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

  Hobbs, it turned out, was a master of torture. Watching him work was incredible to see. She’d tortured a man once. Cutting bits of him off, and stabbing him lightly, to make things hurt. When Clark had died it had been him accidently suffocating on his own genitals that had finished the task.

  They weren’t that kind to Brent Mophrey.

  The man screamed, bellowed, and tried to curse them. That last bit stopped at about one in the morning, since coherent speech wasn’t something he was capable of any longer. By daylight they were all fairly satisfied that the man wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. They had a Death Warrant though, and at about nine, a still upset Rachel came back.

  The words above her had figured that the others were going to steal her kill from her, while she rested, but the man was still gasping in pain when she got back in. After stopping to eat first. It was the most important meal of the day, after all.

  Cindy clapped tiredly.

  “There you are. Let’s end this now? Kill him, and we’ll get the burial detail together. Or… Olga, can you see to that part? I know, digging a deep hole isn’t much fun, but we sort of need to make sure no one finds him like this. Not that he looks that bad.” He really didn’t. For all that he’d suffered, the man didn’t seem to have any marks on him that couldn’t be explained by having to have killed someone capable of fighting back. Not that it had gone down that way.

  Hobbs looked at her then, and actually thought that she was being a bit soft on the fellow. Letting him go after only a half day of pain. Still, he suspected that it had something to do with the laws there. Those still baffled him, more than a little.

  Rules. Things that applied to almost everyone, almost all of the time. Instead of whatever the most powerful person in a given area simply made up that day. It was regular, and actually more or less effective. Enough so that he was willing to let their prisoner go, if Cindy, who was a killer, requested it.

  It occurred to her that the man hadn’t really been aware that they’d spent the night breaking about four hundred laws.

  Instead of explaining right then, she just nodded at him, and then Olga.

  “We need to keep this relatively quiet. This was done off the books. The torture parts. The rest, killing him… That’s allowed.” She didn’t go into it, and neither of the others, the Soviet woman, who was huge and muscular and her smaller red haired torture buddy, actually cared much.

  To both of them it had been their job, so they’d done it.

  Rachel moved then, and proved that Cindy had been right all along. If she’d had her way, the man would have died way too fast. In this case Cin wasn’t even certain what had happened, but super soldier or not, the man was hit a few times and then fell over, the page above his head going blank.

  She could go back and read all about him still, and as far as she knew, that never ended. As long as she knew where to look for the data. Dying didn’t make it go away or anything. In that way, she knew that what she did wasn’t really like telepathy at all. Similar, but it pretty much meant that, if a thing had ever been known, by anyone, she could read up on the topic. If she knew where to look.

  Then finding things like that was what she was trained for.

  A strange team of people turned out to help them bury the body of the man. It was wrapped up, in a sheet that someone had stolen from supply. Then they walked out into the desert, or whatever the grassy scrub fields were called, with several Team One and Team Two members, who all carried shovels. They went pretty deep with the hole, actually making the twenty feet down that Marcia was always promising people that she was going to use. It was, the woman had figured, a good way to deter others from digging up the proof they needed.

  For that task they had Kerry, Bridget, and for some reason Mark Steinberg. The pleasant cooking show guy. Cindy didn’t get how he was supposed to help them dig a hole in the packed earth any better than the others could manage.

  It wasn’t until he found out why the man had died that she got it.

  “He was… Hurting Sara?”

  The hippy seeming man, which was how Cindy thought of him even if he was clean cut and Jewish looking, started to cry. It wasn’t until she read why that she understood it all.

  To his way of thinking, he should have been there for the girl. He’d been wrapped up in his own life however, and hadn’t actually thought of her as his responsibility. Which meant that instead of keeping her close all the time, like a parent, he’d tried to be her friend. That meant the creep had been able to get at her. So it was, to his mind, his own fault.

  It wasn’t lost on anyone there who hadn’t been asked to come around. Brian Yi. He’d found the girl in the first place, and Hobbs, at the very least, was kind of blaming him for not watching out for her well enough. That was, once again, a strange kind of thing, however.

  To the red headed man, Advocate Yi was within his rights to have the girl raped, if that was his desire. The thing there was that he trusted that it hadn’t been. That meant it was a sign of weakness, and lack of duty, not preventing it. On the other hand, it was very clear to him that the good hearted man, Proxy, had simply not assumed that the girl would allow such to happen to her.

  She was more powerful than the man they’d tortured, so if she hadn’t resisted, it had been her own will. Even if she were too young by the standards of the world they were in. No one that had been in power over her had prevented the actions, and she could have.

  So the man was feeling a bit baffled over it all.

  Cindy nodded then, as Kerry emptied the hole by herself, with her mental powers, and levitated the body into it, then caused a stream of earth to fill in behind it, and even arranged the grass, so it was nearly impossible to see what had been taking place there. Looking at that, Cin winked at her.

  “If I ever do an underground home, I’m hiring you for it. Anyway, just so we all get this.” She paused and looked at all of them. Enright had left the night before, after about an hour, feeling satisfied for his part it seemed.

  That left only her new people. The IPB.

  Even thinking that was weird to her, but she glanced at each of them, and smiled a bit. It was a grim thing, being fake like it was. She honestly didn’t really care, but too many of them knew where the body was buried for her to be happy about it.

  Blinking, she realized that she, out of all of them, was the one that no one would really blame for what had happened. She’d had a legal Death Warrant, and while she’d set up the torture, she hadn’t done any of it. That wouldn’t save her in court, but if she went down, all of these others were going to do that part first.

  “This was a legally executed Death Warrant. We went into the cell, interrogated the man to make certain there were no extenuating circumstances and then Rachel ended his life, in the fastest and most humane manner possible, given his superior physical abilities. Don’t even think it was anything other than that.” She meant that part of things, and a few of the people with her actually nodded. As if the long time that the man had spent screaming in pain was really about making sure he wasn’t part of something bigger.

  Even Hobbs kind of figured that it was really about something like that. Even if Cindy didn’t need to ask questions. Rachel got the lie of it all, but nodded somberly.

  “Understood. This won’t come back on any of us. It was legal. Legal enough.” Then she turned and walked off. She needed to get something to eat. After a shower. Then she needed to get with Sara, and make certain she was going to be all right.

  Olga was in about the same boat, not having slept at all, or eaten in far too long. They all needed to do something, except Mark, who was still standing there, looking bleak. He’d stopped crying at least. That had been a bit too weak seeming for what had to be one of the most powerful people on the planet. He could, at will, stop time for everything in the world except himself.

  It was probably the other way around really, meaning that he sped up to such a level that things just seemed to have stop
ped, but either way, it worked and meant that the man couldn’t easily be prevented from doing almost anything he wanted to.

  At the moment, he seemed lost, and was feeling horrible over not having known, and stopped, what had happened to Sara. His little friend.

  Cindy patted him on the arm.

  “Come on. We need to get cleaned up and on with our days. Not that I have much to do. How about you?”

  The man blinked a bit, jumped in place, which the story over his head informed her had been all about him crying again, for over an hour, if in stasis time, and only coming back when he was doing better. The problem there was that he’d forgotten what she’d just asked him.

  “It was, what are you doing today? That’s close enough anyway.”

  He smiled a bit, and nodded at her, getting what she meant.

  “Thanks. I need to go over some things for my show. Season three. How they haven’t cancelled us yet, I don’t know. We get decent ratings, but half of the people that watch us do it just so they can complain about Infected people touching food.” He knew that wasn’t really true, having seen the breakdown of the complaints online after his shows aired. Only about ten percent of the hate referenced that kind of thing. Most people knew you didn’t catch the Infection like that.

  No, most of the hate was simpler than that. They were monsters, and that meant it was fine enough for them to be killed, just because. Except that the people on the show weren’t that bad, really. None of them were evil. She was, so knew the difference.

  “That sounds fun. I’d get in on that, but unless you need something looked up, I can’t really add anything to the show. Still, if you need any basic research done, I’m all over it.”

  The man smiled at her, and seemed to actually mean it, for some reason. It was, she realized, because no one had ever really bothered to tell him about her. They were on the same team, that one being Team Three, but no one had exactly sat him down and explained what the deal was with her. That she was a serial killer who liked to murder thin pale men with dark hair.

  It was an oversight, since the man next to her, who started to walk beside her when she moved, fit that bill nicely enough for it to have been a problem. She didn’t feel like doing that though, for some reason. Not even enough to bother day dreaming about it. That got her to sigh, and then glance at him, shaking her head.

  “I… That genetic first mode treatment that Burrows has?” From the data over his head, he was up on that part, since several of his friends, Scott and Tobin in particular, had taken it to good effect so far. He was considering trying it himself. It might make it so that his powers went away however, since the activation for it was linked to fear so strongly in his mind.

  Except that the sub-text she was reading, his own subconscious thought, knew that wasn’t the case. Fear triggered it, but that was only part of what was happening, and not the only, or even the best, way for him to control things.

  “Yeah. My mode is fear, so… I’ve been thinking about it.”

  It occurred to her that he was really assuming that she’d been talking about that by bringing it up in the first place.

  “You should. It won’t do anything to your powers. Not anything bad. It’s working on me, which was what I was going to say. So, my serial killing days seem to be behind me. I barely even got wet when we tortured Mophrey all night.” She was being too candid, but smiled, and then shrugged. “I’m pretty sure that I’m still at least mostly a psychopath. I’d just noticed that I didn’t want to kill you at all, even though you’re exactly my type. Also that no one had bothered to let you know that. I mean, I doubt that I could kill you, given your power, but you’d think they would have at least spread the word a bit. Not that it’s needed now. It’s… I miss it. That feeling of desire. I lived to kill, and now…”

  She waited for a bit, as they walked along. The grass kept most of the dirt on the ground, but a bit of it kicked up, being powdery and fine. Like silt that had dried for far too long.

  Instead of judging her, Mark just nodded.

  “I won’t miss the fear being gone. I’m just… Afraid.”

  She couldn’t really understand that, but did get that the man needed her to nod and be understanding. Since pissing him off, or even just making him feel bad over things outside of his control wasn’t a great plan. Everyone, or pretty much the entire Infected world, kind of loved Mark Steinberg. He was their first celebrity that wasn’t just a curiosity. There were some others that had kind of become popular thanks to being Infected in the first place, like Prime.

  The golden man had basically made a career of being himself. Impressive just for being like he was. Muscular, attractive and distinctive.

  Tobin Peterson had made it as well, the changes in his being having made him an incredible singer. The man had backed that up with some great songs, but again, he was popular to the extent he was, thanks to being different.

  Mark on the other hand was famous in spite of being Infected. His power didn’t aid him in any way, as far as baking or cooking went, or even his performance. Instead, he’d managed to make it in the world, while being out, and not leaning on anything other than normal human skill. It showed everyone that it was possible to be important and Infected at the same time.

  Yes, it was just a cooking show, but making him upset with her would not help in her quest to not be the one lining the bottom of a pit in the grasslands. Marcia had threatened to do that to her, early on. More than that, the woman had tried to set her up for that treatment. Only her rather good behavior and willingness to be an experimental subject for a mad scientist had let her live as long as she had.

  So instead of calling him a pussy, and dismissing him, she tried to fake a sympathetic look and nodded.

  “That pretty much has to happen, given your mode. Here… Come with me.”

  It took a bit to get to medical, and she was yawning off and on the whole time, but Kiki Burrows was in her office, and as soon as she walked in started stabbing Cin with needles.

  “Good idea. This is the last set. You should be seeing the effects of this soon. In about a month?”

  The woman looked at Mark, her mind, or at least her story, filling in ideas about why the man was there, with the new girl. Most of those thoughts were actually pretty tame, and had to do with the man being a good guy. Willing to help other people out, even if it took away from his schedule.

  She also thought about him having a cute behind, along with pictures of that kind of thing. She’d actually gotten to see it bare, several times, after all.

  As soon as the Japanese woman was done with the twenty odd shots, Cindy waved at Mark.

  “Can you do a work up on him? For the genetic treatment? Also, I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I’m already feeling things. My mode is fading. Not gone yet, but… It’s leaving. I can tell. I don’t even want to kill Lancaster anymore, and as far as I know, if I catch on to one person like that the feelings will just grow, until I kill them. That part is just… Gone. Mostly?” It was true, but the other woman wanted to get a brain scan to make certain she wasn’t lying.

  Still, she also understood that Mark coming in was a big chance for her. To that end she nodded.

  “Right! Here, strip and get up on the table. We need to get samples from pretty much all over. Maybe you should wait outside?” That was for Cindy, which got her to roll her eyes at the woman, who was being a letch, on purpose.

  “Or, and this is just me talking here, you could, I don’t know, be professional?”

  Instead of screaming at her for ruining the fun, the woman snorted, and smiled.

  “Fine, you can stay and watch. Here then…” She took the samples she actually needed, and only felt Mark in a few places that were just for her own enjoyment. If he noticed the man didn’t say anything about it in particular. Really, to his mind Kiko was never really being more than a bit friendly. As in, she was just companionable.

  In reality the woman had been copping feels from most of the me
n on the base for years. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and she really was just being herself, but if she’d been in a real practice, it might have eventually caused some problems. That was a thing that the woman knew about herself. It wasn’t a first mode however, just her natural inclination.

  What came next was familiar however.

  “I’ll need two days to get this broken down and then four to work up the first series of shots. So, come back in six days? Or sooner, if you want. Always nice to see a friendly face.”

  The man nodded, as if it weren’t a thinly veiled offer to come and have sex with the woman. Not that he’d be doing that. He was, more or less, dating their team leader. Christian. Which was a strange thing to Cindy, given that she’d never so much as seen the woman. Not in person. They had passed data back and forth over email however. It was the woman’s preferred method of communication, given that she kind of didn’t like to be around people in person. So how that worked as far as hooking up with her boyfriend, Cindy didn’t know.

  Really, it wasn’t any of her business, so she didn’t try to find out, either.

  It did get her thinking, however. If the treatment thing was working, and it really was, even if the mad scientist really did want to toss her into a piece of very expensive machinery for a test, then there was no real reason that she couldn’t date now. Before, her hobby had kind of gotten in the way, given that most normal guys might not be that thrilled to find out that their honey liked to murder random men on the street.

  Now, well, there was no reason for her not to give it a try. She even kind of had someone in mind for the role. Brian. They’d told the press they were dating, or she had anyway, so that was kind of real already. Even better, she wasn’t going to have to try and use him to stay alive anymore, she didn’t think.

  Not that Burrows wasn’t going to make certain she wasn’t lying, which apparently wasn’t a plan for some later date. She was, very nearly, forced into a machine about three minutes later, the samples being sent for processing first being the only thing that made it take that long. Then there was a pictorial test, while she was in the large, and fairly loud, device.