The Infected: Ripped to Shreds (Book 1): Hush

by Power, P. S.

  Most things were like that. Useless, but needed in case they weren't.

  They passed Bridget in the back, then continued all the way around, stopping in the front, searching again. Prime and Impulse both looked at each other and shook their heads, then stared directly at her.

  They wanted to know if her abilities had gotten anything, not really knowing how they worked yet.

  "Nothing in my initial range. That doesn't go out too far. I kind of need to see a person first. Maybe if I just knew they were there, but I've never done that."

  There was a nod from Scott, and a baffled look on Bridget's face, since she could smell Mary inside, even before the door opened. There was no scent on the outside, but the women was a master teleport, so that meant very little. She tensed.

  "Fuuuuck. Mary's here. I... That can't go well. I wonder if something is wrong?"

  Without waiting for her father to admit his guilt, she rushed to the door. It was quick enough on the opening that a loud creak came from the thing that it shouldn't have made. Scott followed at a good percentage of his girl's speed, and Cin sauntered after, making certain that no one had used the distraction to sneak up on them. If they were playing soldier or whatever, they needed to do it correctly. Otherwise it wouldn't be fun.

  In the front room, the one with the television, standing in front of a rather pissed off looking Charlotte, and a totally blank Brian, was a woman that looked... Average. No better looking than she did really, as far as that went. Softer, around the edges, and in a dress that looked a bit like a hippie should have been in it, but she didn't seem scary or intimidating. She was taller than Cindy was, but not so much that taking her in a fight would be impossible. Five inches maybe.

  Her story was written on paper, with what looked like quill and ink on parchment. The words told about how scared she was being there. Fearing the Proxy would, within full right and justice, seek to kill her. It was a fight that she couldn't win, either.

  Funnily enough, to her way of thinking that was the right thing to do. It was how you handled those that betrayed you, and she had truly done that to Brian. A good man who hadn't deserved an old witch like her in the first place.

  Mary didn't look at all old, but she was. Over a hundred and forty, in experiential time. She also wasn't Infected, being from a different world. That didn't really shock her on the reading, being that it had been on the news that Devorah Timberland had been, and this woman had worked with her for decades.

  They all looked over at the people coming in, Mary uncertain how Bridget would react as well. She understood, intellectually that Prime, her son, wouldn't do her harm, but it was also understood that the girl preferred her grandfather.

  It didn't really matter, given how everyone in the place froze. Except her. She was fine that way, not having a stake in things. That meant she was the only one that could speak, it seemed.

  "Hi! Mary? Just to set the mood, I'm almost certain that no one here is planning to kill you. Even if you do deserve it. So, you should all mend fences and all that. By the way, I'm Brian's date, so remember that. Otherwise I'll have to remind you, which could be stressful." It wasn't a real threat, but Mary stiffened for a moment, then, oddly, bowed.

  It was a low thing, without any sweeping gestures or pomp to it. She would have done that, if she didn't think she could beat Cindy in a fight. To her however, that wouldn't happen on a physical level. There would be spatial manipulation involved. At the words, all in pure brown ink, instead of red, Cindy smiled.

  "Not that it will come to that. I just don't want you to be confused here. He's moving on now, which is the right thing to happen. You can be friends, but the work there has to come from you." It sounded like a speech nearly, since she was reading it from the book over Mary's head. It was the right thing to say, at least for her.

  A challenge, but one that didn't require action. Putting the woman in her place, but not seeking to push for more than that. Oddly, it reassured her and when she stood, there was a smile on her face.

  "I understand. It is good to see he is with someone so strong. Have you been companions long?"

  That part was small talk, and the correct answer was actually to defer, since it wasn't any of Mary's business.

  "Would you like a snack? There are chips, and some veggies cut up?"

  Everyone else seemed baffled, but the new woman nodded.

  "As is the custom? I have never been to such a celebration before. Not with others. With my ex-husband, but not since he left."

  The room went silent, no one looking at anyone else in particular, as if the idea of people having ex's was a forbidden topic. The discomfort was palpable. Not for her, Cindy realized, so she spoke first, not having a horse in the race.

  "It is the custom. This is pretty much the day that people sit around, fighting with relatives and eating too much. It isn't supposed to be that, but it really is about what the thing ends up being. Given the people here, we probably shouldn't let it get physical. So, arguing and bickering only?" Looking around there were actually a few nods. Thankfully the stories were catching up, and said one thing in common, if in several different ways.

  No one else knew that she understood that Mary wasn't from just down the street. Brian caught on that her power would get her around that, but he was surprised that there was easy banter, if in an odd manner, instead of shock or fear.

  It was Brian's mom that broke things for real, waving to the room.

  "Why don't you all sit and talk? I need to get back to the kitchen." She left quickly, with Ron moving behind her without a single word being muttered. There was work to be done, and that meant he had to help out, or his wife would feel stress over it. Then, when he was there, he had to always do the very best he could.

  That was important to the woman.

  Brian seemed reluctant to leave, not knowing if he was avoiding the tense scene or not. He had some stuffing going that needed to be checked. Not that he was a great cook, but over the last years he'd learned enough to know that watching what you were doing was important in the kitchen. There was also an ambrosia salad coming, which wasn't hard to make, but was still something to do that didn't involve staying in the uncomfortable room.

  He seemed calm and a bit cool then, but managed a fake smile.

  "I have some things to do too, for the meal. Are you all going to be fine here? We should eat in about an hour."

  There were nods all the way around, though when Cin looked over at the well made up Charlotte it was clear that she, at least, was gearing up to do some of that verbal abuse that had been put into the rules. No one else really got that, but there was a laundry list of things that were about to come flooding out. Mainly wrongs that Mary had done to Brian. Working with Devorah Timberland, knowing that she didn't love him, was very near the top of the list.

  The thing there was that Cindy didn't know that her supposed Brian dating trick would hold through yet another fiasco of a meeting. Of the two real ones so far, two of them had ended in violence. It was interesting, and kind of fun, for her, but Proxy just might see it as endangering her too much if it kept up.

  So she smiled at Charlotte and waved lightly, getting her attention, then shook her head.

  "She knows that there are issues there. No need to get into it." That was all, and her voice was bland about it all.

  Bridget looked at her mother, and nodded. It was subdued for her. She normally was filled with energy.

  "That's a good point, mom. We should... Not act without thinking first." There was a bit of a strong look after that, since it was a phrase that Bridget had heard constantly growing up. To the point that she nearly hated the words now.

  Her mother, constantly pissed off as she was, smiled. A brittle, almost disingenuous thing. It was tense enough that Scott touched her arm, trying to manage her. Interestingly, he wasn't shrugged off, even though the idea was a thing that Charlotte had to fight against.

  Her words were better than her feelings really. Still a b
it catty, but not the near violence she felt at the moment.

  "That's a good point, dear. We should sit and watch the game?"

  They did, though it was clear that the only person there that knew all the rules was actually Charlotte, and everyone else was preoccupied with various other things. Bridget was worried, and hungry, so Cin got up to get more snacks from the kitchen, which smelled wonderful already. She was met by scared expressions at the door, but smiled and held up the chip bowl.

  "Chips and dips? Bridget's spine is about to be eaten through." Scott was in a similar state, but it wasn't as intense. It was strange, but the large man, with all his muscle and power, only needed to eat half of what his tiny daughter did. Then, from what she was reading from him on the topic that was because Bridget was, most likely the most powerful physical being in the world.

  Which really didn't surprise Cin in the slightest. After all, everyone had watched her slaughter thousands of people all over the country, for months. No one had even slowed her down, including some Infected that would have given full military battalions a hard time.

  She looked at Brian's mother, who moved very quickly to set things up for her. Too fast, by about twice what a bustling woman should have been able to manage. That was due to her power, which came up over her head, explaining the idea. She'd thought, for a long time that she was just faster than most, able to move like she was at the moment, and run about three times the speed that normal people could. It turned out that it wasn't physical however. She was, subtly, manipulating time instead. It still burned enough calories that she was lean, without having to really fight too hard to stay that way.

  Then another thing occurred to Cindy.

  "You know, in the bustle earlier, I didn't really get your name. Going around calling you Brian's mom seems just a bit to childish really." She grinned, and got one in return from the woman.

  "Lyn. We should get together and talk soon? It never hurts to have more friends." The lady was polite, and managed friendly well, but it was also spelled out that she really wanted to find out what Cindy liked to do, and help her do better at it.

  Even if she didn't want to herself. On the good side she was trying to fight the impulse, even if she wasn't exactly winning the day. Part of that was down to the stress of everything going on. New people, and ex-girlfriend in the other room, and people trying to kill her family two days in a row.

  It was time to nod, and look pleased by the idea. Since she didn't care at all, it wasn't that hard. They probably didn't have a lot in common, but they were both Infected, and she was yet another potential line to Brian and Bridget. Prime too, since they were all related, and even on decent terms.

  "We should! In a week or two though? I just came out as Infected at work, so I need to make sure I stay on top of that really well. So far it's going better than expected, but things change."

  There was a knowing look, from the woman that really didn't seem to be old enough to be Proxy's mom, and a large tray of high calorie snack foods being handed off.

  "That's true. Often in unexpected ways. Get my number before you leave." Then she moved, fast, back to work. Doing the work of two or three people, while Brian moved fast himself. Not that he was really able to keep up that way. He was in shape and used to pushing himself, even around people with powers, but that didn't make him a chef. He had to keep checking the directions on this, which cost him about twenty-five percent of his time, if not slightly over that.

  Still, she wasn't needed there so turned carefully, trying not to cast food all over the place and got the four decently large bowls back to the front room in less time than she would have normally expected. It wasn't that she was running, since that was the exact opposite of the truth. She was moving in a smooth and slow fashion the whole time.

  At the door, she was met by Ronald, who took the trays even more smoothly.

  It was well done enough that she stared over his head, reading all about him. There was just as much going on in his world as anyone else had. It was just softer, and more normal, being that his first mode was, more or less, feeling peaceful. His power was all about muscular coordination, and while it did make him really good at most sports, he worked in computer programming. Being a bald older seeming man with gold wire rimmed glasses, that fit. He was thin, and had a lean muscularity however, which she should have noticed before. It was enough to keep him from looking raw boned however, so more or less he could pass as normal in most places.

  His big concern for the day was Brian, not any of the others, since for some reason, a lot like her, he kind of feared that the boy would show up one day and kill him. The big difference was that he wasn't a serial killer, or even a tax evader. No, his only crime had been marrying Lyn, who really had been divorced when he'd met her. That story was a pretty common seeming one. They'd met in a grocery store, and he'd started talking to her, noticing that her quickness was just a bit off. Being attuned to how people moved being part of his own coordination power.

  Then, one thing led to another.

  It wasn't a thing she'd picked up from Brian on the topic, but Ron was really concerned that he might just end up dead sometime, without anyone being the wiser as to who had done it. For all the news occasionally covered the numbers of people that Brian was forced to kill, it was a lot higher. Sometimes he had to go and kill upward of three people a day. Even that morning he'd had two fights, in different places, with one death.

  So if one day Ronald just happened to be one of them, or even vanish, it might not be noticed by anyone important enough to count.

  On the good side, the man also knew, on some level, that he was being silly, and that Brian Yi, his wife's son, was a good man. All the way down, too. That probably meant that if he ever suddenly showed up, it would be to save him from something, not remove him from the world for being a mother-fucker.

  Cindy smiled, since the text had actually told her that last bit directly. It was true, but for anyone to think of themselves that way was just... Odd.

  The snacks were passed out, and Bridget looked up at her, shining and twitching rapidly at the same time.

  "You know Cindy, I'm only a little bi, but if the thing with Brian doesn't work out, I'm willing to give it a try." The look was all for the food though, and she was only a tiny bit serious.

  She really did like Cin pretty well so far, and had done enough with women to know that it wasn't that bad of the thing. That she'd done more that way than Cindy ever had, both with men and women, kind of set her back for a few seconds. It wasn't just a little bit either. She, an adult, had been with five men. That was it. That included a few longer term relationships, from before she'd become Infected, so there was a lot of sex and other things, but not the raw numbers.

  Bridget was up in the high double digits, and had only been legal for about eight months in her home state. Then, most of that had been before her sixteenth birthday.

  The responses to the words were odd, from the others. Mary looked at the girl, and nodded almost imperceptibly. In her world the powerful could court anyone they wanted. That Cindy, this new woman, was powerful as well, was clear to her however. That was due mainly to how she'd handled things correctly earlier. Treating Mary as she expected. The customs were so different that even being able to learn, or guess at, how that would be done meant that Cin was a person to watch, and not treat too casually. So to her mind, her great-granddaughter was being prudent and even wise.

  Scott was a bit concerned, but for pretty different reasons. Bridget was being either joking or really forward, and it could be hard to tell which one of those it was for a lot of people. He was her father and didn't get it all the time.

  The girl's mom was a bit miffed, her reaction being the strongest, since Brian needed someone, and it was just possible that Bridget could steal Cin away from him. She was young, and famous, so that was a possibility. Given how she felt herself about Brian, that wouldn't be a good thing to her mind.

  Still, Bridget was just tryin
g to be nice and playful, so she winked at the girl, to show she got it.

  "Eat up. You too Scott. There's more in the kitchen, if you need it. Bags of the stuff." She'd noticed that, so it was true. These two weren't going to spoil their appetites either. They functionally couldn't.

  Reading carefully, looking at the television and pulling the information from Prime around, she understood a few things that she hadn't really gotten before. He was very hungry, but the man, who was massive, and weighed even more than he looked like, nearly three hundred pounds, didn't need to consume even half as much each day as the seventy-odd pound girl.

  That was because the tiny waif was actually, at least as far as anyone knew, the most powerful being on the planet. Physically. There were a few people with energy and mental based abilities that could do more damage, but as far as what a body could do, Bridget was at the top, or so near it no one could tell any difference.

  In a way, Cindy knew that one already. She'd seen the girl fighting hundreds of Infected at one time once. They just died. All of them. Over the months of the unrest, it had been, as often as not, this one girl that was on the television stopping the fighting. By herself.

  There had been some others, after a bit, but anyone seeing Impulse knew not to piss her off now. They should have anyway.

  The cost of that power was a metabolic rate that was so intense that Bridget would probably die of hunger if she didn't eat for longer than a day or two. She just didn't have enough mass to work with for anything else, and so far there had been no way to slow that part down. She ate, or died.

  On the great side, she liked food, so it wasn't that big of an issue for her.

  Settling again, next to Bridget on the large sofa, she took a single cheese flavored corn chip, and seeing her little buddy scooping up ranch dressing by the tablespoon with each bit, tried a smaller coating of it herself. It didn't seem like it would work, but the whole thing actually meshed well enough really. The girl looked at her, smiled charmingly and nodded. Then she waved at the television.