The Infected 3: Cast Iron Page 3

  That was a real point to. The woman had skills they hadn’t even considered using before.

  “OK… Can you get with them and arrange something? With Charlot and you both working on it, we should have something worked up in a few days, don’t you think?” The words were vague, but the woman in front of her threw off a look that spoke of something different from what she’d normally expressed, which made Marcia’s skin crawl a bit.

  It was an expression that spoke of planning. Other people doing that always kind of creeped her out anymore, even when she was asking them to do it. Oh, she did it constantly, sure, but on someone else… Freaky.

  Patting her back gently with his left hand, Brian turned to leave the room suddenly, just walking away. Before he got three steps down the hall he blinked out of the air, vanishing. His power had kicked in.

  Also something she didn’t like to see.

  After all, she liked the guy. It wasn’t love or anything, but he was probably one of the best people she knew, basically kind and gentle by nature, and he kept having to go and fight people. Often to the death. It was destroying him. Plus, odds were that one day he’d zig when he should zag or just run into someone he couldn’t beat and then he’d just never come back at all. She held her breath for a second and then turned back to the rather regal looking blond woman in front of her. Work couldn’t stop just because of that. Marcia just hoped Brian could get a real break like he’d said.

  Chris stood and put both hands on her desk, leaning in a bit, looking at the place where the man wasn’t anymore, through the door.

  “I hate it too. It’s worse for me, I think. Each time he leaves, I feel afraid he won’t be back… and relief at the same time, like maybe it would be a good thing if he just didn’t. He’s always in pain you know. Always. He hides it. Buries it and doesn’t talk about it, but everything constantly aches for him. Painkillers don’t do more than take the edge off anymore even. I don’t…” The woman shook her head, making the silver necklace she had on with its tiny silver oval locket shake just a bit.

  “Marcia… I don’t think he’s going to make it much longer if we can’t find some way to fix that for him. It’s already slowing him down. Enough that he knows it. He doesn’t think he’s going to be around long at all. I… just don’t know what to do.” The words were sad and nearly heartbreaking.

  They were, Marcia knew, also true. Proxy was on borrowed time and had been the whole time they’d known him. It was clear that he couldn’t keep going on as he was.

  “Well, maybe this break will help? Give him a chance to heal up a bit and recover? Is that real do you think? I know he said but…” But if it was needed to save lives, he’d lie. He wouldn’t even hesitate to do it, even with his friends. If he had to act happy and excited about it, to make it happen, he would. It wasn’t something she’d seen from him yet, that she knew of, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it.

  The other woman nodded though, happily enough, sighing a bit in relief.

  “That does seem real. Dharma seems to think that he might get as much of a break as three weeks for some reason. Possibly just to give him that chance to heal. His power works subconsciously for the most part, though he seems to be starting to learn a bit more about understanding it, if not actually controlling the process directly. He’s far too intelligent not to. I try not to read his mind directly, of course, but I get things anyway. He projects a lot.” She grimaced but didn’t explain the idea.

  That one was clear enough anyway. Plugging into the mind of someone in pain was like experiencing that pain herself. Christian was about as strong a telepath as the world had, so she got the whole mental package when she connected with a person. Everything about them came through. That meant that Brian was a never ending source of discomfort, almost like torture to be around. It probably also meant that Chris didn’t really like him much at all. It would be hard to really like someone that kept hurting you, even if it wasn’t their fault.

  The blond kept looking at the door, her hair bobbing just a tiny bit, as short as it was, barely tickling her ears at the moment.

  “I… It’s not something I’m proud of. He’s a good person and deserves love and respect, but it… I have to work really hard to stay in the same room with him and worse, he knows it. He thinks it’s a rejection of him, personally, even though it’s just about the pain. I’ve told him, but on some level he just expects to be rejected by women, so he can’t believe that’s the only reason. Between him and Denis I’ve managed to alienate about half of my team. Penny is only a little better… I’m one of two people that can talk to her regularly, without mechanical assistance, since I know what she’s thinking, but I can’t stand doing it for long. She’s so shy in her own way and with my own first mode…” There was a long sigh followed by about ten seconds of deep breaths.

  “God Marsh… I’m… I’m about the worst leader ever, aren’t I? Maybe someone else should take over? I don’t know…”

  “Right… We’d get who, exactly, to do that? Out of all the people we know, the only one that would be a good candidate right now would be Brian, and as you mentioned, that’s not a good long term investment of resources. Mark would be too nice to everyone and besides, he’s busy with his cooking show. Denis is in on that too and so fresh from prison that no one would trust him, even if he didn’t turn back into an asshat immediately once he had some power. Penny is only just getting into the swing of being part of a group at all. That new guy Hobbs… He’s not even from this world at all. Otherwise I’d say we should give him a shot at it. He lacks a lot of needed context though, right now. In two years? Maybe. Rachel?” Marcia hadn’t really considered that before, but she might not do a horrible job.

  The woman had the field experience needed, even though she’d just returned to the IPB a few months before, to watch her granddaughter. The woman was a class six though and still looked young and strong, even though she was pushing seventy or more. Odds were, unless something killed her, the woman just wouldn’t age. That or she’d do it so slowly it was nearly invisible. A lot of very rapid healers had that kind of think going on. They just didn’t get old like other people. Marcia had that going on too, of course, since she looked the same now as when she’d turned, over twenty years before. She’d been twenty-eight when that had happened. If anything she looked a little younger than that to most people. About twenty-four or so.

  Still, Rachel had the knowhow, but that didn’t mean she’d do a better job than Chris did. Having a telepath in charge worked pretty well, in the main. Even if she wasn’t wild about people all the time. The job was about being the boss, not being everyone’s friend. Christian Poures was good at that.

  The woman sighed again.

  “Are you sure? We could just ask her to do it and…”

  Marcia snorted softly and gave the woman in front of her a small smile.

  “Stop trying to get out of doing your job. That’s just lazy.”

  They both faked a chuckle, which ended as Proxy blinked back into being in the hallway next to the door. The rules for him coming back were simple and pretty clear. Check him for blood first, head to toe, then for trouble breathing if it wasn’t obvious. After that look for breaks, bruises or limping, which could be from strains or torn muscles. He seemed fine this time. He was even smiling a bit. Nearly joyful for him, a look on his face that spoke of something almost pleasant.

  His eyes locked with hers.

  “A group of kids trying to bully a little girl on a school playground, of all things. I told them that I’d show up again if they tried to harm her at all and next time I wouldn’t just talk to them. I don’t think they’ll be hassling her much for a while. Glad I didn’t have to fight though. They looked like they were pretty tough… for third-graders.”

  The words got a polite nod from Chris, who indicated that she needed to make some arrangements, for the trip, leaving Marcia to go and get the others into place. She glanced at Brian, who was still smiling a little and on i
mpulse gave him a hug.

  “Always a good day when you don’t have to kill anyone, right?” It wasn’t the way she felt about things all the time, but he seemed too. The words got a solid nod.

  “Pretty much. I need to get some things for the trip. I… Honestly I didn’t think I’d ever be leaving this place for anything but business ever again. I don’t have clothes for vacation or anything. I should get something. Maybe a bag to carry it in too. Maybe… I can get Scott and Charlot to help with that? They’re both pretty good with that kind of thing. Clari too. We should ask her along, but we’re going to run out of room on the plane if we do.”

  Marcia tilted her head to the side, thinking, finally giving the man in front of her a nod.

  “Yeah, don’t add anyone else. I think that’s about the limit on people for this trip. I need to chat with everyone in the core group once we’re on the ground in Miami. Maybe a walk on the beach?” It would be harder to use listening devices with all the white noise of the ocean, and it was easier to see who might be watching out in the open, at least if the thing wasn’t too crowded.

  After a few more minutes of talking about details, they went their separate ways. Brian to get outfitted for the mission and Marcia to find the others and get them all on board with the program. It was going to be a hard sell; at least it would have been for her, since the mission was so ill defined. What could she tell them?

  She couldn’t go with the truth, not with most of them. She decided to head to the fifth floor first. After all a lot of the people going were Team two, which meant clearing the whole thing with Sparks, their leader. He was an ex-cop and a bit blustering at times, but not a bad guy. He had a cute mustache and if he looked a little blocky, it was a fairly muscular thickness, not anything too sloppy. Not that she was going to be dating the man anytime soon, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize him as being decent looking, did it?

  She took the elevator up four floors and headed straight to his office, which was next to the common area on the blue floor. The whole thing was done in blue, to keep everyone calm, since most of the hotheads made their way onto Team two. Each team had a distinct reason for being, and while no one liked to admit it, two was both the dumping ground for the second rate players and uglies, as well as the group that actually got the work done, as often as not. Never popular, but always useful.

  Team one, her current team, was mainly the public face of things, though the cooking show was helping with that now too. The thing there was that to be on that team you had to be fairly harmless, or at least look that way. The most dangerous person in the whole mix, other than her, was probably Bridget. She was more powerful than they’d told her, or the public by far, slated eventually for Team three, but too young, being just fifteen. Tiny too. Her first mode made it really hard for her to control her impulses though, which meant that she could just go off at any time and start hurting people. She didn’t, not often, but that was half good management on the Directors part. Keeping people with her that could keep her in line.

  That time was fading though, and fast. The girl had to learn to control herself soon, or she’d end up being so powerful that no one could reasonably stop her if she ever got out of control. It was really getting close too. The horrible thing there being that, if they couldn’t control her, they had to kill the girl before she had a chance to really lose it. Inside two years she’d be one of the most powerful people on the planet physically speaking. She was already faster and stronger than all but a small handful of people, and was starting to catch on to the fact. So far she wasn’t letting it go to her head though.

  As it stood they only had a few people that could take her in a fight. Marcia thought she might be able to, for now. She wasn’t as strong as the girl, or as fast, but being almost impossible to hurt had some advantages in a fight. She didn’t get tired either. Not that Bridget would, but that was pretty much equal at least. The girl was down as a class five in her record, but she was really a class six already and would probably make seven before she hit twenty. Maybe a lot sooner than that. Marcia was, technically, a class four. It had to do with how many people you could be expected to beat in a fight. A class four would be expected to take down less than a hundred armed fighters at once.

  She was really a class five of course, meaning she could take down over a hundred armed men at once. Easily too. Again it was because she was so hard to hurt. It made a vast difference as to what she could really do.

  The IPB downgraded all of their top people like that, especially the ones on Team three. It was in part to keep them from getting a swelled heads, but also to keep the government from realizing how dangerous they could really be. Past a class five, the general consensus was that no military force could actually control an individual at all. Not without using nukes or something at that level of effectiveness. So they hid their top people to prevent the bombs from being dropped every time anyone had a bad day. Some were easy to hide, like Mark or Penny. He froze time for everyone but himself, which basically meant he could do anything he wanted to anyone in the world and no one could stop him at all. That made him something like a class eight or nine. A pacifist though, so what he did was always nonviolent, and often humorous, so no one really felt threatened by him.

  Penny was kind of ultra invisible. She pretty much couldn’t be seen or heard and most people forgot about her altogether even if they knew she was in the room with them. So both were nearly off the charts in actual power, but no one really cared about them too much. Not in a way that was fear inducing at least.

  Christian was about the same, since her power was almost absolute in the mental realm. She was called a class five, but was really a six at least. Almost no one really got why, but the fact was, if she felt like applying herself, the woman could destroy half the planet, stealing nuclear codes and bio-lab secrets without ever leaving her office. That she wouldn’t do anything like that helped a lot, since otherwise the government would have killed her and she knew it. It wasn’t an advertised fact, but she could put thoughts into a person’s head to, not just read their mind. Chris hated using that part of her ability though. Marcia wasn’t sure why.

  Denis was hard to hide, but he didn’t get that he was as powerful as the rest of Team three, thank goodness. No doubt figuring his being there was all about him having been kicked off Team one for being a jerk, years before. He was the only person in the IPB that could take down almost everyone by himself. If he wanted to, he could cripple all of them, leaving them on the ground unconscious or in agonizing pain, feeling anything he wanted them too, at any level he desired. They called him a class four, but that was bull. He was a class six at least. She’d seen him influence crowds with thousands of people all at once. Not that Marcia wouldn’t just sneak up on him and kick his ass anyway if he ever got out of line; she even had a plan for it. He used to be a complete jerk, so it had come up at least in theory, but lately he’d been working pretty hard to fix that. She didn’t trust him to keep doing it, of course, but she liked him better this way.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to kill him after all?

  That left Brian. His assignment to Team three had seemed like a mistake at first, even to her. No one could really explain why he was there at all, other than the fact that they didn’t have any place better for him. The Director had put him there and everyone on the team liked him well enough that it hadn’t been a big problem, after a bit of messiness at first with Denis, but it didn’t fit the secret team mandate much. Power wise he really had seemed to be a class two at best. The IPB didn’t normally take anyone that wasn’t at least a three, but they’d known that without help the kid would just die, so they’d taken him in, almost as if it had been charity on their part. It hadn’t made sense to put him on a team at all. Not that she’d been able to see at first. Since then it was starting to show a bit more, though Marcia still didn’t get how the Director had come to the conclusion that Brian should be on the powerhouse team like that. It didn’t make obvious
sense to her anyway.

  The old man had experience though, and she wasn’t gong to discount that as a factor, was she? Half of what she did had to do with just having better planning and more experience than people thought she should based on appearance.

  She waved Sparks into his office, since he was standing in the hallway, actually talking to some of his team, making connections with them that Christian just couldn’t manage with her crew and then, as an afterthought gave a nod to the people he was talking to.

  “We’ve got a mission, mixed teams, some of your people are slated for it. Could you collect them up for me Charles?” She listed off the needed personnel, not explaining more to the man, which clearly cheesed him off. It was slightly fun to watch, but the fact was, the man didn’t need to know about what they were really doing. Not past the fact that she was using some of his people and that they shouldn’t be in too much physical danger.

  It wouldn’t hurt for him to get the cover story though, so once everyone had crowded into his office, which wasn’t tiny at all, being nearly twenty by twenty, with vaulted ceilings, and salmon colored walls… with pink carpet. It was meant to be calming. How the man didn’t go insane working there all the time she didn’t know. Maybe he just spent as much time as possible making sure he didn’t have to? He was often found in the gym on fourteen or even just in the hall, talking to people.

  Everyone assembled at a jog, since the announcement over the speaker just said there was a mission, not what it was. That could mean they’d be needed to actually rush off and fight, or go to save people from wildfires or something. They didn’t play around much on Team two. Marcia smiled at them all when they got there, filling the back of the room. Sparks sat behind his desk, but just waved to her.