.
“Denis, can you wake people up?” She’d never asked before, but feeling awake should do the trick, if it was strong enough, right? His power basically caused a person to set up their own internal drug reaction when it was used right. That was the theory at least. Perfect drugs with a Denis controlled dosage meter. It was worth a shot. They didn’t have time to waste waiting for them to come to and then spend half an hour trying to pretend to be asleep still.
Not that it would work with a telepath standing right next to them.
“I can. One second.” It took longer than that, nearly half a minute, but all four of the survivors let their eyes pop open and started shaking a little. It was probably reaction to what he’d hit them with, rather than fear, since Weathers and Mic wouldn’t have let that show if they could help it.
The girl looked panicked and started to cry, staring back at the house.
“You killed them all?” Her voice held and air of pure terror. It wasn’t a nice thing to hear.
“No. The bomb that went off was already in place. It was probably triggered before we even got to the house. They planned to run away and leave you and your families to die. Not exactly kind of them, they could have at least told you all to scatter. My guess is Weathers here did the actual bomb building. He was a specialist in that area when he was in the service. Isn’t that right?” She didn’t really need to wait for them to talk, just ask questions, but she wanted to hear the truth from their own mouths.
Beating it out of them was tempting, but they didn’t have that kind of time, plus it probably wouldn’t work. She toyed with the idea of having Denis try to force them to talk, wondering if that could work. If they were made to feel like being really honest, and talkative, would it make them do it? She kind of thought it would, but it might take some practice for him to get right. He’d mentioned something along those lines before at least. They’d have to make do with having Chris taking their minds apart for them.
It was a moot point. Conroy walked over and nudged Mic with his right boot, getting his attention.
“Hey. So, what the hell?” He didn’t ask any specific questions, but that didn’t seem to be needed. The man just looked away and seemed glum.
“It doesn’t matter now. You can’t stop it. We have the military on our side. Enough of them at any rate. We were just here to keep you lot busy while we took out your base and DC. In ten minutes, the Whitehouse won’t be there anymore. Most of the landmark buildings will be gone and the good, clean people of America will be able to actually start over again and deal with the Plague, like we should have been for years. Once we have Hooper in office instead of that sicko Lawrence, we’ll be able to take out the trash and live in peace again.” He sounded pretty convinced of his words at least.
Marcia sneaked a peek at Christian, who checked her watch.
“More like seven minutes. We need to warn people I… We don’t have time to call.” She swallowed hard and sat down, on the ground, closing her eyes.
Whatever it was the woman was doing Marcia didn’t know. She had the Director on speed dial however and hit the button before she had the phone all the way out.
“This is Kevin Moo…” He started, sounding calm and relaxed. Too calm.
“It’s happening now, there and in DC. Air strikes I think, but I don’t have time to confirm. ETA six minutes and change. This is all the warning you get. Um, this is Turner. Go!” She hung up. She didn’t have more and him doing anything but running would be wasted time. They couldn’t get everyone out of the building anyway. Not in seven minutes. They’d run drills. Even if everyone ran it took nearly twice that long to get the place evacuated. Especially the lower levels. Moore’s office was on the second floor though, close to the surface. It might have been a moot point, but she’d had to try. About then Chris just started talking to no one.
No one that was there at least.
“No time to explain Lauren, this is Christian Poures. You all need to get ready, there’s a military strike coming. Rogue military. Planes or missiles…. I don’t know… I understand… Good luck.” Her eyes popped open, looking a more brilliant blue with the slight tearing they were doing.
“I… they’re going to try and stop them. They don’t know how, since they’re a ground based crew, but they all decided to stay and protect the President anyway.” A single tear ran down her cheek.
It made Mic laugh.
“Good. Each one of you Infected fucks that dies makes the world a better place. I hope your friends fry you stupid cunt.” He sounded deranged, but no one hit him.
Not even Proxy. They all just stood back and waited. Brian pacing a little bit, muttering to himself.
“I can get the President out, or Director Moore. It’s a risk, but…” He went silent, listening to the ghost girl in his head, and finally rolled his eyes.
“Fine. I guess. I just hope it works out that way, it’s not who’d I’d have thought of protecting given everything. This waiting sucks.” Then, as if considering it first, tilting his head and listening to Dharma, then he walked over and kicked Mic in the solar plexus.
It wasn’t full strength, but hard enough he man tried to double over, gasping and gagging.
“Sorry, but you were cussing in front of children. Manners please.” He used his insane, icy cold, voice. The one that came out just after he was working. It was a dead pan so deep that it almost sounded like something from a machine.
It got the boy to whimper a bit. Wisely, perhaps more so than his years should have allowed, the kid kept his mouth shut. The girl didn’t, but what she was saying was easy enough to discount. It was just about how all her friends and family were dead. Also about Jimmy. Her Uncle Jimmy, who, if Marcia was following the whole story, was dead now, but had loved her and told her that they were going to run off together. It was why they’d become lovers.
“Your own Uncle? Gross.” That came from Denis, who seemed to mean it, but then he was more sensitive to things like that than most people, given his upbringing. The girl explained.
“He was my stepmoms younger brother. We aren’t really related or anything. He wasn’t that much older than me either, only twenty-eight.” She started crying again, which was fine, because it stopped the stupidity that was coming from the girl’s mouth. Mic seemed ticked off that the girl was talking at all, which was normal enough, since you shouldn’t in an interrogation, unless you were actively lying. It was too easy to let real information slip.
Weathers looked pissed though, the kind of thing that told her that this girl wasn’t just some random kid he met a few times.
She decided to use it against him. It was interrogation one-oh-one after all.
“So, Weathers, is this your granddaughter or are you getting so pissed because Jimmy was moving in on your squeeze? Like em’ young, do you?” She was ready for almost anything from the man trying to climb to his feet to fight her to him sitting back and crying. Instead he just shrugged and spoke calmly getting Mic to glare at him after a few seconds.
“Jimmy was my son. My step-son. I got him involved in all this. He died because he listened to me. Of course I would have kicked his butt into prison for trying to make a move on Heather here, but that’s done now. Stupid of him. Half a dozen women here that would have kept him company and he picks the fourteen year old? Just like him. Say, anyone have the time?” He had a watch but it was behind his back.
Chris looked at hers, a delicate silver thing, that or white gold, that graced her right wrist.
“Two minutes left, if the time I pulled from your heads is correct.” She stood and walked over to Denis for some reason, patting him on the back.
The man hugged her a little and held on, “I’m sorry Chris, I’m sure he’ll be
alright. He’s good. If nothing else he’ll get out alive. He left the instant you told him too, before the bomb went off even. Nothing can really touch him.”
It took Marcia a few seconds to work it out. Mark had left. Probably to try and help out in DC. He’d be there already, even though he had to walk, bike or run the distance. Stasis time meant that nothing else seemed to move for him, at all. In that alternate place he’d lived for hundreds of years already, sometimes decades in a blink of an eye. She nodded and got her cell back out. Hopefully he’d taken his with him. It was all so frustrating, being so far away from the attacks like she was, not able to help.
It picked up on the second ring, the man sounding a bit breathless, which was pretty darned strange for him. He normally couldn’t stay in regular time if he got excited. It probably made sex interesting for him. That wasn’t the issue for the moment though and could be dealt with later.
“Marsh?” His voice sounded tiny suddenly, like a small child and not an adult man at all. “I can see them. There are… Fifteen, no sixteen, jets coming in. Three formations of five plus a larger one in the back. A bomber I think. What do we do? I can’t reach then from here. None of us can.”
He went silent then, the roar of the fighters coming in louder by the second.
“Mark? Are you near Bridget? Get her the phone if you can. Now!” It was a long shot, but what the hell? They had nothing else and the girl was called fucking Impulse for a reason, right? If she was given the right information and it was actually possible for her to act on it, she should be able to. It was the part where she may not be able to yet that might get in the way.
“Hello?” She sounded very young suddenly too. It didn’t matter though, she was all they had.
“Bridget, this is Marcia. Remember when I told you that you might be able fly one day? You already can, we’ve been hiding it from you. I want you to do that now, as hard and fast as you can, right at the bomber, the bigger plane the others are protecting. Use your force blasts too. Don’t stop until all the planes are gone. Do it! Don’t think about it. Just do it. Now! Do it or everybody dies!” Marcia screamed the last bit, hoping that fear would help the girl act, rather than hinder her.
For a few seconds the roaring sounds from the phone got louder, then it went dead. She only hoped it had just been dropped and that she hadn’t messed up, telling the girl to fight instead of run away. She was tough, but no one could take on fifteen fighter jets like that. Not flying. Not alone. Especially if they hadn’t really done it before. Marcia felt her stomach drop thinking about it, wondering if it was the last time she’d see any of her people there ever again. It depended on the missiles the planes had, probably.
It felt like it was the last time. The only hope they had now was pure luck and that someone would do something she just didn’t understand.
It was about then that Brian vanished, his power kicking in without warning it seemed, or at least he didn’t act like he knew anything was going to happen this time. Where he went she didn’t know. Worse, given everything, she might never know at all.
10
Nothing happened for nearly half an hour.
Brian didn’t come back. No one called at all and the phone lines were all dead or busy. Every single one of them, as if cell phones had decided to take the day off suddenly. That might happen if D.C. just vanished or was too badly damaged. Or if the lines were just plugged with people trying to call friends and relatives to make sure they were alright. Either way it was nerve wracking and made her want to cry.
That didn’t fit her image, so she didn’t, just feeling miserable instead. Mic looked at her with a smile from his position on the ground, having recovered from the little tap Proxy had delivered earlier. He still sounded a little rough, but that could have just been because of the events of the day, not any real damage. She probably didn’t sound all that good either and she wasn’t injured at all.
“So, Cast Iron… looks like we found your weak spot, didn’t we? The crack in your armor.” He chuckled about it, which was obviously forced, but still annoyed her, which was what he wanted. He was trying to needle her for some reason.
“Sure, you’re tough. Proved that when you killed all those people earlier, didn’t you? Babies and women, real powerful there. Nothing can touch you. Nothing can hurt you. But we know your weakness, the soft underbelly of the Cast Iron Bitch.” He smirked, also forced, as if trying to get everyone to see her as being weak would actually help him and his remaining people at all.
Maybe he was hoping she’d get mad and kill him?
He was a fool if that’s what he wanted. They needed him and Weathers alive, so that they could question them, find out who they knew that was also involved and root them out. This wasn’t really over after all. No matter what else happened, Mic and Weathers were going to live through the day and keep living until they gave up every secret they’d ever had. Marcia looked over at Chris, but the woman wasn’t listening to her thoughts, she just stared at the trees off in the distance.
The air felt still to her. Quiet. Foreboding as she tried to ignore whatever trick or goad Mic was about to try and use on her. She didn’t have to wait long to figure it out, since he offered it freely enough.
“The one thing all your power can’t do is save the ones you love. You do love them too. Paranoid freak that you are, you’ve always gotten too close to the people around you. You did it with us back in the day and you still do it with your little freak pals. We knew that it would hurt you more to have to watch, not being able to do anything to save them, than to be at the attack itself. This will break you, bitch. The problem with Cast Iron is that it snaps when the right kind of force is applied. Right now all your people are dying and you’re stuck here with us, listening to some guy yak at you and you can’t do shit about it.” He laughed again, then his head rocked back and he slumped into unconsciousness.
“Oops. I hit him a little harder than I thought. I guess he forgot you still have friends right here that aren’t psychopaths like he is.” Penny sounded angry and a bit raw, like she’d been crying.
Conroy was standing about ten feet away, but heard the whole thing, and walked over, a knife in his hand. He didn’t start cutting anyone though; he just stood, trying to stay ready. That he’d shifted to a blade meant he was in interrogation mode. Otherwise he would have had a firearm out.
“Damn straight. Marcy, don’t listen to him. He was always just bitter that I got you instead of him. Never was wound all that tight anyway. Betraying his country like this…” He took a step forward, but stopped and looked down at the hand where his knife had been.
“Sorry boss, but we need these two alive and unhurt. Torture them later, after we get the info from them. I know it’s hard right now, but we may have to do a lot of things we don’t want to before this is all over. Might as well start by doing it right.” Penny again. She’d taken the knife and sounded a bit smarter than she normally did about thing like that. Harder too.
Marcia had to agree though. It just made sense. The surprising part was how cool the girl was under pressure. Crying, but ready to enforce what was needed at the same time. Even if it meant going against the new management.
Luckily Mike Conroy didn’t have a problem with being corrected, if the person doing it was right.
“I hear you Cooper. I’ll lay off for now. We should get back to the bus, or have it come here, get ready to move. Maybe get to town and find out what’s going on?” It was all sensible.
“No.” Marcia looked around and sighed.
“We need the bus I mean, that parts right. We should send for it. We need to be here though, because Brian will come back to this location.” If he was still alive. He was a good fighter, hard, and unwilling to quit. Maybe even psychically gifted in a way that related to that kind of thing. She was almost certain of it in fact. It might not be enough to save him if the bombs had started dropping. Plus, he could just make a mistake or get unlucky. Some situations were just unwinnable
. Like the one they were in, possibly.
They sent Tobin for the vehicle, along with Denis, who could actually drive it, if it came down to that. Not well, probably, since he’d only ever driven cars before, but it wasn’t exactly like there was heavy traffic on the roads. They jogged off at better speed than they’d come in at. True, Marcia could have made the trip faster, but if Sammy had taken off or wouldn’t come back with the others she’d be stuck trying to find some other transportation and might miss it when Proxy popped back in. They didn’t have much to help him with she didn’t think, and mentioned it, sounding a little listless as she did.
Without asking what she meant, Mike rummaged through his bag and pulled out a red cordura satchel with a white cross on it.
“Special medical kit. Enough for minor surgery if we have to do it. Meds, suture material, bandages and a half dozen other things they don’t sell you at Wal-mart.” She poked through it, noticing that it was a lot more complete than that even. Some of the drugs weren’t strictly legal to have, even with a prescription. They had their uses though and an old special forces guy with his skills knew them all.
The bus got there about fifteen minutes later, Sammy at the wheel, meaning he hadn’t bailed on them. That was good. She kind of liked the guy. Then, he was just a man hired to drive them around and bribed to pass messages, not a team member. No one could have really blamed him for running home when it all started going down. It turned out that he didn’t have a reason to yet, as the first reports were just starting to hit the radio. He left it on and opened the door after he parked so that everyone could hear.