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

by P. S. Power

  For once she was allowed to sleep until morning, and wasn’t even out for her run until nearly seven-thirty. Normally Hobbs would have been out by then, but it was just her that day for some reason. Everyone else was there, but the intense man from another world had actually gone into town, to visit with Mary at the donut shop, since someone named Elizabeth was there. Again, from a different world. So Denis and Kerry were both taking the chance to sleep in, and Tobin was in the gym, doing his own workout. That meant Bridget found her a bit later, and jogged next to her. They were both in nearly identical gray outfits. Sweats, they said different things on them. Hers just said IPB on the front in black letters, while Bridget had ones that said Team Three. Technically that was her team as well, but it hadn’t really occurred to Cin that Impulse was on the same one that she was.

  “Hiya! So, once again, only the cool people came? It’s hard, being the best like we are.” She only half meant it, since they were also the ones that had been taken on as special projects by Hobbs. Impulse to master her first mode, which she largely had, using meditation and practice not to just do whatever she felt like at the moment.

  With Cindy it had been about keeping her in line. Not alive really. The man hadn’t cared much that she was a serial killer. Just as long as she did what the IPB wanted. So, really, the last days probably left him feeling fairly happy that way.

  Bridget grinned at her, from the side.

  “I know. You’d think that everyone would be trying to eat lunch with us, but…” She stopped and shrugged as she padded along. “Oh, wait. They do! With you at least. I was just going to do some light meditation myself, but I can jog with you first? We haven’t really talked much lately. How are things going? Are the coolies keeping you down? I don’t see any shank marks…”

  It took actual research on Cin’s part to get that she was talking about prison guards and makeshift knives that would be used to attack people inside. Then, Cindy was basically a real prisoner, even if the cage was a little different than most would have gotten.

  “I’m striving to be useful right now. You get the idea. I make myself so indispensable that no one will want to kill me just because it’s easier than feeding me. So far so good? Ms. Turner hardly ever thinks about burying me alive anymore. That means she actually has to have a plan to kill me first, but it’s an improvement.” It was actually a little bit better than that.

  The woman was almost ready to think about considering respecting her a little bit.

  Bridget shrugged.

  “Well, if you aren’t killing her peeps, she won’t actually insist you die. Most likely. Besides, from what I’m hearing, a lot of people think you’re kind of awesome already. Georgia was practically touching her fun zone when she was talking about you last night. Normally that would mean she wants to date you… Well, it does now too, but she was going on about you actually being the first person here to really have her back. No one was actually down on Cin either, now that I think about it. You need to get with Team Two more, if I’m not going to kill them all, I mean. I… It’s tough, you know?” There was no explanation of that, but Cindy had read all about it before, so she did know.

  “Yeah. Still, you’re taking the right path, I think. Really… What we need to do is get you in touch with that boy you were thinking about dating? Will? You haven’t called yet, have you?”

  “Nope. Is it a good thing, getting him involved with me and my problems? I can’t think of anyone that would be a better hostage or target. I mean, no powers, and he doesn’t walk around armed all the time.”

  She shrugged at that one, since the boy actually knew how to shoot a handgun.

  “We can get him trained up for that. I need to do it anyway, myself, so I can look into that for him. A concealed carry license, too. It shouldn’t be a problem.” Not that anyone would want her to walk around packing in particular, but Will seemed stable enough for that kind of thing, when she crossed from Bridget over to his book. That was a bit sloppy, but mainly due to the notations in the margins.

  On the good side he actually thought Bridget was cute enough, if a little young for him. Which wasn’t really true. He was about to turn eighteen, but she was pushing seventeen herself. She just looked younger than that. About fourteen or so. A lot of that was due to her size. She was a half foot shorter than Cindy was, which meant little, to most people.

  “Besides, what if he just doesn’t want to, right? I’m not all that, and it isn’t like he had a long time to get used to my personality.” She seemed a bit down on that part of things.

  It was dark enough to get Cindy to shrug at her.

  “Um, you’re of legal age, and willing to put out… I’m thinking that he won’t be that hard for you to wrangle. You do know that most men can be led around by their…” She had to breathe, but Bridget nodded anyway, filling the rest in for her.

  “By their manly bits? I have heard a rumor toward that kind of thing. Yeah. I guess I should at least let him say no. When should I call?”

  The answer to that, it turned out, was after school. Cindy was able to get his personal cell number, so that the call wouldn’t be screened by his bigoted parents first. She spoke the numbers out loud, which were almost instantly committed to memory by the girl jogging along next to her. She chanted it inside her head for a bit, but really had it about three minutes later. It was fairly impressive, compared to most people.

  At the end of the run, which they did as a real thing, not a secret special meditation, Bridget led her to a red hut like structure that was sitting next to the admin building.

  “We can work here. I have no clue what this thing is, but no one will notice if we strip down and finger bang each other while meditating.” Bridget moved into meditation then, probably trying to hide that she was joking about that.

  Instead she pretended to be taking her clothing off, to see when Cindy would call her on the idea.

  Instead of doing that she smiled.

  “Right. I know that you have other plans for me. Holding a pushup while focusing on the back of my left arm? That isn’t too bad. At least it isn’t being pepper sprayed again first.” She shuddered at that one, though the tiny woman next to her just sighed.

  “Darned telepaths. You take all the fun out of things, don’t you? I mean, it’s like a curse or something.” She grinned a bit about it all, and started down toward the ground.

  Cindy did the same then, shaking her head a bit.

  “Well, being that we’re both straight, more or less, I suppose we could sell Hobbs on the idea that doing that kind of thing in public counts as real meditation. Really, my guess is that the one you have planned is closer though. I wouldn’t be embarrassed by, or bothered by the first idea. I doubt you would either, so it isn’t much of a challenge. It’s not like we don’t work naked at least once a week.” It was true enough, but they both ended up focusing on their left arms, toward the back, above the elbow.

  It made it a bit easier to hold the pose, for a while, but after about five minutes it hurt enough, for her, that she gasped at Bridget, who given her powers was having a much easier time of it all.

  “So, fingering each other? That sounds like a good plan.”

  “Focus. We can do that later.” The words were flat, but got her to try again. Still, she collapsed after not too much longer, which meant standing on one foot, while focusing on a specific cloud that was moving overhead. It was a bit overcast, and started to sprinkle on them as they looked up.

  That bit of concentration was why she was looking upward instead of at the red house thing not too far off. The door opened without a sound too, letting the better than decent looking Hispanic man get almost halfway to them before Bridget looked over at him.

  She didn’t stop meditating or anything either, until he was nearly all the way there, holding up a hand to wave a bit.

  Cindy did though, reading up on him directly, not recognizing him. He was, like so many clearly were in life, from a different reality. The name wasn�
��t one she knew, but something about the book he showed was. For all his normal seeming appearance and friendly smile, this man was basically Tobin. If not a frogman and from Washington state, instead of Florida.

  She spoke first.

  “You’re Troy? Zack sent you to check in on us and take us around if we need to do anything?” Cin was adding the last bit in, since the strange man, Zack, hadn’t spoken about anything like taking people around different places, but the new guy didn’t know that part, so kind of incorporated it into what he was thinking at the moment.

  “Yep! Troy Lopez, Line Walker extraordinaire. Pleased to meet you.” He smiled at her, then stared a bit at Bridget, who’d stopped doing anything else to gawk a bit.

  The man, who was nice enough looking, sighed at them.

  “I was told there were some familiar faces around here. So, where do you need to go? And when. I can come back later, I suppose.” He didn’t seem that put out by it all, but got what sodden exercise clothing meant. Also that it was raining.

  Looking down, Cin shrugged.

  “Hi. I’m Cindy and this is Bridget. Could I get you to wait while I shower and change? Then I need to go and see a Tim Baker? Is that a person you can find?” She didn’t know that one, but the man just furrowed his brow, and focused. Intently. So much so that the page over his head just went blank for a bit. After a while he nodded.

  “Dareg mentioned that his father was named Tor Baker, and that he had an Uncle Timon. I bet that’s the man. If so, then yes? Zack took me past the right spot for that. As for waiting… Sure? Where do you need me to stand? Out of the rain, if that’s all right?” He was thinking of ducking back into the little hut, and kept sneaking glances at Bridget, since he actually did know her, or a version of her, in a different place. They were friends even. As in the man had totally nailed that version of the woman. Who was older there, and married. To Zack, his best friend.

  It really wasn’t an issue for them though, even if Troy felt a little guilty over it. Bridget wasn’t married though, and while youthful looking, a lot of people were anymore. Even if they were old enough to have fun with. Troy for instance was hundreds of years old, if not pushing nearly a thousand.

  That news got her to read it twice, but after a bit she understood enough not to be shocked. It had to do with his intense training, sitting between worlds, in order to learn how to move between the different places. There was no functional time there, so things like that could happen.

  Cindy shrugged.

  “My room? Bridget can entertain you while you wait?” It would keep the man from going anyplace, for one thing. She was legal and powerful enough to just say no, if she didn’t want to do things with him.

  It occurred to her that normal people might not throw sixteen-year-old girls at strange men like that. She didn’t feel bad about it, but did notice that it was probably a bit out of keeping with what a real adult would have said. That probably meant she wasn’t as mature as she liked to think she was, most days.

  Troy didn’t even blush. Then, entertain wasn’t exactly that harsh a term to use.

  “Sounds fun. Or we could talk? Get to know each other? Unless… is that what entertain means here? In my world it’s… Not just talking. Not always.”

  Cindy started walking and the others followed, since she was getting a shower and dry clothing before leaving for her first visit to another world. Makeup, too. It was simply going to happen, and if selling Bridget’s tender flesh was the only way to ensure she got a chance to go, then that’s what she’d try to do.

  From the illustrated guidebook inside the man’s head, the words meant the same thing in both places, so she winked at him.

  “No, it means for us about what it does for you. I promise I won’t take long though. Don’t let him get away Bridget.” She grinned, going for charming rather than psychopathic in what she was doing.

  Not that she really understood what she was going for, to be honest. Sure, a trip to a different reality sounded kind of neat. That was a point, but she was being pushy about the whole thing, instead of not caring. That was kind of her go to move when it came to life in general. Not giving a flying fuck about what the other people around her thought or felt, unless it benefitted her in some way.

  Here she was anyway, going out of her way to try and possibly help other people. Even knowing that Cin wasn’t going to get anything out of it. While she showered, and quickly applied a delicate coat of makeup, she considered the idea. It could have been down to the genetic changes making it so that she wasn’t a psychopath any longer. If that was the case there wasn’t a lot she could do to get back her old sense of self. Her life, literally, depended on not following her old hobby. The changes made were all toward that end.

  The thing there was that the feelings had intensified the night before. As she sat with Jake at dinner. Blinking, the idea actually took hold in her mind finally. The man, whatever he actually was, had influenced her to be a good person.

  It was more than a little annoying, now that she realized the idea. Worse, she was supposed to meet him later that night for some sexy fun times, and being that close to him would probably impact her even more than just sitting near him for a while.

  When she got out of the shower, Troy was still there, sitting on the edge of her bed. Trying not to look like he was expecting her to come out half naked, dressed only in a towel, even though he was half hoping she would. The words were plain, and rather bold, over his head. The man was old, after a fashion, but his life had only trained him to be a regular human male, so his hormones still held sway most of the time. Unless he was in the void between worlds.

  In that place he was an ancient being of great power.

  So it was a slightly different situation than she’d ever encountered before. Cindy was dressed and ready to leave however, so waved toward him as she took the few steps to her door.

  “I just need to get to this Tim Baker, and then back here. Is that all right? I know it has to be a pain, taking me around like this. Hence me trying to hurry?” She made herself look slightly timid, not feeling it.

  Which worked like a charm. Not that the man wasn’t under orders to help out if he could. It was why his boss had sent him in the first place. To make certain they could get between worlds, in case they had to plan, or fight the enemy that had come to destroy them all.

  He stood and followed as he spoke, his voice relaxed.

  “No prob. We might have to ask around a bit, which could be a tiny bit of an issue. The people where we’re going don’t speak English. I mean, the language is clearly related, but I haven’t worked it out yet. I should get on that, but you know how it is. Learning can be hard.” His smile was infectious, but only in a normal way.

  Not like Jake’s had been the night before.

  As they headed toward the red hut, which was outside the admin building, she was mainly silent. That came down more to Cindy needing to work out how to make her proposal to the man she needed to see than anything else. There was no reason in the world for him to help them. Not that she could see. She didn’t have money to pass to him, and even if she did, it wouldn’t work in his world.

  Troy’s story filled in that part for her. The trick would be to pay in gold, which transferred as well as anything else across realities. Not that she had that either.

  The trip through the box was interesting to her, having never done it before. Troy touched the front of it, causing the thing to open, as if there was a magical door in place that vanished with a thought. Then he tugged her in, touching her arm gently, and made the thing close behind them. After that he took her arm again, on the left hand side, over the elbow.

  “You don’t have to do anything here. We’re inside of a node point already, which is cool. Here we go.” He did something.

  There was simply no way for her mind to track it all, though she could read from the man next to her that it had happened. The page had blurred for a moment as it took place. It was a shifting thing that
made it illegible as it floated in space over him. Then he touched the wall again. There was a small glowing thing that reminded her of an asterisk more than anything else, which is what he touched.

  Then the wall opened again, showing that they simply weren’t in the same place they started from. The world around them was mainly white stone, with large green light fixtures on the vaulted ceilings. Those looked a lot like emeralds to her. Huge ones that were nearly the size of her head. The people that walked by were in very different styles of clothing as well. A lot of it was dark, being brown or black, but a few were decorated in very bright colors. Stripes and patterns that looked vaguely African to her eye. The scent was of… Baked goods.

  Troy, for all that he’d been there before, clearly didn’t have a clue as to how to find anyone in particular. Cindy didn’t either, really, but the words over the heads of those that passed them were in English to her, which meant that with a bit of time and some guess work, she might well be able to find the right man.

  Looking at the slightly dark tan man with her, she winked.

  “Let’s go into the shop here? We can pantomime and ask for directions. It might not work, but it could, right?”

  Troy shrugged, but smiled.

  “This is your show. I’m just the transportation. That sounds good to me though? I wonder what kind of shop it is?” The answer to that, was weird.

  There were small bits of jewelry stacked neatly on shelves made of white glossy stone. A lot, but not all, of the things glowed on the front with different patterns on them. Off to the right, behind a low counter, a woman sat on a high stool, smiling at them.

  “Hela! Vat kin I halp vis wa?”

  It was interesting, since the lady she couldn’t understand was familiar to her. Marcia Turner to be exact.

  Next to her, Troy grinned.

  “Kate?”

  Whatever else the woman behind the counter was, she wasn’t stupid. In fact she understood that the small man in front of her was familiar to her, and that she was being called by the wrong name.

  “Na. Patricia Baker.” She slapped the front of her black clothing, which had an unusual style to it, and smiled at him. Then she waited, expectantly.