The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  “The point there dear, is that if a clearly anorexic woman is trying to get down to your weight, you have a problem. People are starting to talk about it. So do your part and eat. We’ll do ours and keep you fed. All right?” She sounded ready to argue the point, but it wasn’t needed.

  Looking down, Marcia realized she had gotten kind of thin. It wasn’t exactly all that bad, but if everyone was noticing, it might be an actual issue. That, or they could have just been screwing with her. Still, medical agreed that she needed to eat more, so she’d make the effort. She could drink a pint of vegetable oil before bed each night or something.

  “I guess.” She ate the cake and didn’t say anything more about it. They were right and she needed to do her part. Most people didn’t have to struggle to eat enough, but everyone had their own cross to carry in one way or the other. This one was just hers.

  As they walked in she half expected explosions or something like that to happen, but the world stayed quiet, the hotel lights making it look pretty in the dark. The beach was lined with towering structures and a lot of people were out, even this late, most of them having a party of some kind. It was awkward, since any of them could be setting up to attack, but that was just part of her first mode, she thought. Not that it wasn’t true, but the odds were that most people weren’t going to go after this group for one good reason.

  They couldn’t win if they did.

  They wouldn’t try it using force at least, she amended. That left a lot that people could do though, from calling in false police reports, to making it look like they were being attacked by the IPB on film. Nothing happened, but she kept her eyes open, even as she whispered to Lancaster about reporting the information they had.

  “Is it enough, do you think?” He sounded reasonable and skeptical at the same time.

  It made her snort in sudden laughter.

  “Heck no. We’ll look like morons here. It has to be done though. Go through Moore and let him spin it for us. He’s good at that kind of thing.” They were almost into the hotel, standing in the open door when Marcia heard the yelling. It was coming from a female.

  Not one of their people, since those were all with them. She double checked that again quickly. All accounted for. It was coming from a ways off. More than anything Marcia wanted to ignore it, but it was getting louder as they all walked in slowly, looking at each other. Whoever it was, the woman sounded angry and like she’d had a bit too much to drink. More than just a little, since most people wouldn’t be throwing things in the hallway of a hotel. At least that was what Marcia took the crashing sound to be.

  Unless it was about her crew though, or had to do with an Infected person directly, it wasn’t their business. At least Marcia hoped not. Keeping that in mind she walked slowly, noting that the noise wasn’t letting up at all. They had to round three turns to find the source of the noise, which came from the lobby, not the hallway at all. About half a dozen people stood around as a woman who seemed to be on drugs of some sort slapped at Alan, the guy with the glasses and thinning hair that had decided that Denis and Scott should be in a contest together.

  The woman laying the hurt on him wasn’t doing it very well. In fact, soft cooking show guy or not, Alan was holding his own, blocking almost everything she threw at him and doing it calmly, trying to yell loud enough to be heard over her as she hurled verbal abuse his way. That was a good thing, since they had cameras with them too, and without needing to be told too, they started capturing the scene.

  The wild looking woman was dark skinned, but a coffee and cream color that probably worked well on camera. She was wearing what seemed to be a teddy, a few bits of see through material and a garter belt around her left thigh. From what she was yelling though the whole thing didn’t seem to be about Alan at all. He was just in her way, trying to get her to calm down. It also wasn’t about sex, despite the costume.

  “Deb, sweetheart, let’s go find a place to sit and talk this out? I’m sure that no one wanted to mess with your schedule. It’s all a work in progress. We can just change some things back; it’s not a real problem.” Looking panicked the man saw them all and stared at Prime, who was notorious for being into himself. Denis got a glance too, which told Marcia a lot about what was probably going on.

  Alan had tried to set up that contest thing for them and now Deb, whoever she was, had a problem with it. Possibly because Denis and Scott weren’t real competition and she felt insulted by the comparison. They could always just cancel the thing though. They’d just let Scott help somewhere else and he’d be happy. As long as he was the center of attention that was. Maybe they could have him host something or other?

  That of course, wasn’t the problem. Not totally. The woman didn’t seem to care that she’d be in a contest with other junior show members, even if they weren’t good at their jobs. No, it was that they were Infected.

  “You can’t make me work with them. What if they rape me? Or god, who knows what? Eat me or something? Infected people do things like that. Look at that Jackal guy. The Network is responsible for making sure I don’t get hurt while I’m working and I’m calling my lawyer! Making me be in the same room with monsters is a breach of contract. I’ll own the whole thing if you don’t fix this.” She punctuated the last word by hurling a name placard from the front desk into the wall behind the innocent man working the counter. He looked pretty scared. That, or annoyed. It was a bit hard to tell given everything. His smile looked frustrated, rather than happy.

  Marcia knew that she was leaning toward annoyed herself. She was about to wade in and protect Alan’s honor physically when someone else did it. The man was still dressed like a chef, having come from out of shooting something, hearing the commotion no doubt. It was the guy with the heavy New Jersey accent.

  “Debbie, what the hell are you doing? Trying to get us all kicked out of the hotel? We still have five days here, you know. Now what’s the problem?”He sounded reasonable to Marcia, but apparently Deb didn’t like the sound of it, because she started screaming again for several minutes.

  It was a rant against the Infected, mainly. One that wasn’t very coherent, but that accused several of them of some pretty nasty things. Personally. Not just the Infected in general, but people actually in the room.

  “That guy from that Infected show… the one that sleeps with his sister? That, and the guy that raped his own daughter! That’s what they want me to work with! I won’t have it. No! Tell them that if they don’t fix this, I quit. I mean it! They can fill my time spot with someone else. Get some Infected freak to do it. I’d like to see them try it. Lose the whole network without me. They need me. Won’t do it.” She started to wind down about then, realizing that most of the people watching her were the ones she was talking about. She looked scared and like she was about to run for it when Denis started speaking.

  “I don’t now, and never have, slept with any of my sisters. Just for the record here. I think you got that from the fact that our father was a crazy anti-Infected activist that forced his daughters to marry him. Got to love Christianity, right? So he might have had some things in common with you, since you both seem to hate people for having a disease and all that. Still, the part about me sleeping with my sister, since it isn’t true, is just slander. You might want to watch saying things like that on camera. For that matter, Scott didn’t harm his daughter at all. He was framed and it was all uncovered, since it wasn’t a very good job of it. So that’s two lawsuits you can’t win right there. Plus, you know, refusing to work with people due to bigotry is Illegal now. Just thought you might want to know all that.” He sounded snarky and a bit mean when he said it, but didn’t follow it up with a string of four letter words, so it was a win for him, given his old habits.

  Scott took a deep breath, and then didn’t respond at all. Instead they all just watched the woman go wide eyed and then start screaming again.

  “Help! They’re trying to kill me! Help!”

  Trying not to seem too mean abou
t it, Marcia had to roll her eyes. At least New Jersey man and Alan tried to get her to quiet down. Then, they weren’t half as high as Deb seemed, in fact, celebrity chefs or not, they both seemed sober and ready to work. This went on until the police came again, about five minutes later. They weren’t anyone that Marcia had seen before at least, but there were six of them and they all held their hands on the top of their holstered weapons, the clasps already open, ready to draw. She rolled her eyes and then let them close. She got the general idea, but the police pretty much knew who they were now. They really should have gotten the word to not interfere in IPB business. At the very least they should have come in asking questions instead of trying to use intimidation tactics. That, obviously, wasn’t going to work here and they had to know that by now.

  “Everyone back off!” The one in front growled, using a command voice, as he’d no doubt been taught in the academy. It normally worked, except for when it caused people to become violent, which was about ten percent of the time. More so with people that already didn’t like the police and didn’t trust them to do their jobs.

  The woman started screaming and pointing at Denis and Scott.

  “They were going to kill me! Get them, get them!” It was sudden and convincing enough that one of the men in the back, who was standing next to a female officer, drew his weapon.

  That should have been Denis’s signal to drop them all, but he was distracted by the woman in front of them, shocked that she’d say something so obviously untrue. That meant he didn’t even notice when Proxy started moving on the man. The whole scene was too close to something from Brian’s past for him to let it go or wait for it to be resolved peacefully. Marcia had read the police reports enough to get the general idea; it was pretty close to a replay of something horrible for him. Apparently he’d learned some better tactics since then and wasn’t letting it happen again.

  About three seconds later the officer was lying on the ground, having made several loud crunching noises as bones broke in his face and possibly back. The other police tried to fight then, but it didn’t work. Less than twenty seconds later, the group of six was unconscious, and most probably needed to go to the hospital. Or they would, except that Brian was returning to the first one, ready to make sure that part wasn’t necessary.

  He really didn’t like the police, which everyone pretty much got already, including the cops, no doubt. Sure, they’d messed up again from his perspective, but what were they supposed to have done? A crowd of super-humans surrounding a woman that claimed her life was in danger? Of course they’d gone for a weapon or two. It was what they were trained to do, since they didn’t stand a chance any other way. In this case they just hadn’t stood a chance at all.

  Before Brian could kill the man Lancaster spoke, his voice calm, like it almost always was.

  “Easy there kid. Easy. We need them alive this time. Christian can check out their intent for us, when they wake up. It’s pretty obvious who we are at this point, so they knew they were breaking the law no doubt, drawing on federal agents. Let’s see how this one plays out.”

  Normally that would be enough to get anyone to pause, including Brian, but this time he just shook his head.

  “No. They tried to kill us. We can’t let them keep getting away with things like this. I keep telling you all that we need to make a stand against them, to protect everyone else, but you all keep saying I need to be reasonable. They keep coming though, don’t they? You have to be able to see it now.” He moved, a lot faster than a regular human should have been able too, a stomp meant to destroy one of the downed officers throats, which was stopped by the ground, the man that had been laying there suddenly missing.

  Brian pointed toward the back of the room suddenly and went wide eyed, clearly terrified.

  “Bomb!” He yelled it so loud that everyone in the room froze for nearly three seconds. Time he used to hit the next closest downed uniformed man several times. When Marcia turned he had a firearm in each hand and was pulling the trigger. Nothing happened, the bullets having been taken by Mark, who’d obviously taken the first officer too, dragging him to the back of the room.

  Without hesitation Proxy whirled in a move she’d never seen him use before, hitting the man on the ground with the butt of the gun in his right hand as he fell, hitting him in the temple rather precisely for a new move. Then he flipped over, the weapons gone, still fighting, trying to kill the men before they could recover.

  Mark was good and kept taking the weapons; sometimes the men themselves, but Brian found ways around it each time. Finally hitting Mark with a hard elbow to the stomach which made him vanish. That meant he was somewhere else for some reason, because no matter how long it took to recover, he could keep fighting seamlessly if he wanted. That meant that the man had decided not to get in the way anymore. Probably because it shouldn’t have been impossible for Brian to hit him at all, for anyone, no matter how fast to do it, and that freaked him the hell out.

  Making it her turn.

  “Brian. Stop that. We’re not killing the cops. It’s bad press if nothing else. Now calm the heck down.” She tried to sound reasonable, but her voice betrayed the worry she felt. She didn’t know how Proxy would manage to kick her ass, but also didn’t doubt he could. He’d hit Stasis, which was something she was almost certain none of the rest of them could manage even if Mark agreed to let them try. She was harder to hurt, true, but it looked like it was up to her now anyway.

  She didn’t rush him though, because that would be too obvious. He’d use her momentum to throw her if she did that. Instead she just walked over and gave him a hug. Half a second later almost everyone else joined in too. Bridget got there first, but it was almost everyone in the room, including, she saw with a bit of amazement, Alan and the New Jersey guy.

  Bridget spoke for them all, worried.

  “Don’t lose it now Brian, we need you. Please?”

  Somehow, that worked. It took a bit and some panting, but he managed to calm down before the police came to.

  “Fine.” He sounded rough and worn, angry and a bit like he was placating them by not killing anyone.

  “Fine. I’m good. Let go. We need to place them all under arrest then, if we aren’t going to kill them. That, and remove them from the country. We should get ready for the incoming forces too. They’ll probably be here to try and kill us all soon. It’s what they do.” He sounded so certain of all of it that a few people laughed.

  Marcia didn’t. It was very nearly what had to happen, wasn’t it? The other cops would come and instead of listening to reason, they’d attack, trying to protect their friends, even though they were in the wrong. Then Brian would kill them all.

  In short, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

  “Not likely.”

  The voice was male and familiar to her, enough so that she turned away from Brian to look at the door where Conroy stood, looking like the hero of a movie with long gray hair and a lean ranginess to his body. The skin of his face was weathered and tan, but just the kind of look that light skinned people got when they went out into the sun. He smiled and walked over to where everyone was clustered.

  “First we need to clear this mess up. Someone get me the number for the local police please? I need to talk to the man in charge. Cutthroat, you and Hoover secured the front. You, um… Sorry don’t know the name yet…” He pointed to Lauren looking up at her with a grin. “But if you could handle the back for us? Make sure no one sneaks in for a bit? Especially if they happen to be police, at least for the next hour or so?” He walked close enough to pat the giant form on the arm, soft flesh hitting the hard brown expanse with a soft thump.

  Laruen spoke gently, not moving at all.

  “Um, sure, I guess. I mean Um… Who are you again?” She was trying to sound polite at least.

  Brian looked at the man, carrying Bridget over with him, as she was clinging to him like he was a tree to climb. That or she was a baby monkey, legs wrapped around her mommy. When h
e got the older man he nodded, then shrugged easily. The girl just wasn’t that heavy at all. Not even for a person with normal strength.

  “Lauren, this is Mike Conroy. He… teaches wilderness survival and… I think knows Marcia and Lancaster. Right now he seems like the person with the plan, so I guess we should just follow along, since all my thoughts on this end up with a lot of dead people. We should probably avoid that though.” He very carefully didn’t look at the cameras, just at the older man standing in front of him.

  “There you go Lauren. I’m Mike. So what do you say?” He waited, but it didn’t take her long, she just turned and started toward the rear entrance without a word.

  “Good. Any progress on that phone connection yet? No?” He looked at Brian, but then stepped around him to get to Marcia.

  It was good to see him, but she was in charge of the situation, not him. Which didn’t mean a lot if they didn’t get out of this mess somehow. It was so screwed up she was half tempted to just let Proxy finally go to town on a police force. That wouldn’t play well in the bible belt though, especially when a guy that supposedly had no real powers killed a few thousand men in a fight. It wasn’t physically possible of course, but then, she’d seen him do some things that really just weren’t, hadn’t she? Even that day.

  “You have a plan Mike? If so, best let me know quickly, since I have to back it up in court if it goes sideways. Better to know what it is first I think.” She meant it, but moved in and hugged him anyway.

  The whole thing just felt right, having him there, shit about to hit the fan and too little time to figure out anything that would make sense in the real world.

  “Oh, sure. I was planning to tell the police chief that he’s under arrest for terrorism and needs to present himself to be taken into custody. Then we have a little chat with the man and his lawyer, point out that he might not get a trial and that his lawyer can’t protect him thanks to the Patriot Act, then see about working out a deal with your boss. That Moore still? They haven’t put you in charge yet, have they?” It sounded like a real question, not like he knew the answer.