Asunder (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 3) Page 9

“Cindy?”

  He was carrying a nice file set, so she waved at it.

  “Agent Burkes, this is Tor Baker. You’ve met Tim?” She didn’t know that was the case, but the man nodded, even as Tim seemed baffled by that.

  “I’ve seen him in passing. Nice to meet you gentlemen. This is Prince Gerent Lairdgren.” The file was passed to Cindy first, who passed it to Timon, since he was one of their contacts. Tor seemed all right, but one of the men had been around and the other hadn’t. That was all she was thinking on the matter.

  The two men actually had very different feelings about the action. To Tor, it was her saying that Tim, his little brother, was more important than he was. Which left him feeling proud, of all things. Timon just worked out that he was the familiar one, nailing that part completely. Still, he looked at the twenty typed pages, all in English, then nodded. Actually reading them all in about half a minute. Even if it was in a different language.

  Then he passed it to Tor, who struggled a little more to make it all out. Still, he did it, with no one speaking until he was done. Then he tried to hand it back to Cin directly, but she shook her head.

  “That’s for you, here. I tried to find everything I could on the matter, from that other Tor’s data. If I can get more, I’ll either send it along or get Sara to tell Queen Tiera?” Both were possible, if they abused Will a bit. He had that power and duty. Brian probably could manage it as well, really.

  Tor bowed to her.

  “That… We didn’t know that we’d get that kind of help. At all, to be honest. Do you think that we can… It’s perhaps too much to ask.” Then he stopped, blushing a bit.

  Mainly because he hated it when people did that to him. Making half statements then not going on. Still, she waited, peacefully, looking up into his big brown eyes. They really were lovely. If she weren’t his alternate world brother she might have tried to get with the man.

  She smiled a bit larger, then shook her head and turned to Tim.

  “Not like that would stop me, right?”

  He understood her, picking it all up from body language, which was pretty sharp. Then, it was clear he was a high-level intellect. She seemed like it maybe, having access to all their information like she did, but this man was just brilliant all the time. She whispered it though, and they didn’t talk about having incestuous sex across worlds.

  Finally, Tor went on, uneasily.

  “This ability, and maybe others… They are not things we have. It… We have no right to ask you or yours for such aid. So far I have only brought troubles to your door.”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, as a private citizen, I’m in. I can’t speak for the federal government or anything, of course, so that’s just me. I have to imagine that others will be with you as well. It’s that whole killing us thing earlier. We tend to take that kind of personally. Even better, if we send people here, it’s barely noticeable over there. So, no one will have to miss work for it. Now, if you want a real treaty or something, and I can’t see why you wouldn’t, then… Really, you need to get with Marcia. I have about the same ability to bargain for them as the lowest member of your Army does for you, you get me?” She tried to seem happy about it all, while barely caring. Looking things up was her power, so it wasn’t a big deal or problem, doing it in a different world.

  Even if things were clearly a bit more efficient that way in the world she was standing in at the moment.

  For instance, she was getting word prompts all over the place now. It hadn’t happened the last time she was there, but hanging over the cups was a description of the wine or juice in very fine print. The same with the clothing and almost everything she focused on. There were even specifications for things she didn’t really understand at all. Say Tor’s weapons.

  He had about fifteen of the things on him at the moment. All of them magical, except for a hidden knife on his right leg. Brian had that one going on as well, across the room. Hidden in the same exact location, even. She could read all about it as well. That was made by a friend of his and his work team. Jeremy.

  It was very odd, but she had to figure it was about some property of where they were, instead of her losing it totally. At least she hoped so. That, or…

  She was a bit troubled for a moment, then looked at Tor. He knew things, after all.

  “Um… I seem to be picking up a lot more here, is that…” She nearly said magic, but the man focused on her, making her skin prickle a bit under his gaze. It wasn’t unpleasant, but after a half minute he looked at his younger brother.

  Then he stuck his tongue out, a bit like a little kid.

  “It’s Tim. His field is pushing yours to be more focused, like his. I don’t know why, but it feels more like resonance than him forcing it. I’ve had similar things happen with my son, Dareg. I don’t think he means it as an assault.”

  Before he could get worried, she worked it out for herself.

  “Ah. So, he’s basically me, so is carrying me into some kind of trance state with him? That didn’t happen before. When you worked on me?” It hadn’t, because Taman had done it, but the guy didn’t let that stop him at all.

  Instead he nodded. Holding to the lie they were selling everyone there.

  “It’s probably the situation. We’re both on high alert here, just to be safe. Is it uncomfortable for you?”

  “Nah. It’s mainly that I’m seeing labels and information over everything. Like…” She glanced at Prince Alphonse, then read about what was in his hand.

  “He has a Marmot red, with honey and clove. The vintner was a Baron Cohen, or more to the point, his foreman, Larson. The man was only modestly pleased with that particular batch. The summer had been a bit too wet, even though they’d managed to get the crop in. Everything seems to have that going on here, not just the people. That’s all I get most of the time, back home.”

  Tor looked at her funny again, then after a while shrugged.

  “Ah, well, it’s still just your own ability. You’re just concentrating harder on it right now. Will that ruin the meal?” There was a graceful gesture at the table then, since he was, honestly, making small talk, trying to distract her from the huge etiquette breach of his own brother.

  Then it hit him that she was his brother. Only, of course, a girl and not from there at all. That got him to chuckle a bit, which she did too.

  “I’ll try not to read about things too much for that. Kind of like with hotdogs. You should never ask what’s in them.”

  She stopped for a second then winked at the tall man.

  “Sausages?”

  “Ah! We have that saying as well.”

  That started some nice, fairly mindless chatter. Not that the entire room wasn’t acting as if there was plotting going on the entire time. In a lot of ways, it was a bit like moving into a room filled with Marcia Turners. This wasn’t a first mode issue with these people however. Just prudence. In their lives, especially the more powerful and connected people, being spied on, taken advantage of, used or even attacked was just a hazard that had to be watched out for, constantly.

  The only one that didn’t have that going on in particular was Ambassador Neesa. She also couldn’t see things going that way at all either. To her, people said what they meant, with the occasional lie tossed in as either a joke or a test, to make certain she was paying attention and tracking reality clearly. Like what her people did with each other. Apparently none of them understood the idea of lying to save face or make yourself look good.

  They still kind of tested for it however, so got that it took place. The Ambassador at least was simply kinder about how she thought about it. After the meal, which was made by magic and showcased a variety of dishes that Maris chose for them, so that nothing would be too strange while still seeming exotic, Marcia was taken, along with Burkes, to a different room, to talk.

  That was actually all about fairly normal negotiations, rather than a set up for an attack. A lot of the others simply left then, but their party wa
s kind of stuck there waiting for their people to come back, sitting at the long stone table that had been put in that day, just for them. The place normally ran much more like a regular restaurant, except for free. They even had top end service, since one of the men there used to be the personal servant of the Queen of Noram. Also, a spy, which had ended that part of his career. Once he’d been called out as being such anyway.

  Which was all before the big war that had nearly killed them all.

  That had been a big thing, about twelve years before. Cindy didn't put a lot of time into researching that, trying to find out about anything that would indicate that these people were bad in some way. That they were secretly in with the enemy of these people, or even that they just didn’t like the newcomers that had shown up. So far they’d found them fairly charming.

  Which had to be the others, she knew.

  Not that it wasn’t true enough. Everyone was being on their best behavior and Mark had managed to sweet talk Maris hard enough that Chris, standing in the back as a guard, was about ready to hit him. Interestingly, it wasn’t about sex at all. The man wanted the all black woman, who was hot in a lot of ways, in order to get at her food knowledge. The woman clearly knew things he didn’t and was actually more than willing to share.

  She didn’t get a choice however, which was a thing that Christian should have picked up. Also, that Mark wasn’t trying to get laid. The issue there was that the woman had decided to shut down after about two hours and tried not to read anything, since it was all too strange for her. What she was doing was her job, more or less. Watching the people around her, but not their people.

  Which was a mistake, since the version of Neesa that trundled in, dressed exactly like her, if with different colored eyes, was missed, even as she was seen. Not by the Ambassador, but she honestly couldn’t see another Ysidril as being a problem. To her it was merely a question of someone dressing up like her. That was contrary to the point of doing such, but could happen. All the patterns were in the computer database after all. Her outfit was even cute, so it made sense to reuse it, if they weren’t going to be in the same space like they were.

  In her lower left hand, she held a small copper colored canister, which, when Cindy looked at it, contained a bomb that would, rather nicely make half the Moon vanish. Killing both the Moon and the Earth in less than a few moments. On the interesting side, the device had been attached, almost as if with super glue, to the alien’s lower hands. Well, to one of them. The lower left.

  Cindy waved to Will, or tried to, but got Tor instead. The man didn’t think it was odd that she might want his attention, given that they were pals now.

  “Um… That Neesa is going to kill us all? We can’t take the device from her, or destroy it safely. Anti-matter, I think? We have a few minutes.”

  The words got noticed by Neesa, who hissed something at the other her. Olga looked on, her eyes going wide Then she stood up, stretching to nearly eight feet high.

  “Can we move it away, the bomb?” Her accent was a bit heavy, but not too bad, given the situation at the moment. Russian, but only at about the level of an old-fashioned cartoon villain. Except nicer.

  The movement then was fast and hard, with the heavy looking Ysidril, who wasn’t tall but was nearly four feet across, was picked up and run with. Olga and Dareg did it, heading toward the little booth that they’d come from. Cindy, for her part, focused on the information, since Neesa the Evil was about to die. Except that, unlike the Tor from earlier, she wasn’t bad at all. The woman had simply been kidnapped, and realized that she might get help there, at the familiar Human restaurant. Before the bomb went off.

  “Fuck… We need to… Save her. Come on!” She didn’t know who she was requesting to move with her, but she got Tor and Tim Baker, both hard on her heels. Tor was kind of flying, but Timon just ran next to her, and called out.

  “Dare! Stop!”

  She didn’t know what to do, but kind of had a plan.

  “Take her hand off. She’s attached to the bomb. Kidnap victim.” She tried to short-hand it, and didn’t know if anyone there would understand her in time. Speeding up, she honestly didn’t know if they had the time left to save the other Neesa at all.

  The alien held the bomb out, to expose her wrist. She didn’t want the pain, or to be without her favorite arm, but the situation was such that she either lost her limb or her life. Both were worth less than all of those who would stop living if she did nothing.

  Instead of a painful and screaming thing that involved copious red blood, Dareg held up his hand.

  “Na! I hast dis!”

  Then he picked the larger being up as if she weighed very little, and carried her into the box.

  Only to have both of them moving back out, less than ten seconds later. Looking at her, then up at Olga, he grinned. It was attractive, which he clearly understood.

  “I let the device vanish in the void between worlds. It was difficult not to lose her fingers for her, but it looks like I managed?”

  He really had, her three-fingered hand still there and everything.

  “Great work. Are you unharmed, Neesa?”

  “This… One is well. Have…” Her words were rough and awkward, which made sense, given that in her reality, she wasn’t the Ambassador, or even anyone that had dealt with the new Earth people at all. She only knew about Maris’s because it had been on the computer networks as part of a special report. Her mentor, Siash, had recommended she study it. That, it seemed, had paid off.

  The bad part was that she’d been grabbed by human beings, had the bomb attached to her and was pushed out of the red boxlike structure that had been created by Darian of Earth. Who had, clearly, just saved her life and those of millions of others. What she didn’t speak well, was English, having only learned it at all because her little sibling had wanted to try it out.

  Cindy hugged her, which got the Ysidril to feel both welcome and suddenly worried, since some of her own people, the Forten, would panic if that kind of thing took place, thinking they were attacked. She did it back however, understanding that this one person was different for some reason. Everyone else did it as well, amazing the girl.

  That part was kind of interesting, once she saw the data stream. Checking both the Ambassador and this new kid, Cin got they were the same age, within a year or two.

  Making both of them about twelve or so.

  That was young, even for her people, but the girl had managed to get into the right place at the right time, at least in one world, so she’d been named the Ambassador. By Dareg. Because that’s how things happened there, about a third of the time. Someone claimed something and it was easier to just go along with it than argue. Worse, she was doing a good job so far. Cindy decided not to rat her out. After all, it wasn’t her secret to tell.

  It wasn’t even good blackmail material.

  The others took over then, and their Neesa interviewed the other her, got what was going on as well as she could, as well as descriptions of the people involved in the kidnapping. They’d had masks on, making it hard to tell anything about them that way. There was video of it from the alien kid, more or less, but Cindy couldn’t cross reference to them, since they weren’t in that world any longer at all.

  Finally, they simply took the girl home. Will did it actually, since apparently, he was really good at finding specific realities from very little information. As in he’d had special training for that kind of thing. Cindy had caught that one before, but it never hurt to review. Will, her little purple headed pal from work, was kind of kick ass when it came to finding anything or anyone, in reality. Any of them.

  She needed to remember that, so she could take a vacation in free gold world, or something like that.

  They weren’t asked to leave at all, but as soon as Marcia came back, it was really clear that they were supposed to scramble out of there as soon as possible. That was down to the attack, not the fact that anyone there hated them. Tim stuck his hand out, before
she could get into the red box next to the magic shop. She’d been in there before, so knew what it was all about. Technically she needed to get in there and raid it soon, but it didn’t feel right, just then.

  It was all free, but it would seem greedy, if she did it in front of everyone.

  Otherwise she’d be filling her pockets. Not that she had any at the minute. The trick there would be to get Will to bring her back some time. Unfortunately, she didn’t have even one reason in the world to do that in particular. Not that made sense. Helping them with their problems could work, but other than that she really didn’t have anything at all that these people needed. Their system was new, but kind of tight. People volunteered to do work, including making magic, and everyone got a share in that, in return for their own efforts.

  It was kind of a like a magical sci-fi program.

  She looked up at Tim, her face gentle. That was fake, of course, but she did it, since being an asshole all the time wouldn’t help anyone. Especially her.

  The man sounded pleasant, however.

  “Hey… I’d promised my friends Sara and Karina that I’d get them some of that candy from your world? Everyone wants to try it. I don’t know what that would cost.” He was willing to go as high as a hundred gold for it. More really, but he didn’t think that it would be that expensive. It was only food, after all.

  Even he could make that. Anyone could, if they had a food device and understood what was wanted. The difference there was that it wasn’t from a different world if made in a device, which made it less special.

  “We can get you hooked up with that. Really… I can have a few packages ready to go in a few days? I’m kind of spinning my wheels on my current project. I have a name of a man that’s involved in a secret plot against us, but he doesn’t know enough to be useful to me at all. I have to find some other way to get at them. It’s hard. They want us all dead. The IPB? Mainly because they want to drive my pal Bridget insane. They can’t really kill her, so the plan is to make her attack in the wrong place, then use that as an excuse to hit her with a nuke or two.”