by P. S. Power
"Good, donuts too. I need to get the trays back to the restaurant."
Lancaster didn't even grin about it, though he clearly heard it all, instead he just started going over his notes. After a few seconds he spoke, to her.
"That sounds like what you described to me on that mission, about three weeks back. You recall the one?" He was being vague on purpose, so she decided it was a clue as to what she should be doing herself.
"I think so. Can I get pictures of the crime scene? I might be able to at least confirm that it looks the same, if it does."
"We should have something in by the end of the day. Are you here until five?" He asked that as if he expected something different.
"Here or the gym. I still have to work out. After dinner for that, I guess. I didn't think about it before. I also need to put in some time at the range. If I was a better shot that one kid might not be dead now." It hadn't really been worrying her, but it was still the truth. She had to get better, because if she didn't, little kids might die. It may never come up in her life again, or it could happen the next day.
Marcia fought down the last donut and then nodded.
"We'll head to the gym from one to three. I'll schedule range time for you too." Then she looked at the pad with the appointments on it, which told her she had another conference call. This one was to another IPB office, but it didn't require Lancaster, so he got to head back to his own office space.
She was left for a few minutes, just sitting in place, actually on her desk, since there was nothing on it and she was a rebel that way. Looking at the pad she saw that there was a press conference at one in the afternoon, but clearly Marcia didn't have to be there. It was just a regular daily briefing for Director Moore. Most of the time those didn't even go online, much less out over the airwaves, but the habit meant that on the rare occasion that something did happen, the news services were ready to pick up on the IPB talking, which got them top billing a lot of the time. The CIA, NSA and DHS sat on their hands most days and the FBI had some good spokes models, but took too long to get the word out. Half the time when something happened now, the press came to them, because the IPB was ready.
She knew that because she'd heard the man talk about it before, to Charlot Chambers. They'd been alone at the time, and hadn't realized that there was a third party in on their little powwow.
"Hey, Marsh, should I see if the Director needs anything done for his news thing? I mean, I know the answer is probably no, but he mentioned that I should get with his assistant and work out a communications network. Just between us, so that we can take over and actually run the IPB. You know, do all the important things."
She was being a smart ass, but Marcia just looked over at her desk and shook her head.
"You kid, but all organizations run on the power of their high ranking enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers. You know what, why don't you go do that now. It will keep you busy for a bit."
"Good point. You have more food coming though. At eleven and then noon. Just getting rid of me won't stop that." Which had been the real point, Penny guessed, even as the woman went wide eyed and tried to act innocent.
"That never even occurred to me..."
Making a face, Penny left, not saying anything. It wouldn't really matter after all.
Sam Morris had his own office, clearly being a lot more important than she was, based on the fact that he had his own secretary and everything. She just walked past the nice looking woman at the front desk and started to see to an ear piece for the man, only to realize that he had one in already. She'd seen him before, light colored hair that was thinning on top, glasses and a light tan that looked healthy enough, considering he spent most of his time in a hole in the ground, just like she did.
"Mr. Morris? I'm Penny Cooper, pleased to meet you." She held out her right hand and was shocked when he did the same, automatically. He didn't grip her hand back, not at first, but the man tried after his arm started to wiggle a bit in the air, catching on to what that had to mean. That was pretty good she realized. Most people didn't even bother trying with her.
"Ms. Cooper? I was told to expect you. So, first day, any great plans to share with me yet about how we should all change? I know I had them at first, but no one would listen. I am."
Penny smiled and laughed for a few seconds.
"Well, maybe a few things..."
Chapter six
After about ten minutes of chatting one thing was very clear to Penny. The IPB might have been led by the Director and guided by Marcia and Lancaster, but the base ran on the say so of one Sam Morris. He wasn't smug about it either, there was no bragging or anything, he simply got things done so efficiently that it was painfully obvious what was happening. She realized it when she mentioned that she was trying to make certain Marcia had food regularly.
"Well, she needs someone to sit on her and make her eat, but if the restaurant remembers to have some things ready I can do that part, I think. We're friends, so I can get away with being a pain that way, for a while." Or at least they were old teammates. That had to count for something.
The guy didn't even wait, calling an order in for it, just to make certain it happened.
He talked to Warren, the head chef, and didn't have to introduce himself at all.
"There we go. That should handle it. The topic has come up in meetings, but no one has really come up with a way to make it work yet. She'll eat if someone is right there, reminding her to, but otherwise..." Shrugging he threw his hands up. "We can't afford a person just for that though and for some reason no one has volunteered. I don't see why, since Ms. Turner is very sweet, but so far no one else has stepped forward."
"Well, I'm on it. I should have a phone soon, today I think, and a computer. Once I set up e-mail I'll send you my new number?" It suddenly seemed pushy of her, but he seemed to think that would be fine and handed her a card with his name, phone number and e-mail contact information on it.
"Here..." He wrote something on the back before holding the card out to her. "This is my room number. If you need me for anything and I'm not here, that's probably where I am."
"Cool. I'll send my info along later then. Right now I need to get some more food for a certain anorexic super hero. Wish me luck on that?"
He smiled, his attention going to his desk phone, which started ringing, almost as if on cue.
"Good luck. Keep me in the loop?"
She ran to get the food tray, which wasn't one at all, just being a bottle of vegetable oil. It looked like piss, but didn't smell bad, and had something mixed in, the tiny granules sinking to the bottom, making a layer that was about an inch thick. She tasted it herself, but it was only sugar and fat. By shaking it as she walked she was able to keep it as a cloudy mass that looked wrong, but was more appetizing than a glass jar of golden liquid was.
The problem there was that the second she set the thing down on the desk in front of the woman in her white outfit, it started to settle.
"It's eleven. Time for the next installment. There's a container on your desk, oil and sugar. Shake it up and get it down. Don't wait. Don't think about it..."
The woman looked around and pretended not to see the thing for a while, but finally relented. Either that, or she really just missed it at first.
"Right. Have you had lunch? They brought your phone and hooked it up. It has a time delay, like the ear pieces, except on your end. Ten seconds though, so it will be like using a sat-phone from the other side of the world." She gestured at it, not touching the decently large glass container in front of her.
"Wonderful! Now I can call all those people to come and emo at you about not eating. Drink that crap and get it over with, Marsh. You're way too busy to play around with it. Soldier up and be a man about it." That got her flipped off, which was far from professional, but then she did shake the container for a bit, opened the glass stopper and drink the whole thing without stopping.
"The texture is like oily sand. An improvement
over just oil, but not much of one."
"Wah. Big tough Marcia doesn't like her snack. You know, kids are starving in France, don't you? We could send them you to eat, but it isn't worth the price to mail you over yet."
"You know, when I was a kid my mother always said that there were kids starving in Africa. How times change."
It seemed that most of what Marcia did was talk on the phone to various offices around the country and arrange to send them Operatives if they thought they might need the backup. There wasn't nearly as much of that at it seemed like there should be though, since the fact was that the Agents actually handled almost everything. Just before Marcia was supposed to go off and eat lunch with Senator Gerald and Karen, since the Director couldn't be there, Penny's phone actually rang.
She had to think about what to say first, and had no clue who'd be trying to get in touch with her at all. It didn't really make sense, but she worked out what to say easily enough, feeling only a little nervous about the whole thing.
"IPB, Deputy Turner's office, this is Penny Cooper's phone. I'm speaking, and actually here, but there's a ten second time delay. Please tell me who this is, and how I may help you today. You may as well say it all at once, then I'll respond." If they didn't hang up first it would work.
"Hello? Um, this is Agent Marques, we have a situation here..." The man stopped talking her voice going over the top of his on the time delay. Her own voice sounded strange to her, but it played back so she could hear it. That was bizarre. Uncomfortable, but at a remove from her, so she'd live.
After her words were done, the man started over.
"OK. Agent Marques, Portland IPB office. We need an Operative Team for a situation. A class four with some kind of destructive energy projection. We can run a pickup from PDX but we need help now. We have two of our men, and six locals down already, as well as five civilians. We're trying to contain the situation, but that really isn't working. This could be a class five..."
"We're on it, we'll have people on the way ASAP. It will be about two hours for them to be on the ground. I'll handle that. Get the pickup ready. You'll be responsible for getting them to the scene."
Talking this way felt like it took too long, but it was better than nothing. Marcia looked up at her and frowned.
"What's the sit-rep?"
"Class four or five energy projective having a mental meltdown in Portland Oregon. People already down. Civilians, police and IPB. I don't know who to contact about things like this." Or if she had done the right thing, but her new boss just got on the phone and then waved at her.
"Team Two. Get with Sparks, we want a containment team. Tell him the plane leaves in ten minutes."
It was a pain getting in touch with the man, since he wasn't at his desk, so she had to actually go to the fifth floor and slap a bud in his ear, after finding him in the television room watching the Price is Right with Dave the blue guy and Lauren the tank.
He jumped when she started yelling at him, but had people scrambling into place fast enough to actually make up for the trip she'd had to make to find him. After he had Lauren, Dave and Tobin heading out, along with Nan and a few other people that she didn't really see, but heard being called for, the man started speaking to her, sounding a bit gruff.
"Thanks for coming to find me. I should have a phone on me, but I left it in my office. Crap. Well, this makes me look good doesn't it? In here relaxing instead of being on the job."
Like they had to do nothing but sit by the phone and wait all the time?
"No, this is a good place to be too. I found you right off. Yes, it took an extra three minutes, but that's hardly a poor response time, given everything. Anyway, I'm working with Marcia Turner now, during the day, so if you need anything you can call me. That sounds important, doesn't it? I'm the gopher and general pain in the ass, but that way she can leave those duties to me so no one will blame her for being annoying. See how that works?"
"Heh. Yeah. Good to know you're on the job. So if I have petty shit to take care of I just send people to you?"
"Sounds reasonable."
"All right, I have something for you then. Lobo wants to take some personal days to go and visit his aunt in Maine. I can do the paperwork on it, but he can't exactly travel by himself and no one else wants to take off to visit his family. Do you think you can figure that mess out for us?"
"Probably not, but I can see what can be done. Lobo... He's the pretty blue lobster guy, right?"
"That's the one. Lavender, but I'll let him know that you think he's pretty. He'll get a kick out of it. You can get the general idea though right? We have to use military transport, since people would freak if he tried to fly, but we can't use it unless it's an emergency situation. He can't drive a car, since he'd be pulled over every ten seconds. That means we need to make some kind of alternative arrangements for him. He has the days, but..." The man just made a disgusted face. "It's bull, of course. He hasn't had a real vacation in years. We can't afford to send a team with him just for that, so he has to cool his heels here, like it's some kind of prison."
"I'll... see if I can do anything about that at all."
It really didn't seem like something she could help with, unless he wanted to take a train and have her sit on his lap the whole way. It was hard being Infected, and a thousand times worse if people knew you were. If you worked for the IPB you didn't have that bad of a first mode, but most would still assume you were some kind of killer if they saw you, since a lot of Infected really were. Not fair to the ones like Lobo, who just wanted to see his family though, was it?
She risked the stairs, jogging fast, knowing that Lauren wouldn't be back yet, having headed out to the plane. She was one of the only "ugly" Infected that the public liked. She wasn't human looking, more like a suit of armor with insect antennae at the top of her head, and giant, standing over nine feet tall, but her voice was sad and sweet at the same time. It made a huge difference to the world for some reason. Kids loved her.
Penny not so much. That was just fear of being crushed though, and not a personal thing against the woman.
Marcia was off to lunch and everyone else was busy when she got back to her desk, so she tried to think through things and realized that she needed food for herself, so headed to the Team Three dining room, since she'd be expected there.
It was her home after all.
Mark was sitting at the table, talking to Brian. No one else was there yet, except for Christian, who looked a little uncomfortable, and Denis, who was working back in the kitchen. They made their own lunches, which meant that Mark normally did it for them, since he was a professional chef and actually liked his job. Denis was kind of learning how to do it too though, for the Food Network show, so on occasion he made them things now too. Usually he did a decent job of it even.
"Um..." She hated to ask for things, especially from Christian, since the woman clearly didn't want anyone to be around her too much. "Chris? Can Lobo from Team Two borrow your jet? Not to fly it himself, but he hasn't been able to leave the base on a vacation for years. Looks like a lobster? I know that it costs a lot and I doubt that the IPB will reimburse us for it. I can help kick in for gas though. Then all we'll need is for IPB local in Maine to give him a van ride to and from his Aunt's house." It was a long shot and she knew it, but the woman surprised her, smiling suddenly.
"What a good excuse for me to leave the room Penny! I'll get with Charles on that right now. Can you connect with Darryl to set up the other portion of this? Denis? If you save me some of that casserole? It smells wonderful." She didn't wait for anyone else to speak, just standing, her dress swishing softly. It was a rather tidy looking pink thing that would have looked wrong on most people, but just fit perfectly with her light complexion and almost platinum hair. In short, pushing forty or not, she was still hot. Enough so that Denis and Mark both watched her leave, probably for the same reason, even if she was only sleeping with one of them.
"Then I better get with Lancaster n
ow. Otherwise the trip will be all plane and no escort van. I'll run. How long before the food is ready?"
She called it out, not expecting anyone to know the answer at the table, but Denis popped his head through the serving window.
"Ten minutes. Don't be late, it's going to be a taste extravaganza. Or at least all that I'm serving. Ranch dressing with your salad?"
"You know me too well. That sounds good. I'll be right back."
As it turned out, she realized that the whole thing might take longer than she thought. The man was in his office, but on the phone, talking to someone when she entered. She decided to wait, if she could, hungry but knowing that if she missed a meal she could always just steal something later. Lobo couldn't just do the same with his vacation plans.
"We have incoming. Big guns in the mix. Try to keep the situation contained, if you can't get it to calm down totally..." He blew out a large gust of air then for some reason. "You know how it goes Marques. People have died, we don't wait for trial. Hold back and let the team from here handle the execution. This sounds like some poor sap having a bad day that's just going to get worse. Right. An hour and... six minutes. Good luck. Keep me apprised."
As soon as he hung up the man pulled out a sandwich that was wrapped in plastic. Clearly it was his lunch.
"Well, darn, I don't want to interrupt your meal."
"Penny?"
"No, one of the other invisible girls that keep bothering you at work."
"Right, what can I do for you?"