Ripped Open (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 2)

by P. S. Power

  Proxy nodded.

  “Yeah. I get it. I don’t like it, but I understand. The poor kid…” He meant Sinclair, and seemed ready to forgive her totally. To write off what she’d been doing when she’d been taken, due to how it had ended.

  Cindy shook her head, and locked eyes with the man. Then she glanced at Doug, and didn’t bother doing that with the others. Den stood with a handgun out, and Kerry held a rifle like she actually knew how to use it. She was the real problem there.

  “Wait. Remember that Sinclair was busily betraying us when she was taken. Betraying the IPB. This was her choice, and she chose wrong. All she had to do was wait a bit and then quit, if she really didn’t want to be part of what you all have going on. She picked this option. It backfired on her and Phoebe, but let’s not feel so sorry for them that we forget that they still might be dangerous to us.”

  Not that the kids were going to lay down a hurtful beating or anything. They weren’t really in any condition for that kind of thing.

  Burkes touched his ear, and Gravity did the same thing, nodding suddenly. It was the now good looking man that spoke, his voice deep and a bit too smooth at the same time.

  “Got it.” He waved at the hatch. “Um, Kerry and Brian, can you stay here and make certain that no one else is going to escape this way? We have everyone accounted for, but the Director doesn’t want to take any risks that way. It’s been cleared, several times so far…”

  Meaning that it wasn’t really needed. The words over his head were a bit blue and black, the story speaking of keeping those two out of the way, if for different reasons. Mainly it was about Brian, since they needed to get data from the rapists before killing them. If they did.

  After all, while rape was bad, it was a crime that the law punished with imprisonment, not death. Cindy could get behind that. After all, they were a government agency. That meant they could set the men up to be raped in prison in retaliation, if they played their cards right. Proxy might just make certain that didn’t happen. The hard way, but it still wasn’t justice.

  Not that she cared about that kind of thing, but Cin could see the need to make everyone think she got it. So they were going to protect these men from Proxy. Also from the real reason as to why his power hadn’t gone to save the girls before. As the rest of them walked away, Burkes in the lead, she cast her mind back and read up on that.

  The reason for it was surprising to her. It honestly was that if he’d tried, the girls would have likely died. There was simply no real place in his head, no matter how deep Cindy went, where he could see them as being wrong in what they were doing. Even if the plan had been to help these others take down the IPB. To Brian Yi, hard and grizzled as he was, they were just kids who had stepped a bit out of line.

  There was probably truth to that. After all, they hadn’t really thought through the idea that taking down the IPB meant killing at least fifty different people. Ones that they knew to be nice, or at least not evil rapists that kept doing them up the behinds. Most people would have considered what being a traitor really meant before taking off like that. So, just maybe, they had been stupid kids after all. It couldn’t matter now. They’d done the wrong thing, and now they had to pay for it.

  If they didn’t, then everyone was going to start thinking it was all right to do that kind of thing. If they weren’t already. Cindy hadn’t seen anyone doing it. Even Kerry and Lauren had acted for their own, more selfish, reasons. That meant something, no doubt. Cin couldn’t really get it yet, and knew that much about herself, so it probably had to do with emotions and empathy. Something about the others not needing to be kicked in the balls every time they stepped out of line a bit.

  That wasn’t actually her problem to deal with however, and as far as she knew, Marcia Turner was kind of on her side that way. Hobbs, too. It was the rest of the people that were too soft. Except that, when she looked at the information flowing along in Burkes head, he seemed more or less fine with the girls paying for what they did. Someone had to, and so far the only base they’d taken had been a bust that way. There had been arrests, but no one had bothered to tell him about what had happened. It made sense. He’d been being kept prisoner there, and drugged to a level that he might never come back from.

  Now, after the mission that day, even if he’d been being held back, it seemed like he hadn’t lost it all. Not even his nerve, which had been his biggest worry. His mind was about the same as always, after all. He sucked at Sudoku, but he always had. That kind of thing not being all that important to him at any point. Things like they were doing that day however, that called to him. He felt locked on and ready.

  At least the words over his head told Cin that.

  Their rally point was the prime door into the underground compound. There was a collection of individuals there, who’d been hidden by the side of the hill the thing was buried in before. Actual vehicles had arrived, most of them being FBI. Cindy blinked a bit and shook her head, since the arrival of help like that had gone totally past her somehow. Probably due to the fact that everyone was focused on the things inside, not outwardly.

  Burkes whispered to them, as they walked up on Turner and the men and women in their blue FBI windbreakers. They had nice big letters on them for identification.

  “You can read them, Mableton?”

  She smiled then, and started actually doing that, getting the reasoning instantly. They might not be friends after all. More to the point, they might think they were in charge or something.

  Which was technically correct. The IPB was supposed to go after Infected problems. This had that kind of involvement, since two of the people being held were theirs. So they had a right to be there, and even go in like they had. It was clear, when she got to the lead man, an older fellow with gray hair and enough wrinkles to show his career with the FBI was about over, that he expected some kind of big fight over jurisdiction. The only problem she could see with that was that he was both right, and had the law on his side at the moment.

  Muttering, she kept reading as she spoke to the others.

  “Dick measuring contest about to ensue. Really, if I can get eyes on all the players, that’s all I need. They can have the people after that. Not the Infected, but I don’t think the Feebs want to fight us on that point. It’s the IPBs job after all. I just don’t know how to tell Turner that.” Using her last name seemed official enough that Burkes snorted a bit, and gave a nod.

  Then, it might have been the part about the penis length competition that Marcia was about to get into.

  “That’s my job then. Good call Mableton. Keep reading everyone and make sure you have whatever connections you need for information gathering. I’m going in. Gravity?” He said it like the man was going to hold back or something.

  Then, he wasn’t totally certain that this new guy was the second in command of the Operatives section, and not a new person with similar powers who had inherited the old code name. Doug just nodded and walked, putting his side arm away as he moved. Burkes had a rifle, but it was held up, and away from everyone.

  Denis did the same thing and moved in closer to her.

  “What are they saying?” It was simple curiosity, though she could read the text easily enough. It was in quotation marks after all.

  “Let me see… Burkes basically repeated what I just said, and Doug announced that we’d need to take the Infected in the group. No one is arguing about that yet. Marcia is about to start though… Which will begin a real shit-show. I just need to see everyone. Really, probably not even that, now. It will just make less work for me later if I can.”

  So, waving a bit, Den led her toward the official group. There were about six FBI Agents, and four IPB standing there. Each ready to back their own side in things.

  Denis called out, from a distance.

  “Cindy needs to get eyes on the prisoners. Then we can get them off to jail, or interrogation.” He was making eye contact with Marcia, and projecting a very tight sense of importance to the wo
rds. It wasn’t mind control, but it worked enough that Cin felt like it was actually a big deal. Even knowing that it probably wasn’t.

  Marcia got it all, and even suspected about what Denis was doing to her. Still, she nodded and smiled then.

  “Right. That will do it. I forgot. That will take a few minutes, right Cindy?” She used the name on purpose, since it sounded girlish and harmless to everyone else. Then, she matched the looks on that part.

  “Probably not even that long. Let me…” It wasn’t that hard to find everyone, and she did the kidnapping victims as well, which was actually a good thing.

  Because one of the men, an unshaved and highly drugged white guy, who was thin and a bit goofy looking, knew her. He was Infected, but when he glanced up, his words spoke of relief. It wasn’t just her either, it was most of the IPB people he could see.

  Cindy waved a hand at Sinclair, Phoebe, Jeremy and the new man.

  “We need those four. Infected. All of them… Are with us.” How that worked she didn’t know, but the man was, clearly, aware enough to get who she was. Turner, too.

  That they’d never met before was just as certain however. The man was messed up inside, when she tried to dig for more data. The story was there, but looked like it had been put together by a seven-year-old. One that didn’t know how to run a narrative. What she could find however was his name, and after a bit, a few seconds, why he was so fouled up.

  “Frank Nester. Code name; Continuity. He’s an IPB Operative.” She said the words, only to have everyone from the IPB turn to stare. First at her, and then Frank.

  He waved, his eyes a bit bloodshot at the moment. He sounded drunk still, but not like he’d been beaten or raped. It was hard to tell if that had happened from his tale however.

  “Hey. Everyone. Thanks for coming. I was in a bit of a jam there. For some reason I didn’t slip out like I normally would. I think it was the drugs.” It made sense in his head, and the FBI didn’t wait, just taking the handcuffs off of the people that she’d mentioned.

  It really wasn’t that dangerous. Phoebe was the only one that wasn’t drugged to the nines, and she wasn’t going anywhere. For one thing she didn’t particularly want to, feeling that she’d made a big mistake leaving in the first place. Now at least.

  “Monkey balls. Hot flaming monkey spunk.” The words were a little subdued, but heartfelt, it sounded like. Then, the woman couldn’t really control what she was saying. She was going for something along the lines of hoping she wasn’t in too much trouble, and that she was glad to see them as well.

  Frank grinned, his eyes fluttering a lot.

  “No doubt, sweetie. Anyway, Cin, Marsh… I have some new data on these freaks. I was trying to collect it when they caught me. I ended up here, and worked out that it was in the old files you showed me, so tried to get everything I could, info wise. It still isn’t enough to lead to the people really behind it all. We’re closing in though. I can smell it.”

  She nodded, and moved toward the man, who stepped in and hugged her. It was a bit closer than she would have expected, even if they had just gotten him free from a prison. Then, almost as if it made sense, he laughed a bit, and hugged Marcia and then Phoebe, the same way.

  “It’s so good to see familiar people! We should get together later, for fondue. That was fun. Anyway, I need to start writing, in case I slip out again. As soon as the drugs wear off…”

  The Director looked suspicious, but Cindy got the basic idea, even if it was all out of place.

  “We need paper and something to write with. Operative Nester bounces around in time and space. Um, Frank? This is our first meeting, so…”

  He smiled then and laughed, shaking his head.

  “Ah! So we haven’t had that three way yet? You and I aren’t even engaged yet, Marcia? That explains the funny looks. Let’s see then… I’m Frank Nester; you gave me a code to use for this… Seven, three, delta, one, one. Did I get that right? You told me that it was an undesignated code that you came up with for time travelers. You have like fifty of them. Codes. Not people bopping around in time like I do. That would be annoying, I bet.” He was locking eyes with Marcia, who was actually scrambling to mentally check that out.

  She really did have that kind of thing set up, but not memorized. Cindy was able to read it out of her head however.

  “It’s right. The third one down on the main list back at the base. Nifty. Anyway, congratulations? When is the wedding?”

  She got that one from Frank’s head, and managed to keep from smiling, since the man was full of bullshit. Not all of it was wrong, but he didn’t mind lying to have a bit of fun with people. It was one of the few things that gave him pleasure in life.

  “In June. It was a lovely ceremony. I couldn’t believe that you went for the orgy on the honeymoon like that Marsh. Still, it happened, so we had to do it. You remember… Or I guess not. You will though! I mean, all the movies, and cuddly nights we spent… Priceless!”

  That got her to grin a bit, but look away and get him the paper he needed. For all that he was full of it, most of the time, his data was probably as good as he could make it. Even better, he’d been with them for almost a decade. In his mind. It was why he was pulling the gag that he was at the moment. Not because he and Marcia had ever done anything, but it had always been just casual between them. Frank couldn’t keep a real relationship going after all. Neither could their boss, so it made it safe to tease her that way. She didn’t really think that he meant it, and he never did.

  The notes this time weren’t going to be that good, since he was still way too drugged to print clearly, much less keep things straight in time. That one was always hard for him. He knew that most of the others didn’t really like him either, even if he was charming and funny. That was because dealing with him was just a problem for most of them. It was why he liked Cindy so much. Even if she was kind of weird.

  It seemed a bit judgey to her, given that she was the one that ran through time like a normal person, in one direction, but it’s what the words said about her. She was different from everyone else, because she was able to get what he was going on about, more or less, and was willing to try. A lot of the others kind of weren’t. They found him too different, so just kind of ignored him. If he was lucky.

  A few of them actively hated him.

  Still, the man tried to be helpful, and actually did his work. Really, more than that, since he was kind of a secret agent, and didn’t always know how he got from one place to another. All of the pieces were there for him, eventually, but the order was too scrambled to keep track of. Frank wasn’t exactly sane, but he did his best, and didn’t get much of a choice about it.

  For some reason Marcia set the Infected people up for trips back to the base first, as soon as Cindy had a chance to look at all of the people that had been taken in so far. After that, no matter what else happened, they we’re going to be allowed the information they could get from everyone. Then Proxy was brought in, to take the people away.

  Three of them. Frank Nester just shook his head as the man came over.

  “Hey, Brian! I’m about out of here. This one took longer than most. I might as well leave from,” He stopped talking instantly, but then just stood for a bit, not moving at all. There was a gentle breeze that was strong enough to make the front of his shirt move, or had at least it been doing that. Now it was totally still, and as she watched, the man stopped thinking, and then was gone. There was no pop, or sense that he’d been there either. Just nothing.

  Cindy nodded at where he’d been, and then looked over at Jeremy. He was younger looking, and a bit different than she would have figured Penny Cooper’s brother would look. He was thin, blond and a bit bland seeming. Not horrible to look at, but there was a lack of spark that she would have expected to be there. Penny was a bit wild, and it showed in her internal story. Jer was soft, emotionally, and the words came from him in a very methodical fashion. He was smart, but not brilliant. Still, it wasn’t abo
ut that. It was, most likely, either his power or first mode stopping him from seeming interesting to her. After all, bland or not, he looked cute enough, if a bit young for her.

  Seeing her watching he smiled a bit, and nodded.

  “Hi. Jeremy Cooper.” He didn’t know how to explain what he’d been doing there, but she actually got that part. He’d sensed a problem and was there for the simple purpose of trying to fix it. He actually had some data as to what was happening, but it was bulky and not that specific. Enough to get him into place, but not much more than that. So he’d ended up being taken, and locked up in a cell for his trouble, with nothing much else to show for the effort.

  Most Infected powers weren’t that great, really. They also didn’t lead you into trouble constantly. As far as she knew, only two people really had that kind of power. More might have first modes that did something similar, but that wasn’t their ability actually trying to screw with them. Just Proxy and Jeremy.

  “Cindy Mableton. Brian is going to take you, Sinclair and Phoebe back to the main base. You aren’t in any trouble or anything, so don’t worry.” She was talking to the boy, and only him, but saw that both girls were relieved to hear about that part of things.

  Not that she corrected herself. Looking at Marcia, who had seen exactly what she’d been saying and to whom, she waited. The woman might want her to go back then, or not.

  “Hush… Stick with your current team. I want you and Burkes to go over the entire facility here. Don’t leave anything unlogged. Get video, and a written inventory of everything here.” She nearly winced, since that was close to being busy work. Even if it was actually important.

  Turner just didn’t think that Mableton would be able to see that kind of thing. She really didn’t know if Kerry, Denis or Doug would be willing to do it either. They were all IPB Operatives, but the job description didn’t cover doing a lot of paperwork. Normally the Agents would handle that part of things, but they didn’t have anyone there for that purpose, and Agent Burkes team was made up of Infected at the moment. Which meant she expected a fight over the whole thing.