The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  "Know about it? She recommends it regularly. That's not even a joke by the way. Karen, you'll be on Team One with her. She's great. You two will probably be best friends. So, you know, don't be surprised when she says you should sleep with me."

  Janice laughed, "big talk... or do you think she just wants to get rid of you for a night?"

  "Probably a little bit of both, to tell the truth."

  Chapter four

  It was strange, leaving like he did and coming right back by plane. It went without incident, which was a surprise to him, since every time he flew he felt like he'd trade out and then come right back to where the aircraft had been. If the impact at hundreds of miles per hour didn't kill him initially, diving without a chute from thirty-thousand feet should do the trick on the back side of the whole thing. It didn't happen though, which was good. As a rule he tried not to die on vacation.

  At the airport they just waited by the baggage claim, because Jan actually had some things, having tried to take everything she could from her apartment before they left. It could be for the last time as far as she knew, so it made sense for her to get what she really wanted. Brian had to help her carry it all, the two large bags being too heavy for her to manage.

  Lancaster came to get them, with Carl, of all people, who looked at her as if she might just be something good to eat. It was so obvious that about eighty steps into the parking lot, Janice starting to shrink into herself, almost as if expecting attack. Brian decided to clarify a few things just so that no one would have to freak out on the ride back.

  "Carl... cut it out will you?" Moving in alongside the tall brunette he tried to smile, to reassure her.

  "It's his power. He's trying to analyze what you need to learn, find weak points and new ways to use your ability. It's... He's not actually a sexual predator planning to do anything bad to you later. If he did I'd get his boyfriend to bitch him out." Which was just true. Warren would probably do it too.

  That got a laugh from the intense, very thin man and a nod from Lancaster who made a point of not looming over Janice. The interesting point there was that they'd met before. That didn't mean that she was more comfortable with him than Brian yet, though it would be coming no doubt. He was really good looking as well as big, and women tended to like that, even if they weren't in the market at the moment.

  The ride back home, to Doug's, was almost silent. Nothing much had happened since he'd been gone, except for finding out the fact that Argos didn't drive at all and Pixie could, but didn't have a license. They'd waited for hours to see if Brian was coming back, until Marcia called Lancaster to let him know and let him pass the word. The general consensus was that Brian, when he got back, was going to be in trouble.

  Carl was the main proponent of that theory and it turned out he wasn't wrong. Oh, no one yelled at him or anything, but the second he got in the door everyone looked at him funny. Some with crossed arms. He made his way to the sofa and plopped down as if tired or something. Since he hadn't had any sleep in a day, that was about right.

  "Sorry for worrying everyone. My power did something new." What could he say? It wasn't like he understood it. Dharma had scraped his subconscious mind and the only thing she had on the idea was that there was more to come.

  A wonderful thing no doubt.

  He stood again and walked to the door where Janice was still standing, no one paying particular attention to her. The funny thing there was that it was for different reasons in each case.

  Argos didn't stare at people, that being part of his first mode. It wasn't humble enough or something. Pixie didn't notice her yet, being too intent on ignoring Brian, and Doug looked away, because women didn't want to be stared at by guys like him. That was probably too harsh, since he was a little heavy, but not ugly at all. Still Brian had been there and that would be the feeling.

  The others were out of the room, apparently gone somewhere. With Ellen Doer.

  "Hey everyone, this is Janice Renfro. She's going to be on Team One. Actually she already is. Marcia had her on the books for some reason." He tried to sound only tired, but it came out a little cold and dead sounding. That got Doug to stare at him and frown.

  "Dang, is everyone on that team good looking then? How the heck am I going to fit in there? Wear a mask or something?"

  It was Jason that answered, looking at Doug a lot more critically than he normally would have.

  "No masks, it's in the rules. Only criminals wear masks. No... I think we need to start you out with a better wardrobe, shave the beard off and get you a haircut. I wish Clari was here, she's so much better at this kind of stuff than I am. Still, we can get you started here. I mean, if we aren't needed for anything else yet?" He looked at Brian as if he were in charge or something.

  "I think were good for right now. Ellen is off checking that guard and the one officer we have still?" It wasn't that they'd lost Shaw, he'd bailed before they got to him, but if they would have gone in quiet... Well, if they'd done that the other two would be dead, wouldn't they?

  Lancaster shrugged and pulled out his phone, not bothering to talk until it picked up.

  "This is Lancaster, we need a situation report..." There was silence for a while, nearly three minutes.

  "Heh. Of course. I'll let everyone know. OK, good work."

  He didn't smile when he hung up and pocketed the thing, putting it inside his left inside lapel.

  "They were both tampered with. That part is interesting. The guard was clearly influenced by the same Infected that caused the Prime debacle. The other officer was affected by a power, made to see something that wasn't there, but it wasn't anyone or anything that Ellen recognized. Not yet at least. She's gotten a few of the other police to allow her to check them out, and is trying to see if it was just the one man or not. On the good side it won't do anything to his long term performance, so we can put in that letter to try and get things cleared from his record."

  Brian nodded slowly, hoping that wasn't really something that he'd have to write up personally. It would probably be for the best if he did though, since an investigation headed up by the man he attacked, clearing him of wrong doing, would have to carry a lot more weight than if it just came from Lancaster, who might be working from political expediency. Still, it wasn't something that he was comfortable with. It felt like he was being told that all the things that happened to him, almost everything, didn't matter.

  No one was saying that though, not at all.

  Janice was still standing by the door, looking around a little as if trying to be invisible. He got her bags and put them next to the others in the corner.

  "Not the greatest hotel space, but the rent is cheap. This is Doug's place." He waved towards his friend in case she forgot which one he was.

  "Oh... Um, thank you. I probably shouldn't be here, but I guess we needed to come here directly? Some kind of transportation problem if we went to the base first." She sounded suddenly shy, which wasn't really the problem he knew, it was that there was the potential for an argument to develop, about where Brian should be and that was something she badly wanted to avoid. It was probably why she'd agreed to come in the first place, even though as the newest Team One member she shouldn't have been there at all. Argos or Pixie either. They were just the ones that Marcia could afford to send. It added weight to the whole thing, and power, if not a lot of combat muscle. That was probably why they had Carl and Montrose. They were both incredibly hard people after all.

  Still, not field agents. It was probably hard to get those right now. Asking people to be almost insanely tough and also work with Infected was a bit much.

  A small argument broke out, after a fashion, with Carl wanting to go find a place for the new people to train immediately, and Argos wanting to take Doug away to get spiffed up, so that they could convince the people at the base that he was really Team One material. It wasn't an actual fight, or the speedster would have just given in, thinking that Carl was right. The problem was that everyone could see a n
eed for both things.

  Brian smiled, not saying anything, which didn't get any attention at all. So much for having presence in a room...

  "OK. Do the decorative stuff first, then go and see to the training. Stores close, empty isolated lots and woods don't. Be careful though. Lots of bigots out and about looking for their fifteen minutes of pain, so we don't want to call attention to ourselves." It sounded like he knew what he was saying at least.

  Doug laughed anyway.

  "Fame. They aren't actually looking for discomfort, that's just what they might end up with."

  It was a point.

  "Anyway, don't take chances and if you need to, run. I'd rather not have to explain a trail of dead bodies if possible, but you know, if you have to, you have to. We get all our people out alive first."

  That wasn't exactly regulations, since there were, for most people, actual rules of engagement in cases like that, if they were facing regular people. No one had ever taught them to Brian though, for some reason. Probably because, in general, he was just supposed to try and kill anyone that attacked him. That got most of them to head out, leaving just Lancaster and him sitting, waiting for more information to come in.

  The large Agent didn't fill the time by reading from a folder for once, looking at Brian instead. It wasn't some funny thing, just a cool regard that eventually got him to look back.

  "So, two new Team One members in two days. Do you think there's a reason for that? Your friend is going to have to do some real work to make it there you know." He waved a hand a little. "Not that I don't agree with you. His power is strong, but he lacks aggression, almost totally. It's just the physical area he needs improvement in. Janice isn't nearly as powerful, but that's almost perfect. Her power is even pretty. I saw it last week." He didn't explain more though, moving to his real point.

  "How important to you is it that they go to Team One?"

  For half a moment he started to say it probably didn't matter at all, except for the obvious reasons, but slowly his head began to shake and he took a deep breath. A feeling came over him as he spoke, as if the words were simply truth, even though he didn't know what he was about to say.

  "We need them. More, we need to really hide how powerful Doug is from everyone. Trivia, she'll know, but the rest of Braid's team won't if we don't advertise it. That will end up being important. Janice is... She's important for different reasons. We need a new public face that's untarnished and able to handle being in the spotlight. No one can object to her for any real reason. Everything about her is perfect for the job. She's good looking, nice, has a history of helping people in need and has a non-threatening ability. She makes shields that protect people. More to the point, she's willing to use them, even if that's going to end up destroying her own life. I think though... Honestly, I'm here for Doug. The rest of this, well, I'm not happy about it all, but I won't kill people that were being messed with at the time. We just need to check out Shaw and see what's up there."

  The other man nodded slowly and finally got up, stretching a bit.

  "That means finding him. We may not be able to in a timely fashion, if he headed to the hills or has a good safe house. We also need to track down Carla Morrison and see if she's the Infector here or if someone at your old work place is. The easy thing to do there is get Ellen in on it. Twenty minutes alone with them and we'll know more than in months of searching for answers."

  It was why she was there after all. Her power along with her clever mind made her just about the best investigator on the planet. Maybe not the single best, but so close they didn't need Brian or even Agent Daryl Lancaster off playing sleuth. It was kind of humbling, to be so unneeded, but they'd live. It was why they had a team after all. So that if they fell short in one area, they could get backup.

  Slowly, just to keep himself from freezing up Brian started doing some light stretching and calisthenics. That should be fine, as long as he didn't actually push himself too hard. He was constantly behind in his healing now, and really needed a few months off with no fighting and possibly some drugs that actually still worked to help him get better, but that wasn't happening.

  After that he sat and practiced the mental skills that Mark was trying to train him in. It was relaxing at least, for the time he did it. Tension came back almost immediately the second he opened his eyes though.

  He blinked, recognizing this one for what it was even before Dharma showed up.

  "Um..." She spoke as if he wasn't feeling the tingling, standing suddenly enough that Lancaster went for a weapon, looking at the door.

  The Goth ghost stared at him, her eyes clearly scared.

  "Fuck! Brian, run! Dive to the right. I think you're replacing a girl... Five seconds."

  Crud, there wasn't a lot of space in the room, which meant he needed to time it right and hope. He yelled first, so Daryl would get the idea.

  "Trade out!" He ran the five steps he could to the right, straight at the wall and jumped on the last step, which should have taken him head first into it at a decent clip.

  It didn't though. Instead he was able to roll as something big, a body dressed as a guard he thought, slapped into the place he'd been. Dead no doubt. There wasn't even the tension left to it that an unconscious person would have had.

  The scene in front of him was... slightly posed to tell the truth.

  Five people stood in a line, the one in the center about fourteen feet tall, red and demon looking with vastly oversized horns on his head, curling around like a ram's. To his left was a woman that had huge eyes, they were blue and she looked normal otherwise. A short bald man who looked about sixty was next to her, his right hand glowing green lightly.

  On the other side was a mound of cloth with flies buzzing around it and two naked legs sticking out the bottom. On the outside left, standing farther away was a blonde girl that had short hair in a page boy cut and a makeshift uniform in white and black. Like a super-hero. Except that she wore a mask and was staring at the guy in front of her.

  That was probably the strangest part. The kid.

  He didn't move, or show any sign of having a power at all. He had a length of metal in his right hand, like a curtain rod or... Looking around Brian got it, it was a portion of railing from the catwalk above. His head cleared then. It was a two story mall, with red brick floor, and a skinny boy getting ready to fight five clearly super-powered beings with what appeared to be a stick.

  Because that made total sense.

  On the good side no one moved, staring at the boy, waiting to see if he did anything at all, not even noticing that Brian had come onto the scene, and was scrambling to reach the carbon nano-tube knife on his right leg. It was under his jeans, which had come with him, but didn't allow him to just reach through his pocket like the comfy fatigues he normally wore did. He had to unbutton them to get at it and it took about thirty seconds. The only saving grace there was that no one moved. Not until the boy banged the pipe on the ground once. Hard.

  "You will not pass." The words were said softly, almost gently.

  It got a roar from the one in the middle though, who didn't seem impressed, even though Brian was. The boy had even gotten the quote right. The movie had changed it from the original.

  The demon thing roared again.

  "We are Balrog! The Infected revolutionary front! This is the first act of the war. Now die."

  Brian didn't wait then, as the slow being in the middle started towards the kid, who did nothing more than tilt the pipe in the other guys direction. His face looked almost bored, though he did put his foot behind it, waiting for the thing to get there and impale himself on it.

  Guessing that the glowing hand guy was the most dangerous person in the room, Brian rolled towards him, slashing his throat as he stood, then throwing the man to the floor to get at the woman with the big eyes. She just looked scared, and didn't do anything, so he settled on trying to kick her out of the way. That made her clutch her middle and start sobbing.

  The b
ig guy was busily fighting with the boy.

  And losing pretty badly.

  Brian wasn't really paying attention, since a length of reeking fabric that smelled like human waste and death tried to wrap him up. It was so bad he actually started to gag, slashing at it to keep from going all the way down. After a few seconds he could see the force pattern though. It wrapped around him, holding him in place, but didn't have force front to back. He just rushed the person doing it, the bundle of rags and cut at about chest high until he got to the center, finding a reed thin woman of Asian appearance. She struggled hard though, rage clear on her face.

  "You can't see me!" She screamed.

  Right before he cut her throat. All the blood was making his knife slick and he had to unwind himself from the cloth, instead of cutting himself free. The stench was still all over him as he moved on the girl in front of him.

  She held out a hand and growled, a low sound meant only for his ears.

  "No." It was an order, backed with a strange desire to listen to her. He ignored it moving in anyway.

  The woman tried it again.

  "Stop! You don't want to hurt me!" It was persuasive, but nothing that would prevent him from moving him at all, as he got ready to slash her throat, hand already in motion she said something that did get him to stop though. Like magic.

  "IPB!" She blinked behind the mask and kept going once she had a moment.

  "Or at least I'm Denis Tompkins's sister. He said I could trust you. You're Proxy? I'm infiltrating this group. Or was. Crap. Now I have to start all over. Jerk." As he hesitated she grimaced at him, then turned and ran away.

  He tilted his head and wondered what the hell had just happened. Was that real, or had she just mind-tricked him? Regardless he turned to see the boy still fighting with the big and fairly slow giant. The kid wasn't overly skilled at fighting. Neither of them were. The boy wasn't backing off though either, jumping in to poke the giant with the pipe when he could. It really wasn't doing much. Brian stood back and thought about it for a while, trying to understand what was happening. The beast was big, and not fast, but it moved oddly. Like a puppet. Looking around he saw the man standing and watching it all intently. He wasn't the only one, but he stared at the giant form and his arms and legs twitched just a little, right before the Balrog moved.