The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  The idea was simple enough, they’d get the lay of the land, helpfully demonstrated by a little model that the agent had built while waiting for them, made out of objects he’d just found laying around, then they’d jog over to the house and start their entry. It was less than a mile to run and even the slow people could do the distance inside ten minutes or so. Plus it would give them a bit of time to get a feel for the place they were in. It was isolated, and they didn’t even pass another building as they moved. She had to assume there were cameras or sensors, because Mic was a pro in that area, but if they moved fast enough, they still might have the situation under control before anyone knew they were coming.

  The first problem showed up before they got to the car parked behind some trees, where Reyes and Lancaster were watching from. There were two kids playing in front of the place. Little kids. Babies. If either was four years old Marcia would have been surprised.

  It would be hard for them to just go in, if they had children to contend with. At least without hurting them. It meant they’d really need to count on Goblin and Lady Glory then. Not just to stop the shooting either. If it wasn’t so important she would have called the whole mission off and just waited for the targets to come outside. As it was, they’d just have to risk the kids. They’d try to protect them, since they weren’t the problem, but they couldn’t let these guys go. Not if they were guilty of trying to kill the President. If it was just that they were being held hostage, then they still needed to go in.

  There didn’t seem to be another way.

  “I think I can get a count of who’s in the dwelling and figure out who’s in charge. From this range it shouldn’t be that hard. Shall I try?” Christian stood with her arms crossed, face damp and slightly red, her light blonde hair matted with sweat. She’d worn jeans and a heavy jacket along with running shoes, which couldn’t be cool, but would protect her a bit if she had to crawl on the ground or anything.

  “Perfect Chris. Could save a lot of time.” Lives too, but she didn’t mention that part. Everyone knew that already.

  She settled to the ground, sitting Indian style, back of her hands on thighs, eyes closed. She didn’t speak or do more than shift just a tiny bit while she worked. The kids kept playing in the yard and a single woman, who looked to be about twenty, came out and spoke to them briefly, then left. It was, Marcia thought from the pictures she’d seen, Cal Morris’ daughter, Beth. She certainly didn’t look like a prisoner.

  It took longer than Marcia liked, but that couldn’t be helped. After all, how long was quick when it came to pulling information from minds? She was just getting ready to sit herself when Christian stood up suddenly.

  “It’s… There’s more than one thing going on Marcia. We need to secure the people here, they’re all involved. There are no hostages here, there never were. We need to warn Washington, the base… Congress. This isn’t just a few people trying to make a point. They’re planning to start Armageddon. Now. In a few minutes. We need to stop them.” To make her point she started running toward the house. It was totally out of character for her, but got everyone’s attention.

  Especially when Brian started heading that way as well, easily passing the telepath. It was a stupid way to do it, so she yelled at them, not caring if it gave them away.

  “Down! LG, Goblin, go! Everyone else get ready, we rush as soon as everyone is as dazzled as they're going to be.” Which would be in about six seconds, if she had it right. Tobin could handle anyone that could hear him, and Karen anyone the light she projected as a brilliant blue beam touched. The problem was that everyone was inside. Except the kids out front. It meant making a hard entry, which meant that she should go first. No one else was bullet proof. Not on their side at least. Of the people they had with them Brian was closest to that state, being in his armor. It didn’t cover him totally but was something.

  Chris hadn’t mentioned Infected being inside though, so Marcia waited and signaled the rush.

  “Now!” She sprinted, not saving anything, pushing as hard and fast as her body would go. It wasn’t enough, because the woman who might be Beth Morris stepped into the doorway, firing an automatic weapon from the hip. She couldn’t really hold it down, so the spray took out one of the kids in a bloody cloud before Marcia could get there. The woman found herself hit at about seventy miles per hour, which didn’t go well for her, a sickening crack coming from her neck as she flew back into the wall behind her, inside the house. Marcia was in contact with the body the whole time as it caved the plasterboard and two by fours, using the resistance to kill part of her speed.

  Inside it was a confusing hodgepodge of events that she couldn’t really track totally. She was on the first person that tried to shoot her before she realized it was Weathers, who’d gone bald since they’d last met. He hadn’t gotten fat at least. Not too much. She pulled her punch, taking three rounds to the chest as she did, trying not to kill him, just in case he had information they needed.

  The next person was harder for her to handle, emotionally. It was a kid. Not a baby this time, but the boy might have been all of twelve. He screamed at her as he fired a little twenty two rifle at her.

  “Filthy Infected! Die bitch!” He had to work the action on the rifle after the first shot. It gave her time to simply step in and slap him into unconsciousness. Then she broke his little rifle. If he was going to go around shooting people with it, he obviously wasn’t responsible enough to have something like that. What were these people thinking?

  Probably that the evil Infected were going to come and kick their asses, from what they were screaming. Proxy had been behind her it seemed, if not coming in at the same speed, clearing the next room over. There was gunfire, but it was over when she got there. The six people there were all dead, of course. There was still noise coming from the back of the house, so she took off toward it, only to find a door that led to a garage. There were people inside, but a single car was taking off at full speed leaving most of them behind. The tires smoking on the slick gray cement.

  Marcia hated car chases. Even a family car was faster than she was once they got going, and they were big enough to be a pain in the butt to stop, if you were running at the same time. It was the one time when she felt having a personal firearm would have really helped. She tried anyway. Mic was in the vehicle and as far as she was concerned he needed to answer some questions. Especially in regards to why one of the women there had killed a baby while trying to shoot her. That was sloppy and more than a little evil. No one sane would use a weapon they weren’t strong enough to control.

  She got to the car before it got twenty feet from the building it had started in. It was a large steel bodied thing, so it didn’t speed up all that fast, though the engine sounded like it was good. A race car engine hidden in a Sudan or the modern equivalent. Whatever it was the drug lords and special forces groups were doing in that regard to fool everyone else this week no doubt. It didn’t matter, they weren’t getting away. It would be too hard to punch through the engine block with it moving, so she sped up and kicked the front driver’s side tire as hard as she could. It bounced her off backward into a roll, but it made the thing explode too. It was a run flat tire, or had been, being solid inside, but the metal it rested on couldn’t take the stress of the blow and neither could the rubber.

  “That’s a start.” She got up and ran over to the vehicle, which was listing badly to one side, but still running on three wheels, and took out the passenger side front one as well. It took two kicks this time, because she was using her left foot, which was just as strong, but not as accurate. The wheel popped off whole. They crawled along at about five miles per hour for a few seconds, and then stopped as the metal rim that remained dug into the soft grass they were on. She didn’t wait for them to act, just headed to the car to put an end to the chase, but found everyone inside was already unconscious when she got there.

  It took a second to see who was doing what. It turned out to be Denis who was staring at them
from a good ways off, so they might be actually asleep or just feel so paralyzed they couldn’t move. It was a handy trick, when you wanted people alive. Marcia stepped back, breathing hard, but not feeling it. She still needed oxygen like everyone else, so she didn’t bother trying to talk, just waving at the car a little. Less than a minute later Lancaster and the guys ran over with fists full of zip ties and started securing everyone. They had to scramble to get the people inside taken care of before they all woke up, but they managed it, only having to knock out one person again. The boy.

  Marcia hadn’t hit him hard enough the first time.

  While she waited for the prisoners to wake up, Brian started dragging the bodies out into the front yard of the house. There was no fence, but no neighbors either, so it was probably fine for the moment. Eight people were dead. It was her fault of course. Not solely, but she was the one in charge of the clusterfuck, so she had to accept the blame. It didn’t help that Chris had started haring off like she had, but that wasn’t her fault. She just didn’t know not to do things like that. That, or whatever she’d found was really just that bad. The woman had her talents, but she didn’t normally pretend to be some kind of bad-ass. It wasn’t her way.

  Again it came back to it being Marcia’s fault.

  She wanted to finish the job and get rid of the bodies, since they had nearly ten people left, mainly women and kids, but a few men worked in that had managed not to get themselves killed. They weren’t that happy, the conscious ones. Not at all.

  “Murdering scum!” One of the men helpfully called out. “Baby killers!”

  There was indeed a dead baby, but Marcia didn’t have it in her to own that one. She shook her head and started to speak, only to have a voice in her ear suddenly scream.

  “Bomb! Get away from the house. Bomb! Run!” It was Penny and from the cadence she was using, she was taking her own advice.

  Everyone did start to take off, except the people tied in place near the front porch. Marcia didn’t have a lot of time to think about it; just falling back on old patterns and training she grabbed Mic and Weathers and ran. Brian had two with him as well, the boy she’d KO’d and a girl that might have been about Bridget’s age. Even with their lower mass it had to be nearly impossible for him to run while carrying them. He did it anyway. They got far enough away with their packages before the bomb went off, pretty much wiping the last traces of the house from existence. If they’d had any papers or computer information, it was gone. That was inconvenient, but probably the plan.

  There was a soft exhalation next to her after it happened, the fireball and smoke still climbing into the sky. Penny again.

  “Fuck. Those people… Some of them were just kids.” She sounded so ticked Marcia reflexively got ready for an attack. Cellophane couldn’t hurt her and eventually she’d win that fight, even if it was just dumb luck on her part, flailing around until she hit something. Unless the girl cheated and used something on her that she wasn’t ready for. Superglue in her mouth and nose maybe? She’d never tried it, but she doubted she could beat that fast enough to save herself and Penny could put it there without her noticing at all.

  She decided not to mention it as an option.

  Not for her anyway. Maybe on the fucknuts that used to be her friends if they didn’t have a really good explanation that didn’t involve hate groups or getting their grandkids killed for no reason at all.

  “Denis, can you wake people up?” She’d never asked before, but feeling awake should do the trick, if it was strong enough, right? His power basically caused a person to set up their own internal drug reaction when it was used right. That was the theory at least. Perfect drugs with a Denis controlled dosage meter. It was worth a shot. They didn’t have time to waste waiting for them to come to and then spend half an hour trying to pretend to be asleep still.

  Not that it would work with a telepath standing right next to them.

  “I can. One second.” It took longer than that, nearly half a minute, but all four of the survivors let their eyes pop open and started shaking a little. It was probably reaction to what he’d hit them with, rather than fear, since Weathers and Mic wouldn’t have let that show if they could help it.

  The girl looked panicked and started to cry, staring back at the house.

  “You killed them all?” Her voice held and air of pure terror. It wasn’t a nice thing to hear.

  “No. The bomb that went off was already in place. It was probably triggered before we even got to the house. They planned to run away and leave you and your families to die. Not exactly kind of them, they could have at least told you all to scatter. My guess is Weathers here did the actual bomb building. He was a specialist in that area when he was in the service. Isn’t that right?” She didn’t really need to wait for them to talk, just ask questions, but she wanted to hear the truth from their own mouths.

  Beating it out of them was tempting, but they didn’t have that kind of time, plus it probably wouldn’t work. She toyed with the idea of having Denis try to force them to talk, wondering if that could work. If they were made to feel like being really honest, and talkative, would it make them do it? She kind of thought it would, but it might take some practice for him to get right. He’d mentioned something along those lines before at least. They’d have to make do with having Chris taking their minds apart for them.

  It was a moot point. Conroy walked over and nudged Mic with his right boot, getting his attention.

  “Hey. So, what the hell?” He didn’t ask any specific questions, but that didn’t seem to be needed. The man just looked away and seemed glum.

  “It doesn’t matter now. You can’t stop it. We have the military on our side. Enough of them at any rate. We were just here to keep you lot busy while we took out your base and DC. In ten minutes, the Whitehouse won’t be there anymore. Most of the landmark buildings will be gone and the good, clean people of America will be able to actually start over again and deal with the Plague, like we should have been for years. Once we have Hooper in office instead of that sicko Lawrence, we’ll be able to take out the trash and live in peace again.” He sounded pretty convinced of his words at least.

  Marcia sneaked a peek at Christian, who checked her watch.

  “More like seven minutes. We need to warn people I… We don’t have time to call.” She swallowed hard and sat down, on the ground, closing her eyes.

  Whatever it was the woman was doing Marcia didn’t know. She had the Director on speed dial however and hit the button before she had the phone all the way out.

  “This is Kevin Moo…” He started, sounding calm and relaxed. Too calm.

  “It’s happening now, there and in DC. Air strikes I think, but I don’t have time to confirm. ETA six minutes and change. This is all the warning you get. Um, this is Turner. Go!” She hung up. She didn’t have more and him doing anything but running would be wasted time. They couldn’t get everyone out of the building anyway. Not in seven minutes. They’d run drills. Even if everyone ran it took nearly twice that long to get the place evacuated. Especially the lower levels. Moore’s office was on the second floor though, close to the surface. It might have been a moot point, but she’d had to try. About then Chris just started talking to no one.

  No one that was there at least.

  “No time to explain Lauren, this is Christian Poures. You all need to get ready, there’s a military strike coming. Rogue military. Planes or missiles…. I don’t know… I understand… Good luck.” Her eyes popped open, looking a more brilliant blue with the slight tearing they were doing.

  “I… they’re going to try and stop them. They don’t know how, since they’re a ground based crew, but they all decided to stay and protect the President anyway.” A single tear ran down her cheek.

  It made Mic laugh.

  “Good. Each one of you Infected fucks that dies makes the world a better place. I hope your friends fry you stupid cunt.” He sounded deranged, but no one hit him.

  Not even Pro
xy. They all just stood back and waited. Brian pacing a little bit, muttering to himself.

  “I can get the President out, or Director Moore. It’s a risk, but…” He went silent, listening to the ghost girl in his head, and finally rolled his eyes.

  “Fine. I guess. I just hope it works out that way, it’s not who’d I’d have thought of protecting given everything. This waiting sucks.” Then, as if considering it first, tilting his head and listening to Dharma, then he walked over and kicked Mic in the solar plexus.

  It wasn’t full strength, but hard enough he man tried to double over, gasping and gagging.

  “Sorry, but you were cussing in front of children. Manners please.” He used his insane, icy cold, voice. The one that came out just after he was working. It was a dead pan so deep that it almost sounded like something from a machine.

  It got the boy to whimper a bit. Wisely, perhaps more so than his years should have allowed, the kid kept his mouth shut. The girl didn’t, but what she was saying was easy enough to discount. It was just about how all her friends and family were dead. Also about Jimmy. Her Uncle Jimmy, who, if Marcia was following the whole story, was dead now, but had loved her and told her that they were going to run off together. It was why they’d become lovers.

  “Your own Uncle? Gross.” That came from Denis, who seemed to mean it, but then he was more sensitive to things like that than most people, given his upbringing. The girl explained.

  “He was my stepmoms younger brother. We aren’t really related or anything. He wasn’t that much older than me either, only twenty-eight.” She started crying again, which was fine, because it stopped the stupidity that was coming from the girl’s mouth. Mic seemed ticked off that the girl was talking at all, which was normal enough, since you shouldn’t in an interrogation, unless you were actively lying. It was too easy to let real information slip.