by P. S. Power
Next to that there was a regular gate, for people to use. It had a latch and a lock, but it wasn’t engaged at all. Kerry had been about to use her witch powers on it, when he just opened the thing. You always tried a lock first, after all. Even in a secured facility. Nothing was as annoying as spending ten minutes picking a lock, only to find that you had to do it again.
“This is not the most secure facility ever. Then, I bet most people don’t want to steal from them all that much. Pretty much just me.” He was still feeling all right, even though Denis had stopped looking at him.
Brian nodded, then glanced at everyone there.
“Kerry, can you take Tabby? Richard… Why don’t you take lead on this? Then Denis and Kerry. They’re famous and known for cooking. This is food related. I’ll stand in the back?”
That didn’t really make sense, given that he, Howard, was the youngest looking person in the group. Small, which possibly meant harmless, except he was dressed in IPB gear. A man, which lent to the credibility of him being in charge, but really, Denis was probably the one that should have taken the lead, being the oldest looking one there.
Brian was the one in charge though. It was so clear, that he actually felt confused.
“Sure, I can do that. Why, if I might ask?” He was trying to sound polite, but got that he wasn’t nailing how he needed to seem for being as young as he looked.
The Asian looking guy, seeming a bit hard, smiled. It was a little bitter.
“I’m Proxy. It’s my code name. If they see me first thing, they might freak out. You look friendly enough. A little goofy with the running shoes, but in a good way. It might be easier for them to relate to you, than the famous people.”
“Oh. All right then.” It was interesting to find out, but fit what information he had. At least about Brian. Katie had told him flat out that he was an incredible fighter. You didn’t get a reputation for that without doing it, so people might actually know who he was. “Let’s go pound on a door? Follow my lead. Um… Smile.” He looked at the others as they tried.
Kerry seemed almost soft when she did it. She was built well for a girl. Muscular, and a little thick, but with real enough curves to look about right. Not way too skinny, like the current trend had women being. Denis seemed like a military guy, who was faking a smile, but that kind of worked.
The last man…
“Brian… Can you look a bit less like someone is stabbing you in a kidney? If I opened a door and saw that face, I’d shut it, in a hurry.” It probably wasn’t really true, but the guy closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then tried again.
It was better. Almost like he was just happy.
“Nice. Use that one from now on? Let’s see if anyone will come to the door. It might take a bit. This place is huge.” He pounded on the metal door, using the bottom of his right fist.
His move was loud and booming, even though he didn’t keep it up forever. You knocked four times, if you had a large place. Then you waited a minute and did it again.
After three attempts to get attention, the thin man with the clipboard opened up for them. He seemed a little concerned. Then, they weren’t expected at all. Only Proxy was.
“May I help you?” He seemed intimidated by the people arrayed there, but focused on Tabitha. After all, no one all that bad would bring a cat.
Howard smiled a little larger.
“I bet you can. IPB. We heard that you were having a transport problem? We brought our teleporter to move some goods for you? Private contractors… am I right?” He tried to make it seem like he was being the man’s new buddy, ready to back it up with a hardy handshake, if he needed to sell the whole thing.
Instead of turning into a pain in the behind, because things had changed, the man actually relaxed and grinned.
“This way? You aren’t wrong. About the contractors. It’s not our normal group, so we ended up being stuck. We won’t be using them in the future, but they bailed on us, part way through. We have six deliveries that need to go out, that we can’t move at all. No drivers, no trucks… You get the idea. We are not happy right now. We have people in need, suffering, over this. You need seventeen?”
As they were let in, being taken to the the right load with only a little walking, Brian moved up a bit.
“That and a map. I can’t take things into a direct flood zone. I mean, I need to land on dry land, more or less. A few inches of water is doable, but it’s kind of uncomfortable to land in things chest deep.”
Instead of acting baffled, or like he didn’t get what the offer on the table was, the man just nodded. Then he teared up a little bit.
“Perfect. We can do that. Let me… Sally! Get the trip map! We’ve got delivery.”
Brian saw the tag on the first small mountain of things, and waved at it, then touched it gently.
“This is big. Let me…” It took a bit. Longer than he’d used before, but the whole thing vanished at once. That had taken him nearly three minutes. After about seven he was back.
“Sorry. I had to find someone to start getting that out to people. Sam and Tank have it now. We have that map?”
It was in the hands of the FEMA leader. Warehouse chief or whatever it was called. Howard took it from the fellow, actually doing it smoothly enough that he started to look around for it, as soon as Brian had asked after the thing. There were numbers written on it, with road instructions on separate pages for each one.
The teleporting fellow did not need that. He did need to go in first, to make certain he wasn’t going to crush himself or the goods with a wave of displaced water.
It took about an hour, all told, but in the end, the problem had been solved.
Howard also had a nice, if slightly used, map.
Chapter six
“I should get off to Katie now, if it’s all right? She mentioned a time limit on the project we have going on.” Part of him wanted to get away from the three people that were with him, of course. They were the government, which meant that they could arrest him for any crimes he committed. Even if they’d been in on the idea of hitting the FEMA warehouse before.
Not that he was paranoid about the idea. These were good people. Clearly the team that Katie was planning to set him up with. They had a good range of abilities and were a solid crew. Clueless, when it came to stealing things or even confidence games. Which was probably his intended place on the team. They didn’t actually need his powers. No, they needed someone that had an idea about what to do. Which, to be fair, he was kind of failing at.
His desire to simply steal was there all the time. It was too much though, making him sloppy and too willing to take stupid risks. That was going to need to be taken care of soon. Before he took on anything too serious. How he was going to handle that, he didn't really know.
When he was younger, when the Infected first showed up, he’d kind of thought of them as being mentally weak, as often as not. It wasn’t all of them, but if you got angry, or sad, you just dealt with it. You didn’t fly off and start attacking people on the street. Part of him wanted, even at the moment, to claim that a stiff upper lip and strong backbone was all that was needed. If he was a real man, he could power through the compulsion and do the right thing. No matter how hard it was.
That, clearly had been him not getting the real picture at all. He was holding on so far, but not totally. He’d taken a worthless map, after all. Worse, the high he’d gotten off of doing it was a real thing. A relief and a rush, both at the same time. It was probably addictive, that feeling. So, in short order he’d be stealing candy bars from quickie marts, just to get his fix. That road led to arrest, in fairly short order.
It was also embarrassing. A weakness. A thing that these people knew about now. That he was less than a normal person, in some fundamental fashion. They were all fine, as far as he could tell. The girl, Kerry, had mentioned that part though. That she’d gotten that piece of her removed.
He snapped his fingers, trying to work out how to steal that
kind of thing for himself.
“Hey… You have a deal to get rid of these modes?” He wasn’t certain that he had the language right, but interestingly, Brian smiled.
“Oh, yeah. We have some people that can do that. Also, a gene therapy. You don’t mind working with people from different realities, do you?” The guy seemed to be joking, but next to him Denis snorted.
“Of course he doesn’t. Yeah. I bet we could get Tim to do that for you, the next time he’s through, at the base. I’m not sure how Marcia will feel about that. Rich isn’t IPB. Timon won’t care. Tam either, I bet. How do we make that work?”
There was a shrug then.
“Can I give you a call, when one of them comes in next? We don’t have a real-time schedule for them. Their world runs at a different speed from ours. They come in once a week or so. Great people. Wizards, if that isn’t stretching your brain too far? It will be easier to get that done than to get the funds from the government for the gene therapy.” Then he wrinkled his nose a bit. After a moment, he nodded. “Or… Den, can I borrow your phone?”
The man dug in his pocket, then handed a small black thing over. Whoever he was getting in touch with, it didn’t take long at all.
Looking up, the Asian man smiled. He nailed the look this time. It wasn’t half insane seeming at all.
“Hey, Marcia. We got the FEMA situation sorted. It turned out not to really be them. A private trucking company freaked and canceled on them, once they learned they’d be near dirty Infected people.” He listened for a bit, then made a small, half amused, noise. “Yeah. We picked up a new person. Trivia hooked us up with him. Infected. He popped about a day ago or so?” The man looked at Kerry, who didn’t even blush about the fact that she’d been telling tales about him. The girl nodded, firmly.”
Then the Asian fellow went on.
“Yeah. So he’s new that way. He can walk into and out of mirrors. It’s handy for getting past doors and things like that. Probably escaping from places as well. Some increased strength and speed, too. Returned youth. He was in an old folks’ home yesterday. Solid guy. Anyway, Kerry recommends that we sign him up. He’s locked on, operationally speaking. If FEMA had been against us, we’d have still taken what was needed. Without being known or anything. His first mode is tough. A compulsion to steal? When he did forward recon and it turned out not to be needed, he fought it though. That let us fix things in a different way. Right now we aren’t even on FEMA’s naughty list. We helped get a lot of supplies moved for them instead.”
What was being said on the other side was too soft to hear, but he got that the woman speaking had a good voice. Smooth and young sounding.
“Yeah? That sounds right. I think it’s the plan. I need to get him to Trivia now. She has something for him to do. Okay. We should be back in… Call it an hour? I want to talk to Brie first.”
There was listening for bit, then a nod.
“On it. I’ll let her know.”
The device was handed back to Denis, smoothly.
“You’re in, Richard. An IPB Operative. Right now you’re working off base, with Trivia. You’ll have to come in and get a physical and all that, but not until the current mission gives you time. Though… We might want to keep you off base, if we can. I don’t know. It’s… That feels right?”
Taking his phone, Denis nodded.
“Your fortune telling act thing again?”
There was a bit of a shrug, as if the man was trying to say he didn't know. It was a bit weak seeming, if probably honest. That was important to know about people. Liars didn’t mesh with a good take down or grift. Not that Howard focused on that kind of thing. It came up though, when you were infiltrating various situations. Better a person that told the truth by far. He could work with uncertainty.
“Yes? Anyway, let’s get that done. One second here. I need Brie’s main house, I think.” He stopped, and looked at Howard then. “Brie is Trivia, who is known to you as Katie. I think that might be her real name. It’s just not what I know her by. Anyway, let’s…”
The world faded a little, and turned a soft blue that kind of flashed in front of his eyes in a blink. A mere moment. It was a little like what happened when he went into, or out of, the mirror world. Except that instead of landing in the dark, they were on the front lawn of a fairly decent looking mansion. It had some size to it. Enough that he had to look up, taking in the golden yellow paint on the outside. At least he would have called it that. It was a lot of bright, sunny color.
“It looks like Katie is doing well for herself.” The words were muttered, but he got that one. The woman knew everything. That part showed when the door open, without them even making any real noise.
“Everyone! Howard!” It was interesting, since they hadn’t been that close the last time they’d met, but the woman nearly tackled him into a hug.
She still looked about the same as he remembered her. Attractive, with a slightly long nose that spoke of her being Jewish, even though she was Italian by ancestry. Her hair was brown still, and a bit longer than it had been back in the nineties. If anything, she was a bit thinner looking, though it was in a fit way, not like she was starving herself for attention. She hadn’t aged at all, still looking like she was about twenty-four or so.
Older than he looked now, he thought.
Still, at one point she’d been about as close to him as anyone ever had been, so she got a hug back.
“Katie girl! Sorry about the delay. We had an issue with some supplies.” He didn’t go into it. After all, she knew already.
That showed on her face, as a slightly loopy grin. It was silly. As if she thought the whole thing was funny.
“I know. Come in, everyone. Nice to see you again, Brian. Denis and Kerry… We’ve met, but you probably didn’t get who I was at the time. It was back before the thing with Braid and the others?” She looked at him, then nodded.
There was a pat or two for Tabitha, though she didn’t talk to her directly. That made sense, given that the cat wasn’t all that chatty. There was no need to put her on the spot, after all. Polite people tried to be aware of things like that.
Kate was in a loose white button up blouse. It had sleeves on it, but those were short, being around her elbows. Her trousers were blue, and her shoes were the slip-on kind. In all, she looked ready for a weekend at the beach. Given the sounds of waves in the background, that seemed about right to him. It was cooler here than it had been in the storm zone, though it was drier. The place was nicely green and a stiff breeze carried the scent of salt and rot to his nose.
There were other houses, not too far away. A rich neighborhood. Up on a hill. The kind that would have a lot of nice things to steal.
It was hard not to eyeball his friend’s place for things to pack away with him. Only a jerk stole from his own people. Worse, Katie would know that he’d done it as soon as she saw something was missing. Her brain wouldn’t be going over one of the others doing it first, or anything.
Glancing at him, she winked.
“Possibly Denis? Not that he’s bad that way.”
They didn’t cover that part, which probably annoyed the man. It didn't show at all, if that was the case. Howard smiled at him.
“I was just thinking that if something went missing here, she wouldn’t even think it was one of you three first. Which doesn’t mean that my suitcase won’t have all her towels in it when I leave.” He looked over at his old friend, and teased. That was a thing for them, or had been, a long time before. They’d even gone in for some real jokes. It had been fun. “Oh, Kate… Remind me to borrow a suitcase from you, before I get out of here?”
That got a chuckle, at least.
“We have a bit of time, but not long. The target is in NYC. It’s high profile. As you figured out, this is the team I want for it. Brian on transport, Kerry on physical backup. You on the actual heist and Denis on emotional support, as well as influencing people if it’s needed to make things work.”
Brian gl
anced at her and made a face.
“We have a mission here? I thought that it was just Richard. Would you… I don’t know, like to update us? Not everyone knows everything all the time, after all.” There was a small smirk on his face, which indicated he was flirting, if only a bit.
For her part, Katie preened under the attention. The body language was kind of clear to Howard. If he’d been a younger man, he probably would have been jealous of the interplay. Not that relationships were ever his thing in life. Even now, after getting what looked like a second chance at being a person, he couldn’t see himself going in that direction in particular.
It just wasn’t his thing and never had been.
Which had worked out pretty well for him, truth be told. Oh, a lot of people in the home had gone on about being alone, but most of them had lost their spouses about twenty years before. They’d still ended up in the same place he’d been. Sure, some of them got the occasional pity visit from their grandkids. Normally once or twice a year, as the tykes stood at the side of the room acting like they wanted to be anywhere else instead of watching granpy and nana slowly fade from the world.
Some of them barely had more attention than he’d managed, even with no one in the world caring at all that he’d been laying there dying. It had been better that way. Sad and lonely, at the end, but before that he’d lived the life that he’d wanted to.
Which didn’t mean he couldn’t do it differently, with another go at things.
He had a cat already, so things were looking up that way. Interestingly, Tabby meowed then. It fit, but was a bit too close in time to being just right.
Kate brushed at her hair, which had a bit of curl to it and waved for them to follow along. Into her very well-appointed home. It was huge, and had enough white marble to leave mausoleums feeling a little outclassed. The rest was hit with highlights of gold. The metallic kind, not just yellow or an off-orange color. When they got to the next room, it was totally different, if still nice. A darker aspect filled the room, which had windows that overlooked the ocean, as well as a small town. It wasn’t the most stunning view in the world, not being directly on the beach. Given how much it had to have cost anyway, that was probably done on purpose.