The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  They did notice when Clark lifted and flipped their car upside down and then hovered it over their heads about ten feet above the ground. His jaw had been wired shut, the one saving grace of the trip so far, Brian having broken it in three places with the single blow he'd dealt. No doubt Clark would have a few months of things to say about that when the whole thing was healed, probably directed his way, since he'd been the one that ordered it done. Fair enough.

  Denis looked up at the car and pointed at it pensively with one finger.

  “So, what will it be? I know that I'd much rather not deal with squished people. They're messy and the paper work is a bore. How about you all just leave and remember that when you attacked the Infected, they didn't harm you at all, just got you to back off? Bigotry doesn't pay all the time, but today it seems like you're getting off light...” The men attacked as if they were a military hit squad, moving as one, with something close to discipline.

  Fuckity crap. Another set up?

  This shit was getting so freaking old.

  Denis dropped them all. Retching first, then paralysis, remembering to be nice about the whole thing, even if he didn't feel like it. What the fudge though? No one sane would have looked at a car floating upside down over their heads and decided that fighting seemed the best option when they were offered walking away... Unless the whole thing really had been a set-up. Denis didn't see the cameras but wondered if they were around anyway. He mentioned it out loud, which got a grunt from Marcia.

  “Probably. Still, we may as well move on. The police haven't exactly been showing themselves as our friends on this trip. I don't want to hassle with them trying to prove that these guys actually attacked us. From now on we assume that everyone is hostile unless they prove otherwise.” The woman brushed her deep brown curls from her eyes and refrained from putting a running shoe against anyone's head.

  Barely.

  Tobin didn't speak for hours after that, he just sat in the back seat, hunched down, trying to make sure no one saw him through the window. Hat pulled so low it made him look almost headless and a blanket, gray and institutional, around his green and black face. Finally as Lancaster drove the man spoke softly to Marcia, who'd moved in beside him.

  “I'm sorry. Calling attention to us...”

  Marcia snorted, “kind of the point I think. You and Lady Glory are here for that. Freaking Hooper. We really should...”

  Denis got the rest, the bit that even here Quartz wouldn't say, just in case the van had listening devices she hadn't found in any of her searches. How that would be possible Denis didn't know, since she searched the whole thing, and them, every time they stopped and left the vehicle, but it was a point nonetheless.

  They really should kill that fucker, senator or not.

  Hooper and all his bigot buddies that were setting them up like this. If they did, his people would have a field day with it though. Not just a little one either. It was probably how the open war would start, that or when they actually tried to move all Infected into camps for execution. Denis knew that would get him going at least. How did they think that was going to work anyway?

  Their little hodge podge team here could take out fairly large battalions of soldiers, and the police were a joke once the Infected decided to just kill people instead of taking them prisoner. Sure, the IPB only took in class three talents and above as a rule, but even their few class twos weren't to be messed with. Torque, the Team One leader, could only take on one person at a time, making him “low-powered” but he could go toe to toe with someone like Argos and put them on the ground, hard. That plus a gun made him tough to beat in a fight. Did they expect to send everyone to death camps and just have them round them all up before reporting themselves?

  No, they had to have something else up their collective scheming a-hole sleeves. What that would be he didn't know, probably their own version of super-powered soldiers or weapons. High powered robots came to mind. That or a really aggressive nuclear attack, just hoping that the public wouldn't mind all the death as long as most of the Infected got taken out too? But no... The Infected were all over the place, so that wouldn't work. A designer plague?

  That might work, if anyone could figure out what made Infected what they were in the first place. It was all just so hard to know. Probably impossible until he got more information.

  They slept in the van, in shifts while driving and took a route that nearly went into Canada then came back around, getting into position less than six hours before the planned event. The big difference that Denis noticed this time being that the police didn't show up at all.

  They were setting them up, knowing that the IPB was required to show and that would leave just a few people to handle a potentially angry mob. It worked as a plan he decided. For the IPB at least.

  All Denis had to do was watch for people starting problems and subdue them, making them sick or feel so cold they wanted to leave instead of agitating. They just chanted for a while, all three thousand of them or so, marched around for a bit and then got bored, since they weren't managing to draw any attention to their plight. Poor bigots.

  It was just so much easier without the police mucking it all up. No Infected tried to attack either. The biggest problem being that it rained. Just a light sprinkle of water from the gray clouds above. The Pacific Northwest crowd wasn't daunted by that at all, they just showed up with ponchos and rain jackets ready to go. The lack of television cameras seemed to have a lot more effect.

  Interesting. No cops and no TV meant no real riot? Cool. Too bad they didn't have control over either of those factors in general.

  In the future though, Denis could at least get the cameras to go away. That would help a lot.

  Almost as if the police were tracking their movements going back they got stopped three more times. Lancaster collected up tickets for a dozen imaginary moving violations, nodding politely each time, even when the officers got more than a little hostile, though they didn't give them any reason for it. They both drove the speed limit and signaled perfectly each time. Denis had to wonder what the hell was going on, but Marcia already knew it seemed.

  Her first mode wasn't paranoia, not really, but it made her hyper aware of potential threats. They called it suspicion, but it was different than that, almost a power in itself. So careful and observant by nature she was nearly half psychic or something. It made Denis jealous for a bit. She got cool super strength and couldn't be hurt and her first mode made her really careful and pushed her to solid forethought all the time? While he had to sit and just want everything like a moron?

  Then...

  No one ever said he couldn't use caution himself did they? He smiled slightly and shook his head as she spoke, giving him a funny look. Yeah, it would take work, but no one ever said things would be easy, did they?

  “It's our plates. They're marked as government, with a three-seven code, that's IPB. They're hassling us because of the terrorist attacks. They don't like the fact that nearly an entire police department got taken in, or that they keep consistently being thwarted by us. Proxy alone has made them look incredibly bad. After them nearly killing him twice like they did and his telling the world about it...”

  Lancaster made a noise from the driver's seat. It sounded... slightly amused.

  “Not that I blame him for being pissed, but that didn't help the cause overly. I warned him about that. A lot of people that were on the fence turned against the IPB that day. Hearing that the police took a hero hostage and nearly tortured him to death like that makes the public uneasy. The police are supposed to be the good guys, right? Finding out they're sometimes just bigots and killers does not play well in the bible belt.”

  That led to Denis asking about the whole story, then kind of regretting having opened his mouth. No wonder Yi kept spazing out when the cops showed up. They kept trying to hurt him. Worse, the first couple of times it happened either no one helped him at all, or they got in his way making the whole thing even worse. Marcia didn't nam
e names as she spoke. It was kind of a pointed thing though, avoiding saying who exactly had done it. For a second Denis wondered if it was her, but figured it out quickly enough.

  Karen winced so openly sitting in the row in front of him, hunching down as if to hide almost, that Denis reached out and touched her shoulder lightly. Friendlier than he normally got, but she moved to rest her face against his hand for comfort, so obviously not a horrible idea on his part as far as she was concerned. The contact was nice.

  “It was me. I... didn't get why he kept fighting with the police and it seemed so violent. I knew he was nice, we were friends even then, and I worked with him every day... I figured it had to be a first mode thing, or maybe that he'd gone insane, because everything is so hard on him. So I kept hitting him with my power, which let the police hurt him more... finally I... my power...” She didn't continue at all. Couldn't. Marcia finished it for her friend, her voice gentle but matter of fact. It was something Quartz was good at, not sugar coating things.

  “Her power screwed him up. Made him hyper-suicidal for a while, like we had to strap him down in the psych ward for weeks, Brian still almost managed to kill himself nearly a dozen times, even totally immobilized. Freaking resourceful. He also beat her up. Well, Lady Glory, not Karen. He didn't know that they were the same person then. Karen doesn't hide who she is, but Brian never went in for being a super-hero groupie I guess. Barely even recognized Prime when he first got to the base.”

  That was all news to Denis. He fought to process it all.

  “Wait, he kicked your ass and now you're dating? Are you both sure that's... healthy? I... can get that things are strange once you add in powers and first modes, but, is... it a problem? More to the point, does that mean I have to date him too? Cause he's kicked my ass like four times now. Of course, I deserved it, trying to kill him most of those times. Ineptly, but still... not really my type.” He meant it as a joke and nearly winced at the hurt look Karen gave him over her shoulder. Marcia, bless her, reached over and pushed his arm a bit. Not hard, gentle for her really. He flew lightly into the side of the van. Probably wouldn't even bruise. Much.

  “Right-oh. Normally that would make sense. Them not dating, I mean. Not you dating Brian. That would be both kinky and interesting. Still, it's their decision and it wasn't abuse or anything, just a bad set of first modes and powers clashing and combining. At least in their case. What your deal was I never got.”

  Ah. Right. Denis nodded then and kept his mouth shut until his turn to drive again. It wasn't that he didn't think she deserved to know the truth, he just wasn't ready to tell everyone yet.

  When they got back he got a single day to rest, meaning Hobbs and Carl the trainer from fifteen stuck him in a walk in freezer while playing techno-pop at him and insisting he try to sit on a cloth mat and focus on the warmth inside his body. Nude. The only saving grace in all of this being that the red-haired bum looking guy always did everything with him and made sure that he went in first and got out last. Hard to whine to a person going through exactly what you were at the same time. Not impossible, but Denis didn't bother anymore. Hobbs would just smile at him and clap him on the back if he tried.

  It was frustrating really. The man always seemed so happy about everything, no matter how much it hurt. He assured Denis that it was cultivated and not a first mode at all. It was just how he chose to be. The man also felt that Denis had it in him to do the same, with effort, if he should decide to.

  Kind of nice to know that someone believed in you.

  When they finished that there was running, cold still aching in the limbs, dragging at him, making him slow and weak and his right elbow throbbing bitterly. They practiced very basic fighting too. All left handed moves and stepping exercises meant to help him learn to position himself properly. It made his ankles a bit sore, since a lot of the moves involved strong twisting motions there. He felt like someone had drugged him every time he stepped out on the floor to practice next to Hobbs, the other man moving so smoothly it sometimes didn't look like movement at all.

  Before even getting to the shower he got called to the Director's office, Marcia coming to collect him and Hobbs both. She wouldn't tell them why, but didn't smile or seem teasing about it either. Considering they both still had to put cloths on that was saying something. He got to wear sweats for running, thank goodness, since that got done in the open gym, but they were covered with funk.

  Then again, Marcia couldn't really smell it, could she?

  So Denis figured that there wouldn't be cake involved. Too bad, he liked cake.

  For a half second he felt like a little boy sent to see the Prophet Darren in his chambers, wondering if it would just be whipping, or some worse punishment. Never, not even once, had it been a reward or word of praise. Beatings and deprivations mostly. Four times a month, more if he ever broke a rule, and there were a million of those, most of which no one told him. The Director wasn't a power mad “Christian” though. So maybe it would all be OK?

  “Hobbs, Denis, come in please. Marcia, the door... and security measures if you would?” The old man, gray hair, blue professional suit, slightly blocky looking, sat still and waited, not offering the men a chair or speaking at all as Quartz, back in her standard heavy white uniform, quickly searched the office and pulled out three different devices from different drawers. She didn't say what they were, but Denis had seen enough television to get the overall idea. Sweeps, snoops and jammers. Something like that. After about ten minutes she turned and nodded.

  “Five minutes,” she said clearly, her tone strong and words crisp and fast. “After that the system may or may not alert to what we're doing. The only thing we know for sure is that we don't know anything as far as who's watching us, or with what.”

  The older man nodded.

  “Quickly then. All right, we want you two to go ahead to San Francisco and infiltrate a group known as “The Pure”. It's an anti-Infected hate group with strong religious leanings. Christian fundamentalists. Denis... you were brought up with such things, do you think you could manage to pass in such a group?”

  It wasn't something he'd ever want to do, but he nodded. Yeah, he could quote the bible out of context still and use circular arguments that fit the needs of the moment. It wasn't something you forgot when it was literally tortured into your head.

  Next to him Hobbs smiled and gave a small nod.

  “I also will endeavor to play my role. What is required of me?”

  Marcia spoke from near the door, her voice soft and barely audible, “we need you, to both blend in, and protect Den if something goes wrong. You'll have to learn a bit about the Christian religion and fast, I...”

  Giving the man a hard look, Denis, feeling a little anxious already, clenched his jaw. “I'll get you up to speed. A few catch phrases should hold you. Most religious nuts only have about twenty scriptures they use over and over again anyway. Some a lot less. Not a problem.”

  The Director handed him a sheet of paper with an address on it and told him to memorize it. He tried. Hobbs moved to look at it for about a minute and then sat down again. Hopefully that meant it was committed to memory, because Denis didn't feel any too certain he had it. He kept repeating it hoping it would stick.

  “That's the introduction point. If you can get in there, they'll take you to the real meeting. Once in place learn what you can and try to get word back to us. We can't send you in with backup, because Hooper has spies in all the other agencies and that may well tip The Pure off. This is not an ideal situation but...”

  Right, they just didn't have a lot of other options. Not even Chris with her telepathy. Once she knew who to target she could find them anywhere in the world, but it had to be hard to find out things about an organization with only a vague name as a starting point. “The Pure” was pretty generic as far as names like that went. A full third of all the similar anti-Infected groups used something similar as their main message.

  The second they left the office on t
he third floor, both of them got taken to see the make-up lady. For Denis that didn't mean a lot, just some new clothes, a full wardrobe of modern Christian bland. Button up shirts and slacks, tennis shoes and a single pair of nice black shiny ones to go with the two suits they gave him.

  Hobbs got shorn. Hard, if with more gentleness than Denis had coming out of lock-up. His hair couldn't have been two inches long when Clari got done with him and his face was as smooth as any Denis had ever seen. The guy looked totally different. Not bad, just like someone had replaced him somehow. If Yi had dead eyes, the soul behind this man's sang of peace and joy. Really he looked a bit too happy for a fearful radical Christian, but they'd work on it. If nothing else they could claim he had a religious experience that woke him to the joys of the lord. The people that claimed that often had that dreamy look to them.

  That would probably be the best plan really. A new convert wouldn't be expected to know nearly what someone raised Christian would after all, and depending on how deep the Pure were into religion, that would make a difference. He didn't speak about it, waiting for later when they had reason to think it would go unnoticed. Everything was being watched at the base.

  Then the man got put in clothing a lot like what Denis had. In the end they looked ready to finish up their day's labor at the compound and then get right to prayers.

  Praise the Lord.

  Of course they couldn't really just take IPB credit cards with them, so they each got some cash, about six hundred dollars between them, since too much money would look out of place, and they had to use Greyhound to get to San Francisco. The trip only took about four days, that long mainly because they didn't want to show up as if coming from the base directly, so doubled back to Illinois, home of the largest pocket of anti-Infected hate in the world outside of Asia, and then worked their way back. It ate up time and money, but did give them both a slightly seedy “traveled” look.