Reflection

  Mirror Man: Book Two

  Reflection

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2018

  Chapter one

  “Pit fights.” The rather charming lady who was speaking at the moment actually bothered to seem upset by the idea. The trick there was knowing if she actually meant it or not. Her face sold the idea fairly well. The topic at hand, not so much. The woman wasn’t the kind to get into others business, even if it hurt them to do whatever floated their boat.

  She was blonde in a cool looking, rather sophisticated fashion. Like a movie star from the fifties. A bit like a young Hepburn, if she’d been lighter in color. Her skin was smooth for the most part but she showed that age was creeping up on her.

  Richard Drake knew about that one first hand. Not about Christian Pours in particular, just age, due to his own life. Decades crept up on a body and after enough time tended to have its way with you, no matter how hard you fought against it. This particular woman was holding out pretty well, still being pretty in a classical sense, even though she had to be pushing into her late forties.

  Not that he would have kicked her out of bed for it. The biggest issue there was that she was probably half his own age. Possibly less than that. Sure, he looked to be about seventeen or so, possibly eighteen in a nice suit or at least a button up shirt and a sedate tie but the real years mattered. To him at any rate. Unfortunately, his hormones weren’t being that kind to him at the moment. They were responding to all of the women around him as if they were valid relationship material. The fact was that most of them were so much younger than he was that calling it cradle robbery would be a kindness.

  Worse, the lady, the team three boss, had come there to work and here he was acting like a schoolboy, being distracted by the pretty girls instead of doing his job. A thing that he’d pretty much left off by the time he’d turned thirty. Now that kind of feeling was back. With a vengeance that told a tale of not leaving him alone with his thoughts, ever again.

  Still, Richard had been invited to the meeting as if he were needed for it.

  Which, at the moment, he didn’t get at all. He was a credible thief. Possibly a decent enough leader of small groups, if there were rules to be broken. Acting outside of those rather narrow areas didn’t really hit the things he was classically good at. At the moment his skill set was pretty much that, walking through mirrors and working on old cars.

  That and the occasional con job. That last was a subject he knew a lot about, without having done much of it in his old life. When he hadn’t been Infected at all. As a thief he’d cracked safes, stolen art and jewelry and on occasion had taken out a few bank vaults. The cons had only been about getting the information that he’d needed on his targets.

  The only reason for him to be there would be about that part of his skill set. His ability to get information from people, using social engineering.

  He glanced at Christian which got her to look back and nod in his direction. There was meaning in the look. Her eyes lingering on his, closing down, to hide something she was trying not to let everyone in the room in on. It probably wasn’t about his good looks, in particular. He was far closer to average that way than the woman would normally have had to settle for.

  So it was about his skills at infiltration, most likely.

  “That’s my thought on the matter. We need to get some eyes inside the club there. Cameras as well. Even just getting someone in there to talk to people might be enough. Right now… Frankly, things are conflicted for a lot of the fighters. They don’t truly want to be there but no one is really holding them hostage. The big problem is that fights are being set up that… Well, there have been serious injuries. Some of the fighters are wondering if that was done on purpose.” She seemed a bit hopeless suddenly. As if no one at the table was going to get the complicated ideas that were going on in her head.

  Worse, it seemed to Richard that she felt like no one would back her up. Like they weren’t all on the same team. That had to stop, of course. Especially if the woman was looking at a cad like him for backup, first thing. After all, she was a telepath. A really good one.

  That had to mean she’d picked up all of what he was thinking a few moments before. That had to be a bit distressing. On the one hand he was having inappropriate thoughts about her of a sexual nature. On the other, he’d dismissed her for being too young in almost the same thought. That didn’t even leave her a place to land, given she had to know about both sides of things like she almost certainly did.

  Since she nodded again, he smiled at her. After all, it had mainly been about thinking she was attractive, even if there was a bit of a brutal edge to the rest of it. The important bit was the con she wanted to pull. Getting people inside to collect some basic data. Before going in and doing anything in particular. That wasn’t his career wheelhouse of choice, personally. Still, he was probably close to being the best they were going to get that way on short notice. Which would explain why little old him was there at the table in the conference room with the three team leaders, Brian Yi, Cin Mableton and the big boss of the place, Director Turner.

  That particular woman was all about work, all the time but was still managing to pull off looking rather fetching that day. Even if she was in a military uniform. Then, unlike Pours, Turner looked to be in her mid-twenties, even if she was older than that by a good clip. A good chunk of people at the IPB base had that going on. It generally signaled something in particular, like virtual immortality or a very fast rate of healing. That or the ability to produce illusions.

  A thing that Pours could have pulled off, he didn't doubt. That she didn't bother was nice.

  It meant the woman wasn’t all that vain.

  For the Director it was that first one. She was pretty much in the game of life for the long haul. Mableton, the head secretary or the Director’s Assistant, whichever title she had, was in the same boat, if for a different reason. The big difference there was that she was honestly about the age she looked.

  Meaning way too young for him. They all were, really.

  The thoughts bothered him a little. They were too scattered and focused on women instead of the job at hand.

  All of which, he realized, was about him not being on task. For about fifty years his hormones hadn’t really been an issue for him. Not on the level they were being at the moment. With an act of will he got himself on the right page and tried to think with the right head for the situation.

  “This is mainly a fact-finding mission, then? We go in, poke around a bit and get out with the information we need? That shouldn’t be too hard to pull off. Any of us here could probably manage it just by walking up to the door.” He sounded all right, if a bit young and high pitched. That was just to his own ears though. At least no one else seemed to think of him that way in particular. They treated him like he was new but not a baby. Regardless of how he looked.

  It was Yi that answered, slowly nodding first. His short black hair didn’t move. It was a good look for a man and seemed almost military. His own hair was a bit longer than that but was also tidy enough. Richard Drake wasn’t a fighter though. Brian Yi was. It made a difference in how they prioritized their lives. Rich wanted to blend in. Brian needed to be ready to face violence at the drop of a hat.

  In the moment he was being thoughtful, it seemed.

  “That… I think I get the picture. A lot of Infected aren’t going to have great economic chances. Not even a job at McDonald’s or pumping gas. Something like fighting would give them a way to make some kind of a living though. Illegal, since Infected people aren’t allowed in sanctioned sports at all. Not in any of the leagues that exist right now.”

  Yi looked at Pours, which had everyone else doing it. The woman actually
smiled back. It seemed real enough. It wouldn’t last though, since her first mode was some kind of dislike of other people. At least in groups. It had been in the briefing that Turner had given him herself, a few weeks back.

  On one of his nearly daily visits to the base.

  Though, he was nearly certain the woman had already had that, her first mode, fixed. Meaning that it wasn’t a big issue for her any longer. That probably meant that Turner had warned him off from her for some other reason. Probably in an attempt to keep what he was doing a secret. As if the woman wasn’t going to know all about what they were getting up to at any given time. Cindy was in on it. Kate as well. They were both basically super telepaths. That Christian wasn’t going to be just as up on things was ridiculous.

  Honestly, she was probably in on it all with them. Otherwise she would have refused to do anything with them at all. Which meant that, given they were planning to take down a big swath of the government, that it was odd that the woman would be trying to pull him away for something as minor seeming as an illegal pit fight setup.

  When she glanced at him, again, she nodded for the third time. Her face was a bit less friendly though. Not mean. Just pensive. As if she were trying to send him a message without blasting her thoughts all over the place. He got a very faint sense of her trying to push a note under his door.

  A thing that wouldn’t work, physically for the woman.

  Unlike everyone else there, he didn’t have a room, having gotten an apartment off base three towns away. That was mainly so he wouldn’t be directly under government control all the time. Since he was technically in admin there, not an operative, that was allowable. It meant that he didn’t have to bring his cat with him to work every day, if nothing else.

  Not that Tabby wasn’t there, watching everyone closely. Curled up directly on top of one of Director Turner’s feet. The woman was hard in a lot of ways but she’d managed to reach down and pat the little gray cat several times already. They got along pretty well. It was interesting to see. The woman knew that the little cat, who seemed young and lanky, even if she was old for a feline, was connected to his subconscious mind. A sense of her was always there, really.

  Even when he went to other realities. That spoke of a deeper connection than he would have expected. It was a thing to think about, when he finally worked out exactly how his powers functioned.

  Christian took a big breath. One that caused her sweater to tighten over her chest enough to be interesting. That mean Richard had to focus on her eyes, which took more work than it really should have. They were a pretty blue, at least. A thought that wasn’t going to help him, or her, much at the moment.

  Ignoring his mental assault on her virtue she spoke rapidly.

  “That’s what I’ve been picking up. The thing is… Not all of the fighters are Infected and some of the class one and two’s are being put in against people that are up to class four… It isn’t just not a fair fight. I mean… people are going to start dying if that happens too often. Like Brian said, its unregulated and has to be by law. If we break it up though… A lot of those people won’t have any place else to go.” She actually hung her head a bit then.

  As if she kind of thought that bringing it up in the first place was a poor idea.

  Cin grinned. It was slightly evil looking. The kind of thing that he was used to seeing on a lot of his old colleagues, if he were going to be honest about it. Thieves and con artists weren’t the only people that he used to deal with, even if he hadn’t done a lot outside of that basic field.

  The cute woman glanced at Pours directly.

  “Right. If we shut this little operation down, then people will be unemployed and going hungry. There has to be illegal gambling going on as well. We could just go in and make some arrests. Basically, punishing people for daring not to just curl up and die. On the other hand, if we don’t do anything and people start buying the farm, some of you will feel bad.”

  The words were interesting, since it was kind of clear to him that Cindy didn’t think that she’d have a problem with that kind of thing. Richard on the other hand was actually a bit torn over the whole thing. He wasn’t against a few laws being broken in order to survive, after all. His nearly sixty years as a cat burglar and thief showed that pretty solidly. Rules were there to keep stupid people in line. It made it easier to steal their things.

  At the same time, he could get people not wanting others to just die in order to make a living.

  Which meant he made a face. That was a mistake, since Turner brushed her cute curls out of her face and locked her rather lovely brown eyes with his. It was striking and in the wrong way. He was old, not stupid. Making eyes at the boss wasn’t a good way to handle a business meeting. These people wanted him in on this particular job for some reason. Pours had given him the nod on that part. Meaning it was about more than just finding something for him to do.

  They had some down time on his official project and they were stalled out on the real one. Trying to take down the child rapers and killers that were a big part of the secret governmental system. That this was connected to that in some way was probable, given that.

  He looked at Pours, waiting for another nod to confirm what was going on, when Turner spoke, forcing him to look away. At the same time, Cin Mableton grinned at him. It could have been due to him being cute but given that wasn’t particularly true, he had to think it was more about what he was thinking, using her powers.

  The boss woman spoke, forcing him to look at her directly again.

  “You see something here, Drake?” It was just a question.

  The kind of thing that a good boss would ask, since anything might be important in an operation. It was the kind of thing that he’d done before, as well. Getting data before the actual heist took place. Infiltration, without being a spy.

  He nodded then, doing it in a thoughtful manner. No one wanted the new guy to have all the answers after all. Worse, he really didn’t. Seeming too self-assured would piss people off and possibly make for hard feelings. On the other hand, if you wanted to be taken seriously, you had to show some of what you had, on occasion.

  “We could work this as a two-fold mission. Send in a team of people as fighters, since that will almost certainly be the easiest way for getting them in. That and maybe as their manager or trainers? They can’t be famous. None of them. Really, we need to make it so that no one can be identified as IPB at all for that. Then we send in a more official team to handle the situation once we have the information we need. If people are being set up to be murdered, we stop it. If it’s just bad policy causing some mistakes… Well, this kind of underground fighting is illegal… Infected people need to make money though. We could… Set rules and weight classes? Start our own league that way, maybe? That way we can take over officially, without hurting the little fish too much. Really, if we do it in Nevada we can probably swing legal gambling on it.”

  It was about a third of an idea and once the words were out, he kind of expected to be verbally spanked for saying anything. They didn't have the information yet and they were the law. The oppressive bad guys that spoiled all the fun for people that wanted to live their lives on their own terms. At least as far as Infected people went. Government stooges who were supposed to keep their own kind under control.

  Even if the original charter had been about protecting the Infected from society, not the other way around.

  Interestingly, several people nodded at the same time. That one of them was the Director got his attention. In a more businesslike fashion this time, instead of just him being incautious with his thoughts. That was something to keep in mind, when he went on the mission. He needed to live his role, once on the ground. Constantly.

  The other one nodding was Cin. She spoke first, since the girl was like that. Assertive and prone to taking over, if given half a chance.

  Good traits in his book, as long as she made sure to be right most of the time. Given her powers, she really did that part pr
etty well. It made her not only useful but needed for a lot of things he wanted to get done. Which probably meant he needed to court her a little bit more. Find things she wanted and deliver enough of them that she thought of him as a pal. Crew, at the very least.

  There was a hard rapping on the table from the woman. It sounded like metal or stone hitting wood but was just her finger tips. That she was more than she seemed physically was a thing to keep in mind. The woman could put him through a wall if she didn't like what she read from his mind.

  “You know, there really doesn’t seem to be anything preventing us from doing that. It isn’t illegal for the Infected to have their own sporting groups or clubs. No one has ever tried to put in official rules for it before, so they can’t really do it yet. If we put out a list of rules and enforced them… That really should work. We need to go in first though and make sure this isn’t run by the mob. At least, if they want to run it, they need to follow our word on it. We own the Infected business, capisce?” Her blue eyes actually gleamed a bit, as if she knew more than she was letting on. Given her powers, which was pretty much telepathy on a major scale, that was probably true.

  Before he could call her on holding out on them, she shrugged. While glancing at him, clearly knowing what he was planning to do in a moment.

  “There’s a bit of dirt to collect here. A few bad apples we need to remove first, or at least get in with… That will take people going on, on the ground. We can send three or four people, I think. More than that will seem off. Who do we get for that though?”

  She looked at Yi, who, interestingly enough, didn’t spit out a list of names or simply volunteer himself for the job. Instead he looked across the table, directly at Richard.

  Which nearly got a head shake. After all, he wasn’t a fighter in particular. Not old enough to be a manager, either. Not that both of those things couldn’t be handled, if it was really needed. They had some people that were willing to do work like that for them after all. Changing how people looked for instance was well inside of what their pals in Noram could do for them. Some of those had already been done, in fact. Getting bodies for practice sessions in another world had been his main job for the last month, at the IPB. That meant he had a way in, on things like that. Not that the rest of them couldn’t have pulled it off just as well.