by P. S. Power
Instead of feeling jealous about what was on the other tray, she felt a bit compassionate about the whole thing. It wasn’t as intense as it used to be, having had her first mode removed, more or less. The woman was just a good person that way. She’d always been kind and compassionate, so it had become her primary way of being when she’d popped. Kind of how Cindy had always been a psychopath. One who had been a bit violent, even if it hadn’t shown on the outside that much.
So Karen was concerned.
“You’re doing all right? Emotionally, I mean?” She took a bite of salad then, her eyes locked on Cin’s without blinking.
It was a bit too much, but well enough meant. Looking at her own plate, she nodded.
“More or less. Things like this don’t really affect me as much as they do most people. It’s just how I’m wired. Not that I won’t be dreaming about misplacing my shoulders for a while, I bet. No big thing, really.”
Rather than get all emotional about her perceived lack of emotional health, Karen actually smiled.
“Neat. I heard there was a big mission going on? Something about aliens?” She was just making small talk, and was, more or less, cleared for that kind of work. She also knew that it would piss Turner off if she were told about it by anyone except her.
Cindy winked as she took a bite of coleslaw, which was perfectly tangy.
“Nope. You can’t sucker me that easily. Ask Marcia about it, if you want to know what’s going on. I know nothing. Nothing!” She was willing to wave her fist to make her point, but kind of needed to stuff her face too badly at the moment.
She felt a bit sick from not eating, even as food was hitting her middle. It was the downside of being her, now. All the powers had to be balanced out somewhere.
Almost perfectly, as if planned, someone moved in alongside of her, holding a tray of food. Right next to her, which wasn’t done on accident. Glancing over she saw that it was Mark, which was unexpected. Right behind him was Sara, who was being followed by Denis.
The girl looked like a cute teen at the moment. One that was clearly getting ready for a life in Hollywood, given her looks. She seemed about thirteen, but was younger than that. Seven. Still, she was bright enough to sell the act she was playing, more or less. Before anyone did more than smile at her and Karen, Will came and settled across from them.
His voice was smooth. He didn’t even have an accent at all. If it wasn’t for what was going on in his mind, she wouldn’t have known he wasn’t from the mid-west. Even at that, he was making an effort to control his thoughts constantly, since it might be needed for his work later. As a spy, of course. More of a forward operative, but that wasn’t too different. He was the man that Tor’s entire world was planning to send to other worlds to find the enemy.
Glancing around, the purple eyed and haired guy winked at her.
“Do you like the bread? I made it myself.”
She nodded, picked up the remains of her first piece and smiled.
“It’s perfect. I’d have more, but I didn’t want to seem like a pig, you know?” She grinned as she took a bite. It really was great, so it wasn’t like she was just being nice about it.
Sara did the same thing, and nodded.
“This is yummy.” There was more little kid in her voice for a moment, but she covered that with eating. She had a lot of food, which didn’t fit her act, which was, in the form she wore at the moment, supposed to be a regular human girl.
Thankfully, there was no press in the building at the moment. Will noticed that part, but didn't mention it, planning to take the girl aside later to point that out. That part, what he was thinking about Sara, was interesting.
At first, as Cin read, she suspected that he wanted to hit that. In her current form, she was almost ideally cute and in his world nearly old enough for sex. At least in how she looked. That wasn’t the point inside of his head, however. Not at all. He simply figured that the kid was being trained to do the same job that he was. That was why she had to practice blending in as a normal person, and even going to his world made sense given that. So that she could learn to adapt to things that were just strange.
It wasn’t a horrible idea, even if the truth was that Cindy had just been trying to make sure the girl didn’t get pissed at anyone and destroy the world. That she could was just the truth. She could change shape, which included copying Infected powers. Any of them, as far as they’d been able to tell so far. Worse, she knew it. Seven or not. Sara even seemed to understand parts of what everyone else was thinking about her that way.
At least enough to go along with them.
On the good side, Cin could tell that Will Baker wasn’t a total pervert or anything. It left her feeling better about things, actually. That was a bit of a shock, since she hadn’t known that she cared that much about anything. Especially Sara. She really did though. It felt… Odd.
No one mentioned the coming trip, which made some sense to her. Will knew, as did Sara. That she’d figured out not to bring it up on her own was kind of interesting, until Cindy read up on that part. It was written in crayon, but was just down to the fact that she’d gotten it out of Will’s mind. Subconsciously. The girl was doing that constantly with everyone around her. It was part of how she was able to blend in as a teen, even if she were a little kid. Just meeting the expectations of those around her was enough to make that work for most people.
That meant they all sat there and talked about the weather. The only other new topic was the fight earlier, which no one bothered with, since they were mainly up on the whole thing. The base, like any small town might be, was a rumor mill. Everyone learned what was going on, sooner or later. The trick was, at times, that they weren’t supposed to talk about some things.
Honestly, Cindy didn't care about that part of the whole deal. She’d been forced to join up or die, herself. That meant her entire goal in the whole thing, even after having been pardoned by the President, was to survive. Director Turner really didn’t care about the rules all the time. Just being cleared of all past crimes wasn’t enough to save her in that case. It might be harder now to kill her, but dead Tor had nearly pulled it off earlier that day. The odds that Marcia had missed that were non-existent.
The meal was nice enough, and at the end, she waved at the others.
“We need to set up food for everyone in the Agent’s section. Otherwise they’ll starve and we can’t have that. Honestly…” She checked then nodded. Several people hadn’t come to the meal after all. “We need six meals for the people in the front office, too. Brian needs to eat more. Marcia… She’s been trying to skip. Not for any good reasons either.” The woman just couldn’t taste anything or feel hunger.
That was different for Cindy, thankfully. Tam, the one that she’d worked with several times, had set things up so that she’d be able to eat enough and take pleasure in it. Otherwise she was kind of similar to the boss in that way now. Not as strong or fast, but nearly as hard to hurt, which was helpful. It was still a lot better than what she’d had going on before.
Before the change she’d been able to bench press a hundred and thirty pounds, which had been pretty good, considering how small she was. Now she could do about ten thousand. She hadn’t really gotten a chance to punch anyone yet, but she was willing to bet that when she did, it would have a bit more impact than it used to.
Interestingly, everyone there got up to help out, loading trays of food up. It meant she was on tap to help with the selections, so that everyone would get what they liked, more or less, but that part was fine. There was no use in having powers if you refused to use them. Fifteen minutes later they had it all delivered, and were even thanked by a few people. Marcia just looked at her when she got in, as Bridget sat in front of her, eating as if food were going out of style.
“Thanks.” The red headed girl, tiny and twitching constantly, actually needed to eat all she could. She was always grateful when anyone else recalled her at all, that way.
Marcia really
wasn’t, but she started eating as she worked anyway. She knew she needed to, so did it. Like it was a mildly unpleasant job or something. Which, for her, it really was.
As she picked at the food, a collection of things that were crisp and full of calories at the same time, the Director tapped at her computer keyboard.
“Agent Burkes sent an action plan over for us. It looks like we have actual intel. We need to set up a class on manners for that other place. Who do you recommend for that?” The clear answer, a thing that Marcia already knew, was Will. The problem there was that she didn’t totally trust that he wasn’t there to spy on them.
Which he kind of was. Not in that anyone had sent him to do that, but he was trying to learn enough to blend in with them, which required him gaining a lot of data, fast. Everything about that set Turner’s first mode on high. Even being there openly wasn’t helping reduce that much. A little, but she kind of expected the man to betray them all, before he left.
The thing there was that Baker was far more honorable than most of the rest of them. Good at his job as well. At least he would be with a bit more training. He was willing to do what it took, no matter what that was. Including things that would have had most of the rest of them simply refusing to even leave home.
“Will, of course. He’s from there. Besides, we should put him on the spot and make him teach a class on things. It will be good for him. I can double check his data, using dead Tor. That should be close enough, even if he is from a different reality. They, the two men from earlier, were nearly identical. Except for today and a few other things. How he was contacted and all that. Interestingly, I don’t think that everyone from his world, or even most of them, were in on anything at all. They’re pretty much just people. At least as far as that Tor Baker knew.”
The words got a slow nod from the lady behind the desk. Her curly brown hair bobbed a bit, having grown out a little in the time that they’d known each other. That hadn’t been long, only about three months or so. It felt like longer, but that seemed to just be the way that the IPB always worked. You either sat around, if you were one of the useless people, or you hustled constantly, without end.
It was mean to think of things that way, but it was kind of true. Most of team two could have found things to do, but they just hovered, waiting for events to happen to them. Then whined if things got boring. Any one of them could have walked into the front office and suggested that they were the right person to do almost anything. More than that, they could walk in and just take a space and start in on things and Marcia wouldn’t do more than smirk in their direction. That was pretty much what Cindy had done, after all. Even literally assuming an office space and ordering a nice name plaque for the door. That had been about making it all seem official, but she hadn’t asked about doing it.
“Speaking of double checking, I need to read up on some things, if that’s all right? Learning the customs and all that.”
The words got a nod, the boss just glad that she was being that adaptable. A lot of people would be stuck on the Levitt thing, and just spin their wheels. It was kind of tempting to do that, but it wasn’t going to help anyone, so she just shook her head and waited.
Ms. Turner waved her away.
“Get to that then. Take notes? I want a full briefing report before we leave.”
That was going to be easy enough for her to do. As a former librarian, she’d been to school, after all. That kind of thing, writing reports, wasn’t new to her. She nodded, then moved to her own space and ripped into the book that was the life of Master Torrance Green Baker. The Builder.
That part was kind of interesting, since the man hadn’t held himself in all that much esteem as far as his skills went. No, he figured that both Timon and their sister Tam were better than he was. It wasn’t really true, however. They all had high level skills, but Tor had been far more creative than the others. Not that her goal was to find out about his low self-esteem issues. It might help later, but for the time being she needed customs and courtesies.
The first thing she worked out was the clothing, which was actually fairly fluid, really. They had to dress nicely, but as people from a different place, their strange fashions were going to be allowable, even if they came in uniforms or rags.
After that she worked out what would be needed to make a real show of things. Tiera, who was the Queen of the Moon as Cin had worked out, was from Two Bends. A small forest village. Their custom in that place was to take a small gift when visiting. It was kind of like taking a bottle of wine to a party, more or less. In this case, they wouldn’t be expected to do anything at all, but showing up with something personal for Tiera should set her at ease. Then they needed something for the people of Harmony. That one was slightly harder or should have been, but dead Tor knew what they needed.
Plants. Seeds even. They had several huge forest domes up there, but had been a bit slow filling them all. Cindy took notes. Interestingly they had a lot of things in her world that should work there, starting from seeds. That and some interesting candies should go over pretty well.
Smiling, she nodded to herself, then typed for a while. The whole thing was a bit intense, given the time frame, but it wasn’t a bunch of nukes inside the country, just dinner, so at least that part was looking up.
Chapter three
There was, of course, no Presidential daughter going with them. That part didn’t take Cin by surprise. Honestly, it didn’t take Maggie by surprise either. What did was that half the crew that was supposed to be going along were suddenly called away. It lowered the numbers a bit, since it happened right before the big event.
Personally, she blamed Proxy for that one. After all, it was his brain that required them to move off to the White House like they had. Which wasn’t all that great of a thing to hear. Marcia was half tempted to hold them all back, in case of an attack coming in. Right until Brian showed up dressed in a black and grey suit outside the main office. Ready to go and visit with some nifty aliens.
He nodded at Marcia, then shrugged.
“It’s… I can’t totally tell, but I think that Bridget has some things to do there. We could try to fill the crew out again, but we don’t really seem to have a lot of time.”
Yi seemed pretty peaceful about it, so Turner relented and shrugged. As if that was enough to reassure her. It wasn’t. Nothing would be however, until it was all over. Even then, she’d probably spend weeks going over how it was secretly a trick or trap for them.
As it turned out, having a meal in a different world wasn’t all that different from doing it at home. There were a few fancy protocols that might be needed, but even that, according to the dead Tor’s data, wasn’t all that important. Not spitting at the table was kind of a large thing, but standing and toasting was mainly a thing in Noram, so the guy wasn’t all that certain it would even be done at a meal in Harmony.
No, instead they’d have magical poison detectors to wave over the food for each course.
Then again, in his experience no one was ever actually poisoned at meals like that. Just attacked. Normally, but not always, by the bad guys. Given that one could happen anywhere, even their own world, it wasn’t really that big of a deal.
The getting ready part of things was kind of boring, if Cin was going to actually be honest about it all. They were provided with clothing, bought just for the occasion, and a woman came around to teach her how to do her make-up. The lady was about her own size, or a bit larger, and held a trim cuteness that seemed energetic. She had to learn how to do the face paint for herself however, given that Tiera had pointed out that they might be there hours before the meal itself. Maybe even a day before.
Instead, Will got them there almost exactly on time. There was a small walk to the restaurant, which had been closed down just for their event. The whole thing, the entire underground city, was a work of art. In a small way, it reminded her of a tomb, being all of white stone, but the lines were a bit melted and melded together at the seams, giving the wh
ole thing a slightly more organic air to it. Laid into the walls were a combination of fine carvings, most of which seemed very skillful, along with three-dimensional images that gave depth where it didn’t exist. Like holograms, except inside the walls.
Some of those even spoke to them.
One woman, was wearing a rather formal seeming black and orange outfit, had blonde hair and appeared to almost be standing on a stage inside the wall, rather than being a simple picture. She spoke to them, getting them all to stop. The language was different, sounding a bit like German. With a bit of effort Cindy managed to make a few things out.
Sara half skipped forward, dressed in a pretty white and black dress with shiny shoes. At the moment she looked to be about thirteen or so. It was her secondary big form, as she liked to call it. The first one was larger and green. It looked like an orc, more or less. This one was prettier, but both had uses.
“Come join Space Fleet.” The little girl grinned then, translating instantly, and looked down with a slightly shy air. Her normal depression lifting long enough to almost enjoy what was going on for a bit. After all, alien worlds could do that to a person.
Moving her golden blonde hair out of the way, or trying to, she turned to Cin.
“Miss Tiera told me about that. They have two major fleets, for the humans here from Earth. There’s a much larger one, mainly made of human people coming from space, but they also have real aliens.”
That had been a thing that Cindy had caught, actually. On the great side, dealing with the Ysidril wasn’t really at issue for the night. As far as Tor could tell, they weren’t just harmless, but didn’t have the concept of offense. That meant they weren’t going to be hard to get along with. A bit like dealing with Argos, or perhaps Lady Glory.
The rest of the group, even without being armed with that information didn’t even blink when they met an all-black woman at the door of the place. Interestingly, she smiled, showing that it wasn’t just the externals that were in jet black. Her teeth and tongue were as well. Her clothing was a light blue, but that worked for her. Then, almost anything would, really.