The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  “Look, Doctor Clinton, I'm pretty sure I'm not a drug addict or whatever you think I am... which I'm certain that my file and the other doctors should have told you by now, so what's with all the funny looks every time I get any treatment that doesn't cause more pain than it fixes?” The man looked shocked and looked away, then glanced back at him, blushing a bit.

  “I... a long time ago when I was an intern I treated a man, a fireman, a real hero, who kept getting hurt. Serious injuries, but all legitimate – gotten on the job – sometimes saving people's lives. Some of them bad enough that giving him serious pain medications was clearly indicated. It turned out that he was an addict and when he couldn't get a fix any other way, he'd let himself get hurt on purpose. You have to admit, you get hurt a lot...”

  Burrows looked ready to tear him a new one, but Brian held up his hand and asked Karen if she could get... He almost asked for Christian, but decided to see if the older guy that could tell who was lying might be around instead. He hurt still and Chris felt it when he did. Better to leave her away from that as much as possible. Brian hadn't even considered that earlier when she'd been dealing with the Chambers'.

  Fuck.

  That had to be an emotional disaster even if the worst of the pain had ended by then physically and he'd waltz her right into it without even giving her needs a single thought.

  “You mean Martin? I think I saw him not long ago, just past where the Director is, let me see if I can get him...” She hurried off coming back with the man at a very fast walk.

  Sighing as if tired, exhausted by the whole thing, Brian put out his hand and asked if Martin would be willing to tell the doctors if he was being honest or not. Smiling the man took his hand.

  “I am not, to the best of my ability to understand such things, either addicted to, or abusing any drugs.”

  “True.” The man said definitively.

  “Also, other than thinking of him as “Doctor Curmudgeon” at times, I don't hold any personal animosity toward Doctor Clinton here and think that he's a fine medical professional in the main.”

  The dark skinned man smiled, his teeth nearly glowing in his deep brown face.

  “Also true.”

  Brian looked at Doctor Clinton and shrugged, his skin burning a bit, but less than it had thanks to the meds. Brian looked down and wondered if he could get dressed yet. Not knowing what the rest of the day would bring being back in his armor sounded like a good plan. Paranoid? He wondered, but couldn't really tell. Then again, any day he might have to suddenly go into combat with who knows what with only a few moments notice probably made that a moot point.

  He stood and slowly got back into the black skin tight outfit, crawling in carefully and trying not to show how much the action hurt. Standing still for a second, Brian looked around for his other clothes, only to find them torn on the back, almost unwearable. The fabric had been cut in places from the force of the ground against the nano-carbon particulate mesh of the armor. He held the top up and shook his head.

  “Oh well, I may look like a dork this way, but at least I have shoes. I can work in this if I have to...” He looked down at his lap to find a clean pair of black fatigues in his arms. Mark again. The guy was a miracle worker for sure. When this was over he'd have to get him a present for Christmas too. Wait, Brian remembered suddenly, Mark was Jewish. So eight presents? Hanukkah. Maybe he could look the whole thing up online or something. Brian thought for a few seconds while he got dressed, but couldn't come up with even one thing he knew the man would like. Maybe Christian would know, since they were dating or whatever. They never made a big deal of it in public, but they didn't hide it either. Regardless, she'd probably know. Telepaths could be cool that way.

  Taking Karen by the hand, which earned him another worried look and made her stare at his hand, he started to walk over to where Penny had been, only to find that she wasn't anywhere to be seen. It looked like a lot of people had vanished. Moved inside he realized. He'd been the only person in the little makeshift medical center, so the dozen or so other injured people must have gotten out of the weather too. Looking around he found an unused sleeping bag and got Marcia to help him lay it out on the ground. Karen didn't get it at first, but Marcia did.

  Looking at Karen she explained, sitting cross legged on the fluffy green material looking at the front gate. “Rachel Chambers is due in any time now. Someone needs to be here to greet her. Brian of course naturally elected himself, because, you know, stopping world war three and then being dropped off a cliff don't count as actual work. Obviously.” Her tone was dry but she didn't harp on the point to Brian's relief. He'd been the one making the call, so the job of greeting the woman should be his.

  No one had any clue how the elder Chambers planned to get there. Plane most likely, though it was just possible that she could have driven, if she broke all speed limits vastly and didn't slow for the police when they tried to stop her. Hopefully it wasn't that one, Brian didn't feel like fighting off another attempted police invasion just now for some reason.

  Probably just being lazy.

  Brian settled between Karen and Marcia, not touching either one, but close to both. His mind flashed back to earlier when Marcia's clothing had started coming off, remembering her rather shapely...assets. Brian kind of thought that she'd probably sleep with him if he asked her to. The only problem there being the fact that he could also envision her getting half ways through the act, then suddenly whipping out a choke hold or leg lock. Get out of it, don't give up! Lives are at stake if you fail...

  When Karen looked at him and smiled, he felt his face warm. They couldn't really go out, and had even told each other that they could sleep with other people, but he felt a little guilty thinking about Marcia with Karen being within arm's reach at the same time. Looking behind him he noticed that Becky had come out and just sat waiting. Brian turned and gave her a significant look, one that asked if he needed to get ready to fight. She didn't talk, just shook her head. All clear for now. He felt it rather than heard the words. Well, good. Maybe he could just enjoy the silence or something for a while.

  Karen reached over him and poked Marcia gently in the arm with her index finger.

  “Marsh, you know I love you... But, well, I've been meaning to talk to you about something for a long time now... Your code name, Beatdown? It's really bad. It sounds like something the bad guys would want from you, if you get my drift...”

  Karen couldn't hide her giggles long after she said it, making the rest of them laugh a little too. It wasn't that funny, but after everything, any joke or attempt at humor was praise worthy not matter how bad.

  “Oh? So says the woman who's code name sounds like a sexual pleasuring device? Lady Glory? That or a porntastic firework. Which, if we're just trying to be honest, you do kind of look like when you use your power. Have you ever looked at all the 3-d Lady Glory porn animations online?” She turned to Brian who shook his head, because he'd never even heard of such things.

  “Oh, yeah. About a year ago she accidentally sneezed at a photo-op and some guy in the crowd got the whole thing on video, no big, right? People sneeze. Except that about half of it, because of how she glows all bright blue, lines up almost perfectly so that if you're careful you can make it look like she's giving a guy a blow job. It works really well too. There's like ten or twenty different versions of it, her doing Prime, the President, a couple of porn stars, and about half of Team Two. I'm pretty sure most of those come from here, to be honest. Still... millions of hits on Google.” Marcia's mouth quirked and Karen stuck out her tongue.

  “Brian, did it sound like Marcia just changed the subject? I think we were talking bad code names here, not potential opportunities to branch out into new careers. Still, I bet we could turn a mint if we organized a pay per view orgy... Anyway, Beatdown, horrible name... I agree, Lady Glory is an embarrassment but I didn't get a choice in that. Marketing and PR picked it for me. We need to come up with something for you that sounds a little mo
re kind and gentle. We could get it changed to Sweetie-pie...”

  Brian had to laugh. “That's... actually better. Especially since the bad guys would be like, “oh, here comes Sweetie-pie, I'm so scared”, then blam. Down they go.”

  Lying back, her sweat pants slipping down a little bit, showing her right hip bone where the shirt gapped, causing Brian to look away, not wanting to be too obvious about having noticed. “Or, conversely, I could just go all out and call myself “Hand job Woman”. That would take some people by surprise and I could have that porn career with the same name.”

  Instead of saying anything about that, Brian tried to think for a minute, and realized that his head was floating a little from all the drugs. None of them were supposed to really do that, but all together they sometimes did. It was either that or all the burst blood vessels in his brain. The doctors hadn't mentioned it, but it was pretty obvious that if hitting on his back had forced enough blood into his hands and feet to burst things, it had happened inside his head too. Not a lot to be done for it. He'd just have to hope any brain damage repaired itself or at least didn't make him too stupid in the long run. That possibility sucked, but beat the heck out of a little girl being ripped apart by those things.

  An idea came to him then. “Hey, how about Quartz? It's a hard material, often reflecting light in a way that looks white, like your normal outfit, and it sounds all politically correct and family friendly without sounding wimpy... It doesn't even sound too mannish or girly.” Brian pushed at Marcia's leg with his hand, and ended up accidentally groping her bare hip. She grinned at him but didn't adjust her clothes.

  “That,” He pulled his hand back slowly, as if he'd meant to do it. Karen didn't glare at him or anything, but he doubted she missed it. Too late to fix it now, and admitting it had been an accident would make him look worse that if he really was all “Handsy McGroper” suddenly. “Or “The Mighty Blow job” but really Quartz sounds more promising to me personally. I don't think I ever want to hear the press screaming out “Blowjob, over here, Blowjob!” After all, that's what conventions are for, right?” Brian stopped and grimaced. “Ah... the sad part here is that in my head that all sounded clever and funny... I blame the drugs.” Making a bit of fun of himself, Brian hung his head and shook it solemnly, a funny look on his face.

  Karen looked at him, tilting her head just a small amount. Slowly nodding making her rust colored ponytail bob gently. “Quartz. That's actually pretty good Marsh. It fits on more than one level and would be pretty hard to make jokes about. And, you know, if you come back to Team One now, half the people won't even remember you as Beatdown, or Cast Iron. Especially if we shave your head to hide that hair fiasco. Luckily you have the bone structure to pull that kind of thing off.” Karen reached passed Brian and touched Marcia's head lightly, moving it to the side to get a good look at her profile. After a second or two she nodded and took her hand back.

  Marcia shrugged which pulled her shirt up, since she'd done it lying down. For a long time she didn't speak. When she finally did, her voice sounded more formal than it had, moving from her playful mode back to work. She pulled her pants into place, adjusted her shirt and sat up smoothly.

  “Yeah. I know. With Prime possibly gone and the Hooper act coming up we're going to have to scramble to replace him. I can step up. Brian should too, if it comes to that. He's the only new face we have that people actually like. Charlot told me that in the polling on it, he nearly ties with Prime in popularity already. He doesn't get the teenybopper girls or boys under fifteen as much, but they don't vote and he surges in the older demographics. Women past thirty and men past twenty-five. The women want him to be their shining knight that sweeps them away and the guys by that age are starting to learn they aren't Prime and acting like it just causes problems. They could be you, at least in their heads. The man who stands up for other people and doesn't back down... No real powers, but somehow not letting that stop him either. Not that how Infected poll means that much. Half the country thinks we should be burned alive and most of the rest speak against that and act like saying that we shouldn't all die justifies the idea of concentration camps.”

  Brian smiled a little, feeling teased and gave her a silly look. “Don't be mean. I'll take back the idea that you should call yourself “The Mighty Blow job” if you'll stop with this crazy talk...”

  Karen kissed him on the cheek, her lips almost not really making contact with the surface, just the softest tickle on the sensitive flesh.

  “No, this is for real. I don't know if it's the best idea myself, but it's something we should all consider. Like it or not, you're high profile. If Prime and Charlot leave over this, then we're going to need every bit of good press we can get. This whole thing is nearly the worst that could have happened short of a government official being assassinated by an Infected person. Since Brian has stopped all of those...” Her eyes went wide. “Fuck. Could...”

  “Yeah.” Marcia looked over at Moore and his little group as they worked the phones talking to Canada and trying to coordinate with them. “Very Fuck indeed. I found some stuff that could be related Brian. No showers out here yet, even if that would work, which I'm not sure it would given all the players, but we definitely can't afford to think this was some random and unrelated thing. The Hooper act and this video being planted are related. I think by the “friends” you mentioned to me before.”

  Karen seemed baffled and looked back and forth between the two of them, then she waited for one of them to tell her something. Marcia spoke.

  “Kare, we need you to not ask yet. We'll tell you soon, if possible, but for this moment, we don't know who's listening or more to the point, how hard. This is... complicated. Trust us for now?”

  There was no time for an answer as a soft sound, a buzzing tone coming from the left hand side of the fence line, slowly started to get louder and louder. It wasn't thunderous or anything but Brian could hear it, with his no greater than average hearing.

  He stood and drew his knife, moving toward the source of the potential threat. Suddenly, after about three minutes of it, the sound died away and then stopped all together. To his right a small figure stood outside the gate, waiting, hands by her sides. Her whole body heaved, taking in huge gulps of air. He walked over quickly, putting his knife away as he approached. Then forcing a grim smile to his face.

  At first the woman looked almost like Bridget. Small, slight, red-brown hair. He couldn't tell from here, but he'd be willing to bet she had the same color eyes too, not that he remembered Bridget's at the moment. There were some differences apparent as he got closer. The woman here had some lines on her face. Not a lot, but enough that she didn't look like a fifteen year old girl. Maybe thirty or so, not her true age by half, but definitely not a child. The other notable thing at first glance was the chest that heaved under the skin tight orange and red outfit she wore, not vast, but respectable, a solid b-cup at least, which given her body size seemed bigger.

  The picture he'd seen of her didn't even look that out of date, so he recognized her and raised his right hand in welcome.

  “Rachel Chambers? I'm Brian. We spoke on the phone earlier? Nice to meet you, would you like to come in?” He waved to the guards to raise the gate, a single metal bar that wouldn't have stopped anyone from just driving through right now, much less this woman, but it made letting someone in feel more official.

  Her gaze searched the world, scrapping each piece of data off the surface and then seeming to dig deeper for more. He just stood and waited for her to feel safe and come to him. Or catch her breath, which also seemed reasonable. After about five minutes she slowly walked toward him. He put his hand out to shake, moving carefully, both because his muscles had started to tighten up from the earlier damage and so he wouldn't spook the woman. Brian didn't know how jumpy she might be here after what had happened to her family earlier. She could be expecting to be attacked herself for all Brian knew.

  The woman took his hand and pumped it a few t
imes, not actually looking at him directly at all. She saw the clump of people standing and talking on phones and started to walk over to them, then stopped after a few steps, turning back to Brian with a jerk.

  “Sorry, old habits. I recognized Kevin over there and just assumed I should ask him what the situation is. You're the one that called me in though. You in charge here now?”

  Brian laughed and shook his head, which made the world feel extra fuzzy for a second. “No, Director Moore still is. But... there's been a problem up in Canada, a pretty big deal. Hundreds of aggressive class fives, a specific-infector situation...”

  The small woman whistled.

  “That's big. Canada asking for help yet? Back in the day they used to love to drag their feet, not asking until things went horribly wrong and then complain that we hadn't fixed everything for them anyway. I can wait here for someone to free up or go to the hotel now and get a full sit-rep later. Either works for me.”

  Brian gestured toward the Director slowly, his right arm swinging outward gently. They'd see what he wanted to do first. Moore covered the tiny phone's mouth piece and smiled, a tired grim thing that seemed to be catching on as the “polite” facial expression around the base today. Uncovering the phone he kept talking, so Rachel turned to Brian and asked if they had any water. Pointing to the stacked pallet of off-brand bottled water they walked over and each took one from Clark, who'd started to shy away at first, thinking that Rachel was Bridget, then stopped as they'd gotten closer. The six-six stork like man relaxed. He still wore his orange jumpsuit that said prisoner on the back. Peggy did too, but sat with her back to the pallet of MRE's, so hers was only partly visible.

  Rachel drank the whole bottle in a few seconds, so Clark handed her another one. On the third repeat of this she started to slow down and looked off at where the clean-up work continued, at a much reduced pace Brian saw, because most of it was finished already. People just puttered around trying to keep busy, not knowing what else to do.