by P. S. Power
Which was why Katie had known to look for him to become Infected like he had. Which didn’t excuse her not sending the occasional card, now that he thought about it. At least at Christmas. There was probably a reason for that, like he’d gotten pretty boring in the last decades of his life.
“Sounds rough. So, do you like being in this IPB? It sounds like they’re trying to get me involved in it.” Which he couldn’t love. After all, they were literally the feds.
Instead of doing a little song and dance number for him, there was a bit of a goofy look on the lightly freckled face next to him.
“Do I like it? It’s a job. When I joined up you either hid being Infected or were put into it, if you were over a class three. I’m higher than that, so didn’t get a choice. It’s… I guess it’s okay? They feed me and I have a place to stay. My boyfriend is there and I get to be on a television program. It isn’t the same life that most people have. It’s kind of like being in the military, only with super powers. I can’t recommend it, if you get a choice. Which… I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you kind of do, now. Any of us can leave. I mean, if I did that, I’d be off Steinburg and Friends, and probably lose Tobin. At least I don’t know if he’d go with me. He’s a singer. Really famous for it. That… It’s not like the cooking show, where it’s tied to being at the base. We could do it. I just… I’m eventually going to lose him.”
The words were bland sounding. Hiding pain in them.
“Not that he doesn’t love me. He really does, I think. I love him too, except… I kind of don’t. I mean, he’s really great and I don’t want to lose him, but I’m so damaged that he’ll eventually have to leave me. Worse, he started out kind of funny looking and got some work done. Now he’s… Kind of hot. Like a real star would be? There’s a world full of groupies and women that would love to take him away from me. I’m still just me though. Boring and a little plain.”
That wasn’t true, as far as he could tell.
“Hm. Well, if he can get work done, why don’t you do the same thing? Not just to keep some guy. You’re cute, but if that isn’t enough for you, and you get an option, then why not look into it? We can always steal enough money to pay for it, if we have to.”
Instead of crying or getting worked up, there was a gentle, slightly breathless, laugh.
“It doesn’t work that way. The people that did the work… They come from a different reality. We don’t have anything they need. They can make gold and gems out of rocks. That isn’t a joke, either. They can throw dirt into a machine and make anything they want. I saw it.” She paused then, and shrugged. “On the Moon, in their reality. They have a colony there. It’s an incredible place. Now, if I could get back there again, someone might help me out with some work like that. They give everything there away for free.”
It sounded good to Howard.
“So, we hook that up and that will do part of what you need. You may still lose the guy, but he sounds fine enough to me, really. Not that we’ve met or anything. Toby, you said his name was?” That wasn’t it, but getting the man’s name wrong would show that he wasn’t overly worried about the competition.
“Tobin. Yeah. I should try to do that. I bet… Well, Cindy… She has a lot of pull in that world. They love her there. The only problem is that she’s kind of evil. She made me kill a bunch of people once. It was for work, but still… We don’t get along that well. Mainly because I kind of hate her.”
The sound of the surf faded a bit, though when they got to the bottom of the fairly steep hill back to Kate’s house, Kerry just kept going. Not even slowing down. They’d walked down the thing in the first place, but were clearly running back up it.
They didn't talk, until they got to the top of the thing.
“So…” He had to catch his breath, but spoke anyway, since he didn't want to have the conversation inside with the others. Just in case his ideas were too harsh for them. Too manipulative. “This Cindy owes you a favor. You need to get with her and get the hook up with these other people. She may not help, but generally speaking, combat buddies aren’t bastards when it comes to things like that. She’s a gal, so it may work differently, but the worst she can do is tell you no.”
Unless she could fire lasers out of her eyes or something. Then the worst might be different than a mild refusal.
Kerry nodded at him, her face glowing with perspiration.
“I guess I should. I’m not very good at things like that. It’s how I was raised. You were never supposed to ask for anything. If God wanted you to have it, it would come to you. It’s hard, now.”
He just nodded. Part of him wanted to tell her to stand on her own feet, but the rest got the basic idea. Getting hooked up for magical work like that was probably a big deal. Then so was killing people. It had to pretty much balance out.
“Do the hard things first. Don’t wait or let them rest for too long. If you can’t do it one way, then find another, right?”
“I guess.” She seemed a bit tense, probably because he was acting like her grandfather, instead of someone doing a job with her.
That had to stop, of course.
“We need to meet out back for some practice. We have the basics of your part in this, so after dark? In the back yard. At least there’s a good fence and a hill behind us. That will make it harder to track what we’re doing. I need to collect some things.” To eat as well, even if he didn't feel that hungry at the moment. He also needed to shower, since being clean was just a good thing to have going on, if you got a choice in the matter.
Kerry stopped moving for a bit, then went a little wide eyed.
“Right. I’d actually forgotten about that part. Well, one of the good things about being in the IPB is that you can’t be prosecuted for anything. Except murder. Even that is normally brushed under the rug. You can be thrown into the brig, but that’s saved for big things. Conspiracy and child rape. We pretty much can’t be arrested or tried for theft though.”
That was news to him.
“Really? Are you sure about that?”
She nodded at him, her head moving a lot, as if she really meant the whole thing.
“Yep! I mean, you might end up beaten by Team Two if you take too much of their stuff, but legally you aren’t subject to official arrest over it. Being that it’s your first mode, you can’t really even be punished for anything related that way. Which doesn’t mean the things wouldn’t be taken away and given back. Just that you can’t be prosecuted for it. Basically, it’s that we’ve been hated for so long that before that rule was put in officially, the cops would try to arrest IPB Operatives every time they could, so they couldn’t get their jobs done. That led to enough deaths, of police, that it was changed a while back. Twenty odd years or so?”
Stretching a little bit, leaning over to touch his toes, allowed Howard to lay his body flat along his legs with only a little pulling. Even that didn’t hurt or strain too much.
“Okay, I was never this flexible before. I’m guessing it’s a cat thing?”
Kerry didn’t seem to know what to say on that score, so just grinned. It really was kind of cute. Even if she seemed a little down on herself. Then, there was nothing wrong with a person seeking to improve their lot in life. He’d always done that by taking things. Maybe she needed to do something different than that, in order to find happiness. It was the kind of thing that he could get behind.
They both walked in then, since there were some real things to do. They left each other at the door. A shower was the first thing he needed, as well as his other clothing. That… Well, they were second hand and made him seem a bit poor, really. His idea of proper attire involved button up shirts and jackets, in the main. Blue jeans and t-shirts were the realm of hippies and yippies as far as he was concerned. Except that dressing like it was nineteen-seventy-three and he was in his fifties wasn’t going to fit in any longer. Then leisure suits had never been all that great, anyway.
That meant trying to work out what a wel
l-dressed young man would be wearing. Soon. Not yet though, since he had a real job to get through first. It was a bit more exciting than he would have figured on it being. That was his new feelings coming into play, of course.
Plus, the truth was he only had one outfit with him, other than the borrowed exercise clothing that Katie had lent him. He folded those up carefully, and hung it to dry in the bathroom. After all, he could get a few uses out of it before he needed to wash them, he thought. Possibly not, if the exercise was harder from then on out. The short jog up and down the beach, for all it had hurt in a few places, left him feeling fine. Alive and clear, as far as his lungs went.
Putting his other clothing on, things put back earlier by Kerry, he headed out into the house, ready to lift whatever it was that he needed from his hostess. Except that, as hard as it was to resist, it was always foolish to steal things that people would gladly give. Instead of doing that, or even stealing and trying to pretend he was just borrowing, he listened to the house for a bit, then followed the feeling of Tabby, since she might know where Kate was.
Which kind of worked. The end of the line did lead him to his new feline pal. In the same room with her was Brian, though Denis and Katie weren’t around at all. It was the planning room they’d used earlier, with the large table in it.
“Mr. Yi. How are things working out? There was a plan?”
The man, looking up from the folding computer he was using, tapped the table a few times with a single finger.
“No word yet. Brie went to help talk Den through the contact he needs to make. It’s hard. I mean, I doubt I could do it. How did the run go?”
It was weird, but the man actually seemed interested in that part. Like it was important.
“My endurance is better than I would have figured. We didn’t sprint at all, but I was able to keep up. Given that it’s been, well, longer than you’ve been alive, since the last time I tried running like that… Not bad. My feet hurt a bit. I think my right ankle is going to be sore in the morning. It kind of is right now, already. Other than that, I’m good. Kerry didn’t mention having any trouble with it at all. We chatted about things. Her childhood and the IPB.” He snapped his fingers then, as if he’d forgotten something. “Right. She mentioned wanting to get with… I think it was Cindy? About getting some work done in a different world? That’s the same girl Denis is trying to get in touch with? Can we put in for that, do you think? I don’t know how it works, but she seems to think that this other gal might not be too favorably disposed toward her for some reason. Something about a mission they were on once?”
He knew more than that about it, but not a lot. That killing people, plural, might be a secret, just made sense to him. Rather than point that out, Brian just nodded and stood up.
“I have no clue how we do that. Let me… Let’s go and see what’s going on? Then you can try to get with Cindy and talk to her about it? You’ll know that’s working when you can see words in front of your eyes. You can’t miss it, if it happens. Shall we go and see if anything is moving there at all?”
Howard didn’t laugh, but did manage a charming enough smile.
“So, you want to check on them, but need a reason?”
That got a chuckle in return, and a rather dark grin.
“Exactly. You know, I think we’re going to work together just fine, Richard.”
Howard didn’t know if that was going to happen, but so far it was running smoother than he would have thought. After all, new teams always had growing pains. It was one of the reasons that he tried to work with others as seldom as possible.
Chapter nine
Getting things done with his new IPB pals was a lot different than working with regular people would have been. All of them assured him, several times, that they would be watched on the base and possibly off of it. At least if the rest of the government, the C.I.A. and especially N.S.A could figure out what they were doing.
Sure, Howard had always assumed that people were going to want to see what he was getting up to in life, but the paranoia of these people was incredible, compared to that.
Katie winked at him, as he watched Denis. The man was sitting with his eyes closed, projecting a mild sense of being ill.
“The hope is, I think, that Cindy will work out what is going on and read him. Then they can communicate. Her power will allow for that. The trick is getting her attention.”
“Oh. I don’t know that will work. I mean, I just feel like I’m going to get sick. There isn’t any idea to go with it that it’s coming from you. It’s just… Waves, of illness, I guess?” It was hard to describe, but standing next to him, Brian nodded.
“I’m getting pretty much the same thing. If I felt this without any clues I’d probably think that I had food poisoning, not that Den wanted my attention. Especially at a distance, since so far no one knows that you can do that.”
There was a grunt from the slightly sweaty man, who was sitting in his IPB uniform still. One eye popped open and his face was a bit upset seeming. Annoyed, not angry.
“No shit? Since I don’t know that I can do this, that makes sense, doesn’t it? My range has always been line of sight. I look at people and put feelings out at them. Sure, that’s anything I want, but I still have to see them.”
Howard shook his head slowly. The feeling of being ill went away as the man glared a bit at Yi.
“I was getting that though. Just now. With you having both eyes closed. So that part isn’t true, right? You can project without looking at a person at all. So it makes sense that you can target a specific person like that at a distance. This Cindy woman. It’s only how you’re doing it that’s a problem. Can you… I mean, you can make me feel sick. What else counts as a feeling for you?”
That got the man to open both eyes and orient on Howard. To his credit, the stink eye he was giving Brian faded when he focused on the new man.
“Um…” He looked at the others and then shrugged. “Really, it’s anything. I mean, I can make people so tired that they fall asleep in a few seconds. Or feel like they’re about to wet themselves or need to hurl. Eh…” He was clearly thinking then, as if it were hard to do. The man seemed bright enough, so it was probably something else going on, rather than just being too stupid to work out what was needed at the moment. “I can also make people pay attention to what I’m saying, specifically. Even get them to feel like they believe it. Emotions are pretty easy as well. Feeling bored or homesick. I use that at riots a lot. People just go home, normally.”
To Howard those things sounded really specific. Enough so that things shouldn’t be a problem at all for the man, if he could reach as far away as the woman he wanted.
“So, instead of making her feel like she needs a sick day, why not just make her feel like she wants to focus on you? I mean, really hard. That should get the job done, right?” There could be problems with that, but Kate looked away, hiding a smirk and Brian did something similar, like they’d known the answer all along and hadn’t told their crew member for some reason.
That kind of thing had to stop, if it was the case. As long as it was needed for the job, they had to back each other up. If anyone pulled tricks like that, or even acted superior too often, then it tended to get people to freak out and either pull out at the last minute, angry with how they were being treated, or to set you up to take a fall. A thing that Katie at least, had to know. Not just because of her powers, either.
He’d taught her that, if several decades before.
Rather than ride people right then and there, he held his tongue, since Denis just closed his eyes.
“That sounds better! I just couldn’t come up with anything. I don’t have a lot of imagination. Kind of beaten out of me as a kid. For real… So… Let me see here…”
That part worked, at least for Howard. There was a sudden and very powerful, urge, for him to read Denis Tompkins’s mind. Since no one had told him the fellow’s last name, he had to figure it was being broadcast at him pretty forcef
ully.
Shrugging, he looked at the man, who was breathing hard and had his eyes closed.
“Can you focus on this Cindy a bit more? We shouldn’t be getting that feeling here, should we?” The fact was that he didn't really know the answer, even if Brian kind of nodded. It was a half thing. Tentative, as if he didn’t really have an answer for that either.
The sense of him wanting to suddenly develop telepathy diminished a lot then, as something at least took place. It still took a minute for words to pop up in front of his eyes. Those were all in deep red, but looked solid and real. Like they were floating in the air in front of him.
~Cindy put words behind Howard’s eyes, getting him to make a soft noise. Then explain what he was seeing.~
“Hmm.” He stopped then and grinned, since it had been right there in the words he was looking at. Making a soft noise like that. So, shrugging a bit, he did the rest. “I have words floating in front of me? They seem to say they’re from Cindy? I don’t normally hallucinate in red letters, so…”
Everyone just nodded, Denis opening his eyes, not projecting anymore it would seem. The words vanished then and the curly haired man laughed.
“Of course, it would work that way. She says that she’s been trying to get my attention for five minutes. I was just so focused I missed seeing it. So, the feeling of reading me worked? Nifty and great. Anyway, we need to set some things up, Cin. It’s about the mission. Get the specs from Brian on that?” He stopped then and glanced up, over to where Howard is standing. “That, or Richard… I don’t really get all of it so far. I mean, what they told me, about needing Burks in for a meeting and that there’s a kid to take from these people after we get the data we need… They seem to be hiding a lot of the rest from Kerry and I.” The words didn’t seem all that upset or anything, as if that part simply made sense.