The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  The last place was nearly the same as the first, except it was at a place that advertised “gator wrastlin’”. It was what the sign said at least. Why anyone would want to see that she didn’t know, but again, they didn’t have security cameras inside, even though they took credit cards. It was a symptom of the modern world. Even places away from the city took plastic. Though they were so far away from Miami that calling this the outskirts was being generous.

  After they walked out, Lancaster pulling his keys, Reyes snarled under his breath. It didn’t sound friendly, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying, a hand wiping at his brow as he explained.

  “We’re being screwed with. I mean, I don’t want to think it was any of our people, but it’s been over twenty years, they could have changed, or may be all be in on this together even… But other than that, I don’t know what could be going on. Mind control maybe? They wouldn’t leave such similar messages by accident. That makes it sounds like a plan. If they were really being forced to do this, would they all think one of the others was responsible? That’s… Complex to the point of being stupid. It would be simpler to just make it seem like a single unrelated party was involved. Am I missing anything here?” He stared at Marcia, expecting her to have noticed something more than he did, given the way her mind normally worked.

  “Nope. Not that I can see yet, with the facts we have. I don’t have enough to even guess. My assumption is that, unless this really is mind control, it’s probably all about distracting us at this point. I mean us three here, not just anyone watching. Most people wouldn’t understand the nicknames they all used. Calling Rick “Harpo” for instance? I’d be willing to bet no one’s called him that in decades. Lyle isn’t called Mic because he’s Irish either, so the authorities wouldn’t get that one, would they? No it’s for us, or at least someone from that time. What we need to do is find Cal Morris and have him brain drained so we can find out what the hell’s going on here. Without that or at least some other clue, I think we’re pretty much at a dead end.” She shrugged. It wasn’t a good thought, but really, they should turn it over to the FBI, since it looked to be their jurisdiction after all.

  No one involved was Infected, except for her, as far as that went. It was tempting to claim they had a right to do it, for old time’s sake, or that they’d do a better job than the feebs, but that wasn’t really true, was it? They weren’t perfect at the FBI, but they did a good job with investigations for the most part. Better in most cases than the IPB. They were a combat oriented group after all, not a bunch of puzzle fiends. Pretending otherwise was just keeping the case, if it was one, in the wrong hands.

  She mentioned the idea softly, hoping the other guys wouldn’t freak on her for it.

  The response was lackluster, but Lancaster agreed with her, if grudgingly.

  “I’d like to do more, but I think you’re right. This isn’t our business and seems a bit too over the top to be anything innocent. Let’s report it and see what happens? We’ll keep our ears open, but otherwise back out of it if we can.” He grinned suddenly, an icy thing that Marcia had always suspected he practiced in the mirror to get just right. It looked horrible on his too pretty face.

  “After we get Christian to mind rape Cal for us. We can report first, as soon as we get to a land line and computer, but we might as well collect what data we can anyway.” He paused. “Um, I meant to say once we have Chris “gently retrieve” the information. I don’t know it for a fact, but I think she might not like having it referred to as “mind rape”. She’s solid enough in her own way, but it’s clear she hates being Infected with a passion. I can’t blame her. It pretty much destroyed her life, which was just about perfect before it all went down.” He didn’t look away from the road as he started the engine and drove away. He wouldn’t, even if they came under attack, since driving was his job. She had shotgun for this trip, so if anything happened it was up to her to handle it and Reyes to back her up. It made sense, given her powers and the fact she couldn’t help look for dangers anyway.

  Nothing happened though for a long time, even though she kept expecting it too. She waited for it, a feeling that would have made her think something was really going to take place if it had been twenty years before. Now she recognized it as just a slightly more alert state for her. They passed a car, one with a flat tire and a woman trying to wave them down. It could be a trap, she knew and almost told Lancaster to just keep going, possibly speeding up, so they wouldn’t be caught in it.

  Of course, if it was a trap, that might also be a lead for them. The odds of them happening onto an ambush robbery by chance was pretty small, wasn’t it? Plus it wouldn’t go well for the woman if that was what she had in mind. It might also just be a flat. They happened and cell phones didn’t seem to be working well this far out.

  “Stop. Let’s see what this is.” She didn’t have to ask twice, the car pulling over smoothly, not leaving the pavement, though the road was pretty narrow. Just enough for two vehicles at once with no shoulder to speak of. It was lined with a culvert on either side and the whole stretch was just greenery through this area. Marcia got out first; hoping whatever happened wouldn’t ruin her dress. At this rate she was going to be down to just uniforms before the end of the week if it did. She could afford to buy some new things, true, but she really hated shopping for clothes. It was just a thing with her.

  “Um, hi. Thanks for stopping. I…” The woman was decently young, late twenties or so and pretty enough that she probably hadn’t just been out driving through the outskirts of Miami alone for no reason. Good looking women were suspicious when they were alone. Fair or not, people guarded the good looking ones pretty closely. For her to be truly on her own meant she was doing something outside normal convention. That could be anything from seeing her married lover to buying drugs or a thousand other things that even Marcia wouldn’t have thought of, but it probably wouldn’t be anything normal.

  She had tan skin and straight black hair, pulled back into a sensible ponytail. The clothing wasn’t special, shorts and a t-shirt that had words on it with a symbol. A triangle with letters in the middle. T-C-C. Totally Clean Christian. It was bigot code for militant anti-Infected groups. The woman kept speaking though, instead of running out of the way of the rocket launcher or machine guns that Marcia expected to hit them.

  “It’s embarrassing, but I don’t really know how to change a tire. I have one in my trunk, a spare, but I’ve never done this before. Um, help?” She smiled up at Lancaster, and then made nice solid eye contact with the other agent. That could have been her trying to ignore the Infected woman, of course, if she knew who they were, but it might just be due to the men being good looking and more interesting to her that way. Almost as if having read her mind she glanced at Marcia and smiled at her too.

  It didn’t seem forced, just relieved.

  Lancaster shrugged out of his jacket and handed it off to Reyes, who tossed it into the driver’s seat of the rental and got to work. Marcia was tempted to pick the car up for him and hold it while he changed the tire, but managed to not be a bitch to the woman, even if she was wearing a bigot shirt. She did ask about it though, half hoping she could make fun of the woman for it without having to actually hurt anyone. It could also be part of that trap, so springing part of it early might help throw the enemies timing off. If the situation was like that at all.

  “I couldn’t help but notice the T-C-C there. What is that, some kind of church group? I think I’ve seen that before on my local pastor.” Playing dumb often got a lot of chatter from some people, especially if they were looking for new recruits. The woman shook her head and chuckled softly.

  “Nope. It’s for Totally Clean Christian, which is a load of crud. I mean, I’m a Christian, sure, but people use it to show they aren’t Infected. I just threw it on this morning. It belonged to my ex-roommate. She got into all that kind of hate stuff and ran off to join an anti-Infected cult. I wouldn’t be wearing it, but I need to do laundry
and didn’t have anything else that was clean. I…” The woman hesitated, and then eyed Lancaster, who was after all, not finished with the tire yet. Nearly though. He looked up at her, giving her one of his cooler looks.

  Reyes rolled his eyes at the woman and Marcia fought not to make a face at all. It was a better story than it might have been. People could do things like that between laundry days. She just nodded instead, not willing to trust the woman just yet. Apparently it showed on her face as something darker, since the woman’s eyes went wide about then. Scared, as if realizing she didn’t really know the people with her.

  “Um, I’m not into that kind of thing. Hate. I don’t know if you are, but we should… Um… love…” Suddenly the she stepped back, an aura of pale pink glowing about six inches from her skin. It was an overreaction.

  “Oh fuck.” She sounded half panicked, which was probably about right, since both agents had gone for their weapons and had them out almost instantly. “Don’t hurt me!”

  Marcia stepped closer to her and reached for her shoulder slowly; blocking the agents potential shot’s with her body.

  “Easy there. Why would we hurt you? We’re just people stopping to help with a tire.” The patting motion met resistance at the edge of the glow. Really good resistance, she pushed harder against the edge of the aura, her hand not moving inside it at all. Not even using super human levels of strength.

  “Hey, you have a force field. That’s pretty cool. Any offensive abilities?” She tried to make it sound relaxed, like she was just talking shop, it didn’t seem to throw her hand away or anything, just stop it.

  The woman didn’t speak for a long time, but finally she stopped the whole light bulb act, leaving an outline of her body on Marcia’s retina.

  “No. I mean, I just do that. If I get scared. I’m… not like the other Infected. I mean… I don’t hurt people or anything. I can’t. It’s why I’m really wearing this shirt. I can’t fight, so I try to avoid suspicion when I can. Please don’t tell anyone. If I… If they find out at work… I’m a social worker, I work with kids.” The woman didn’t say any more and Marcia didn’t ask, shrugging instead.

  “And you don’t know how to change your own car tire? Seriously? You should fix that. I’m Marcia, the big guy changing the wheel is Daryl and the other fellow here is Reyes. Um…” She had to dig through the bag she had for the trip, a small backpack like school kids use, but finally found one of her cards. It was one of the ones for the press, so it had her whole title on it, but she didn’t have anything else at the moment.

  The woman read it and blanched.

  “IPB? I…” She started to glow again. This time a richer lavender color that shifted into purple and then warped through a rainbow of colors to green. Whatever her power really was, it was pretty. Marcia waved at her a little and made herself look friendly. It was pretty common for Infected people to freak when the IPB came for them. It normally didn’t end well. They weren’t there for her though, so it wasn’t really needed.

  “If you need help with anything, just give me a call. What’s your name?” It was field work one-oh-one, if someone was agitated, don’t ask hard questions. That would just confuse them. Keep it easy and simple, things they knew without thinking about it.

  “Janice. Um, Janice Renfro. Pleased to meet you?” It was a question, but sounded polite enough to let slide.

  Luckily Lancaster stood and started packing the jack and flat tire into the trunk, taking time to stow it all carefully, so it wouldn’t slide around. He spoke as he did, sounding almost bored.

  “You’ll want to get that tire repaired as soon as possible and put back on. Also, really do make sure you learn to change your own tires. Take a class on basic auto repair or something if you can. Getting stuck in a remote location isn’t a good idea for any woman, especially one that’s trying to hide her Infected status. Avoiding trouble and bad locations is key to that. You seem to trigger when you get scared or nervous?” He waited for her to answer, which got her to blink first, but finally she took a breath and nodded.

  It came out as a slight shudder.

  “Mainly. I can do it on purpose too.”

  Lancaster looked at Marcia and shrugged.

  “If it’s all defensive that probably means she’s a class three based on the pressure it looked like you put on her field. We can ignore that and call it a high class two, since she doesn’t seem prone to violence. Agent’s discretion… It’s your call though, since you’re the boss.” He gave Marcia a look that had hidden meaning to it. She got it, since she’d known the man for so long. He didn’t think they should get this woman involved with the IPB if they could help it.

  She was low enough in power level to leave alone and seemed to be fairly innocuous, so it made sense to her. That class two was BS though. The woman was at least a class four. Marcia didn’t think her force field activating was work for her at all and if it could stop physical forces like her hand and keep her stable at the same time she could stop bullets and probably explosions. Then again, if she couldn’t fight, no one in the government that mattered would care.

  “Of course. We don’t even need to make a record of this anywhere. Janice, nice meeting you. You have my number if you need it; hold on to that, just in case. Otherwise, make sure to stay as calm as possible and remember, when in doubt, run away.” She held her hand out to shake, and got back into the car, not attacked at all.

  Janice hung back, trying to distance herself from them almost instantly, but she followed them for miles. It left Marcia feeling vulnerable, though it was close to what she would have done too, if it were in the tailing car in a similar situation.

  “So…” She spoke into the silence, the soft purr of the car engine soothing after the strange events that had been happening.

  “Any bets as to if this meeting was somehow set up by Proxy?” She didn’t explain, and neither agent needed her too.

  Lancaster held his head stead and spoke without hesitation.

  “No bet. It has his power written all over it. There’s a feel to the things he does, even if he doesn’t know about it. I mean, what are the odds of this happening by chance? If that’s the case, we can almost bet we’ll be meeting up with Janice Renfro again sometime. Hopefully in a good way. She has the looks and sort of power to fit on Team One, if it comes to that. If she can’t learn to hide. I don’t know for certain, but my guess is her first mode basically makes her averse to confrontation or something like that. People in her line of work can’t really avoid that though, not for long. Social work… Well, I wish her luck. Not a job I’d want. I’d end up shooting someone in my first few weeks.”

  Marcia felt the same. It was really the only thing the woman could do though. If you had the ability to pass as normal, you just did. If you didn’t, you either died or managed to run to one of the Infected communities around the world. They were pretty secret, because when they got found out the government would send in troops or even try to bomb them, at least in theory. The truth was that they were generally allowed to exist, because it collected the Infected up into easily managed groups. That was a last resort kind of thing though. No one wanted to live with a group of half insane Infected. Those communities were known for being about as bad as prisons for most people. You were liable to be attacked fairly regularly and rape was epidemic. There were no rules, other than the ones enforced by whoever was strongest. Most of the time that wasn’t a good person, because negative emotions were a hallmark of popping positive. People didn’t think about it often, but over half of all emotions were negative when expressed at high levels. First modes didn’t have to be emotions, strictly speaking, but obsessions and that kind of thing were dangerous too.

  Get in the way of a lady that had to collect elephant statues and she might just cut you.

  After that they didn’t really talk about much until they got back to the agents room, where Lancaster called in the situation to the local FBI office. The person on the phone was polite enough, but didn
’t seem to think the situation needed a lot of attention yet. No reports, other reports, of missing or possibly kidnapped people had come through channels yet. They weren’t trying to ignore it, but as the voice on the phone told them, they had rules, like everyone else.

  “Still, I can flag this, since the info is coming from our friends at the IPB. I’ll keep you in the loop if we find anything.” The man on the phone, an agent named Foster, sounded normal, like he was actually just fielding a call from another agency, rather than acting like he was the big bull in charge or something stupid like that. Of course, they were coming to him with it, not keeping him out, so that might have made a difference.

  After that Marcia was pretty much at loose ends. Oh, there was always something to be done, but for a few minutes none of it was right in her face. She decided to just go and check in on her people. Bridget first, since the girl was actually working. Penny too. She made sure she had an ear piece in, so she could hear her. Having the tech and not using it was moronic. The little flesh colored thing didn’t register as a weight to her at all, so it wasn’t exactly some kind of hardship to keep in. It was keyed to pretty much only let Penny through, though how that was done she didn’t now at all. It didn’t replay everything she heard though, thankfully. It had sort of worked for Warren though, when he’d been invisible earlier. Marcia thought he’d been shouting though, so it wasn’t perfect that way.

  The only problem was that she had no clue where anyone really was, which meant walking around the conference rooms, trying to find which fake kitchen the team had been shifted into. There were events going on, each with a camera crew, and most with a fairly small audience. It was the first day of the thing, but the truth was that a cooking show network thing wasn’t all that exciting. Not, skip work to go and be at the live taping incredible at least. It took going into three different demonstration spaces before she found Mark and Warren working to decorate a cake rather frantically. She watched for a few seconds before Bridget found her, walking over with a sense of purpose and serious look on her young face.