Infected 7: Ghost Girl Page 2

  "You, ruffian, shall leave this place instantly, or I shall be forced to thrash you! Go! Be gone!" Then she moved at the man, which allowed the old and rather stout looking Director to motivate the target away before Scott could have his own turn.

  A black and blood covered arm was held up between Scott and the man. Brian smiled, which looked normal for him. That meant grim and hard, lacking in all real warmth.

  Then the man gave a single grunt, "let them handle this one. I hate that guy. Frank. He's always trying to dig at people." There was a more real smile then, after a second, "except Georgia. He loves her."

  That got Scott to nod, his face still annoyed looking. He understood that one without having to ask why it would be the case. Georgia was pretty enough, in a slightly boyish way, but her power was pretty much designed to get people to have sex. She exuded the desire for it constantly. Plus, she actually followed through, and slept with almost anyone that asked politely, so a fat and rather unpleasant man could actually have a chance with her. All he had to do was play his cards right. Pixie didn't make that hard for people to do at all.

  Grunting a bit, he let a smile try to touch his own lips. It took effort, but he managed it, since they were on camera, and this would all be recorded. Everything they did at the base was. Unless you were one of the non-Infected personnel, in your own quarters.

  "Fine, I'll talk to her then, and see if she'll put the man on her black list." It was a petty revenge, a thing that was unworthy of even trying to really get done. Still, calling him a child abuser like that deserved retribution.

  Killing the man was probably out of the question, so that left going after him using other means.

  There was a sigh from Proxy, who looked at his blood covered hand.

  "A teen girl. She was out of control and trying to kill herself a school full of other kids. Some kind of energy beam power. Class four at least. A boy had tackled her, and managed to take her down, but was about to die when I took his place. It's messed up." He started to walk away, since the others were out of range now, having removed the annoying reporter to at least the elevator. "I need to get cleaned up. Can you keep Mary company when she comes back? Just for a bit?"

  There was not time to answer, as the other man just walked away, muttering to himself a bit. Talking to the voice in his head. A copy of a girl named Becky, that used to be on Team Two, before she'd died. That or her ghost. No one knew what the real case was there. Dharma. Scott had slept with her for a while, since she was young, and willing, and interesting enough in bed, due to her powers. It had been wrong of him, which he could see now. Back then it had all been about him looking good, as well as simply feeling entitled to take what was offered. That last part wasn't down to his mode however. It was just him being a creep.

  True, it had been breaking his marriage vows, but Charlot had always seemed to understand when he did things like that. It made her mad, but everything annoyed her a bit, so it was hard to tell that he'd been hurting her in particular that way. It was only about sex. It wasn't as if he loved all those other women. Which hurt them, he knew. His wife too, he knew, once he'd finally grown up enough to get the idea. Even if she hid the pain of it from him.

  The other side of that was something he hadn't even considered before, until a few months prior. Sleeping with a young and impressionable girl like Becky had been back then had harmed her too. On a level that was nearly evil. She'd been dark and brooding all the time, and other than sex, they hadn't had anything in common, so Scott had sent her away, in his typical fashion. He'd simply said he was done with her, and didn't need to see her anymore. Taking total control of the situation. The girl had just left, at the time, and hadn't made a big scene, which was a relief.

  The problem had been that the girl's first mode was angst. A thing that he'd known about her. She had to take him rejecting her personally. There was simply no other way for her to process the move. He'd barely noticed at the time, feeling happy enough to move to the next thing. Women were easy to get after all, and were, back then, mainly for entertainment. Dharma had suffered for it.

  For his momentary pleasure.

  Only a monster would let things like that keep happening, so he was trying to stop it. Starting with Sue. She wasn't a horrible person, or even half as dark as Becky had been. Her first mode was actually a form of self-doubt, which meant that his turning her down like he had was probably the exact wrong thing to do. There simply wasn't a better one that Scott could think of on short notice. Even taking her to bed would end up with her being hurt.

  Mary and the Director finally returned, about ten minutes later, his bio-mom smiling at him, and not looking at the Director at all.

  "You'll not need to worry over that man, now. Your liege, Kevin Moore, has put rout to the villain and sent him into exile from his lands." There was a slightly strained look on her face, which after thinking about it for a bit, Scott realized would probably have to do with her slightly bruised knuckles. Other people felt pain more keenly than he did.

  Cleary Director Moore had been given more than a little help in removing the sleaze from their midst. Scott didn't normally have to think about himself when it came to injury, but his friends could be hurt, so there might be need for some kind of aid or medicine.

  "We should get you some ice for that hand. Here, I'll see if someone-" He turned as he spoke, moving back toward the restaurant, to find that Sandra, the hostess for the mid-day and evening shifts was already coming out with a plastic bag of the stuff wrapped in a hand towel. It might not have been in her job description, but the woman was good. She saw what was needed and got it done, barely even blinking about the idea that Mary had just been assaulting another customer, not long before.

  "Here you go! That was something. Can you believe the nerve of that man? Bringing a camera into my restaurant like that, without even asking for permission first? I should have helped you toss him out. I just didn't want to get a run in my stockings." She was about forty, but looked good for her age. She had nice hair, which changed regularly in color and style. Lovely green eyes too. As far as Scott knew the woman was a regular human, but most people were, so he didn't hold that against her.

  Mary gave a small bob, which was something like a curtsy, without being one, at all. Her deep blue skirt didn't shift at all, which the leg crossing that move would have needed should cause. It was some kind of other world thing. Strange but not so much so that anyone would run away screaming about the aliens.

  "I thank thee, for thy most welcome aid."

  "No problem." Sandra smiled and went back to her post near the inside of the door to the establishment, seeming pleased.

  Then Mary's voice changed a bit, becoming less formal as she glanced past him at Brian, who was returning with Karen in tow.

  Lady Glory. She was a nice person. In fact it was hard to not like her. She was kind, compassionate, and could literally make you feel the same way. It was her power. Not that she was using it at the moment. That meant she wasn't glowing blue, and sounding like someone was using a voice synthesizer in a B-movie. At the moment she was just her. Karen Young, former Olympian and current IPB Agent.

  If they were going to count Team One as actually being real agents that day. Most of the time they didn't. Not when the chips were down. That was his team. The public face of the organization. The pretty, famous, and easy to get along with. Also the ones that no one sane would send into battle if they could help it. Not that they were all weak or anything, but when it came down to it, as a crowd, they sort of lacked a killer instinct. On their team only he and Shiva could really manage that at all, most of the time. If he didn't count Marcia, at any rate.

  Proxy could have taken them all out on his own, if he wanted. Maybe not Quartz, their current leader, but the rest of them wouldn't be much of a challenge for someone like him. A killer.

  Scott tried to rally and let go of the fact that he'd just been being accused of being a daughter raping monster a little bit ago. It wasn'
t his first mode causing his anger in this case, which meant he had to deal with it like anyone else would. Like an adult. People that could take on small battle groups didn't have the luxury of acting like spoiled prima donna's. Not with a war brewing.

  To that end he subtly took a calming breath and let it out under control, so that it wouldn't seem like a sigh, which could be taken for weakness.

  "Karen! How are you today?" He managed to sound like he wasn't miserable himself, which wasn't returned.

  It was true that she didn't love him as much as she did most people, but she managed to be happy enough around him, most days. Since she wasn't glaring at him directly, he had to suppose it wasn't about him not sleeping with Sue or anything as strange as that. It could happen, he knew, since her compassion was so strong that it could overwhelm common sense at times. This wasn't what was going on, since she forced a pleasant expression.

  "Not great. We have Wendy McConnell coming in later today. At the same time as Senator Roberts. I'm supposed to meet both of them, but given that she just spent the last two days blaming him for the Infected problem on the hate channel, I don't think forcing the man to be in the same room with her is exactly the best plan. I don't even know why she's coming, to tell the truth. She's clearly one of the anti-Infected spokespeople. We don't get a lot of those in here, day to day. Any thoughts, Brian?" It was pretty clear that she was leading the Chinese man to repeat what he'd been saying to her. Mainly because he shook his head, and said so.

  Brian didn't bother holding his words back a lot, as far as Scott could tell.

  "Like I was just telling Karen, it's pretty clearly meant to be part of a set up. My guess is that that thing with Frank trying to cause a scene was part of it too. I wish we could have gotten Christian to scan his mind before he took off. Becky agrees with me on this. That it's a trap."

  He glanced at empty space, and then stiffened a bit, his eyes going wide.

  "Sorry, I'm about to leave again. Busy day. Clear a path." There was a grimace, and without any more explanation, the fit looking thin man hurled himself directly to his own right and vanished again.

  They all just stood there, seeming blank and quiet for a bit. Karen rallied first, and started to speak.

  "I was wondering-" Just as Brian came back, looking fine, and barely breathing hard.

  "Traffic. I just had to get someone out of the way. I... think it might have been a dog." Everyone else just stared for a moment, and Mary moved in, hugging him with her good arm.

  "A most lucky animal then, if that's the case, darling." Her words were a lot less formal, since she was speaking to someone she counted as family. It was a thing that Scott had noticed her doing, more than once. The closer she felt to a person the less formal she got.

  Rather than let Karen finish, since Proxy didn't know he was interrupting, he gestured at the air.

  "Becky thinks she can handle this one, if you'll help her, Scott?"

  At first he wanted to beg off. Not because he thought that Brian had just imagined the girl, since that would be stupid. Proxy hadn't known her at all, and she was very clearly there for him. Others could talk to her too, even see her, and said she was the same person. A girl that he'd callously tossed aside, not even caring that it would damage her.

  Knowing on some level that it nearly had to.

  His first mode didn't make allowances for how he felt at times, so he had to smile and stand straight. His expression was a bit bland, and a bit patronizing, at a guess.

  "Naturally. I'd love to, Becky. How are we going to do that?" A couple of people could hear her, after all, including Brian, whose head she lived in. Him simply sharing what the girl wanted made the most sense, didn't it?

  Brian held up his right hand, and then pointed at the Director.

  "Could you call Chris? She and Becky have been working on something. Just ask her to get things going? She'll know what to do."

  It took about a minute, but almost as soon as the older man put his cell phone away, Scott understood what the plan was.

  Because right next to him, clearly visible to everyone, stood Becky Young.

  The dead girl.

  Chapter two

  Becky had picked her clothes carefully for the day. It wasn't like they were real, but she'd wanted to make herself seem professional for her first appearance. Good, but dressy in a regular fashion, not meant to make a statement other than that she was back. Sort of, at least. Her old style had been a little too emo, and had hints of Goth to it that most people wouldn't have gotten anyway. Lots of black lipstick and a few body piercings that had seemed like a good idea at the time. She'd liked the pain. It wasn't the kind of thing she wanted people to know, now, but it was why she'd done it.

  As an acceptable way to hurt herself. Cutting wasn't allowed at the IPB. If she'd done that psych would have locked her up on the eighth floor.

  So she was in a green skirt, with a nice cream blouse, white stockings and sensible shoes. Her hair was back to its natural red and her "makeup" was done to make her look a lot like Karen, her older sister.

  Not as pretty, but she never had been, being a bit bulky from all the muscle she carried that Lady Glory just didn't. Not that she was fat, just muscular. It was different. That's what she told herself at least. At the moment she looked a little rounder than she had in life. It was one of the perks of being dead, she decided. Really, she could have gone full out and given herself a nose job too, but hadn't. She wasn't there to pick up guys after all.

  Not even Prime.

  He was pretty glorious himself, still, looking just as yummy as always. The prick. She smiled at him, her mouth actually watering a bit. That was an illusion, since she didn't have a mouth, but a good one. That part was down to Brian's brain, which was freaking incredible. He could hold a lot more at once than she ever could have. It wasn't something she'd ever explained, but she'd picked him for that reason, riding her sister's power out of Karen, and locking onto the man instead. It had been a risk, but she hadn't been able to do much with her sister. Brian was way more interesting, because, after she locked onto him, he grabbed back. His first mode had made him do it.

  For the current project to work, she was kind of straddling between Brian and Chris, holding both of them closely. Without Brian's help, she didn't think she'd be able to stay in the world like she was. Maybe as a silent observer, but not a lot more. Christian however was the one making the interesting things happen that day. That was because the woman was incredibly awesome.

  "Hey! Can you see me? We've only ever tried this with one person at a time before." She looked around, and saw her sister go very wide eyed. It was a bit of a mean trick, just springing herself on everyone like she was.

  Then, warning her first would spoil the surprise, so it had to be done.

  "Becky?" Her sister didn't move.

  She did, smiling hugely. With everyone watching she closed with her older sister, the Pollyanna happy time girl, and gave her a hug. She felt the connection, and so did Karen, which made her freeze for a second.

  "I... Are you..." It wasn't a real question.

  Becky got the idea anyway.

  "Nope. Still dead and gone, like always. Sort of. I'm being projected into everyone's brain by Chris. She says it isn't that hard to do, so we can have lots of quality time together, if anyone wants. Which you will, because, cool ghost girl. Am I right?" She looked around, the image tracking perfectly for her, even if that didn't make a lot of sense.

  She should have seen mainly what Brian did. Unless she were actually a spirit. That would be cool too, but there was no real way to know if that was the case at all. She was working on the idea that she was really just an echo of her former self.

  It was pretty surreal for a few seconds, but everyone let her hug them, including Mary, who held her at arm's length after they were done, and stared.

  "I hear that you've been living in my Brian's head. Plaguing him? Has he wronged you? Do you haunt him, seeking redress of a great wron
g done in life?" The tone was playful, which she was used to, having been around the strange girl a lot. Woman. She was at least seventy after all. She just looked like she was twenty, that was all.

  Becky winked, trying to make it seem cute and loveable. After all, getting off on the wrong foot with Mary would make poor Brian miserable. He was her house after all.

  "Look, I only plague him on alternate Friday's... and in the shower. The rest of the time I'm indispensably useful. Right Brian?" She looked at him, and knew that her face probably seemed pretty doubtful, if anyone was paying attention. Low self-esteem. She'd always had that, hadn't she? In real life it had eventually been hidden behind her mask of angst and slight rage, but it was a part of her even now.

  Brian was a sweetheart about it anyway, even knowing that about her.

  "I'd be dead by now, without you, Becky. Hey, wait..." He moved in and collected his own hug and then chuckled at her. "Damn, here I can finally feel you, and I have a girlfriend. Well, them's the breaks!"

  No one else reacted, but she smiled, getting it. After all, how many times had she promised to do the guy, if he could only feel it? She wasn't a tease or anything, but really didn't want to chat with him about her making sure he had regular sex at the moment. For one thing she liked Mary, and while the woman clearly had some different ideas about what a relationship with a ghost was, it probably didn't account for Dharma vamping her boyfriend and baby-daddy.

  So she laughed instead.

  "That's true. Well, I should get to work. Karen... We should get together later? I'll vanish if Brian leaves to help someone, or gets more than a few miles away from here, but otherwise Chris thinks she can set things up most of the time without it stressing her out. Some kind of subconscious thing she can do?" That wasn't actually true, but it was close enough so that no one would worry about what was really going on, which had to do with a lot of extra work for their reclusive telepath. That and Becky making a connection with her that was a bit too close to the description of spirit possession for most to be comfortable with if they knew. It would take energy away from doing other things. Like reading the minds of people on the base. Fortunately, Christian didn't really want to do that, most of the time, so for her it was a good trade off.