The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  Nothing happened for a bit, until they got up to get their food. Then a small crowd appeared suddenly, like magic, a man in a blue business suit shoved to the front and angrily shook his fist at them. Well, not at them. At Tobin. He got right in his face too.

  “Dirty Infected! We don't want your kind here! Leave honest decent folk alone!”

  People behind them started muttering, and Lancaster smiled. It was cool and professional, not a threat even.

  “Under the Infected protection act, Infected individuals have full rights to use any public facility. After all, it's not a real infection, you know that right? You don't catch it from contact, that's just a name given to it initially that stuck.”

  The man, stupidly, shook his fist at Lancaster too. Denis wouldn't have done that for money, and his first mode was greed. The bigot seemed to also be a moron for sure. He might be forgiven not knowing who anyone else was, or even not realizing that Tobin could probably kick his ass, as obvious as his Infected status was, the man was tiny, so that could be confusing to a slow person. But Lancaster was just freaking huge and tough looking. Marcia, wearing a t-shirt from the Disney store and a pair of black Lycra stretch shorts with over-sized running shoes stepped forward and grinned.

  “Are you sure you don't want an autograph? Mr. Peterson is a noted super-hero and government agent. He's also going to be coming out with an album soon, wonderful voice. You should listen to him sometime before you judge him based on blind hatred.” She sounded like a PR agent, which made Denis smile. It was about the first time he'd ever heard the woman sounding sweet.

  The man sputtered at her.

  “Hatred? I don't hate Infected, I just think that monsters should be controlled for the safety of everyone else! We aren't bigots, we just want our families to be safe, is that too much to ask? Are you saying we can't be safe so that some freak can travel around singing? For Christ's sake woman, have you no pride or fear of your own? Consorting with... Things, like this one...”

  Things?

  Denis grinned and wondered if the guy would like to feel a sudden case of the runs coming on. Resisting the urge to retaliate took effort. A lot of it. What kind of idiots were these people? If they were so afraid of Tobin, shouldn't they avoid him? Denis knew that he really wanted to avoid falling for a while for instance, and was still deciding whether to develop a phobia of the ground itself...

  Sane people didn't feel fear, and then run to pick a needless fight with the object of it, did they? Of course the team wasn't there to get into an argument with regular people and doing that, as satisfying as it would be right then, nerves already on edge for the day, would just create problems with their real job, when their faces were all over the news in the days leading up to the hate rally.

  Denis decided to let cooler heads handle it for now, only to find that there didn't seem to be any nearby. Marcia had a grin on her face, sure, but the kind of thing that would have made these “good” citizens run away if they had half a brain. Gosh, who hung around with obviously Infected people in public? Oh, right, other Infected. Seriously, did they think that all Infected looked like Tobin?

  The tall blondish haired Lancaster blinked very slowly, probably a relaxation exercise for fighting Denis thought, that or trying to not hit the bigot in front of him. Maybe his own version of going Zen? Possibly literally. A lot of soldier and warrior types did things like that didn't they? The crowd grew slowly, a few people at a time, most just watching, a few calling out hate slogans. If a slow and awkward chant of “get out dirty Infected” could be called a “slogan”. It made its point clear at least.

  When they got back to the base Den would have to find the bum looking man and apologize to him abjectly. His act had been right in keeping with reality it seemed. These people really couldn't start a good chant at all. Even a one of “get out, get out” would have been more effective. Denis shook his head. You'd think they'd plan these things out first, wouldn't you? At their meetings or “hateapalooza” or whatever they called it. If you wanted to be an ignorant bigot, well that was a problem, but not preparing ahead of time to spew their hate properly was all on them. No pride in what they were doing at all.

  Finally a woman in the back, who was decent looking, in a slightly too skinny way, pointed and called out that Jay, still with a wrapped foot that could take nearly a day to heal, was the super-hero Argos. For a second the crowd got quiet, then the core group erupted angrily, the lesbian women, or at least the ladies wearing matching rings and holding hands periodically, both tried to push Karen, who responded by turning into Lady Glory. She didn't use her power though, she just glowed blue and stared at them. It looked impressive, for all that she didn't have any other physical power at all. She really gave the impression that force blasts or something would be the next step. Using abilities on people that weren't being violent yet didn't play well in the press, so she held her hand. Denis didn't think they'd have to wait too long before they could though.

  These people seemed to be eager for confrontation.

  Ah.

  Oh yeah...

  It made sense. So much sense. Looking around he saw the camera phone off to the side in the hands of a man old enough that even having a cell phone was probably a new idea to him. To the left a younger girl that looked a bit like white trash gussied up for the prom, had a small video camera out and trained right on them. The idea seemed clear, bait and even attack the Infected IPB agents, since Argos and Lady Glory didn't kill people it was even pretty safe, and then when they fought back, or did anything at all menacing, trim the video in editing so that it only showed the use of powers on a crowd. Even if he used his own abilities it would be obvious right now. Angry bigot to peaceful airport lurker in fifteen seconds or less just didn't happen.

  One of the women, the smaller one without the dog in her bag, suddenly found her courage and jumped forward to try and slap Marcia. She could take the blow no problem, the thing being that it would be striking an IPB agent, who was, like it or not, suddenly on duty. This was a “riot” and they were the squad with that detail, weren't they? The blow landed with a resounding clap and a cry from the attacker.

  “My hand! You fucking broke my hand with your ugly face.” She wailed, holding her right arm to her chest. Her girlfriend, wife probably, jumped in to try it too, which caused Lancaster to move forward.

  That wouldn't work though, since he was huge and even looked tough. If he stopped the woman there would be trouble, the bigot mob would step in to protect her. It felt seriously fucked up, the whole thing, all of it. Sighing a little Denis stepped in front of the giant man suddenly and smiled, raising his left hand over shoulder level to get the agent to stop.

  For some reason it worked.

  “Hi... Your friend there didn't know it, but she kind of just assaulted a Federal Agent on duty. Right now I can probably talk these nice folks out of pressing charges for all the civil rights violations and the set up here, which does count as an act of terrorism by the way, even if you hadn't planned this on purpose to try and make it look like you were “cruelly attacked while minding your own business” it would still be ten years in prison just for taking part in something like this.” Denis pointed at the crowd behind them.

  “So, you and your buddies saw an opportunity to jump poor Tobin here, a great guy by the way, I do suggest you buy his album when it comes out, not just illegally download it, and then you all tried to scare IPB agents into defending themselves from attack to make them look bad in order to frighten the populous into hating Infected.” Denis winced, an overdone thing for affect.

  “That's pretty much terrorism all right, as sure as if you and your friends here set a bomb off... More so, because this situation took place at an airport, meaning the transit laws are in effect too. So, here's the deal.” Denis pitched his voice for the whole crowd. Yeah, he sounded like a douche bag cop suddenly, but it couldn't be helped he decided. He let his voice go low and tried to pretend he was Proxy for a minute. It did sound
mean.

  “Disperse now without creating further problems, unless you're one of the ring leaders here. Anyone still gathered here in thirty seconds will be taken in for questioning, and trust me, we have people that can and will read your minds to get at the bottom of a terrorist organization. You,” he pointed at the angry bigot man in his businessman's suit and red and black striped republican power tie and the forty-something women with their little dog.

  “You three need to stay. Your little dog too. We need your names and addresses and there will be an investigation. I wasn't kidding about terrorism charges. Again, I'll try to work on these people, but if you don't want the hassle of prison, and you don't, just trust me on that one, I suggest you start acting like something other than terrorists.” His voice sounded confident and even friendly as he ended his little speech, but Denis tried to convey how very much he really meant it by squaring off his body.

  The other people left at least, moving quickly after the first couple of folks walked away, except the clerk who still looked very scared and didn't know if she had to leave or not.

  “Um, I have to stay, I think, but I'm not a terrorist, I just work here... I can't afford to lose my job.”

  “Don't worry, we're not unreasonable miss.” Lancaster said smoothly. “No one wants to blame an innocent person, or even,” he gestured to the three people left remaining, clearly noticing that the cameras had come out at a distance, his voice fairly boomed.

  “Punish people for being afraid. There have been organized hate group attacks in the last days however, and this might not be happenstance. If not, then it really is an act of terrorism you tried to perpetrate here today, not just a poor exercise of the first amendment. The attack on Agent Turner made this far more serious, but luckily for you three, Agent Tompkins seems to think you're all just trying to exercise your first amendment rights... and made a mistake, not trying to actually start a war. I'm not entirely convinced of that myself, but you have a shot if you cooperate now. Another event like that, striking an agent to foment a riot and you'd all be going away for a very long time.” The tall black clad man suddenly seemed very serious, as if this really were a lot more than some bigots being shut down.

  Pulling a pad and pen the agent took down the names and license information from all of them. The man at least tried to give a fake name first, the women didn't after the big agent asked for ID. They all had it, or they couldn't fly.

  It took about fifteen minutes, so patting first Tobin then Clark on the shoulders, he led them all through the food line. When they got to the cashier Denis smiled again and looked over at Marcia, her butt hugged nicely in the black skin tight shorts she apparently wore as underwear, just for occasions like this. It worked for her. She looked like a soccer mom at a weekend picnic, sure, but a hot soccer mom.

  “So, you don't have anything against Agent Tobin here, do you? Really, you should take a good look... Kind of adorable really, isn't he? Eh? He really is going to be famous too...” Winking Denis tilted his head as if trying to set Tobin up on a date with the girl. She blushed a little and smiled at the little man, then rang them up just as Karen and Jay came over, both moving slowly, due to the man's injury and her compassion for his pain.

  Good, because Denis didn't have any money anyway, so one of them could pay. The salary of the people on Team One being huge compared to the absolutely nothing he made at the moment. Slavery. It beat prison. Slightly. At least there the guards hadn't attacked him for being Infected.

  It turned out to be Marcia who paid for all of them, holding a credit card that got paid for by the Director himself. Sweet deal. Denis ran back and got an extra dish of coleslaw. Another piece of cake too. Not that he needed to eat it...

  But it was free stuff. He could give it to Jay, since the guy needed to eat more and Denis wanted the man to heal as fast as possible. Shrugging he went back and loaded a second tray just for that. Argos really did need the food and the man had taken a full tray, but not nearly what he should have, probably because of his first mode.

  Marcia grinned, but no one else said anything about it, probably just assuming hunger to be the reason for his actions. That worked too, suddenly Denis felt it again. He'd blocked it all out for the mini-riot-event they'd just had. Well, it made for good practice against the norms at least. Denis noted that none of them thought to turn a fire hose on them or managed to pants anyone at all.

  Beatdown, Quartz, he remembered, pushed her short brown curls to the side and gave him a look. It was... slightly amused really.

  “Not bad. I personally was going to bitch slap them all into next week, but your way worked too. Didn't know you were that up on the law though.” She leaned toward him so that her voice couldn't be heard. “About time we started calling things like this what it is. Terrorism plain and simple.”

  Denis snorted and touched her shoulder gently, leaning in as if he might kiss her, which would have been temping except for all the cameras still on them and the fact that he'd probably wake up in the hospital minus a few parts he might want to use again someday. Lips being only one set of things that popped to mind.

  “Honestly? I just made all that bull crap up. Sounded pretty real though, didn't it?”

  Marcia laughed.

  5

  Thankfully the rest of the trip didn't cause nearly as many ripples. Tobin got stares on the plane, of course, a few of them a lot more hostile than a small guy wearing overalls with a Disney shirt on underneath should have gotten by far. Marcia had gotten it to replace the one used to wrap Argos' ankle earlier. That Tobin had to be the least offensive person on the plane to Chicago didn't seem to matter to about half the people. Glares and hard stares, scared looks and a few muttered comments were all directed his way for the first half of the trip. The black and green man tried to sink into his seat and hide his face behind a well-used copy of “Sky Mall”. It really didn't work that well for him. Everyone already knew where the “threat” was.

  Denis sat next to him, and felt really tempted to point out to people that Infected didn't always mean dangerous. After all, Lancaster got to carry a gun onto the plane, didn't he? As a Federal agent it wasn't just allowed, but required by law now. Guns were dangerous and an IPB agent like him knew how to use it. Technically the only reason that the rest of them didn't have to carry had to do with their powers. Not that saying any of that would have helped Tobin.

  The ass-holes on the plane didn't care about their poor behavior or how it made anyone else feel. They just reacted. The whole pattern seemed familiar to him now. At least no one here wanted to slap Marcia around to make themselves feel better. That... might not go as well the second time. She didn't feel pain or take injury, but an insult was an insult, and of all the people on the plane she was the last one that Denis would want to push that way. Even Lancaster would probably take more crap if it came down to it.

  After the five hours in the air, they finally got to O'Hare and not having luggage, all they needed to do was find the car rental place. It was near the baggage claim, which just reminded him to find the assassin pilot and kick him in the jewels if he got a chance. That and to learn to at least land a plane. His feet scuffed a little on the short pile gray carpet underfoot as they got to the needed counter, a large plastic coated thing in a color that should have been red, but looked a lot more orange under the fake interior lighting of the huge building. The man there helpfully stared at Tobin, wrinkled his nose in disgust and gave them what had to be the single oldest and crappiest car in their inventory, a red econobox that had seating for five, if they were cozy.

  Marcia grimaced.

  “We're on a budget. Sorry about this guys. We would have been picked up by local here, except we're a bit behind schedule. Everyone cram in.”

  In charge or not, Marsh didn't drive them, she had a license, but it had lapsed since she never used it and couldn't be bothered to keep up with the paperwork. Karen didn't even have one and while Clark did, no one trusted him to drive. Tobin just l
aughed when asked. He wouldn't even be able to touch the pedals after all. In the end it came down to Denis and Lancaster, the large man opting to ride shotgun, in a literal fashion, since shooting Hooper supporters would play better in the press than using abilities on them they all agreed. It was a good enough point that he wondered if the rest of them really should have brought guns too. No one wanted to go around shooting people, but it did give them another option and if it was down to using a power and starting a riot or shooting a single person and stopping one...

  Denis had a license, and even had it on him, but the truth was that he hadn't driven in years. It came back quickly enough once behind the wheel of the tiny car, everyone else jammed in a lot closer than anyone would have wanted. Argos had Marcia on his lap and Tobin sat on Karen's, with Clark, obviously too big to have any part in a vehicle this small, at nearly six-six, crammed hunched and uncomfortable between the two sets of people. It took an hour to find the motel, a place so run down that they all thought it might be abandoned as they drove by it the first three times, circling to look for the address. There didn't seem to be a sign even, just an old plastic letter board that said “cheap rooms”. There wasn't a light behind it so it was hard to see, the street lamps down the way being all that told them it might be the right place at all.

  They got two rooms. For seven people. That meant five guys had to share a room while Karen and Marcia got decent accommodations. More to the point, they all got crappy rooms, the girls getting a bug infested bed each, rather than having to share. All things considered it didn't seem like so big a perk to Denis. Clark complained the whole time and Argos took a place on the floor, pulling a suspiciously stained looking seat cushion off the old and broken down plaid sofa to use as a pillow.