Asunder (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 3)

  The Infected: Ripped to Shreds

  Asunder

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2017

  Chapter one

  Cin jumped, waving her arms around in shock like a freak, then wisely froze in place as the world cracked in two around her. That wasn’t literally happening, she noticed after five or six seconds, as she balanced on the balls of her feet. Not moving, since the sound was incredibly intense. The kind of thing that hit a primal urge inside of her to hide. To run in a random direction and not look back. Even now, after she’d been changed to be nearly impossible to hurt. That hadn’t really sunk in yet, she realized. A lifetime of being a soft flesh bag was just too powerful to overcome in a few weeks of having super powers.

  Mainly due to the part where she felt like she was going to die. That bit nearly overwhelmed her, even though she didn’t normally feel fear. Not like most people had to deal with.

  The sound didn’t stop, either. In fact, it got louder as she felt the seconds tick past. Taking a single, very deep breath, she forced herself to shift. To move, in order to run toward the racket. Instead of away, which was totally what she actually wanted to do.

  “I’ll check on this!” It felt odd to be the one saying clap trap like that, but when she got to the lobby, the only people in the main IPB office were honestly the wrong ones for the job.

  At the front desk Lydia their young secretary, looked like she might have just soiled herself. She wasn’t moving either. Sara, seeming like a seven-year-old Hispanic girl, which was correct, even though she could look like anything she wanted, was standing in front of the other girl. To protect her with her tiny body. Like a hero would have. It wasn’t going to work at the moment however. She was too small and didn’t really have powers set up in her tiny form yet. That was an oversight. One that Cin needed to correct if she could.

  “Strong form, Sara! Everyone get out the back! Now!” Ordering the little girl to protect everyone else seemed a bit off, but it was the right call anyway. After all, Sara, more than anyone else, could handle herself in the mess that was going on. Whatever it was. She was probably the single most powerful being in the world, after all. If there was anyone else more powerful… Well, then they were great people, since no one even suspected they existed. It would show if they were evil, she didn’t doubt. Cindy was already kind of having an impact on things if you looked carefully, and she wasn’t in tiny Sara’s league that way at all. Not even by half.

  Marcia Turner, the Director of the entire place, was heading toward the door as well, the words floating over her head impossible to read at the moment. Helpfully she only yelled one word.

  To everyone else.

  “Go!”

  That got the others to move at least, heading deeper into the building. Cindy didn’t actually know if there was a back door to the place, but Sara could make one, if it was needed. Honestly, if she had to, Lydia could probably manage that one as well. There were windows back there, so if it came to it, no one was going to be trapped inside. As she got to the door herself, Marcia already through it, two things happened. The first was that Brian Yi, the super hero known as Proxy, came running out of the side room, followed by Dave Wilson. He was one of the admin people there, even though he had powers. Good ones, but the man wasn’t really a natural fighter. He protected people with a force field, more or less.

  “The back!” She screamed that, pointing vaguely behind her, and headed out the glass front door, not understanding what would be on the other side. The world was covered in fog, or possibly dirt. Nothing at all was visible to her really. Not at a distance.

  When she got there, the sky dripping muddy moisture on them, even if it had been snowing earlier and was cold enough that she would have felt it, if she had that ability any more. The air had simply warmed for some reason. Probably due to the raw friction of what was going on in front of them

  Turner was standing there, not fighting already, watching the source of the sound. It was two men, or at least tall people, standing about fifty meters away from each other, pointing magic wands. At first that seemed off, but as Cin managed to recover her wits, she started to use her own power. Her first one. Not what had been created in her by Tam Baker. Even if that was saving her life at the moment. Otherwise she probably would have had her flesh sandblasted from her bones about then.

  Her real power was different though. Special.

  The ability to read the lives of other people. Like books. She pulled the files on both men, who didn’t just look identical. There were well drawn pictures of them both in their stories after all. It wasn’t like she could just glance at them in their clouds of deadly flying soil and dirt. Their lives matched almost perfectly. It was so close that she nearly couldn’t tell the difference between them at first. Cin read it off out loud, screaming over the thunder as the world turned to dust. Just to be heard she had to lean in to Marcia, putting her lips almost to her ear on the right hand side.

  “Uh… Tor Baker. Both of them. They…” It didn’t take her long to work the next bit out, thankfully. Mainly she just scanned what they’d both been doing, and looked for the differences, side by side. That was a new trick for her. One that hadn’t been that useful before that moment. “Okay, the one on our right came to visit. He has pie? The other one came to try and destroy the base here if he can, and is trying to push this first one into making a mistake. Like…”

  She didn’t get that portion of things, at first.

  “He wants the other him to… Break reality, to make it so none of us ever existed? That’s stupid, but… Yeah, it’s his plan.”

  She wasn’t certain if Marcia even heard her, but the woman turned, then scowled a bit, shaking her head. That wasn’t over the fact that Cindy had bothered to speak or anything as simple as that. It was, from the words over her head, that there was a young teen girl standing there on the right, naked, with Proxy right next to her. Coming to fight.

  Both of them.

  Instead of ordering Sara, who had shifted shape like she’d been told into a super powered form, she waved at Brian. The man was a real hero, but also an idiot in a lot of ways. When things went wrong, he would try to help anyone that needed it. Often to his own detriment. Even now, without a first mode, he was kind of a dork that way. To him, rushing into a cloud of death just made sense. So that no one else would have to be at risk. Even if the rest of them there were a hundred times harder to harm than he was.

  The big issue for the moment was all the dust and dirt being thrown around. There were two nicely deep pits being dug, the men both attempting to be the first to bury the other, so they could each go for another wand. Each had identical gear that way, it was clear. So, they had what was needed. A small white stone stylus that would turn the other man’s shield off. At the same time, they were both blocking the other from doing that constantly, using magic. As in the power of their minds. The weapons, explosive ones that wouldn’t stop working until they died, or turned them off, were just a distraction. Even if it would kill everyone else there, if they weren’t careful.

  That gave her a plan, at least. It was a really stupid one, but she smiled. After all, putting her in charge of saving lives made about as much sense as getting Ted Bundy to guard your puppy.

  “All right. I have this one. Everyone else get away, these things are dangerous. Run!” Then, taking a very deep breath and holding it, she started walking. Quickly covering the distance to the man on the right. Pie Boy. Her food friendly hero of the moment. That honestly seemed strange, and like anyone doing that, bringing treats, would be weak, but the men were tearing the world apart r
ather equally. Most of the battle wasn’t even happening in a physical sense. They were hitting each other constantly with intent. The kind that could kill, if it weren’t being stopped perfectly.

  That meant Cindy needed to figure out how to get past the magical shield that the good guy was wearing, without taking it down or dying in the dust storm or from the weapon coming at the man. There was a way to do that last part at least, but it meant running. Fast.

  Cin could hit a little over a hundred miles per hour in a sprint now, thanks to the changes made to her, arranged by her buddy, Timon the alien wizard. It occurred to her as she took off, seeming to be running away, past the storm of dust and tearing, that this was that other guy’s older brother. Pie Man was. The other one probably had a Timon as a brother as well, given how identical they were. Still, the one she was planning to help was the right one that way, thankfully.

  It would be too hard to explain how she’d murdered her pal’s brother. Technically Taman Baker had done the work on her, but Timmy was the one that had come to help them in the first place and brought the girl in for the work. It was still down to the one with the pie being the right one to protect to stay in her good graces.

  She didn’t have time to process anything before turning back, trying to stay outside the effect of the explosive weapons as they ruined the world. She might be nearly immortal now, but if that thing hit her, either one of the fields, she’d be torn apart. Anything made of matter would be, under the field effect. It meant that she needed to crawl, on hands and knees, using the shield that her new pie friend had on. That stopped the debris, as well as the weapon which would have vaporized her. Well, it stopped the weapon and a little of the dirt. Without constant movement, the dirt was going to bury her.

  It meant crawling up hill at the end to reach the other man, ducking down, so that she was right behind him. Then she paused, since almost anything she did was going to distract the man. Calling out to him, for instance, just wasn’t going to play at the moment. Not that they could have heard anything. She had to get past the shield, without taking it down, or letting it seem like a second attack. Even reading his information too closely might disrupt him too much.

  If that happened, it meant she was going to buy the final farm, not just him. At the same time, she kind of needed to breathe soon. Holding her breath so that she didn’t get a big chest full of the IPB base from the inside was important, but she’d done that while she ran, so was going to go down from it, in about a minute. On the great side, she didn’t feel it.

  She could hold her breath until she passed out and never notice it, until the world went black. At least Marcia could. Cindy had never tried it, but didn't want to at that moment. It really seemed to be working that way, however. There was no discomfort from doing it as far as she could feel.

  Instead of poking at her cover like a moron, she focused on the other man, looking for a way to make a difference. That wasn’t too hard to find in the enemy Tor’s data. She just needed to use magic, to allow her hand to pass through the shield in front of her. Simple. Except for the fact that only four people in the universe could have done that. Well, two, in the world they were standing in. The problem there was that both of them were busy at the moment. Trying to kill each other.

  Finally, she focused on the man, the bad one, and screamed into his mind, using bold font on an empty page of his life book. It floated in front of her. She was kind of focused after all, which tended to bring anything she needed to work with to the front of her mind.

  ~How do I get through a shield without taking it down?~

  Which caused the world to go quiet around her for a second. She nearly paused along with it, thinking the attack was gone or had changed, but picked up that she’d just distracted the other man enough that he’d accidently turned his magic wand off.

  ~Stop! Don’t move!~

  That one wasn’t really going to work, she didn’t think, not for long, but amazingly the other man, the one not three feet in front of her made a noise.

  “Vat?”

  She didn’t translate it, just calling out, since he might be able to hear her, if he wasn’t deaf from the thunderous noise yet.

  “I need your other wand! Where is it? The one to turn off shields? He won’t pause long.” That was just true. He was about to start again already.

  Something changed in front of her, the man still attacking the world. When he spoke, it was in heavily accented English.

  “Right pocket, near my middle.” He sounded perfectly calm, which was maddening. She was about to wet herself still, even without having much of a sense of fear.

  This jerk was so calm that it sounded nearly relaxed. Like they were out for drinks, and he was getting ready to tell her about his last fishing trip or whatever alien magicians did for fun. Without waiting, Cindy frisked the side of his velvet jacket. It was a bit pretty, really, for a fight to the death, but still seemed to be nice. Her tan IPB fatigues were half gone already, in places, just from the abrasion of the dirt that she’d moved through.

  On the third rapid hit she found a lumpy line. There was a small pocket that had a narrow top to it, meaning it took skill, and reaching around him to grab the stone wand. Just as she did that the world started to explode again. Tor, her Tor now, she guessed, was about to try and protect her, even if it meant dying. He geared up mentally to place his shield around her, instead of him. So she yelled.

  “No! Protect yourself and fight! I have the wand… Let me…” That part was harder, since she was going to have to fire the thing, without hitting the man in front of her, or more exactly, his shield. If she tucked her hand out, she was losing it, as well as the stone piece. That wasn’t going to work. So, she turned and ran. If crawling on all fours again was going to be close enough to that for anyone to count.

  It was more difficult now, the hole behind her deeper, having been dug out by the explosive. There was a hill on the other side, made of loose dirt which tried to make her fall down the thing, sliding half a dozen times. That wasn’t so bad, even if time was running out. She had the ability to take the thing now. Without all the new changes she had going on, well, she wouldn’t have been there, simply having run off. Like a sane person.

  Not that she was.

  Hopefully the little and delicate seeming wand thing wasn’t going to break, being held in her hand as she crawled at full speed. Just as she got to the top of the new hill, the whole thing shifted. It took her a bit to understand that the other Tor was wisely trying to stop her. Even if he didn’t get why she was there at all. Tracking the movement, looking at the diagram that he produced, his book seeming to be written in ink and on heavy seeming brown paper, a lot like her friend Hobbs had going on.

  That floated in front of her face, not really being there at all. It was visible to her, but also see-through at the moment. Thankfully the other guy was being distracted by the man providing cover for her, since he fully intended to kill the other fellow. The man had damaged his visiting present after all. The idea was almost humorous inside the mind of her protector, but it didn’t get to come to the surface.

  It meant scrambling out of the way as she crested the hill, having to dart, full speed, to first the right, then the left, rocking suddenly as she did it. Why that was, she didn’t get at first, until Cindy was down and on the other side. Her left shoulder had been hit, meaning it was mainly gone now. Blasted away by the force of the weapon being used. Oddly, the bottom part was still there, so she had her arm, but it was just hanging on. Flopping around without support from the ball joint that had simply gone away. She grimaced, but didn’t stop moving. She’d either regrow it, or not. If it was gone… then it was. On the great side, there was no bleeding from it. The wound was about as bad as she could have imagined, but it simply wasn’t going to kill her. So, if nothing else, she had that going for her.

  That, Cindy didn’t doubt, was down to the fact that she was kind of a badass now, instead of the weapon having stopped the leaking for her
.

  Scurrying, Cin ran around the entire building, the others having wisely scurried away, finally. Except Marcia, who had pulled back, but seemed ready to start fighting herself. Even as she glanced at Cin’s left shoulder and let her eyes go wide. The idea that anything that could do that to Cindy was a danger to her as well wasn’t lost on the lady. She was brilliant after all. Also paranoid, but most days it worked for her. Instead of making her flee, seeing that just got her words to make plans to avoid the blasting weapon.

  A few of them even noted that Cindy might not be in a good way at the moment. Which was only partly true. She felt fine. The flopping arm was annoying, but it didn’t hurt at all. There was no stopping to talk however, since she had a job to do. Possibly her last one. That part wasn’t her favorite, since she was kind of being an idiot, protecting her friends and even the brother of a guy that had helped her other pals out in a way that might still mean her death. It wasn’t until she was nearly around the far side of the building that she stopped, realizing that she didn’t actually know how to work the device in her hand.

  It was a magic wand. A real one. If it took a special spell to make work, she was kind of fucked.

  Rather than risk the life positive, pie wielding, Tor, she used the knowledge of the other one, just in case it was disruptive to him. Any little bit might help, after all. The actual device seemed simple enough to use really, once she looked the whole thing up. She just had to point it at him, and want the thing to work. It took a bit of focus, but no more than reading words from a book. It was designed to be used by regular people after all, not just wizards.

  Popping out from behind the edge of the command building, she did that, which caused absolutely no difference for about ten seconds. Not that she could determine in any real way. Then, suddenly, the man vaporized. Dead and gone, as his shield was stripped away.

  The world didn’t go quiet instantly, but about twenty seconds later the other weapon was turned off. It had taken Pie-Tor that long to realize the threat was gone. Then there was a residual sound, like heavy rain falling all around them. Which was the tons of dirt falling. Along with mud from the sky. Marcia moved over to her about then, screaming still.