Ripped Open (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 2) Read online

  The Infected: Ripped to Shreds-Book Two

  Ripped Open

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2016

  Chapter One

  There was blood on the man in front of her. Cindy actually felt a wash of relief coming over her at the sight of the bright red as it trickled down the military man’s face. He was a Captain in the U.S. Army. Brent Mophrey was his name. She knew that because the man held all of his information over his head as Proxy beat him. For her at least, reading people’s stories being her super power. There wasn’t a lot of mercy in the activity either, even if it was supposed to be a simple practice session.

  Cin Mableton understood why that was however.

  It was strange, since she was nearly certain that Brian Yi, who was roughly her friend, if she had anyone like that in the world, probably didn’t get why he was being as harsh as he was toward the other man. No one else really understood either. Mainly due to the fact that nothing about the real situation had been spoken out loud yet. Not to the group. That didn’t stop Brian from knowing about it, at least on some level. The man was, among a lot of other things, fairly psychic.

  The words that floated over his head, looking like a computer screen to Cin’s powers at the moment, told the story clearly enough. It was even confirmed in the other man, who looked to have thoughts that were printed on old fashioned gray paper, in newsprint, for whatever reason. That was a bit odd, given how young he was, but for whatever reason, that was how it looked to her. This man identified with that kind of thing, for some unknown reason and it showed in how Cindy saw his data.

  Brent was, among other things, a rapist.

  Also a military super soldier. The problem was that the man was clever, and had covered his tracks well enough to get past the Army regulations perfectly. Mainly by using his position and power to convince the Warrant Officer that he’d been raping that the other man wanted it. At least that it would look that way to anyone in the system, if he tried to report it. Sure, the man had been using coercion and not force to make the other man perform, but Proxy didn’t really care about that kind of thing.

  There was a person that was being abused, and an abuser. So Brian was going to kick his ass, not really being consciously aware of why it was happening.

  Given that one of them was, for all intents, more than human as far as strength, speed and endurance went, and the other man wasn’t using any powers at all as he stomped the bad man in the head, it was even pretty close to being a fair fight. The big difference was in experience. Mophrey had black belts in six different styles of unarmed combat and had been practicing since he’d been ten years old.

  Brian had just been in something like a thousand or more fights. Most of them to the death. That meant, in the moment, that the creepoid soldier was losing, even as the other super soldiers stood around the gym, wondering if they should step in and protect their fellow officer.

  No one said anything, until a crunch came from the downed man’s jaw. Then one of the other men, dressed in a tan t-shirt and fatigue pants, along with shiny black boots, waved at the smaller fellow, to get him to back off.

  “Hold!” The tone didn’t sound frightened, and Proxy stepped back, his hands coming back into a defensive position instantly, ready to continue the beating. Again, his words really did say that Brian Yi didn’t know why it was happening the way it was. Not on the surface.

  “All right, I think we can end this one here for the time being.” The man that spoke was Greg Simpson. More or less he was the training officer for the IPB. Part of that was a bit unofficial, since there was a whole program in place for their side, but when they did mixed military and operative exercises, like this one, Simpson was in charge.

  He was also a Captain, like the bleeding man on the floor.

  It was hard not to look too long at the injured man. Unfortunately, he wasn’t whimpering or screaming. Cindy loved that part of things. Even now, when her first mode was being slowly eroded, and she didn’t feel a compulsive need to kill anyone, it kind of turned her on. More than a little, if she were going to be honest about it all. Then, the work, the genetic changes that had been made to her by Doctor Burrows, the mad scientist of the Infected Protection Bureau, wasn’t finished yet. It was really clear that it had been starting to work however, already. A bit earlier than anyone had figured it would have. They’d said three months, but it had only been one since the second set of shots she’d gotten for it.

  On the good side, Cin didn’t really want to kill Darryl Lancaster anymore. It was a great thing, given that the man was back on the base. He still pulled a gun every time he saw her, ready to end her life if she came for him, but she didn’t really want to in particular. In abstract… Well, she knew that it would be fun if she could have pulled it off. Not at the cost of her own life however. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t a pleasant tingle between her legs as she glanced a bit too avidly at the man on the ground.

  Simpson, who had a strange, deeply tanned look and all white eyes and hair was about to speak, when she managed it first. Stopping him from deescalating things. He was, after all, a pretty reasonable guy. The kind that wanted others to get along and was willing to put the effort in most of the time.

  “No… Greg, you need to go next.” She didn’t explain, and the man blinked, the floating words over his head saying that he was willing enough to engage Proxy, if that was really needed. He wasn’t in sweats, which the rest of them were, but that was fine. It was best to practice in the clothes you were going to be in while you fought anyway.

  “Sure?” He started to square off with Brian, who seemed ready for that, but froze when Cindy laughed a bit and pointed.

  “No. On Mophrey there. Extra judicial punishment? That’s what it’s called, right? The man’s been raping one of your people. He’s worked it out so he can’t be touched, or thinks he has. Forgetting that we have psychics and people that just do not give a fuck about his legal trickery here, but it’s really all there. I think we need to beat him nearly to death? Then toss him in the brig and get with the generals or whoever we need to? We might not want to be too careful on the nearly part, to be honest.” She looked at the man, a bit hopefully, since it made great sense to her, but technically it was the wrong thing to do.

  They should, according to the rules, just report the man, and make a good case against him. If that happened… Well, it might or might not work. The military could let him go, thinking she was just making things up to persecute the man for some reason. They were a little paranoid that way, for some reason. Possibly because they had to know that some of the IPB, like her and Christian Poures, would eventually figure out that the military men had been put in place to try and take the Infected personnel down if they could. Some day. So far they all seemed to know that it wasn’t going to really work.

  The super powered people there were just too powerful for them to beat. Not in any kind of straight up battle. Oh, they might take out about half of them, the weak ones, like her, but the others would turn on the government then, and things would go very poorly after that. For the super-soldiers. Honestly, Simpson wasn’t that bad, having been fairly straight forward about things so far with everyone. The rest were a bit cagier about their secret orders, but no one was planning anything that day. Not against the IPB. So they all got to deal with Brent Mophrey, the gay rapist.

  It was really worse than it sounded, since the man wasn’t even doing it just to get off. He was doing it to hurt someone, getting off on their pain. Which was sick and wrong.

  The thought nearly got her to smile, since she was doing exactly
the same thing at the moment. That was different of course. She was her, after all. Mophrey wasn’t, so it was fine for her to think less of him for being too much like her. Besides, she didn’t rape people. Cindy just killed them. Or she used to. Now that things were calming down inside of her that was probably going to go away. That left her with bits and pieces of things instead of the fulfilling whole that it used to be.

  She felt empty inside already. Incomplete.

  Simpson glared at her.

  “Who?”

  “Enright. Mophrey has been using his status to push the man around and force him to do things with him. It’s like something from a bad prison movie. So go to, and start kicking him. I’ll jump in later, after you soften him up for me?” She did smile then, looking hopeful, but only after the man started to glare at the one that was trying to stand up. That meant no one was looking at her, so it wasn’t as creepy to them as it should have been.

  The rest of the people standing around stared as well, looking at Enright, who was turning ten shades of red. One of them, a man who had low level telepathic abilities, ran forward and started to kick the man on the ground then, after looking at the Warrant Officer. The younger man doing the damage stopped after a bit, and grunted. He was shorter than most of the rest of them, and thin, in a fit way.

  Also un-augmented physically, which meant that the kicking was only having a normal level of effect. The idiot wasn’t even aiming for the head, just the ribs, where the other man had some kind of shielding. He grunted a bit, the man on the ground, but wasn’t really being harmed. Still, he stepped back and shook his head.

  “It’s true. They’re both thinking about it. Fuck. What the hell?” The man was more baffled than anything, and from the look on the other’s faces, it seemed that they all understood that. Brian was about to move back in, now that he got the situation. He had a knife in his hand, since the man didn’t go unarmed, even while he practiced fighting. It was dangerous, but given that he sometimes had to go off and fight other people to the death without real notice, it paid for him to be ready at all times. Like just then, for instance.

  Cindy wasn’t armed herself, but she was, more or less, a serial killer, not a hero. No one wanted her to be going around ready to kill at a moment’s notice like that.

  “No. They need to do this. Not you, Proxy. This is a military matter, too.” She didn’t know that, but it was too likely that these others would stop Yi, if he were the one handing out the punishment.

  If they did it however, the man on the floor might actually die. Proxy might well stop in time, if it was up to him.

  Instead of doing that however, Simpson shook his head.

  “Fuck indeed. Fine, get him to the brig. Lewis, Humphries, Dilling, and… Yi. Can you see to that? I’ll go and… Do the rest of this. Enright, you’re with me and Mableton. This ends now.” He seemed fierce, which wasn’t how he normally did things, being fairly happy about the world, more or less.

  Even if he was funny looking. It wasn’t horrible or anything, so he got his share of the women at the base. Most of them weren’t bigots after all, given who they worked with and for, and he wasn’t even Infected. Which meant no pesky first mode to deal with. So to most people’s minds, he wasn’t handicapped by the changes made to him by the government. Really, it had left him locked into his job, but dedicated. Enough that the rules actually mattered to him.

  So there was no glorious beat down coming from that direction. Thankfully Mophrey wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “Lies! You can’t touch me!” It wasn’t a great defense, since anyone paying attention would see that he wasn’t saying that he hadn’t been doing it, just that he could get away with it. Except that, of course, he wasn’t going to. Not if she had any say in the matter.

  Still, the man going off to the brig, and then prison, or more likely, let go from the military, with his powers stripped away, wasn’t going to help Cindy that day. The blood must flow, if she were going to fill the void being left in her heart.

  To that end, she moved in, the instructions above the man’s head letting her know exactly what he had planned. It wasn’t complex, involving a sucker punch at Proxy’s neck, a low kick that was going to hit Dilling in the left knee, and a push off from Lewis, who was the only other woman there at the moment. It was really interesting, since the man had been planning to try his little trick on her as well, since it was working so well on Enright, so far. Or had been. It was printed in the air over his head, along with a few graphic pictures. Still shots, with captions under them. What those said, Cindy didn’t have time to read, stepping in to block the punch as the bigger man moved from the floor, cutting his plan short.

  It took both of her arms, and even at that Brian would have been hit, if he hadn’t shifted back already, his powers kicking in now that there was a real threat. What happened was a bit rough and comical, but not that pretty. The others in the room, all of them, except Enright, the raped guy, rushed Mophrey. No one loved a sicko after all.

  That meant the man was taken down, and had his arms broken as they all struggled. It would have been more fun if she could have been the one doing that part, but it was actually Brian that did it, carefully moving in and out of the pile of bodies on the mat, doing the work almost without being noticed. After that, even though the man still struggled a little, the best part was done. Worse, he hadn’t even screamed or yelled as it happened. He bled a bit, and was hit a few times, but seemed defiant, instead of broken and whimpering.

  That hardly did anything for her at all.

  Sighing, she watched as they pulled the man away, and then waved over at Simpson. Not that she was in charge of anything, but her current plan was all about seeming helpful to everyone else, for the time being. So far it had even been working. Not everyone loved her for it, but Marcia Turner, the IPB Director was pretty pleased with her efforts, which was what really counted. There were only five people that mattered at the time being as far as her survival went, and the President didn’t know, or care who she was. As far as she knew.

  She could check that out later, she decided. It wouldn’t be that hard, being the man was a public figure, and knew people that she’d met. As strange as the whole thing was, Brian was practically one of the man’s best friends. It meant that by going to his book, or in his case computer screen, of data, she could cross reference to anyone that he knew, or had even met in passing. There were limits on that, but for someone he knew well, it was easily enough to make the connection.

  “Let’s go to the head office and get this sorted out?” She glanced at Enright, who was looking down, ashamed of himself for letting it all happen. Part of him was wondering if he’d be better off not mentioning it at all, or claiming that the psychics had been wrong.

  After all, the Army wasn’t going to kick him out for being gay. Not that he was, but policy didn’t allow that to happen now. Being a rape victim, well that would be punished. It could be, at any rate. Men didn’t bring charges like that. Even if things happened to them. If they did, the most common reaction was to blame the victim, since otherwise it made the whole Army look bad. Like they were all gay rapists or something.

  So, he either kept his career, or he spoke up and prevented himself from ever advancing again. Given that he was part of a super-soldier program, getting out wasn’t really an option for him. Not the one he was in. They’d signed him up on a twenty-year minimum contract, so that they could get their money back on the investment. Which meant that the only real out for someone like him was death.

  Lacking a handy war, that meant eating a pistol, later that night.

  Cindy shook her head, on reading those words.

  “Fuck that. Kill yourself later, after we take the bastard down? Then…” She shook her head again, since telling the man that she’d do it for him probably wasn’t going to go over well. Not with the other people standing around.

  That was too bad, given that he had the right look for her. Tall, pale and with dark
hair. It occurred to her that she didn’t really want to kill him however. Oh, it would be nice enough, but she didn’t feel the drive that she should have with him, or any man that looked too much like him. It was a calmer, and more abstract thing now, that way.

  Simpson, who’d followed along with them as they’d walked away, winced.

  “Don’t. This wasn’t your fault. I’ll handle it.” It was kind of clear that he thought the real issue was the shame of the abuse. That honestly was a big part of things, of course, but Enright could have taken that part. It was the trapped feeling that was getting to him.

  The only thing that made being part of a system bearable to him was that he could move forward. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to do that, then the whole thing would feel like prison. A cage, made of unbreakable bars of red tape and pointed fingers. It showed in his words, floating above him. In a shade of dismal black. That was like ash and coal, not simple print or anything like that. How she could tell the difference wasn’t clear. That she was right however, was.

  It would have been sad, but Cin was too busy trying to figure out how to get the military guy, the other one, tortured to death for what he’d done. It wasn’t until they all got into the head office and Simpson reported the whole thing to their curly haired and pretty boss lady that she worked it all out.

  Really, Marcia did it for her. The Director was good that way.

  “He did this while on duty here? On my base? You have proof of this?” She didn’t look at Simpson, the tan man looking down, knowing that a few psychics claiming it wasn’t going to be enough, but rather over at Cin, who smiled.

  “Mophrey was kind enough to write it all out for us. On his personal computer? It’s encrypted, but I have the code for it. There are even pictures that he took. Stupid of him, but as long as you don’t mind a bit of privacy invasion? We can break into his room and have that in about ten minutes. Faster if I jog.”

  The woman nodded, and then waved at her, telling her without words to see to that. Then she glanced at Simpson. It was clear that she didn’t really trust him. Anyone paying attention would have seen that part. Then, she didn’t trust anyone. Ever. Not really. That was her first mode after all, and part of what made her so good at her job of being a paranoid bitch all the time. It got Cindy cut zero slack, most days, but then, the same was true for almost everyone else in the world too, so it was fair, if not kind.