The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  The judges for it were some other cooking show people she didn’t recognize, a good looking woman that seemed to be suffering, incongruently enough, from anorexia, and a man with an abrasive New Jersey accent that instantly got on her nerves. They were both dressed like chefs, in white smocks and different little hats. The last judge was a celebrity of some kind. From his good looks and easy going manner he was probably on a real television program that had nothing to do with food at all. Marcia just sat and waited for them to make whatever judgments they were going to.

  There were six cakes in all, and they looked good. All of them. The Cake Kings weren’t called that because they sucked at it apparently. It was close, but if she were going to be honest, they’d probably have won at least two of the three sections. The wedding cake that Mark and Warren had put together was better than the others, but one of the fantasy versions the other team had done was so good that even Mark just chuckled when he saw it and applauded, conceding that one without even seeming worried about it.

  The judges felt the same way she did.

  That part was fine, and she waited for it all to finish, but apparently they needed reactions from the contestants and the audience before they’d be allowed to leave. Because that made sense. Everyone would want to know how she felt about the made up contest that didn’t mean anything, wouldn’t they? Finally they got to her, just going down the line, covertly skipping Lauren and Peggy, but asking Tobin what he thought first. He was enthusiastic and confident, thanks to Denis helping him out. To her it was obvious, but no one else seemed to get it, except Brian, who watched both of them closely.

  “They were all wonderful. I have to say I didn’t envy the judges, having to choose between them. Of course I was probably a bit biased, being friends with everyone on Steinberg and Friends, but the Cake Kings did a fantastic job today.” Helpfully he looked at Marcia and smiled, one of his huge ones that looked decidedly nonhuman.

  “Marcia, what did you think?” That got all the cameras except one to focus on her almost instantly. That one just kept covering the cakes.

  “I agree. It makes you wonder why the Cake Kings producer kept sending in poor Carlos to try and sabotage the work being done by Steinberg and Friends. It was a fair enough contest. Oh, sure, the Cake Kings got to come prepared for it, while Mark and Warren had only about sixteen hours to get ready, but that’s the nature of the business, isn’t it? You don’t always get to prepare ahead of time.” She didn’t mean anything by it, but the blond man with glasses that was hosting the program walked over and held his microphone out for her, a serious look on his face, almost as if the silly contest really meant something to him.

  “Are you saying you think the contest was rigged?” For a few seconds the man sounded legitimately worried as if that would be something that might actually happen.

  “What? No, not at all. There was a difference in preparation time, but that doesn’t mean it was fixed. I’m not exactly sure why it wasn’t mentioned earlier, but Mark and Warren are great under pressure. As long as Scott and Denis aren’t put in as contestants, I’m sure the rest of whatever comes will be fine too. That would be funny though. Watching those two scramble around trying not to set the kitchen on fire, I mean.” She meant it as a joke, but the man with the mic went wide eyed.

  “Ohhh. I think I have an idea. Let’s set that up? Have the junior members from each show on the network compete? I need to get with…” He wondered off, most of the cameras following along.

  Two stayed though, one on her, one on Denis as Scott moved in alongside him, smiling. Prime spoke first, patting Denis on the back.

  “I’m sure we’ll win. After all, I’m on the team. Between the two of us, I doubt that anyone will be able to stop us.” He sounded so confident it was annoying, but that’s what the man did. He couldn’t really help it.

  Denis could.

  “Thanks Marcia. Just so you know, I’m recruiting you into this too. If I have to look bad in front of the whole nation it’s only fair that you do too.” He smiled though, playing to the cameras easily. Then, he was a television personality, wasn’t he?

  She wasn’t, but that didn’t get to be pointed out before Charlot Chambers spoke.

  “Excellent! We’ll put it all on camera then, as a documentary. A behind the scenes type of thing to show the folks back home. Our home movie of what we did on vacation.” She continued with her idea, which was actually Brian’s she told them, which got everyone to shut up about the invasion of privacy instantly.

  Everyone liked him after all. The ones that knew him at least. It was an effect he had on people.

  She nodded as if considering it for the first time. It might actually be a part of his ability. Not everyone instantly loved him, but everyone kind of liked him, eventually. He was nice enough, but a little dark at times anymore, but that just made people trust him more. At the IPB at least. Thinking about it things kind of came together. The people he needed, or more correctly, that his power needed… They all liked him. Most of the other people were hit or miss. That could have just been him though too. She’d have to watch for it and see if there were real signs of anything there.

  “That’s a good idea. Let’s try it out and see how it works? The IPB can’t be hurt by showing how we’re just like everyone else, can we?” She smiled, as if that wouldn’t backfire horribly.

  They could take things out in editing though, if they didn’t need it for evidence in court later.

  The first thing they were going to do was eat dinner though, which meant getting blankets, the food and drink and dishware out to the beach. They also had lights with them and a portable generator, since the cameras would need it. Originally they were going to use glow-sticks in different colors, but Charlot pointed out that those wouldn’t provide even a hundredth of the needed illumination. It meant that almost everyone carried something out to the sand with them. They couldn’t have a fire, since that was against the rules for the area, but it still had a party feeling to it. Someone had brought music with them even, and played it loudly enough that it had to be heard from a hundred meters away, even over the surf.

  Bridget danced in the sand, making it look cute and playful, pulling Brian into dancing with her. He was about the worst dancer Marcia had ever seen, but he tried, which counted for a lot. Denis danced with Karen first, and then Lauren, who cut in, only to be replaced by Charlot of all people. Considering there was a running bet about when she’d snap and put Denis through a wall, it was unexpected. She didn’t really like the guy much, or hadn’t at least. She seemed to be warming up for some reason. He was making an effort to not be a dick and it was working even, but Charlot should have been about the last person that had any effect on at all. It was just her nature to dislike people.

  Warren cut in to dance with Brian, which was hilarious, and meant that Karen could settle in next to Marcia to watch. The woman smiled gently and shook her head.

  “Some vacation for him, isn’t it? We can’t even go to a nice hotel without killing people.” Her tone was a bit sad, but Marcia shook her head back.

  “Had to be done. This is a bigger deal than it looks like Kare. I don’t know all of it, but it could be huge.” She thought about things for a second and realized that it would be almost impossible to listen in on them, this close to the surf with the music blasting like it was.

  She leaned in, almost whispering in her friend’s ear.

  “This… I have word that there might be an attempt to kill the President and that the two men Penny stopped earlier were in on it in some way. They were from my old unit. Well, the one I was attached to at least. Lancaster and Reyes too. Even the heavy guy was good back in the day and the other one still was if I guess right. Really high level operatives. My current take is that we’re supposed to be framed for it somehow. Or at least implicated. If we get out of this at all, it will probably be because Penny took action when she did. This is convoluted and messed up, so we need to all get and stay ready and assume tha
t we’re being watched the whole time. Try to encourage everyone to stay on camera as much as possible. It’s why we’re doing a documentary of our vacation.”

  “Really?” Penny’s voice hit her ear, which meant she was close enough to have heard everything else too.

  “Someone wants to Kill President Lawrence? Why? I mean, he’s a nice enough guy. Supports Infected rights and all that who’d want to… Oh.” She fell silent, her voice trailing off weakly.

  Marcia tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

  “Like that. Exactly. Who’d want to take him out? The main culprits would likely be the anti-Infected groups, but most of them are too stupid to put something high level together. But if they’ve recruited ex-special forces and active military for it, they might just pull it off. We can’t let them, of course, but just as important as protecting Lawrence is making sure we don’t get blamed for doing it ourselves. Hence the cameras.” She didn’t say the rest out loud. That if a group of highly trained people wanted the President dead they might not be able to stop them.

  Penny thought of something else though.

  “I don’t show up on cameras. I can be heard, but I normally don’t talk when they’re around like this. It’s a first mode thing. I get shy. So no coverage for me then, huh? What about Mark? He could be on screen, leave and be back instantly, doing who knows what. Brian might do something like that too and everyone knows it. He’s the guy that could be anywhere as far as the bigots are concerned, he freaks them the heck out, always there to stop them from killing the “evil Infected”, regardless of the fact that he’s saved as many of their people as not, including Hooper and McCreedy.” She did something, which made Marcia rock just a bit. That was the only indication she was being touched at all.

  “We pretty much have to save the President then, and stop whatever else they have planned. It would be too easy to frame us otherwise. It doesn’t even have to be a proper job of it; they can just kill him with a bomb or sniper, and then make the accusations. A lot of people would believe it, even if the facts don’t fit. It’s too easy for most to believe that everything bad is due to some Infected person or another.”

  It was strange, but Marcia could almost see the shrug that the girl threw off then, at least she imagined she did. It was just the truth though, wasn’t it? If they couldn’t prove their people were accounted for all the time, they could easily catch the blame for something like that. It would be a great thing for Braid and her crew too. Framing the IPB for something like the death of a President or an attempted coup would have them shut down fast. That would mean there would be no one left to actually go after the real Infected threats that came up, ratcheting up the tension even more, leading to a full scale war.

  It was a brilliant plan really, one that Marcia would have used herself, and if she were stupid enough to think a war like that would help anyone at all. She wasn’t though, so that meant it had to be stopped. How though? They didn’t even really know who was doing it, or if anything was happening at all. Not that they could prove. If they reported that the President was in danger and it turned out he wasn’t they’d catch flak for it. If they didn’t and the man was murdered, it would make them look guilty.

  That decided her pretty quickly. Better to look gullible than like a murderer.

  She’d get Lancaster to call it in to the Director, and let him deal with the actual fallout. It was his job after all. Plus, it would sound better if he was the one telling the secret service all about what they’d heard. All just rumor so far like it was. Even Cal Morris trying to shoot Wilson didn’t mean there was an assassination plot happening. It could have just been personal. Maybe the men had a history she just didn’t know about? Old enemies from way back? Rivals for the same girl in school or something that wouldn’t even show up in the intelligence files at all? It was possible. Not likely of course, but still worth looking into.

  Marcia wanted to take all her people and leave, but knew that could be used against them too at the moment. It would make it look like Penny was just going around killing people. Since she could do that if she wanted and no one could really stop her, that wasn’t a rumor that Marcia ever wanted to start. They’d paint her as a good girl that had to do a very hard thing instead.

  Or they’d try to do that at any rate. It might not work, she knew.

  Penny was hard to show in a good light, because she just didn’t show up at all. It was her greatest strength as an asset, but also a PR nightmare. Luckily those she just got to dump on Charlot.

  At the moment though, it was time to eat. The food all looked pretty special for a picnic, coming in several courses, with things like stuffed mushrooms, some kind of seafood that looked like crab baked into little cakes and sandwiches as well as potato salad. It all tasted the same to her, so she tried to smile at Warren and Tobin as everyone else told them how wonderful it was.

  “Great job guys.” It got added after she choked down a bite of stuffed mushroom that felt like soft mush in her mouth. It wasn’t their fault eating was a chore for her after all. Besides, it was all on camera.

  Then they were given cake for dessert. It was part of one Mark had made, a white cake with white frosting and decorations on the outside that made it look pretty good, even though it didn’t really say picnic to her. Tobin passed it out for them and made certain she got an extra large piece of it.

  “Der ya go.” He spoke like that sometime, his own private accent, made up of softly slurred words and a ducked head. It wasn’t that he couldn’t speak clearly, just something he did at times. It was kind of cute, like something a child might do. The guy was in his mid-twenties though. she thought. Plus he was going to be famous soon. Really he should avoid that kind of thing for a while, she decided, nearly mentioning it, until she noticed the camera pointing at her face.

  “Thanks Tobin. Looks great.” She took a big bite and made sure she didn’t react to the texture at all. Some foods didn’t work too well once you took the flavor away. It was calories though and she needed them. Mark, who was sitting across from her by about ten feet, next to Christian, smiled and waved at her.

  “I hear that you arranged for Denis and Scott to go head to head in a cooking contest with some of the other shows? I, for one, can’t wait.” He looked over at Denis who was making a face and then switched to Scott, who looked pleased that the attention was finally turning back to him, where it no doubt belonged. Mark nodded to him gently.

  “It’s going to be hilarious. We’ll all help though, if the rules allow it. That plus the other two cooking contests and a mock up episode of our show, along with some panel discussions, and we’re done for the week.” He seemed to think it was all doable.

  “Though we really need to watch out for the Cake Kings. That…” He shrugged and then looked over at Christian, shaking his head a bit, like it was something he didn’t really want to share, but she thought he should.

  “That show was originally my idea. It was the one I came up with, before I popped Infected. The network gave it to Jerry instead, which made sense. He was supposed to be my assistant on the show and I just couldn’t do it at the time. So, you know, Chris says he has some issues there, feeling like he didn’t really earn it, which is ridiculous. He’s really made the show his own. Hence us needing to be careful. The sabotage will probably continue, even though it’s not needed. You saw those products he and his team had earlier. Really, that fantasy cake… It was executed flawlessly.” Mark sounded relaxed and slightly sleepy, which was normal for him. He had to stay calm all the time, or his power would trigger. It wasn’t a little thing either. He was practically a meditative master and had to be, just to interact with people at all.

  Warren rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky.

  “Yes, it really was. It also took them at least a week to make. Using a stained glass motif with LEDs and carefully cast sheets of hard candy sculpture was brilliant, but not something they did yesterday. It would have been more interesting to see what they could
have done in the same time frame we had to work in. Not that I’m grousing about it, just, well… OK, so I’m bitching like a little girl. Sorry. I’ll stop now.”

  Across the way, sitting with the Team Two people, Kerry laughed.

  “It does show a bit of insecurity, doesn’t it? Still, they’re the cake decorating show, so it’s fine if they win that one. We have more actual cooking on ours and do a lot of other things too, so we need to win a few of the other events or people will think we suck. It’s going to be hard getting past the judges though, even if what we make is better. I was surprised they let our wedding cake win today. It really was better, but…” She took a bite of potato salad and gestured at it with her fork, a piece of real silver, since Warren wouldn’t let them use plastic. It was wasteful and damaged the environment.

  Kerry swallowed, still pointing.

  “This is really good Tobin.”

  “Thanks.” The little man turned green and looked away, but smiled.

  For a while after that, everyone made small talk and forced food on her, like it was some kind of a game. She didn’t say anything about it until Mark offered her a second piece of cake. She took it, but really didn’t want to try and eat it. There just wasn’t enough of a payoff in it for her. Plus it was suspicious. No one else was being fed like she was.

  Looking at the plate she let her brow wrinkle.

  “What gives? I know I need to eat a bit more, but this seems over the top.” She almost asked if they’d spit in her food or something, but didn’t. They were food pro’s and wouldn’t do that. Warren would probably do violence to anyone he caught trying that kind of thing, even if they did have super-powers. Mark might too, which was saying something, since the man didn’t have a violent bone in his body.

  He shrugged and looked her square in the eye.

  “Marrisa from “A Taste of Italy” noticed you earlier and started to compare her weight to yours. She’s too thin, as you might have noticed? It reminded us that you need to eat more. That’s all.” He spoke smoothly as if it was really just that, but Charlot sneered at her, which was her attempt at a friendly smile and explained.