by P. S. Power
Looking to his left he saw Tobin and Mark, just nodding at him, as if it made sense for him to be there.
The cooking show host shrugged.
"Warren caught him spitting in the food. You don't do that in his kitchen, even if it's a tent outside. He hit him and Crandall decided to go for his sword. You seem to know the rest."
Tobin stepped in and took a knife from the white haired and tan skinned man's back, since he was known to keep fighting after regaining consciousness. Brian stayed ready too, still holding the sword.
Goblin shrugged his tiny shoulders.
"Some of the people coming through the line haven't been very nice to us. Not a good thing, being gross like that. What do we do?" He was watching the downed man closely, ready to stop him if he had to. Probably with a song. Not a lot of people could stand up to the psychedelic visions that happened when Goblin sang.
"Um, well," He nearly said it wasn't his problem, but that was kind of rude, wasn't it?
"I guess you send Crandall back to the base and scold Warren for being violent? I don't know that this deserves anything else." He was back in Doug's living room suddenly, a shock of electricity coming over him that was a lot stronger than it should have been. It actually left his skin burning. Sitting on the sofa slowly, next to Jason, the phone rang.
Argos answered it, only to hand it off to him again.
"For you. Senator McCreedy?" He sounded baffled by his own words.
That was fine, since Brian felt the same way. Of all the people on the planet that might call him, McCreedy was just about the last one he would have expected. Hooper was the very last one, but it was nearly a tie.
"Um, hello? This is Brian Yi, how may I help you?" Somehow his voice came out sounding normal. He sure as heck didn't feel that way.
"Mr. Yi! I heard on the grapevine that you were putting together a little show for the holidays? Just calling to let you know that I'm more than happy to help with that. Just let me know what you need and I'm there for you." It seemed an awfully nice thing for the man to offer, given he was one of the most bigoted anti-Infected politicians in the country.
"Well, sure. That sounds great. So far we have singing and dancing numbers, but there's also some room for other things, maybe some sketch comedy with holiday themes? Any of that sound interesting?" He tried to make it sound polite, but for some reason there was silence from the other side of the device. That seemed to be happening a lot to him lately.
"Well, I was actually thinking of a more hands off role, but I could dust off my high school acting skills if the part isn't too demanding I suppose."
It was weird, but he seemed to mean it, so Brian got a pen and paper and made notes, before he forgot all the names and numbers. Senator Roberts apparently meant it when he said he'd put out the word for bi-partisan support for the thing.
Finally, thankfully, the phone stopped ringing after that and Lancaster came out, showered and wearing a deep blue windbreaker over his clothes that said "IPB". It seemed they were all going to be doing that, since he started handing them out to everyone except Ellen.
"OK, so we're going in today. I have some plans for you all to look at. Well go in just after dark." He laid the whole thing out, a pretty basic plan really and then did it again. Three times.
"Any questions?"
No one had any, which was probably a good thing, since otherwise they would have been there all night.
The drive took a while, about twenty minutes, and they were all pretty quiet. Packed in tight too. IPB local was meeting them about three blocks from the house of Marv Richards, bringing their whole office with them, plus two large trucks and some weapons for entry into the place. That gave them ten men, plus the people they were bringing themselves. They were taking the place with almost equal numbers. It was a lot better than Brian had figured on, to tell the truth.
Then he'd never worked at all with any of the local offices. For all he knew they sucked. Probably not though. They were field Agents, which meant that as often as not, if there was a local disturbance that involved an Infected person, they were the ones called in on it. You didn't stay on the job very long under those conditions if you weren't kind of awesome at it.
The street was dark and the house lights on, but something was horribly wrong when they moved in. There wasn't anyone there. At first he didn't get it, wondering if the crew watching all day had fallen asleep on the job or something, but then he understood. In the basement, not closed exactly right, was a tunnel that let a good ways back into some woods. By the time they found it there was no one there. Footprints in the moist soil, but that was about all.
"Somehow they knew we were coming. That can't be a good sign." Brian looked back at Lancaster who made a face and then shrugged.
"It could be anything. Probably the news coverage. If your old pal Carla realized you were in town they may have all ran off just because of that. I wouldn't stick around if I thought Proxy had come to town and might be holding a grudge directed my way. Or it could be that we were made at some point, or even that they just take off every once and a while for practice and we just got lucky."
Or that someone simply called them and mentioned they were coming? No one said that, but it was a clear thought for just about all of them. He shrugged though. It wasn't likely was it? Who would call... Doug? One of the local IPB guys? No, it was probably something less complicated than that.
Unless Braid let them know, just to mess with them. Brian could see that one happening, to tell the truth. The woman was an incredibly good precognitive. On a level that was almost hard to understand even. She could tell what minor things to change in order to alter the pattern of the world even. Not that he had any proof that she'd done it. Lancaster was right on that topic, it could have been any of a number of things.
Still, he'd bet on Braid or her crew doing it long before he went with one of their own betraying them.
It kind of left them at loose ends as a group though. The investigation was ongoing, but they had no leads at all. Really, Brian just didn't have time to personally wait for Shaw, or even Carla, to show back up. All he could do was go back to the base and hope that someone could find them, if given time. At least there was a real investigation or two going on.
One of the guys from the local office even approached Lancaster to talk about it, largely ignoring Brian as he did, just giving him the briefest of nods.
"Do we have data on these two? Marv is a well known figure to us, but he's always been fairly harmless. One of those 'beat the drums of war then sit on your ass' kind of people. Even the other anti-Infected people think of him as a joke." He kind of glared at the taller agent and then shrugged.
"You could have called us in on that attack last night. Then we wouldn't have had to try and call the cops off at a distance like that. We know people here."
That got Lancaster to raise his eyebrows at Brian, who just nodded.
"My fault there. I'm not used to working with other people much. Kind of a new thing for me. Lancaster was here on stakeout and... Really, I should have thought of it, or at least called in for advice from some of the people at the base."
The man, an Agent named Zimmer just stared at him like he was pissed at Brian for not raising his hand first. He didn't answer him or anything, just going back to Lancaster as if nothing had been said.
"Right, well, I guess everyone was new once, but it's your fault for leaving one of the new guys in charge. I know, don't yell at the boss, but seriously, this has been kind of a cluster, because we're being kept out on our own turf. We already had information about Marv Richards and his associates. Also about the Clean Underground, which is the largest open group in the area. Keeping us out was dumb. Just sayin'." He looked a little pissed about the whole thing too.
Looking around Brian realized that if anyone was ever going to come back to the house they weren't going to do it with eighteen people wearing IPB jackets standing around half shouting at each other.
"Le
t's pull back, just in case someone comes to take a peek?" He spoke to Lancaster, but glanced at the other guy, Zimmer, who snorted.
"Now you have a decent idea." He stood back and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Load up. We're moving out."
Then they did, carefully leaving a couple of men watching from about half a mile off, on a hill. It wasn't a great spot, but it was better than standing right next door. There were too many houses around for anyone to really set up a good watch on the place. Too many lights to use night vision, not enough to really see if a person wanted to sneak in carefully. He could have done it, he thought, just low crawling along the edges of the buildings and staying in shadow.
As they walked back to the car he looked at Lancaster and shrugged a little.
"Oops? To tell the truth I wouldn't have known how to call them anyway. As it was I had to get online to find the right number for DHS. They didn't believe me at first either. I really doubt that Zimmer or whoever was on the phone last night would have been much help to me personally, do you?" He wasn't trying to look for reassurance, but he got it anyway.
"Yeah, they would have helped you, no matter what. Not a bad agent, but Zimmer is a bit of a blowhard at times. Totally missed who you were and didn't think you looked old enough to be anyone important. Kind of a botch on his part, since we're all supposed to recognize all of you operatives on sight. I didn't want to take him to task in public though. You don't do that to people, not if you can help it."
The drive back home was pretty silent, mainly because everyone was crammed into two vehicles and it was a little too cozy. Brian was sitting pressed up against Pixie and she was a little agitated about something, which showed by her providing a shower of sexual attraction that was really hard to ignore. Thankfully, since he was touching her it mainly got directed Georgia's way. For him. Poor Jay was next to him, with Doug in the front seat, shifting uncomfortably.
He covertly elbowed the woman.
"Hey, take it back a notch. Otherwise Jay and I are going to end up dating and the tabloids will have a field day."
The pressure dropped then and she leaned against him warmly, seeking comfort.
"Sorry, I... It's silly, but normally I manage to have sex a couple times a day at the base and here I've been trying to be good, which means my control is starting to slip."
Doug raised his left hand suddenly.
"I nobly volunteer to take that burden on. See how courageous I am? Yep, not self serving at all." He grinned, making it all a joke, but that wasn't going to play with Georgia.
"Really? Thanks. Can we do that as soon as we get back? I'm... getting a little uncomfortable."
"Sure, not a problem." It was clear to Brian that his old friend was still playing in his mind, but he was single and an adult. Plus it was a real issue for Georgia. Besides it would be less complicated for him to do it than if Lancaster or Jay had to. Or him. He could of course, any of them would be able to and if they were around her long enough, probably wouldn't really have a choice in the matter. That might be uncomfortable for Janice or Ellen though. Unless one of them liked women too.
Doug thought it was hilarious at first when Pixie pulled him off to her room. He didn't come out for over two hours, which probably wasn't being spent watching the paint crack. It let the rest of them have a chance to talk, since it was pretty clear that, unless something broke the next day, they were going to have to stop wasting IPB resources and go home. That didn't exactly go over that well, but no one could say much about it either.
What they really needed was someone like Christian, who could help them track people down, no matter where they went. She was busy though, finding all the traitors in the military. That might just take a while, since it was at least several thousand people and some of them were high ranking. Trying to kill the President had priority over almost everything else too. It sort of had to.
Doug finally came out, looking a little sheepish and Pixie followed, seeming far more content about the whole thing.
No one had any clue about what they needed to do though. Not at all. That was until Georgia remembered something, snapping her fingers.
"Brian needs to go on that date."
Lancaster looked at her and tilted his head, "say what now?"
She got excited and ran over to him, sliding in close and putting an arm around his shoulders.
"Oh yes. There's this cute girl at the bookstore that wants to jump his bones. They're supposed to go out if he has time... which he does. I mean, you should at least call her and make sure she wasn't just being polite. That could be, but it seemed like she was pretty interested to me. Even after the whole mention of you having a girlfriend. Open relationship though, so... Call!" She got her phone out and handed it over. Then she smiled and stood with her hands firmly on her hips.
"Do it. Karen won't mind and it will do you good to connect with the people you used to know. Everyone needs links and you, my friend, do not have a lot of those."
Everyone was staring at him, which made him want to say no, but instead he just took the thing from the tiny hand and walked to the back yard. It was fenced in, so safer than the front was. Just thinking about that made him realize that it would be a horrible idea to call the girl, so he decided to just call Karen instead.
"Hello?"
"Hey Karen, Brian here. Though I'd check in?"
"Brian? Hey, can I talk to you later? Um, someone is here right now."
Then he heard the voice, which was male. A sharp pain of jealousy ran through him, but he sighed and tried not to sound like a total jerk. After all, she had needs too, and there was no reason for him to act like he owned her, when they really couldn't be together.
"Oh, hey, sure. Um, later then?"
"Bye." It wasn't curt, because she couldn't really manage that. It wasn't loving either. Not for the first time he wondered if she was about ready to call it all over yet. It would come, no doubt, but until then he needed to be understanding and try to be nice about things. No matter how much it hurt.
He took a few deep breaths, tried to make himself not care and then turned to walk in, not knowing what to say at all. Before he got halfway down the dark cement walkway he started buzzing. His skin did... hard. It wasn't painful, but it was horribly odd. It was an actual sound that could be heard with the ear.
Dharma popped into being right in front of him, her face half blank, half baffled.
"OK... Dharma... useless early warning system... I have no freaking clue what's happening here. You've never done this before though. It's... Get ready, this is going to hurt I think. About five minutes."
He jogged inside, everyone looking at him as if expecting something.
"I don't know what's happening, but I think I'm about to go somewhere. The energy buildup is huge. Dharma says she doesn't get it either. Um, here, phone." He handed it back to Georgia, his voice shaking like he was palsied or having a seizure already.
No one said anything for a while, but Lancaster looked at him and said something strange.
"Tell the General that you're from Operation Principle and that you require his assistance. The code is "purple mist". Got that?"
"What? I... What Gen-"
Then he vanished into a glowing blue wall of pain and emptiness.
Chapter six
When he got there the wall of pain turned white hot for a bit and then he passed out. Gasping awake he noticed that there were about twenty scared looking men wearing regular Army uniforms holding older looking weapons, standing around him. No one spoke, thankfully, because his head felt like it was about to burst already. Worse than any hangover he'd ever had by far. If it wasn't the worst pain he'd ever felt it was simply because Brian had just been through the transfer that had gotten him to this place.
Which, when he looked around for a second, he kind of recognized.
It was the base. IPB headquarters. Except it clearly wasn't. There were a bunch of buildings set up above ground, small things mainly, all one story high, a
nd white. It looked kind of like a refugee center. One that someone had spent some cash on, but still not something he'd want to live in for a long time. All the buildings were a little run down looking at the edges, at least the ones he could see past the line of trucks and tanks. On the other side he heard yelling and then saw it happen.
He knew where he was though, after that.
The sky turned a brilliant purple hue, almost black, as space twisted around them all. Guns pointed at him or not, he screamed.
"Fuck! Run! Pull back, pull back! Get me the General. Um... Operation Principle! Purple mist! Pull back or Tesseract is going to kill you all! Now!" Then, sensibly, still in horrible pain, he started running.
Looking over his shoulder he saw that most of the men didn't move, though a few tried to follow him. Out on the field behind him there were three lines of people. Most of them wore simple green military style clothes, making them hard to see. One short line, which had to be Alpha Squad, three people standing in front of them, waving their hands and trying to get them to stop and a much, much bigger section of people.
Bravo.
And they were about to die. Before he could even change direction they did just that, men and women, some huge, some pretty small, most looking fairly normal at a distance, all fell down and stopped moving. Their hearts stopping. Brian knew the story, having been told about it more than once now.
He kept running, most of the military following him now, no longer trying to chase him at least, just trying to get away. They probably couldn't get enough distance to save them. Not if Tess really wanted to take them down. As far as he knew only one person had ever really managed to do any real damage to the man in a fight and that wouldn't happen for another thirty years or so.
After a few minutes he stopped, seeing that almost none of the men had kept up with him at all and had taken to milling around instead. Some of the officers were screaming for them to hold the line, as if that could make any difference at all.