The Infected 3: Cast Iron Read online

  Sighing Marcia tilted her head.

  “Yeah. Not everything, but I think it’s time for the big stuff.” She didn’t know where to start, but Chris, who was reading her mind, had the right idea and started talking without preamble.

  “There’s a group of very powerful Infected that are trying to start a war. One that will kill millions if not hundreds of millions of people. They were, at least their core group was, the original group of Infected government agents for the United States. Alpha Squad, they were called. They’re… Powerful isn’t really an adequate term for it. They’re led by a woman named Devorah Timberland. Her codename was Braid. Just to make sure were all up to speed and no one is taken by surprise later; she’s married to Director Moore, though they’re estranged. We have two of their original team working with us, Moore and Rachel Chambers. This is, most likely, one of the most dangerous situations any of us have ever faced. The problem is that Braid is… different. She’s from a different world, the same one the Hobbs from Team two is from in fact, I believe.” She glanced at everyone and then Marcia.

  “Anything else you want to share with the class?”

  Did she? What? After a second she nodded. She might need their help anyway and if they were all trustworthy. It just wasn’t their concern.

  “Um, well.” She looked at the agents, Lancaster and Reyes at least, who both looked totally deadpanned. No help there at all then. If they knew that she needed to keep her mouth shut, they weren’t saying. What did she really know though?

  “Not much at this point. There’s a situation. Possibly. Some old friends of mine have gone missing. Maybe, if the information I got is correct. I’m here to check that out. It may or may not be related to this other situation with Alpha. So far I can’t say anything more, because I just don’t know. It may turn out to be nothing. Hopefully that’s the case.” She stopped talking then, expecting glares from Reyes at least, but he just shrugged.

  “That’s about my take on it too, except that I didn’t know about this other situation at all. Kind of a big detail to leave out of the briefings, don’t you think? What with a possible mega war being in the offing.”

  Brian, who was still wearing his t-shirt, smiled darkly.

  “It was really only done to keep you all from worrying. We literally have nothing we can do to stop these people. We can get you all more specs on what they can do if you want, but right now we’re basically just trying to pay attention and hope they come to their senses. I mean, if you ever face any of them in a fight, try to kill them, but honestly, you’ll probably fail. The weakest of them is a class six at least. Plus, my take is that they’re working through minions for the most part, so we can’t even touch them directly.

  Still, if you have any ideas about this, please get with Marcia or me. In the mean time, I guess we should all stay ready to help get these missing people back, if possible. We have a good group for that here.” He looked around and started nodding.

  “A really good crew. Almost exactly the team I’d have come up with myself if I needed to recover people. I take it that’s not a mistake?” Brian ducked down in the water a little, wetting his shoulders to keep cool, but kept his gaze on Marcia the whole time.

  She looked back and smiled.

  “The whole thing is still an unknown and most of the people are here for the reasons they think they are. Yes, I did make a point of getting everyone I could from Team three, except Rachel, but I figured that she’d call too much attention to us for right now. Besides, we have Bridget with us. I would have liked to get Hobbs on it too, but I agree, if we have to do anything, this is a great group to have. Understand, we probably won’t. We still need to be aware of other threats too. Terrorists for instance, which might well be being steered at us by Braid and her cronies. Also spying from a half dozen sources, and just normal travel things. I trust no one will get mugged at least?” That last bit got a chuckle, except from Warren.

  He moved a little closer to her and made a splashing motion that didn’t reach her at all.

  “Speak for yourself super-woman. I don’t even have a gun. What am I supposed to do here? Cook the muggers into submission? I can’t even do that; much less handle the rest of this stuff. I’m about useless here.” He didn’t look away or seem upset by the idea; he was just stating a fact. One that most of the people seemed to agree with without question, Karen looked worried and Brian shook his head, but everyone else looked like that was about right.

  Proxy had a different opinion though.

  “That’s not true. Not at all Warren. As far as we know cooking Braid and her crew them into submission may be a viable option. Heck, maybe it would actually work, if you ever get the chance? Win them over and point out that not everyone in the world is someone they should risk in a war? More seriously, you’re just as close to this as the rest of us. It might really come down to what you, personally, can do, in the end. When we get back to the base I think we should start you on firearms training and hand to hand. Just in case. If nothing else, we don’t want you getting mugged. For now…” He seemed a little lost and just stopped talking.

  Bridget smiled, still clinging to Quartz’s arm.

  “In the mean time we stick to the current plan where you and I watch each other for the week. That totally means we’re going to Disney World and the Epcot Center though, so get ready for that, you can wear one of those little hats with the ears. It may be a day trip, so clear your schedule.” She stopped then and went still again.

  “I mean, if that’s something we can do? I can put it off I guess, and go some other time…”

  It wasn’t a bad idea, since it was supposed to be a vacation, but that would have to be checked out. For one thing, Marcia didn’t know were those places were in relation to the hotel. She looked around, but they weren’t visible from the beach, so it was probably going to be out. Unless they could all go of course. In that case it sounded fine.

  Except that people kept trying to blow them up and kill them. They might not want to take that into a family place with a bunch of kids. The hotel was bad enough. She mentioned that part, not thinking about it, but it got a nod for the girl on her arm.

  “I… see. That’s a good point. A bit disappointing, since I’d like to go, but lives have to come first. Ok… I…” She went still again, then after a while made herself smile. It looked sad, but it wasn’t her just running off either once the idea was in her head. It was something far more controlled, Marcia was sure.

  “Right. Well, then we’ll just have fun here. I’m sure there will be a lot to do. Maybe we can grab more camera people to shake down. What was up with the one I caught earlier anyway?”

  That started a conversation that was almost like the set up for a joke. The man was a real photographer, but he’d been trying to make ends meet as a drug courier on the side. He’d been supposed to swallow the drugs to get them through customs into Canada, but he hadn’t been able to get it down. As it was they’d actually managed to help him out, since Burke decided the best thing for the man was to finish his mission for the drug cartel. He’d agreed to it and they wouldn’t be kind to the guy if he failed to deliver on his first run. They’d half killed him getting the drugs down, but it worked after only about thirty minutes. Chris cleared him as not being a terrorist, so that was that.

  They were the IPB after all, not the DEA. The man wasn’t Infected as far as anyone could tell, which meant they weren’t responsible for him at all. It wasn’t like being a cop; they were just there to do their job. Nothing else.

  The other branches of law enforcement didn’t like it when they did anything more ambitious. Not normally at least.

  That was really kind of stupid of them. If they were smart, Marcia thought as she got hit by a decently large wave, they’d be borrowing various IPB agents all the time. The DEA and FBI could close twice as many cases if they just had Christian working for them for example. Also, who wouldn’t want her or Prime going through the door of a drug house first on
a bust? It wasn’t going to happen though, not anytime soon. Too many of them were just plain scared of anyone Infected.

  “Help! Help!” The voice was young sounding, but it was too far away to tell if it was male or female. She spun as Bridget started moving in the direction of the noise, her reflexes so fast that she caught Marcia flat footed, knocking her back a bit. The water stopped her from stumbling, for the most part, but the girl stopped for a second and pulled herself up Marcia’s torso.

  “Let me stand on your shoulders and jump over? It will be faster than swimming.” She didn’t wait for an answer just climbing as she spoke. The movements were deft and light, until Impulse squatted suddenly, so fast her feet picked up off the flesh. With a clap that sounded nearly like thunder the girl slammed her bare feet down, pushing Quartz into the packed sand under her feet.

  The movement was even, but the sand had a tilt to it, which meant that as the girl flew through the air her platform got sent flying to the right and caught a face full of water. Instead of fighting the motion she started swimming, underwater, reorienting toward the drowning child. She wasn’t the first one there, not even the second, but she got there in about fifteen seconds, even though it was several hundred meters away. Prime had the kid already though, and was flying him back to the beach, just over the waves so the boy wouldn’t be scared. That was more considerate than it might have been, since saving a screaming and frightened child would play well on the news that night and going high into the air would make for better, and probably more, pictures. Scott didn’t have much of a choice when it came to thinking highly of himself, but apparently he could, when he wanted, choose not to be a giant dick about it.

  That was actually pretty cool.

  Since it wasn’t important for her to rush to the beach as well, the kid, who looked to be about fourteen seeming to be fine, she leisurely swam back to where the others stood in the water, waiting. Bridget caught up to her and paced alongside using an Australian crawl variation. Every four strokes she took a breath and looked at Marcia hard. Just as they got back to the others the girl stopped, grabbing the other woman’s arms. Marcia cut her speed by setting her feet down, since the water wasn’t that deep this close to the shore.

  The girl shook her head, “I… I don’t know, but I think I was actually… flying. I mean… Like dad, not just jumping like normal. I saw that I was going to overshoot, so I tried to turn in the air and I started to come back, like a lot, before I… That can’t be right though. My powers are like grandmas. Even medical said so. Not like dads.” She sounded perplexed, but not mad about anything.

  Not yet.

  Taking a deep breath Marcia didn’t really know what to say. She hadn’t seen what had happened, but it sounded pretty clear. They could lie, of course and say Bridget imagined it, or even that Kerry had grabbed her in the air and pulled her partway back as an assist. For all she knew that’s what had actually happened. Maybe it was time for the truth though? The thing on the plane seemed like a sign to her that was pretty clear to anyone paying attention, stabilizing herself when hitting Lauren like she had. The girl needed more work on her Impulse control, but… Well, she wasn’t sucking at that anymore, was she? Not all the time. It was a recent change and could go away if the girl got mad, just like with anyone that got too angry, but that wouldn’t make the powers go away. Hiding things from her wouldn’t either.

  She shrugged, her shoulders just coming out of the water. Given her density, she didn’t float unless she was moving. Treading water took constant work for her. For most of them probably, once she stopped to think about it. Kerry might be able to manage it, having just enough padding to pull it off and decent breasts for it, and possibly Charlot, but the rest were too lean. Though she didn’t know about Penny. Marcia had forgotten about her again. It seemed she could swim though, since Brian wasn’t yelling about her drowning or anything.

  She moved in to the girl just a little, so she wouldn’t have to speak too loudly.

  “Right. Well… Yeah. I don’t know if it was flight, to tell the truth, but… Um, promise not to tell anyone this? I mean not even your parents?” It wasn’t like they weren’t standing ten feet away and moving closer, but the girl nodded anyway, as if they couldn’t hear.

  “The Director and I, we’ve been keeping that from you until you got old enough for it to develop, but you might be able to learn how to fly someday. Possibly put out some energy blasts too, like both your parents. It’s a secret though, so don’t tell. Before we couldn’t let you know… and the press shouldn’t find out about it if we can help it. Not yet. We need you to prove how stable and reliable you are first or they’ll freak.” It was a real point and almost exactly what the thought process on the topic was back at the base. She’d catch hell for telling, but it was a judgment call.

  “It’s your age. People find out that you’re a bit more powerful than you seem and they might not take it well.” They’d probably call for her death, if they were bigoted. Or smart enough.

  She stopped moving and started to sink, which meant Marcia had to grab her and hold on for a bit while she collected herself, or whatever it was exactly the girl was doing. Her partner, Marcia reminded herself. Young and inexperienced or not, the girl was a real power and needed to be treated like an adult now. One not allowed to have sex, but it was just a fact that her childhood had to be pretty much over for her now, wasn’t it?

  “My mode too. People wouldn’t like it if I was anymore than I am already, would they? They only put up with it as it is because they can’t tell what I can really do and I’m so cute. Who doesn’t like the chipper-happy rat-girl?” The words weren’t directed at anyone exactly, and she did have kind of a pointed face, which had given her the old code name, but the idea wasn’t that far off. She didn’t seem like a threat, so no one paid much attention to her, not as anything but Primes daughter. She needed to keep that going for as long as possible.

  “That’s about right. So if anyone asks, Kerry did that part of things for you. She really might have even, so don’t let this go to your head. It could be you might never fly at all. We’ll check it out, but later. Back at the base. For now, stay on the ground as much as possible.” Marcia grinned just as everyone else got to them.

  The girl nodded and gestured toward the others.

  “Say, can one of you go and get something for Marcia to wear?”

  Looking down through the very clear water she finally noticed that her new bikini was missing in action. Top and bottom both missing in action. It made sense, she’d put a lot of force on it after all swimming as fast as she had, and it wasn’t very substantial to start with. She sighed and resisted the urge to cover her breasts with her hands. The water was clear and everyone had already seen what she had to offer no doubt.

  Brian was already on shore, holding up some clothing she highly suspected was Lancaster’s oversized T-shirt. He waved it for a bit, almost as if telling her to come get it, which wasn’t happening on a family beach if she could help it. After a few seconds it started to fly toward them though, Kerry holding her right hand out to catch it, even though it was an eighth of a mile away or more. When it nearly got to them the rather normal looking girl turned to point at her and the clothing shifted around in the air to hit her in the face.

  “Sorry, thought you’d catch.” Kerry sounded a little winded, which made sense. The girl was strong, but she mainly did things closer to her body. That far away was probably pushing her limits. She could fly though, Marcia thought. She couldn’t remember that from the files, to tell the truth, it had been years since she’d read them. She’d have to ask, since it could be important at some point being that she was on the secret team now. The one that knew about Alpha. Of course so was the IPB’s head chef, so there were several people she needed to get to know a little more closely. She’d never thought overly about Warren at all other than seeing him around occasionally.

  The shirt a large light blue thing meant to be very loose on someone much larger
than herself hung around her thighs like a dress. A very short dress, but a lot of people on the beach were showing a whole lot more flesh than she was, so without letting it bother her too much, figuring that no matter what else happened the naked pictures of her would end up on the net. People here had cameras and most people were secretly pervs. She walked out of the surf to the towels and tried to hold the wet shirt away from her smooth flesh enough to keep it from being a wet t-shirt contest. It was probably her imagination, but she could have sworn she heard the sound of camera shutters closing.

  It wasn’t real though, she knew that. The modern ones did that almost silently. She carefully wrapped her towel around her waist and stood, wondering what the plan for the rest of the day was.

  It turned out to be dinner.

  A very fancy one, since Warren had a friend in the area that he’d promised to get some publicity for if he could. The man owned his own restaurant, but it was only about a mile away which meant they just had to get changed, and then wait in the lobby, talking about the name of the place they were going for a bit before slowly walking there. The idea was to draw a tail along with them. Hopefully one that would get some pictures taken in front of the place they were going to.

  Not caring about the heat Marcia put on some sensible shoes and a little black dress that let her shoulders show, but covered her knees, hugging them tightly. If it got cold, she wouldn’t notice it, so why not? Bridget got into something similar, but it was an emerald green color with a slight shine to it and Penny shoved buds in everyone’s ears and openly debated not going.

  “Not much point, is there? I mean, I never get any service. Even at home I have to steal food half the time just so I don’t starve and this guy… What did you say his name was again?” She pauses while Warren caught up with the conversation. The time delay meant people responded to Cellophane slowly sometimes, to make sure she wasn’t still talking or going to start again soon.