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

by P. S. Power

  On the way to her room, which would let her get in early enough to take a second shower that day, she was met with Bridget. The kid looked at her hand and actually just nodded.

  “Hot date?”

  “Jake? Apparently I’m his wife in a different reality, so he’s coming over for a pseudo-marriage bed visit. Apparently other me is really cool that way. Still, safe sex and all that.” She waved the prophylactics again, getting a nod in return.

  “He’s really nice. I should get with him too, and see if he wants to hook up. I’m kind of at loose ends right now. You know, no one wants anyone killed, so it’s all training for me at the mo.” She made it seem casual, at least.

  Cindy snapped her fingers and pointed at the kid.

  “Nope. Not even. Marcia wants you on finding a missing nuke with me. In case you’re wondering, you’re going to be learning to find your inner psychic. You have the power, so you need to learn how to use it. Besides… You heard about Lauren?” That part could be a little bit dangerous.

  Bridget had ripped the arm off of the large woman not two months before. She might manage more than that with the more human version.

  “No. What happened?” She just seemed to be a bit curious, rather than mad. Internally… Well, she was still a little bit upset. That hadn’t left totally. Still, it wasn’t the rage that had come out before.

  “I went to a different reality and got the guy that did the work on Tibs to come here and do Tobin and her as well. Change them? Tobin is… Actually kind of hot, to be honest. Small still, but he’s going to grow, over the next few years. To something over six feet. Lauren was always a shape changer, but had a mental block and was stuck in her armored form. Tim Baker got rid of that for her, and her first mode. So, she’s working with me. I know that you’ve been upset with her, but this might be a good time to make a fresh start?”

  Cindy held her breath, waiting for the girl to freak out, at least internally. Instead there was a page that said meditation on it, in deep black ink.

  “I… Can let things go. She apologized. Almost every day that she’s been locked up. I don’t know if that’s real or not, but we can’t really go around always assuming the worst of people, can we? Or, we can, but that’s what people have been doing to me. They have a single problem with me, and think that means I’m evil all the time. I could be bad, so I always have to be. Only that isn’t true. It might be the same for her. So… I’ll just try to be happy for her. Is she good looking?”

  Cindy shrugged.

  “A little toothy? Her gums show when she smiles, and her face is a bit long. Not bad though. Huge rack.” She held her hands out to demonstrate, not even exaggerating. “I’m a bit jealous really. I bet they get in the way when she runs though. We’ll see in the morning, since she’s going to be out with us for training. Is that good with you? I can call her off if it isn’t.”

  The kid brushed at her rust red hair, and took a deep breath.

  “Nah. It’s fine. I’ll live. I won’t even kill her. I promise. If that needs to be done, I’ll let you do it?”

  It seemed like the right thing to do, even if they were plotting death, so Cin nodded.

  “Deal.”

  Cutely, a tiny hand came out to shake on it, as if that would be binding. It wouldn’t. They both knew that on some level. If Lauren needed to be killed, Bridget probably would have to do it herself. Unless she actually tried to betray them all again. The thing there was that Cindy wasn’t going to be able to pull it off. The woman was, functionally, immortal. Even in her human form. The only way past that would be to catch her in human form, and kill her so fast that she couldn’t change into her large, armored shape. It probably couldn’t be done with something as simple as a sniper rifle, and bringing a tank in wouldn’t work either.

  Now, if they had a nuke, and used it at just off point blank range, then almost no one would be able to survive it. Oddly enough, soft and fleshy Brian, or maybe even Sinclair, would be the best bet for living through that kind of thing. By teleporting away.

  As long as they didn’t let themselves be drugged first. That had been Sinclair’s big mistake. Trusting other people. The wrong ones, at any rate.

  If she would have stuck with the IPB, or even just quit, now that the major threat from Braid and her war had passed, she would have been fine. At worst she would have had to go on the run, teleporting away from the real danger. Not that Cindy couldn’t see what the girl had probably been thinking would happen if she tried that. To her mind, Proxy would have come for her. Killing her for daring to have her own life. That data was right there in the blonde girl’s book when Cin checked it. That the dangerous man would have been sent out after her, and being brainwashed like he was, poor Brian would have taken her out without having a choice in the matter.

  Given that Sinclair had actually met the man, and had to also know that he wasn’t like that at all, it showed a bit of delusional thinking. Proxy killed murderers. Not people that tried to find a new job. Most of the push to allow people to legally leave the IPB had been his work, if behind the scenes. Sinclair should have gone to him and just asked about it, instead of throwing in with the enemy, to take them all down like she had.

  “Well, spilt milk.” She muttered the words out loud, which got Bridget to make a face at her.

  “What? You mean that I shouldn’t cry over things that have already happened?” The redheaded elflike girl glared up at Cindy with eyes that were nearly red. Instead of brown, like they should have been.

  She didn’t particularly need her arms and legs broken that day, so Cin shook her head.

  “Sorry, I got lost in thought. I meant Sinclair, and the fact that she could have just left, which is what she really wanted. Instead she got complicated and ended up being raped a few dozen times. It was her fault though, for being an idiot.” She was about to clarify that she didn’t mean that she deserved to be repeatedly raped for it, but before she could, Bridget started nodding.

  “I hate traitors. I mean that one, too. I actually get mad and want to hurt them for it. Not that I don’t sort of get what she was doing.” Looking away she shook her head just enough to be visible. “When I first captured her and her friends, I kind of conscripted them. It was in battle, and the rest of the people here had gone into hiding. I needed an army, so I kind of built one, by force. Really though, I never thought about it, after that. They mainly did their part, so as far as I’m concerned they could all walk now. Marcia though… She kind of thinks that everyone will leave, if they see it taking place with anyone else.”

  A thing that made some sense, if you were good looking, and could just slip on a dress and heels and get work as a stripper in any city you found yourself in. Ms. Turner could pull that off, if she wanted, without even trying that hard. Even if she didn’t want to go that seedy, she could get a normal job and work like everyone else did.

  The thing there was that a lot of them couldn’t pull that off. Cindy could, and had, for a long time. In fact, she could do it again at that moment if she wanted. Better now, since her old hobby of killing people wasn’t a thing for her anymore. Without a first mode, Infected people that looked like her were pretty much free. As long as they didn’t have a string of deaths that people knew about, lingering behind them.

  With some help from Tim Baker the rest of them might be able to do that soon as well. Tobin would need to wait a few years, but looking like a tiny Hispanic man wasn’t exactly the same as looking like a frog. His mode was gone as well, which had transformed him from a powerful, but socially crippled person, into one that just had power.

  Lauren was in the same boat, but didn’t have to wait.

  They really could leave and make a life for themselves elsewhere now. That meant the IPB needed to make the deal sweeter for them. Either pay them a lot more, or work things around so that the public respected them for doing the job. It didn’t have to be perfect, but if they got the same respect as the FBI or DHS over all, then a lot of the Operatives wo
uld probably want to stick around.

  Currently, the job simply wasn’t a thing that anyone in particular could be proud of. Being an Operative basically meant you were a government slave. Which was why Sinclair had freaked out and Phoebe had gone with her friend. Everyone kind of knew that part of things, if they bothered to think about it at all.

  Sticking her tongue out a bit, Cindy crossed her eyes, trying to seem silly.

  “I know that I’d be on the next bus out, if I had the chance. I don’t really. Not now. So, I need to get out of here, and go get lucky with some other woman’s husband. Meet me out front at six?” They did that most days, more or less, so it wasn’t exactly hard for the kid to figure out where and when.

  “Sure. I’ll want details about the date. No fair going silent and acting like I’m a little kid. I need the pointers for when I get together with Will.”

  The details of that flashed up, and Bridget was pleased enough for it to be happening. She had a real date. To go to an actual movie, in town. Like a real person. Her biggest fear there was how dangerous being around her might be for the regular human guy.

  Cin screwed her face up, closing one eye, trying to be a bit more animated.

  “Good. I’ll keep that in mind, but if we get too freaky, you just get the Cliff’s Notes on it.”

  She took off then, since there really was a date to be had.

  That went well enough. Jake actually showed up, and didn’t require her to talk to him for three hours before they actually did anything. The event itself took a bit of time, since the man was actually good. As in, she had to cheat a lot, reading hints and tips as she went to match his skill level. Even there she was a bit too stiff really. Not that he had a problem with it.

  To him it was simply that she was very young, and a little inexperienced. It left her happy that her power had bailed her out, since what he would have gotten without it was about a tenth of what she managed to pull off. Part of what she’d done involved reading what he wanted directly, on a subconscious level, and doing that. Thankfully Jake was only about three times kinkier than most people on a first date, so she didn’t reach the point where she had to refuse to do anything. It was kind of close however, at a couple of points.

  On the good side, she was in bed by eleven, and while a bit tired from the exertion, she felt decently good about herself. Not for helping him cheat, though he really was right on that score. Colleen, his wife, would have just hopped into bed with them if she’d been there. If Cin wasn’t into that, then she would have smiled happily as she sent them off together. Again, a lot of that had to do with both Jake and his significant other being over a hundred years old, and popular enough to have a lot of friends as well as trusting each other totally.

  Plus, that bitch was in a different reality, and the odds that they’d ever meet were pretty slim. It wasn’t impossible, of course. Not with people coming in that had the ability to take them from place to place.

  After getting cleaned up and changed, she slipped into bed and managed to sleep for six and a half whole hours before having to force herself awake for the day. That meant she was out front at just before six however, and unlike the day before, the rest of the meditation crew bothered to show up. Hobbs looked at them all, his face beaming. It didn’t reflect what was going on inside, since he was actually a little miserable. The woman that he liked, Elizabeth, had gently informed him that she wasn’t going to be allowed to see him any longer. Not that they were dating. She was a powerful healer in her world, and Hobbs was, after a fashion, their most notorious super-villain.

  In a way he’d been broken up with, and hadn’t even gotten a real date out of the deal. It sucked, and while he was ignoring most of the pain from it, consciously, his inner self was still reeling a little bit. Worse, someone had placed new people in his class, without asking him if it was within his ability to manage. He would have said yes, and it was, but it was annoying. That day at least.

  Hobbs knew all of that about himself, so tamped down the ember of rage that wanted to come out. In fact he did it so fast that only the lingering words over his head let Cin know about it at all. She waved a hand at the woman next to her.

  “Introductions are in order. This is Lauren. From Team Two? It turns out that she’s a shape shifter, with two forms. The big one that looks like a tank, and this one. We had a specialist in from a different reality. Tobin down there is… Well, the same guy that has been here the whole time. This is just his real face. The one he was born with? I was put in charge of Lauren though, now that she’s out of the brig. By Ms. Turner?” That was close to the right thing to say, since Hobbs was big on following what his Liege Lady, the Director of the IPB, told him to do.

  “Ah!” The man smiled even larger, and actually meant it this time. “What a wonder! It is good to see that you’re not letting the new situation prevent you from paying mind to daily exercises. Now, please place your attention on the feeling of the letter ‘B’. Not it’s form, scent or color. Just the feeling of it. Hold to that as we run.”

  The man didn’t push them too hard after that. They ran quickly, but stopped about forty minutes later. Then they had to practice fighting, which took longer, but by nine they were all ready to get to work. The only real trouble was that it was very clear, as soon as Bridget and Lauren were standing in her office, pulling chairs around, that neither of them wanted to be there.

  Bridget still kind of wanted to murder Lauren, even as she was honestly happy for the woman. Lauren, for her part, kind of wanted to go find Denis, and have sex with him. She’d wanted to do that for a long time, and now she could, so it made sense for her to see about getting that done.

  Cindy just cleared her throat.

  “Ahem. All right, we’re missing a nuclear weapon. We know the last location for it, but that trail ended. It means that someone in the chain of data gave away that we were going after the hidden nukes, which means we have a leak. Also, that the leak, or the group we’re going up against, isn’t all powerful.”

  Bridget worked that out, and understood what she was saying, but Lauren seemed puzzled. Not about there being nuclear weapons, but the things about the leak. Even if it were new data, she kind of expected people to try and kill them with bombs like that, so it made sense on some level to her.

  “How do you mean? They were connected enough to get weapons in the first place, right? Do we know where those came from, anyway?”

  That was a good question, and when Cindy searched, she was able to link from Marcia to a man in the Department of Defense, who had traced them all back to France.

  Cin took a moment, but answered fast enough that no one thought she was truly at a loss for words.

  “French fissionable materials were used. From the pre-takeover days. The housings and hardware were new however. Also made from things that could be found at a Home Depot, though they looked pretty sharp. It could be the French behind this, but given that there are clear links to people that want you gone or controlled, Bridget, I have to think that it’s a bit of misdirection. We’ll look into that anyway, since we can’t afford to be wrong here.” She sounded almost in charge, if only to her own ears. Lauren yawned a bit, and didn’t realize that she’d failed to cover her mouth with her hand. Her armored form didn’t yawn at all, so it hadn’t been a thing the woman had kept up on.

  Interestingly, her hair was done well enough, and hanging down, having been neatly styled. It was long and had just enough curl in it to look good, while not being permed. Her teeth were really white and straight too, though they looked big, somehow.

  Not outside of what you might notice in a regular woman however.

  None of that was important. She needed to keep Lauren from betraying them again. The rest was all about Bridget that day. To that end, Cindy looked into the girl’s story, and found the index page that led to the specific psychically perceived information she held.

  There wasn’t a lot there at the moment. Mainly covering that she wasn’t going to
kill Lauren that day.

  Keeping that page up and focusing on it, Cindy tried something new.

  “All right. Bridget, I need you to find where the nuclear weapon will be in six hours. Then, find the name of the person that is going to be closest to it.” She didn’t really know if it was going to work, but after a moment reams of data started to flicker in and out of existence on the page over the girl’s head.

  Too much data to be useful, or even be seen.

  Cindy smiled.

  “The missing nuclear device, the one missed when they tried to pick them all up the other day.” That clarification didn’t help at all. So thinking for a bit as Lauren looked puzzled, watching her like it was a television program, Cin tried again.

  “Find the nuclear device that we’re going to send the government team for, later today?”

  That got a single, firm answer.

  Looking at the page and ignoring the twitching tiny woman under it, Cindy nodded.

  “Toledo, Ohio. All right, now, who will be closest to it when we go in to find it?”

  That was an older lady, named Agnes Miller. At first it seemed like she was simply living in the neighboring apartment, when Cin read her data, but after poking around for a while, she found out that old Agnes was actually a copy of herself. The real woman was in a box, in an underground location. The one that was right there was a different person, on a deep level. Once Cin cracked that part, she was able to get a lot of information from her.

  Including the fact that the nuclear device wasn’t there yet. Also, that Debbie, the woman that had taken Agnes’s place, didn’t know that anything like that would be coming.

  “What are the odds of that?” She spoke the words to the room, and then had to go over it all out loud. Lauren, lazy or not, grabbed a pad and started writing everything down for them.

  After they had the basics down, Cindy stood up, went around her desk and started shouting.

  “Marcia! Marcia!”