The Infected 1: Proxy

by P. S. Power

  It was tempting to do it himself, but people needed him to be in shape, so he decided against it.

  Near the end Karen came in with most of team one, including Bridget's parents, who mingled for a bit before taking their daughter away with them. Hopefully off to do something fun.

  Brian started cleaning up as everyone moved to leave, Karen and Mark helping. Lauren stayed to help too, so Mark sent her away with most of the remaining cake, since team two had a lot more people than they did, including the birthday girl. Besides as a group they needed to eat a lot more than team three did.

  Penny had left earlier, to do something, but came back just in time to help with the last of the clean up. She didn't come over to talk, staying across the room for some reason.

  Karen stayed with him at least, so he had someone to talk to. He wondered if he'd done something to upset Penny at the party, said something off putting or insulting without meaning to. Brian tried to remember, but couldn't come up with anything in particular. Finally he walked over to her and asked if she was feeling all right. After all, even if he was going to live for a while now, he didn't have time to play guessing games. No one did, not really.

  "What? Oh, yeah, fine... I just didn't want to intrude, you know, with you and Karen. I didn't know... I mean I'd heard some things, but... around here people talk. When we met earlier, I didn't know that you two were, you know a couple. I wasn't trying to, I don't know..." She looked sad about the situation. Having already been rejected by her once Brian didn't feel too inclined to fill her in on his lack of relationships, but figured he shouldn't let something like that stand uncorrected. Sure it made him look good, but Karen had a reputation to protect as a public figure.

  "We're not... I don't know what people are saying, but we're just friends. Don't get me wrong, she's great, and I'd love to be closer to her, but... there are complications. I really can't go into it yet, but, yeah. I don't think I can make that work as tempting as she is."

  Unless Becky had gone away or something and since she was playing a big part in keeping him alive, he really would rather keep her than not.

  "Thanks! Good to know I'm appreciated. I've... been trying to ignore things with my sis, I mean, you should be allowed to have a real life too and not have it ruined by me, right? So far, not so good..." The ghost girl popped in and then back out as fast as she spoke, making Brian's head spin a little.

  Karen walked over and asked Brian what he was doing, her voice holding concern, which made him chuckle, since this time he hadn't even been talking to himself at all. Not even her dead, or maybe not so dead, little sister.

  "Oh! Right, have you two met? Karen, this is Penny, who's really is this invisible all the time... Penny, Karen..."

  Karen put her hand out, her eye's going wide when she felt the soft contact of a hand in hers.

  "Hi! Nice to finally meet you!" Karen said, trying to focus her eyes on the empty space in front of her.

  Brian passed what Penny said along to Karen for a while, until about a half hour later, when Karen turned to him suddenly and kissed him on the cheek.

  "So nice to meet you Penny! I've got to go meet some people for Director Moore, one of the hassles of team one... I'd love to chat again sometime soon though, if that's good for you?"

  As she left Penny turned to him a bit sheepishly and told him that she could see how people might get the wrong idea.

  "She likes you Brian... I mean like, really likes you. Girls don't hang on you like that if they just think of you as a friend."

  Without waiting for an answer she spun on her heel and marched away quickly. Not knowing what else to do, Brian finished cleaning up the mess in the common room, shocked when Mark showed up with a vacuum cleaner. The floors were always immaculately clean at the base, but he'd never seen anyone doing the work to make it happen before. Not here at least.

  They were finished by about eight and had a late dinner in the dining room, Salisbury steak with roasted red potatoes and gravy. He knew intellectually that it was basically the same as meat loaf, but for some reason he always liked it a lot better. Meatloaf just had a different texture that reminded him of other things he didn't like to think about while trying to eat. Brain matter and stuff. After that Brian just decided to go to bed, not having anything else to do and feeling tired around the edges again, a kind of feeling that sleep couldn't really shake off, he knew.

  As he walked back to his room Dharma popped in to view and told him to get ready. He felt a wave of panic, his stomach dropping hard. His mind flashed on the idea of moaning things in the dark, things that wanted to kill him en mass. The emo-girl chuckled.

  "Don't get your panties in a bunch. It's just some regular rapists. Drunk guys even. Two of them. The girl is in her twenties, the one your replacing. Take it at a run? Three, two..." He ran into the men who collectively had a single gun. The other man held a broken beer bottle. The fight didn't last long, about seven seconds. After he knocked them both out he stood for a moment, wondering if he should kill them.

  After all, if he left them alive, they might pull this kind of thing again, right? But was his job to punish people or even to save others in the future? Could he judge who should live or die in a situation like this? Sometimes he didn't have a choice, Infected or insane people that clearly couldn't fix their own problems, couldn't be changed at all, or people so tough all he could do was end it any way possible and not hold back, but these were just guys, drunk, stupid... but should he take their lives away from them himself?

  Brian ran until the tingling started after a few minutes, not really knowing the answer. He shrugged as he came back into the hallway walking toward his room, blue carpet scuffing at his shoes. In the end he had to make his own rules really. No one could do it for him, right? For him it had to be life. He had to choose saving all he could, when he could. Even the bad people. It was probably a poor choice, criminals, rapists and would be murderers could do it again if they lived, but people couldn't fix things if they were dead.

  He looked up to see Dharma standing outside his bedroom door before he got there.

  "Seriously, Beck, you've got to be kidding me!"

  She shook her head at him, smiling a little.

  "It's not that, not a fight... Um, you have a visitor. I just wanted to make sure you didn't freak out or anything... you know, go all psycho war vet on her or something. You did just come back from a fight like ten seconds ago. It's Karen..."

  Brian approached the door carefully, wondering if something might be wrong, since he'd just seen the woman not two hours before. He turned the handle of the door slowly and eased himself in, realizing that it had to seem strange from the other side, the slow and careful movements. When he stepped in she was on the bed.

  She just sat on the edge, waiting, a smile on her face.

  "I think we need to talk Brian... I know that things have been a little weird between us for a while and..." She stood and walked over to him, put her arms around him and kissed him gently, sending a thrill through his whole body, making him breathless for a moment.

  "I wanted to make sure you know how I feel about you..."

  Brian kissed her back, ardently, joyfully, feeling like part of his soul ran into the movement, his body shaking from adrenalin and reaction. The fight, he knew, in part. He sat on the bed with her, kissing her for a second, until Dharma showed up, clearing her throat loudly.

  "Dude! You do know that you doing that is almost exactly like I was doing it myself... Which... Ewww! She's my sister!" The girl waved a hand in front of his face, trying to snap him out of it.

  "Right..." He said this out loud, getting a strange smile from Karen who tried to pull him down onto the bed.

  "Karen... I... we really need to talk, OK?"

  Her head came up, face shocked at first, her red hair hanging down loose, hitting the shoulders of her light green blouse. Then she went blank, looking at him with innocent eyes. Brian swallowed, knowing how easy it would be to screw this up and hu
rt her feelings, when that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

  "OK, Karen... do you remember when I told you that something happened back when you were hitting me with your power over and over again? I kind of need to tell you about that now I think. It's..."

  She smiled and kissed him.

  "I know. The psychology team told me that it might happen. My power, that feeling of love and compassion, I probably rewrote part of your brain, so you have to love me... But... It's OK Brian. I really like you too, so it's... Well it's not fair to you. But I won't abandon you..."

  Holding his head he shook it hard until she stopped talking.

  "No... I mean, sure I like you, I even love you. No big thing, well, yes, it's a big thing, but I mean, I don't think your power did it... I mean I kind of liked Karen the annoying and painful trainer before all that. The deal is, well, it's..."

  He hesitated for about thirty seconds then told her the whole thing, Becky and how she helped him, how she lived in his subconscious mind, might be an imprint or a ghost or something totally new. How Chris could talk to her too and how what information she'd told him checked out for the girls life so far, even stuff he couldn't possibly have known.

  "So, even though I love you, I can't really be with you right now, not without freaking out Becky. I mean, true or not, she thinks of you as her sister and she feels what I do directly as far as I can tell, so..."

  Karen started crying and didn't stop or talk for a long time. He held her and patted her back. Instead of calling him a liar, like he figured she would, she took his hand and kissed him on the cheek, then got up and left.

  "I... well, let me check this out first, alright?" She told him. When she left he felt like crying himself, but couldn't, that just didn't work for him anymore, he didn't think.

  He looked around but noticed that Becky wasn't around for this part of things. Coward. He laughed a little and got in bed. He didn't sleep, but at least it was warm, after a while.

  The next morning he got up and just sat in the dark of his room, in his cream colored soft chair, not knowing what to do at all. He felt sad and more than a bit abused by the world over the whole thing. He finally meets a girl, a woman, willing to give him the time of day for more than a few weeks, and she was even hot and nice, nearly perfect for him... And he wasn't allowed to be anything more than her friend? What the fuck was that about? Was the universe out to get him or something? Brian wondered. That actually made sense, but if so, why just torture him? It was the universe, he could have been made to die any of a half million ways by now, right?

  Brian sat.

  After a few hours he got up and used the bathroom, showered and went out, just walking around. Finally going to the surface level and heading out the front gate, not knowing where he was going at all. Consciously, he wasn't planning on leaving or anything, but his feet just walked on their own for a long time, it felt like he didn't really control them or something. Seeing some trees off the road to the right, about half a mile away, he walked over and sat alone. He thought. When he looked up Becky sat up in the branches of one of the larger trees, higher than he would have climbed on purpose himself. She called to him, but he didn't answer.

  Instead he put his back to one of the trees, not a pine, the bark smoother and the scent, nuttier somehow. He closed his eyes, just waiting. For what? He wondered, not knowing at all, hoping that for once it would be something good. Or at least not bad. For a long time nothing happened at all. Dharma just sat up in her tree, swinging her legs and he sat under his. Then he heard something, a low sobbing, almost too low for him to hear. He got up and followed the sound, which led him to a low clump of bushes not far away.

  Penny sat under them, in a small hollow, crying softly.

  "What's wrong?" He asked, sounding sad himself he knew.

  The girl looked up, surprised, anger flashing over her face briefly. She wiped at her tears openly and then sniffed. "Did you follow me? I didn't see you when I left..." She didn't sound mad about it, but he shook his head anyway.

  "Just out walking and sitting myself. I can't seem to cry anymore you know. So now I just... I don't know. Mope? How about you? What brings you here?"

  The girl got up and chuckled, telling him about how she came here when she felt too lonely or sad, something all too common for her. "You know, poor me, nobody notices me... that kind of thing. Sorry, I guess it's kind of ridiculous. Of course no one notices me. Kind of what I do."

  "Says the invisible girl to the guy that sees her sitting in the woods."

  Brian smiled and on impulse put and arm around her. "Remember, no matter what, you're not really alone Penny. You have me. It may not be much all the time, but it's not alone. You also have Mark, he's your bud. Bridget too, I think."

  They stood for a while holding each other, Penny crying a bit, then sat and talked about things until neither one had any more to say. After a few hours they went back in, neither talking, not touching, just standing close, trying to remember that they weren't the only people in the world.

  When they went in to the lobby, Brian took her hand and led her to the shops on four, buying a bunch of electronics, which baffled her, recorders, and two intercom systems, and a bunch of cell phones, but she helped him carry the bags back to the ninth floor anyway. He dropped them on the table of the common room, the same one that Bridget's giant birthday cake had been set on the day before.

  "OK, Penny. This is all yours. We know your voice can be picked up and transmitted electronically, and played back in a recording. Other people can talk on the phone if you're near them, right? So all we have to do is figure out how far away you have to be and then pass these things around, and you'll be able to talk to everyone whenever you want. Sure, you may have to leave the room to have a good conversation, but..."

  Brian looked up as she tackled him, nearly countering as she moved, his oversensitive reflexes kicking in. He checked himself just in time, and got swept up into a hug instead. She felt nice against him, he realized. Warm.

  It took a while, but they finally got almost everything hooked up by the time dinner came around. Instead of eating with them, Penny grabbed a plate and went to sit at the table in the common room where the other intercom sat.

  They'd rigged the things so the lines just stayed open all the time, which made it seem more like a real conversation than if someone had to push buttons each time they wanted to talk. It also allowed Penny to sit away from the unit to talk, letting her voice be heard. They found she had to back off at least seven feet for it to work and that over ten feet worked better, but once that happened she only had to raise her voice a little to be heard. It was one of the features, locking the lines open, so only took hitting a few buttons once they read the instructions. When everyone sat down, after nearly three years of being there, Penny finally got to talk to everyone.

  Brian let her introduce herself as she saw fit, which, to his surprise, she didn't make a big thing about. In her mind, he realized, she already knew everyone. That they hardly knew her didn't seem to make much of a difference in her mind. After the new and shiny effect wore off, about ten minutes into the meal for everyone else and twice that for Penny. Then they started talking about the new Hooper act.

  Marcia shook her head, looked at the little box and spoke loud for Penny's benefit. "It's bull. The Infected that possess enough power to be a particular threat make up about one percent of the Infected population in most areas, but that one percent is more than equal to the three percent of the total population that makes up the military when it comes to effectiveness. Picking a fight that you can't win is... insane. Especially since Hooper and his bigot squad are doing it out of fear. There's a reason that we exist, the IPB, and it's because the top Infected threats are out of the scope of what can be otherwise handled. People forget that, because all they see on the news is Prime kissing babies and Lady Glory pulling kittens out of trees. Without team two the U.S. would look like a war zone right now. Look at France. They
don't have anything like us and are nearly in ruins because of it. Gang of psycho Infected basically ruling a country..."

  Mark looked around the table his face relaxed and voice calm. "Yes," He breathed, a slow exhalation that was part of an exercise to help him stay calm. "Plus, I don't know about anyone else, but if Hooper expects me to help him put anyone in a concentration camp, he's coming to the wrong Jew."

  That got Brian's attention.

  He hadn't been thinking about how everyone else would feel about the idea. He knew no one liked it, but he hadn't thought about how strongly people might feel about the idea. He nodded.

  "Yeah. I hadn't even been letting myself think about that, but what do they plan to do with us? I mean, I'm not going to prison, or some camp or whatever, and I sure as hell won't be a guard in one. I'm not like the rest of you, all powerful and stuff, but do they really think I'm not going to at least try to fight? I really don't think I even could go meekly now, even if I tried..." Brian looked at Marcia.

  Beatdown shrugged.

  "Fact is, I doubt Hooper's team has even considered us yet. I think they probably only remember Prime when they imagine the IPB, their golden boy, tough but tractable if they play him right. Or LG... Who everyone forgets is a class four herself. She could turn their national guard troops into puppy dogs wanting attention in about ten seconds. Same with Georgia... Pixie. She'd have the entire battle field stopping to have sex with each other faster than they could get their pants down. That kind of thing puts a crimp in a battle plan." She looked around the table, a smile on her face that didn't touch her eyes at all.

  "As for team three... I really don't think they even remember we're here at all most of the time. They've mentally buried us on level nine and forgotten that some of the most powerful beings on the planet are just hanging out here and waiting."

  Not wanting to seem stupid Brian didn't say anything, but most powerful beings on the planet? That seemed a little ambitious to him. No one else said anything for a minute, but finally Penny's voice came over the intercom.