The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  They were the IPB after all, not the DEA. The man wasn’t Infected as far as anyone could tell, which meant they weren’t responsible for him at all. It wasn’t like being a cop; they were just there to do their job. Nothing else.

  The other branches of law enforcement didn’t like it when they did anything more ambitious. Not normally at least.

  That was really kind of stupid of them. If they were smart, Marcia thought as she got hit by a decently large wave, they’d be borrowing various IPB agents all the time. The DEA and FBI could close twice as many cases if they just had Christian working for them for example. Also, who wouldn’t want her or Prime going through the door of a drug house first on a bust? It wasn’t going to happen though, not anytime soon. Too many of them were just plain scared of anyone Infected.

  “Help! Help!” The voice was young sounding, but it was too far away to tell if it was male or female. She spun as Bridget started moving in the direction of the noise, her reflexes so fast that she caught Marcia flat footed, knocking her back a bit. The water stopped her from stumbling, for the most part, but the girl stopped for a second and pulled herself up Marcia’s torso.

  “Let me stand on your shoulders and jump over? It will be faster than swimming.” She didn’t wait for an answer just climbing as she spoke. The movements were deft and light, until Impulse squatted suddenly, so fast her feet picked up off the flesh. With a clap that sounded nearly like thunder the girl slammed her bare feet down, pushing Quartz into the packed sand under her feet.

  The movement was even, but the sand had a tilt to it, which meant that as the girl flew through the air her platform got sent flying to the right and caught a face full of water. Instead of fighting the motion she started swimming, underwater, reorienting toward the drowning child. She wasn’t the first one there, not even the second, but she got there in about fifteen seconds, even though it was several hundred meters away. Prime had the kid already though, and was flying him back to the beach, just over the waves so the boy wouldn’t be scared. That was more considerate than it might have been, since saving a screaming and frightened child would play well on the news that night and going high into the air would make for better, and probably more, pictures. Scott didn’t have much of a choice when it came to thinking highly of himself, but apparently he could, when he wanted, choose not to be a giant dick about it.

  That was actually pretty cool.

  Since it wasn’t important for her to rush to the beach as well, the kid, who looked to be about fourteen seeming to be fine, she leisurely swam back to where the others stood in the water, waiting. Bridget caught up to her and paced alongside using an Australian crawl variation. Every four strokes she took a breath and looked at Marcia hard. Just as they got back to the others the girl stopped, grabbing the other woman’s arms. Marcia cut her speed by setting her feet down, since the water wasn’t that deep this close to the shore.

  The girl shook her head, “I… I don’t know, but I think I was actually… flying. I mean… Like dad, not just jumping like normal. I saw that I was going to overshoot, so I tried to turn in the air and I started to come back, like a lot, before I… That can’t be right though. My powers are like grandmas. Even medical said so. Not like dads.” She sounded perplexed, but not mad about anything.

  Not yet.

  Taking a deep breath Marcia didn’t really know what to say. She hadn’t seen what had happened, but it sounded pretty clear. They could lie, of course and say Bridget imagined it, or even that Kerry had grabbed her in the air and pulled her partway back as an assist. For all she knew that’s what had actually happened. Maybe it was time for the truth though? The thing on the plane seemed like a sign to her that was pretty clear to anyone paying attention, stabilizing herself when hitting Lauren like she had. The girl needed more work on her Impulse control, but… Well, she wasn’t sucking at that anymore, was she? Not all the time. It was a recent change and could go away if the girl got mad, just like with anyone that got too angry, but that wouldn’t make the powers go away. Hiding things from her wouldn’t either.

  She shrugged, her shoulders just coming out of the water. Given her density, she didn’t float unless she was moving. Treading water took constant work for her. For most of them probably, once she stopped to think about it. Kerry might be able to manage it, having just enough padding to pull it off and decent breasts for it, and possibly Charlot, but the rest were too lean. Though she didn’t know about Penny. Marcia had forgotten about her again. It seemed she could swim though, since Brian wasn’t yelling about her drowning or anything.

  She moved in to the girl just a little, so she wouldn’t have to speak too loudly.

  “Right. Well… Yeah. I don’t know if it was flight, to tell the truth, but… Um, promise not to tell anyone this? I mean not even your parents?” It wasn’t like they weren’t standing ten feet away and moving closer, but the girl nodded anyway, as if they couldn’t hear.

  “The Director and I, we’ve been keeping that from you until you got old enough for it to develop, but you might be able to learn how to fly someday. Possibly put out some energy blasts too, like both your parents. It’s a secret though, so don’t tell. Before we couldn’t let you know… and the press shouldn’t find out about it if we can help it. Not yet. We need you to prove how stable and reliable you are first, or they’ll freak.” It was a real point and almost exactly what the thought process on the topic was back at the base. She’d catch hell for telling, but it was a judgment call.

  “It’s your age. People find out that you’re a bit more powerful than you seem and they might not take it well.” They’d probably call for her death, if they were bigoted. Or smart enough.

  She stopped moving and started to sink, which meant Marcia had to grab her and hold on for a bit while she collected herself, or whatever it was exactly the girl was doing. Her partner, Marcia reminded herself. Young and inexperienced or not, the girl was a real power and needed to be treated like an adult now. One not allowed to have sex, but it was just a fact that her childhood had to be pretty much over for her now, wasn’t it?

  “My mode too. People wouldn’t like it if I was anymore than I am already, would they? They only put up with it as it is because they can’t tell what I can really do and I’m so cute. Who doesn’t like the chipper-happy rat-girl?” The words weren’t directed at anyone exactly, and she did have kind of a pointed face, which had given her the old code name, but the idea wasn’t that far off. She didn’t seem like a threat, so no one paid much attention to her, not as anything but Primes daughter. She needed to keep that going for as long as possible.

  “That’s about right. So if anyone asks, Kerry did that part of things for you. She really might have even, so don’t let this go to your head. It could be you might never fly at all. We’ll check it out, but later. Back at the base. For now, stay on the ground as much as possible.” Marcia grinned just as everyone else got to them.

  The girl nodded and gestured toward the others.

  “Say, can one of you go and get something for Marcia to wear?”

  Looking down through the very clear water she finally noticed that her new bikini was missing in action. Top and bottom both missing in action. It made sense, she’d put a lot of force on it after all swimming as fast as she had, and it wasn’t very substantial to start with. She sighed and resisted the urge to cover her breasts with her hands. The water was clear and everyone had already seen what she had to offer no doubt.

  Brian was already on shore, holding up some clothing she highly suspected was Lancaster’s oversized T-shirt. He waved it for a bit, almost as if telling her to come get it, which wasn’t happening on a family beach if she could help it. After a few seconds it started to fly toward them though, Kerry holding her right hand out to catch it, even though it was an eighth of a mile away or more. When it nearly got to them the rather normal looking girl turned to point at her and the clothing shifted around in the air to hit her in the face.

  “Sorry, thought
you’d catch.” Kerry sounded a little winded, which made sense. The girl was strong, but she mainly did things closer to her body. That far away was probably pushing her limits. She could fly though, Marcia thought. She couldn’t remember that from the files, to tell the truth, it had been years since she’d read them. She’d have to ask, since it could be important at some point being that she was on the secret team now. The one that knew about Alpha. Of course so was the IPB’s head chef, so there were several people she needed to get to know a little more closely. She’d never thought overly about Warren at all other than seeing him around occasionally.

  The shirt a large light blue thing meant to be very loose on someone much larger than herself hung around her thighs like a dress. A very short dress, but a lot of people on the beach were showing a whole lot more flesh than she was, so without letting it bother her too much, figuring that no matter what else happened the naked pictures of her would end up on the net. People here had cameras and most people were secretly pervs. She walked out of the surf to the towels and tried to hold the wet shirt away from her smooth flesh enough to keep it from being a wet t-shirt contest. It was probably her imagination, but she could have sworn she heard the sound of camera shutters closing.

  It wasn’t real though, she knew that. The modern ones did that almost silently. She carefully wrapped her towel around her waist and stood, wondering what the plan for the rest of the day was.

  It turned out to be dinner.

  A very fancy one, since Warren had a friend in the area that he’d promised to get some publicity for if he could. The man owned his own restaurant, but it was only about a mile away which meant they just had to get changed, and then wait in the lobby, talking about the name of the place they were going for a bit before slowly walking there. The idea was to draw a tail along with them. Hopefully one that would get some pictures taken in front of the place they were going to.

  Not caring about the heat Marcia put on some sensible shoes and a little black dress that let her shoulders show, but covered her knees, hugging them tightly. If it got cold, she wouldn’t notice it, so why not? Bridget got into something similar, but it was an emerald green color with a slight shine to it and Penny shoved buds in everyone’s ears and openly debated not going.

  “Not much point, is there? I mean, I never get any service. Even at home I have to steal food half the time just so I don’t starve and this guy… What did you say his name was again?” She pauses while Warren caught up with the conversation. The time delay meant people responded to Cellophane slowly sometimes, to make sure she wasn’t still talking or going to start again soon.

  “Enrique. He’s really good. Don’t worry though, you can just sit next to me and tell me what you want. We won’t let you get lost, you’re our bud. Don’t even think about it.” He sounded confident, but he wasn’t used to how hard it could be to keep track of the girl, even if she was next to you. It was nice though. Marcia got the idea that he was clearly a team player. That was probably why he was so good at his job on the cooking show.

  Bridget rummaged through a back and pulled out a pale pink thing that looked almost like a slip, it was so plain. She held it up to the air, away from her, as if trying to hand it off.

  “Brian said this would fit you. Karen got it for you and gave it to me so you’d have something to wear other than sweats. There are a couple of choices, but I like this one best. It will show up on camera, right? You can wear it with running shoes too. All the cool IPB agents do that.” Pointing at her feet under her own dark green dress to demonstrate that fact, Bridget smiled.

  “Besides, it’s short enough that if you don’t wear underwear you can flash the photographers, except, you know, nothing will show up. It’s enough to make the right wing press cry, don’t you think?”

  It was funny, so they all smiled at the idea; though Penny assured them she was going fully clothed, even if it didn’t matter. She was pretty modest after all. It was kind of linked to her first mode.

  Ink and the singers met them in the lobby, where they’d all been waiting, the blocky man standing in front of the others looking fierce as two police officers stood in front of him, hands on their side arms, ready to draw them in the universal greeting police gave obvious Infected everywhere. Just before Marcia could start walking over the elevator next to the one she’d just gotten off of with the others opened. It was most of the rest of them, packed in densely to share the ride. Proxy got off the car at a run and only sped up as he closed with the two uniformed men. It looked like he was about to tackle them when Scott caught up with him, plucking him from the air as he started to make his move.

  “It’s all right… I’m sure…” The large golden man had changed into a very expensive suit and looked stunning enough that everyone in the room turned to stare at him. That, or they’d noticed Brian darting across the room and realized what that meant. The police belatedly tried going for their side arms, as if that was going to help them at all. After about ten seconds they realized they were surrounded though and started backing away, pistols in hand.

  “Back-up! You’re interfering with police business. Step back now!” The older of the two, who was only about thirty, pointed his weapon at the whole group of them as they slowly closed on the scene. Everyone stopped, except Brian, who shrugged off Prime’s hand and started toward them again.

  Ink looked around, panicked and then, very deliberately, stepped in front of the police. Guarding them with his body. Sticking to the plan.

  “It’s… Well, it’s not OK, Proxy, but this is something we can handle with words. There was just a mistake, or false report or something and these… officers, have come to discuss it. Why don’t you and Prime go ahead or at least back to the room and I’ll handle this? Or… Kerry could do it?”

  The words were actually having an effect, though Brian still looked ready to jump in and kick some cop ass, until the younger policeman started yelling again, then jumped forward and hit Ink with his pistol, on the back of the head. It didn’t actually hurt the man, though he got a strained look on his face and finally turned on the officers and gave them an annoyed smile as the man tried to hit him a couple more times n the face.

  “Look… we’re IPB. We’re all federal agents and we outrank you here. You don’t have power of arrest over us, unless a murder has been committed and even then, since we’re all Infected, the IPB would still handle it. So back the heck off and holster your weapons. Now.” It didn’t work at first, until the three non-Infected agents stepped in the way, all wearing black suits. They had their badges with them and everything, which made the whole statement suddenly seem a lot more real. Most of the Infected operatives generally didn’t bother carrying a badge, even though they all had them issued. They should though, if they were going out in public. She’d have to send out a memo on it or something.

  Lancaster took the lead, his voice fairly calm, no weapons visible at all. It was more than Marcia probably could have managed really. Oddly she didn’t feel freaked or anything, just annoyed. She let the senior agent handle it though. Her job was to ensure that Proxy didn’t attack anyone.

  Well, that and to make certain this wasn’t the set up for an attack of some kind.

  Walking to Brian, who was being hugged by Karen now, she put her body in the way directly. Waiting for an explanation without asking. Lancaster would handle that part.

  “So, gentleman, what exactly is the issue here?” He sounded smooth suddenly, calm and relaxed, but that wasn’t real, she knew. He just did that before he had to fight. It was a meditative thing, a trance to help with combat. It hadn’t been in her personal training, but it worked decently well from what she’d seen. It really helped with shooting a lot, not unarmed combat so much. That was due to the fine motor control being better in a relaxed person, she thought.

  For a long time both officers just stood, as if they couldn’t believe that anyone would be just talking to them calmly while they had weapons out. It was true that they didn’t
have any power over the IPB agents or operatives, but not all police officers knew that. Most didn’t in fact. It was meant to keep the police from hassling their people, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t see to punishing someone for a real infraction. It wasn’t like diplomatic immunity that way, though as far as the police were concerned it was nearly identical. If they had a real problem, they should have just called the IPB local office and gotten them to handle it, but again, most cops didn’t know that was an option.

  Hard to blame them for poor training, especially on something that didn’t come up all that often for them. It was difficult to remember since her world held a lot of Infected people, hundreds of them, but the Infected only made up about one percent of the population over all. Most police went months or years without running into one that they knew about. Even at that, the vast majority of Infected were dangerous due to their first modes, not their powers.

  The older officer looked around and seemed to get the idea first, that starting a fight here would be a bad idea, so holstered his weapon. It was done in a slightly jerking fashion, made rough from adrenalin and nerves. No one would have been standing there, surrounded like they were, and manage honest calm. No one that had a brain at least. He spoke, gesturing at his partner to get the gun out of view.

  “We received a call reporting a young boy being kidnapped by Infected that fled into this hotel. Do any of you know about that?” His hand moved back to his weapon.

  Karen rolled her eyes. It took a lot to get her to do something like that, because it normally wasn’t something that she would have allowed herself to do, feeling too bad for the police that had been misled. It meant she was pretty ticked about their behavior then, Marcia thought. Otherwise she probably would have tried to hug them and explain or something.