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

by Power, P. S.

  Then anyone might fight. The response to the new information was a lot different than she would have expected. Prime was about to accidently kill the man in the raid, if he could. Oddly Lauren was of a similar mindset. Bridget was excited, and scared about what the others would do to the man, as well as concerned about Maggie Laurence, since her mother was about to come back from the dead. That she knew the President's daughter, and was her friend was news, but not that big of a deal.

  Her words were high pitched and piping, but not like a child would have been.

  "I was told that he'd be killed. By the bad guys, but... Yes. Is this fallout from Braid's plan?" She spoke to Brian directly, who shrugged.

  It was a relaxed thing however.

  "Probably. The woman had her hands in all the pies, for a while there. That she'd have been involved in something like this too... Well, that sounds like her, doesn't it? Can you handle going in? I know this could be stressful for you."

  Bridget nodded, then looked at her grandfather, who looked young enough to be her slightly too old boyfriend.

  "I'm fine."

  Cindy nodded at that, then waved at Mark and Tobin.

  "She really is. We can't let Lauren or Scott get at Clarkson until we question him. They both plan to kill him." She smiled at the tall armored form, who was shocked inside, and at Prime, who was trying to look innocent about it all. "Which I have no problem with, since his own brother wants him dead. Still, I don't know if I can get information from corpses yet. It's never come up."

  It really hadn't yet, but the idea wasn't that strange to her. She'd sort of seen that kind of thing once before, but hadn't gone into the idea. Books could be written by people that later died. If she was picking up data from their brains, then it might well fade as they died. The truth was that she'd never bothered to look and see if the dead had tales still.

  If so, then there might be several corpses in boxes down below. For a second that left her feeling annoyed and a bit scared, but if the President's wife was dead, no one would have fed her and given her drugs, which was clearly happening.

  Mark, who had some kind of time stopping ability, nodded at her.

  "Right. Tobin and I will clear the place. The rest of you can run backup on this. The main entrance is in that barn?" He pointed to the right place since it wasn't hard to find, being the one old red building, a tiny shed that looked to be made of metal, and a whole lot of nothing else for as far as the eye could see. Well, there were some trees, in the distance, but that was all.

  "Right. In the floor, near the back right hand side. Here, on the map you can see the rest of it. The door codes are right next to them."

  She handed the thing over, and blinked since the man was gone. So was Tobin. A moment later he was back, without the Goblin. Mark smiled at them, his story talking about how scared he'd been going in, carrying the light fellow with him, in his arms, like a child. They'd subdued the people inside, with duct tape, and left Clark blindfolded with the stuff. He needed to see, in order to use his power, it seemed.

  Getting it first, she started to jog.

  "Good work. We need to get in there, and... Um, medical help? Remember, leave Clarkson alive until we have what he knows." After that she personally didn't care, if she were going to be honest.

  Really, she didn't to start with, but no one seemed to be concerned with her that way. They were too worried about what Level and Prime were going to do. The man was a child molester after all. One that had really done it, too. There was no doubt of that, so very little slack was going to be cut for him that way.

  On the great freaking side, it wasn't her problem. In fact, leaving him alive was probably the best thing for her, since it would leave her looking good. Still, after that first warning to the others about what people were secretly planning, she wasn't doing it again. Making an enemy of either Prime or Level was a poor plan for her. So far they weren't holding anything against her, with Scott actually understanding what she was doing, and Lauren believing that she was just a better person than she was, not wanting the man to be murdered like that.

  Not that it was going to save him in the end.

  They moved into the facility hard and fast, at a literal run. Then Brian took stock of the whole place and went to get help. The hard part there was that they needed to get medical in, and it was really possible that the doctors and nurses weren't really them. None of those people were actually super powered beings, after all.

  So, after about fifteen minutes they had all the people out of their coffin box cells, and Director Turner was there, along with fifty other people. At least it seemed like it. All of them were Infected, too. Most were people that she'd met, at least in passing, having been cleared already by her personally. Not that she wasn't going to do it again, soon.

  "We need to get these people to a real hospital. Now." The words were half growled by Kiko Burrows, with Proxy just nodding at her openly.

  "Tell me where to go, and I can get you all there immediately."

  That got those two talking, fast, and hard, and the bodies of the drugged victims were pulled away faster than seemed possible. All the medical people were gone after five minutes, each one staying with an individual. Brian had to call the President, but was waiting to make certain that Mary Lawrence was both really her and going to make it. That she probably had brain damage that would follow her for the rest of her life was just clear to everyone that bothered to think of it.

  That wasn't going to make Clark a popular boy, very shortly.

  Then, if the President wanted him to accidently die, that could be arranged. She moved over in front of the the man, who was still taped up. He looked a bit like his brother, which got her to slap him suddenly. He didn't have a right to look like a good person that she liked. Marcia had wanted to, but was afraid that she'd kill him. Before it was time for that.

  It got the woman to smile at her, and nod.

  "You do interrogations, too? And here I thought that killing innocent men was your thing." The words were relaxed, even though the woman wasn't.

  As the man, taped to the solid metal chair, tried to squirm and make a distressed noise, she shrugged.

  "That's just my first mode. I'm pretty sure I was a psychopath before that though. Just not the murderous kind. Now I kind of have a taste for it, so even without that, I bet I can get behind a bit of alternative fun. Even if I'm not forced to. You did say the idea was for me to only kill the right people, didn't you? Anyway, Clark, Wally sends his love." Then she slapped him on the other side of his face, making his head whip to the other direction.

  Turner laughed.

  "Oh, right, I forgot that you used to work with his brother. What was it he said when we thought Clark here was dead?"

  Cindy lied, but not by that much.

  "That he wished he could have done it himself. He meant it, too. In fact, I'm half tempted to let him and Scott take turns killing you now. I wouldn't want that to stain either of them though, so I guess that I'll have to do it? Anyway, I just need the questions. We don't need him to be willing to give us the data or anything. Let's drain him and then do whatever it is you want? You did say that I could murder some people, as long as it was inside the rules? I mean, I know that wasn't a promise, but it would make me feel like we were part of the same team. Pleeease? You have a death warrant for him still, don't you?" It was right there above the other woman's head, and she really did. He was an escaped fugitive, and a class four. That was pretty much a death sentence, as far as the law went.

  Even if you were innocent in the first place, escaping meant you were too dangerous to keep around.

  Clark tried to save his life, squeaking at them. Pitifully.

  "I'll talk! I'll cooperate! I just didn't want to die, so I ran when Bridgie came to get me. That's all. Then I was given a job here, helping people."

  Ms. Turner crossed her arms, her face hard.

  "Bullshit, Clarkson. Yeah, you ran, but you know that keeping people prisoner h
ere isn't helping them. This isn't an old folks home. Did you realize who you had here? Burkes, and Mary Lawrence? You had to know that keeping the First Lady hostage wasn't going to work out for you, in the end. Even a dumbass like you should understand that."

  It was clear that he did know, all along, so Cindy hit him again, hard enough to get a rewarding grunt. Then she pulled one of the knives that Brian had lent her. She poked the large thing, which had a nice ten inch blade on it that gleamed wickedly, into his sternum, making him try to squirm away. Then she stopped, pushing him with pain back into the chair.

  Marcia looked at her like it was part of the plan to get the needed data.

  Cin sucked both of her lips into her mouth, hiding her glee. Poorly.

  "Oh, um, sorry. I was just having some fun. He knew. All the names, and while he didn't know why they were here, he was the one in charge of it all. He really doesn't know who is really behind it." Then she poked him again. Smiling as she did it.

  Her boss... Laughed.

  "Ah, Clark. Things have changed since you've been gone. The only thing that's the same is how much everyone hates you."

  He tried to bluff, the words written above his head.

  "You can't do this. Torture is illegal."

  It really was.

  Cindy poked him again.

  "Did you not get the part about how I'm a serial killer? That wasn't a joke. We're working on treatments for it, but it's totally a first mode thing, so it will take at least another few months. If it doesn't just kill me. You even look enough like my favorite kind of target that this will be fun. I also know everything you do. From what you think of when you jerk it, to what you had for your last meal. Salisbury steak. No dessert. You really should have had some. Now, the thing here is that there isn't a good reason for us to keep you alive really. You don't know enough to lead us to anyone. Unless you met someone that you haven't told us about? If so, get that info out, because Director Turner here is planning on taking you out and burying you twenty feet down? After she lets me torture you for a while. She really, really, doesn't seem to like you." It was all true, and the awkward man, Wally's brother, didn't have anything to tell them.

  Not that would keep him alive. She backed off, and looked over at Marcia, who was pretty much willing to let her do whatever helped her get her jollies just about then. For real. Including some things that she'd never even thought about doing.

  Of course she'd never had a man tied to a chair like this before either. It was all pretty tempting.

  Leaning in she kissed his cheek, getting a raised eyebrow from her boss.

  "Are you going to rape him first? We'll need a strap-on for that."

  Cindy smiled and shook her head.

  "Nope. Nothing that fun for him. You might want to leave and clear the area here. Come back in a few hours? After the screaming stops?"

  Clark scrambled, mentally. Searching for something he could promise, or give them, to keep himself alive and relatively unharmed. Nothing really came to him. Everything he'd known about was old news, now. Worse, he was smart enough to understand that he had no real secrets from the new, very scary, woman. Worse, Marcia Turner had been called the Director. That couldn't go well for him.

  She looked at Cindy, and nodded.

  "Make sure you cut his cock and balls off. He can die choking on them. It's less than he deserves, but prison is out." The thing there was that Turner was mainly not serious. It was a great idea though.

  Cindy smiled, and looked around for some rope, or string. There was some wire, for some reason, over in the corner. The thick kind that was used in fencing, even though there hadn't been anything like that outside. She got the spool, and carefully tied a line of it around his pinky finger on his left hand.

  Then she cut it off at the first joint.

  The screaming was loud, and incredible. Rewarding on a level that she'd never gotten to experience before. Panicked and pained. Moist at the same time, and it kept going a lot longer than she would have thought.

  When he quieted down, moaning in pain, she slapped him again.

  "Did you think we were kidding? You molested a little kid. No one in the world is going to come and save you, Clark. No one in the world would bother. Not even your own family. You've been holding our people, and the First Lady, torturing them in isolation, using drugs. Now, we can do this in one of two ways. Slow and painful, or fast... And painful. If you beg hard enough, I'll end this quick." She was lying, since it was far too much fun to waste her chance.

  Marcia, to her credit, was hiding the fact that she was feeling a little sickened by what was about to happen. Not that she wasn't going to let it go on. This saved her from having to do it herself. Part of her even wanted to watch, but she didn't need more nightmares, so she waved at Cin and forced a smile.

  "I'll clear the area. Give me five minutes. Then we'll clean up the mess. He died trying to escape." Because torture really was illegal. Even if you had a death warrant.

  Especially since there was no reason for it at all.

  She waited for the building to be cleared, the other, far more innocent, bad guys being taken outside. Then she played her new game with her friend's hated brother. The whole time she listed off his sins and failures. The list wasn't a short one.

  Slowly, over the course of hours, she turned him from a man into a collection of parts. Before he died, as she was about to end him forever, as he choked on his own genitals, she whispered to him.

  "It isn't about what you did really. I just did it because I could." Then he died, a knife in his throat. That was her signature, after all. It ended his life, the sound dying for the last time.

  Then she got it. Her code name.

  "Hush. Sleep now."

  She was covered with blood, and some other things that had leaked from him as she'd worked and played. On the interesting side of things, she was able to read about his death, in black and white, just like she could with anyone else. She was so focused on the text that she didn't understand at first that he was dead, and that she could still read the words clearly. There was no updating, but she could still thumb through it, finding different points, and pieces of information.

  She dropped it after a bit, but brought it back after that. There was no sign of it fading. Not even a bit.

  That got her to smile, then go and collect Marcia, her murder buddy.

  It occurred to her then that she might be able to survive at the IPB after all. The idea was interesting suddenly. Oh, she couldn't take out everyone she wanted to, and might not even be able to enjoy it as much all the time. Still, the occasional Clark being tossed her way might just let her get by.

  Going out she got some help in burying the body. They went deep with it, since Level and Marcia did most of the heavy work. They only stopped at seventeen feet, because they were about to hit water.

  Scott had taken Bridget away, so that she wouldn't have to see her former boyfriend's bloody pieces. They were at least ten miles away or so, by the time the remains were all taken care of.

  Marcia didn't speak until she put the last pat of Earth on the mound, then waved to Lauren, so she could pack it down. The giant woman felt sickened by it all, seeing the mess that had once been a man, but also secretly glad. She looked at Cindy and gave a big nod.

  "I should have done it. I wanted to, but..." There was sadness in her voice. Then, there probably almost always was.

  "Nope. This one was mine. My job. Now, I need new clothing, or Brian is going to think that I'm bad girlfriend material. All sloppy and stuff. We can't have that." She might need him to hesitate some time, after all.

  They did find some clothing, and burned hers. She even got a shower, the facility having that kind of thing. Then they all waited for Proxy to come back for them, with Marcia stopping him after he had most of the people returned to the base.

  Her face was hard as she looked around, then totally told on Cindy to the man.

  "Our new operative took care of Clarkson for u
s. We have what he knows now too, which wasn't much. We need to find the missing people. Sinclair and Phoebe. We can't really know if they're being faked or not, at this point." She was serious about that, but looked over at Cin, and let her mouth smile.

  It wasn't a friendly thing.

  "Then, if they don't have a really good reason for betraying us, I want them taken care of. Like you did with Clark."

  There were only seven of them left there, Denis and Kerry, Lauren and Tobin, along with her, Marcia and Proxy. Everyone else had returned to the base already.

  "It isn't a nice thing, but we can't afford to let people go against us like this. We're no closer to knowing who did it, either. This is probably the most potentially dangerous situation that I've ever seen. From this point on, we can't trust anyone. Not even our friends." She meant all of them too, but only Brian understood that right up front.

  Well, Cindy did, too. Reading it from the space over her boss's head like she was.

  She just smiled, meaning it, feeling much better now. Like her life just might not be totally over, even if things changed inside of her.

  "Don't worry, we can do this. They can't run and hide forever. Sooner or later we'll get lucky, or they'll make a mistake, and then well have them." More to the point, she would.

  On that day, she believed that a certain killer was going to be a very happy girl, indeed.

  Then, still feeling pretty good about life, they went back to her new base.

  Her new home.

  To find out more about what's going on in the fast paced world of P.S. Power please go to" pspowerbooks.com (Also, come joint the forum! It will be fun.)

  Other books by P.S. Power that you might like.

  (All books are in the suggested reading order by series.)

  Young Ancients: (The First Cycle)

  The Builder (Tor's first book)

  Knight Esquire (Tor)

  Knight of the Realm (Tor)

  Ambassador (Tor)

  Counselor (Tor)

  Slave Line (Tor)