The Infected 3: Cast Iron

by P. S. Power

  “Hi! Can I help you find anything?” The tone was a lot more chipper than normal, so Marcia grinned back, hoping that being happy would be a good starting place.

  “Yes, I think you can. We’re checking on a sale made here the other day. It went through credi-check? For nine dollars and eleven cents. Would it be possible to see your surveillance footage of that day?” She filled in the date and time, and handed a paper copy of the transaction record over, but the woman shook her head. At first Marcia wondered if she was going to insist on a warrant, but it wasn’t that at all.

  “I don’t have cameras here. Very little shoplifting of ceramic goods and pottery in the area. I do remember that one though. The man, he had short black hair, but not as short as these gentlemen, and deep blue eyes. I remember because it’s close to the color I’m trying to capture for my new glaze mix. Anyway, he got a single mug and asked if I’d charge him exactly nine dollars and eleven cents for it. I did it, since it was on sale for six dollars anyway. He said it was important to him, some kind of number obsession. Is everything alright?” Suddenly after saying everything, the woman seemed reluctant to speak again. Lancaster smiled at her, and held out a picture. It was Mic.

  “Is this him, do you think?”

  “Oh… yes. He’s not a criminal or anything is he? Wanted by the police or…” Her eyes went to the black suits and she frowned for a second, clearly putting it all together correctly enough. The men looked like government agents.

  Marcia, who was wearing her nice blue dress just shook her head and leaned toward the woman a little, as she sat behind her display case counter.

  “Nothing like that. He’s just an old friend of ours that might be in trouble. Hence the nine-one-one message. Did he tell you anything else?” When in doubt, tell the truth. It was something that got forgotten by people in covert ops sometimes, but it worked more often than not. Some people wouldn’t, or couldn’t help you, but most people could tell if you lied to them, on some level at least. If they were willing to work with you it often paid to just be honest. In this case it wasn’t like anything was classified, so it was worth a shot.

  The woman brushed her sandy blond hair off her forehead.

  “Not really. He did say he thought we might be in for some bad Weather but that was about all… It sounded like he had a speech impediment though.” She looked embarrassed for having brought it up, but Agent Lancaster leaned in, a curious look on his face.

  “Oh, how so? He normally speaks clearly enough.” His gaze searched the woman face hard, which got her to look away. It was hard to play stare eyes with a giant in a black suit.

  “He, um, kept pronouncing it “weathers” with an S on the end. It sounded a bit strange at the time. “We’re in for some bad weathers soon” that sort of thing. He said it two or three times.” She glanced at Reyes again and smiled.

  “Does that help at all?”

  The dark skinned man nodded.

  “Yes ma’am, I think it just might. Thank you for your time.”

  6

  “Well crap.” Marcia tried not to let her frustration show too much, but Lancaster smirked at her anyway. She never could really put up with people attempting complex spy bullshit, which this clearly was. It wasn’t just Mic that had left a cryptic message for them either. So did Harpo and Weathers. They each blamed one of the others, each using a similarly vague code. The only big difference was in the little glass front shop that sold flowers Harpo had gone into, he actually sang the lyrics of a song to explain what he meant.

  It was memorable enough the man behind the counter laughed as he recounted it.

  “Yeah, that guy! He was like Willy Wonka or something. Creepy in a way, but sang the whole time. Something about how Mic did it. Um…” The man started tapping the blue ink pen in his hand on the little pad he held.

  “Mic held her down, he had his way, I’ll find a way to make him pay…” The man stopped and looked up and to the right, trying to hear the words as hard as he could.

  “I can’t really remember the rest. It was decent, but not exactly a top forty hit, you know? I kept expecting to be molested by Umpa-lumpas.”

  He tucked the pad into his apron and asked if they had an order for flowers or anything. They were about to leave when Lancaster actually turned back and spoke softly, pulling his wallet out.

  “Yes, actually. Can you have a dozen yellow roses delivered to the beach in front of a hotel tonight?” Turning he tilted his head.

  “From all of us. Lauren has been a little down lately. You know; first mode problems. Her loneliness is nearly crippling and Doc Tull said we needed to make her feel as loved as possible, even if it might make her feel worse the rest of the time. So pony up you two. It will count more if it’s from all of us.”

  Marcia did it and held her tongue, but as a woman she knew that it really would have counted a lot more if it had come from Daryl alone. She’d have liked it that way if the flowers had been for her at least. Of course that was probably why he didn’t want to do it. This was about morale, not trying to make the woman fall in love with him.

  That was a dark and hidden thing for the woman. She looked like a giant suit of combat armor from the fifteenth century that had been built by an insect colony in a bid to take over the planet, but her heart was all gooey schoolgirl and loneliness. It wasn’t something she could escape at all, so she compensated by trying to fall in love with any guy that was even a little nice to her in passing. It never worked out for her of course, which crushed her just a little bit more each time it happened. Worse, given her powers it would be really hard for her to even kill herself. Marcia had to figure it was why she was still alive really. After a fashion she could relate, and things weren’t a fraction as bad for her.

  That meant, when it came down to it, which it eventually would, she’d probably go nuts and try to make someone else kill her. There were only a handful of people that could really pull that off though, short of hitting her with a fuel air bomb or a nuke. The only person that had ever taken her down in practice even was Brian and that…

  Making him kill her just wasn’t kind. Marcia really didn’t think she’d do that. The woman loved him after all. She loved a lot of guys. Unfortunately that meant she’d probably go to one of the women for it. Maybe even the wrong one. The ideal person for it would probably be Kerry, if it came to that being the only way. No one else had figured it out yet, but even though not in the armored woman’s league physically, the telekinetic could hit her at the weakest points. Either stealing her air directly, or just scrambling her brain inside her skull. The problem there was that Kerry wasn’t a killer. Of course, there was always drowning. Level could swim, but if it got bad enough and she inhaled enough water it would eventually work. That would be really hard to do though.

  So flowers and a deflection from the hot guy would have to do for the day. Hopefully the shrink was right and this wouldn’t just send her spiraling deeper into depression.

  The last place was nearly the same as the first, except it was at a place that advertised “gator wrastlin’”. It was what the sign said at least. Why anyone would want to see that she didn’t know, but again, they didn’t have security cameras inside, even though they took credit cards. It was a symptom of the modern world. Even places away from the city took plastic. Though they were so far away from Miami that calling this the outskirts was being generous.

  After they walked out, Lancaster pulling his keys, Reyes snarled under his breath. It didn’t sound friendly, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying, a hand wiping at his brow as he explained.

  “We’re being screwed with. I mean, I don’t want to think it was any of our people, but it’s been over twenty years, they could have changed, or may be all be in on this together even… But other than that, I don’t know what could be going on. Mind control maybe? They wouldn’t leave such similar messages by accident. That makes it sounds like a plan. If they were really being forced to do this, would they all think o
ne of the others was responsible? That’s… Complex to the point of being stupid. It would be simpler to just make it seem like a single unrelated party was involved. Am I missing anything here?” He stared at Marcia, expecting her to have noticed something more than he did, given the way her mind normally worked.

  “Nope. Not that I can see yet, with the facts we have. I don’t have enough to even guess. My assumption is that, unless this really is mind control, it’s probably all about distracting us at this point. I mean us three here, not just anyone watching. Most people wouldn’t understand the nicknames they all used. Calling Rick “Harpo” for instance? I’d be willing to bet no one’s called him that in decades. Lyle isn’t called Mic because he’s Irish either, so the authorities wouldn’t get that one, would they? No it’s for us, or at least someone from that time. What we need to do is find Cal Morris and have him brain drained so we can find out what the hell’s going on here. Without that or at least some other clue, I think we’re pretty much at a dead end.” She shrugged. It wasn’t a good thought, but really, they should turn it over to the FBI, since it looked to be their jurisdiction after all.

  No one involved was Infected, except for her, as far as that went. It was tempting to claim they had a right to do it, for old time’s sake, or that they’d do a better job than the feebs, but that wasn’t really true, was it? They weren’t perfect at the FBI, but they did a good job with investigations for the most part. Better in most cases than the IPB. They were a combat oriented group after all, not a bunch of puzzle fiends. Pretending otherwise was just keeping the case, if it was one, in the wrong hands.

  She mentioned the idea softly, hoping the other guys wouldn’t freak on her for it.

  The response was lackluster, but Lancaster agreed with her, if grudgingly.

  “I’d like to do more, but I think you’re right. This isn’t our business and seems a bit too over the top to be anything innocent. Let’s report it and see what happens? We’ll keep our ears open, but otherwise back out of it if we can.” He grinned suddenly, an icy thing that Marcia had always suspected he practiced in the mirror to get just right. It looked horrible on his too pretty face.

  “After we get Christian to mind rape Cal for us. We can report first, as soon as we get to a land line and computer, but we might as well collect what data we can anyway.” He paused.

  “Um, I meant to say once we have Chris “gently retrieve” the information. I don’t know it for a fact, but I think she might not like having it referred to as “mind rape”. She’s solid enough in her own way, but it’s clear she hates being Infected with a passion. I can’t blame her. It pretty much destroyed her life, which was just about perfect before it all went down.” He didn’t look away from the road as he started the engine and drove away. He wouldn’t, even if they came under attack, since driving was his job. She had shotgun for this trip, so if anything happened it was up to her to handle it and Reyes to back her up. It made sense, given her powers and the fact she couldn’t help look for dangers anyway.

  Nothing happened though for a long time, even though she kept expecting it too. She waited for it, a feeling that would have made her think something was really going to take place if it had been twenty years before. Now she recognized it as just a slightly more alert state for her. They passed a car, one with a flat tire and a woman trying to wave them down. It could be a trap, she knew and almost told Lancaster to just keep going, possibly speeding up, so they wouldn’t be caught in it.

  Of course, if it was a trap, that might also be a lead for them. The odds of them happening onto an ambush robbery by chance was pretty small, wasn’t it? Plus it wouldn’t go well for the woman if that was what she had in mind. It might also just be a flat. They happened and cell phones didn’t seem to be working well this far out.

  “Stop. Let’s see what this is.” She didn’t have to ask twice, the car pulling over smoothly, not leaving the pavement, though the road was pretty narrow. Just enough for two vehicles at once with no shoulder to speak of. It was lined with a culvert on either side and the whole stretch was just greenery through this area. Marcia got out first; hoping whatever happened wouldn’t ruin her dress. At this rate she was going to be down to just uniforms before the end of the week if it did. She could afford to buy some new things, true, but she really hated shopping for clothes. It was just a thing with her.

  “Um, hi. Thanks for stopping. I…” The woman was decently young, late twenties or so and pretty enough that she probably hadn’t just been out driving through the outskirts of Miami alone for no reason. Good looking women were suspicious when they were alone. Fair or not, people guarded the good looking ones pretty closely. For her to be truly on her own meant she was doing something outside normal convention. That could be anything from seeing her married lover to buying drugs or a thousand other things that even Marcia wouldn’t have thought of, but it probably wouldn’t be anything normal.

  She had tan skin and straight black hair, pulled back into a sensible ponytail. The clothing wasn’t special, shorts and a t-shirt that had words on it with a symbol. A triangle with letters in the middle. T-C-C. Totally Clean Christian. It was bigot code for militant anti-Infected groups. The woman kept speaking though, instead of running out of the way of the rocket launcher or machine guns that Marcia expected to hit them.

  “It’s embarrassing, but I don’t really know how to change a tire. I have one in my trunk, a spare, but I’ve never done this before. Um, help?” She smiled up at Lancaster, and then made nice solid eye contact with the other agent. That could have been her trying to ignore the Infected woman, of course, if she knew who they were, but it might just be due to the men being good looking and more interesting to her that way. Almost as if having read her mind she glanced at Marcia and smiled at her too.

  It didn’t seem forced, just relieved.

  Lancaster shrugged out of his jacket and handed it off to Reyes, who tossed it into the driver’s seat of the rental and got to work. Marcia was tempted to pick the car up for him and hold it while he changed the tire, but managed to not be a bitch to the woman, even if she was wearing a bigot shirt. She did ask about it though, half hoping she could make fun of the woman for it without having to actually hurt anyone. It could also be part of that trap, so springing part of it early might help throw the enemies timing off. If the situation was like that at all.

  “I couldn’t help but notice the T-C-C there. What is that, some kind of church group? I think I’ve seen that before on my local pastor.” Playing dumb often got a lot of chatter from some people, especially if they were looking for new recruits. The woman shook her head and chuckled softly.

  “Nope. It’s for Totally Clean Christian, which is a load of crud. I mean, I’m a Christian, sure, but people use it to show they aren’t Infected. I just threw it on this morning. It belonged to my ex-roommate. She got into all that kind of hate stuff and ran off to join an anti-Infected cult. I wouldn’t be wearing it, but I need to do laundry and didn’t have anything else that was clean. I…” The woman hesitated, and then eyed Lancaster, who was after all, not finished with the tire yet. Nearly though. He looked up at her, giving her one of his cooler looks.

  Reyes rolled his eyes at the woman and Marcia fought not to make a face at all. It was a better story than it might have been. People could do things like that between laundry days. She just nodded instead, not willing to trust the woman just yet. Apparently it showed on her face as something darker, since the woman’s eyes went wide about then. Scared, as if realizing she didn’t really know the people with her.

  “Um, I’m not into that kind of thing. Hate. I don’t know if you are, but we should… Um… love…” Suddenly the she stepped back, an aura of pale pink glowing about six inches from her skin. It was an overreaction.

  “Oh fuck.” She sounded half panicked, which was probably about right, since both agents had gone for their weapons and had them out almost instantly. “Don’t hurt me!”

  Marcia stepped closer t
o her and reached for her shoulder slowly; blocking the agents potential shot’s with her body.

  “Easy there. Why would we hurt you? We’re just people stopping to help with a tire.” The patting motion met resistance at the edge of the glow. Really good resistance, she pushed harder against the edge of the aura, her hand not moving inside it at all. Not even using super human levels of strength.

  “Hey, you have a force field. That’s pretty cool. Any offensive abilities?” She tried to make it sound relaxed, like she was just talking shop, it didn’t seem to throw her hand away or anything, just stop it.

  The woman didn’t speak for a long time, but finally she stopped the whole light bulb act, leaving an outline of her body on Marcia’s retina.

  “No. I mean, I just do that. If I get scared. I’m… not like the other Infected. I mean… I don’t hurt people or anything. I can’t. It’s why I’m really wearing this shirt. I can’t fight, so I try to avoid suspicion when I can. Please don’t tell anyone. If I… If they find out at work… I’m a social worker, I work with kids.” The woman didn’t say any more and Marcia didn’t ask, shrugging instead.

  “And you don’t know how to change your own car tire? Seriously? You should fix that. I’m Marcia, the big guy changing the wheel is Daryl and the other fellow here is Reyes. Um…” She had to dig through the bag she had for the trip, a small backpack like school kids use, but finally found one of her cards. It was one of the ones for the press, so it had her whole title on it, but she didn’t have anything else at the moment.

  The woman read it and blanched.

  “IPB? I…” She started to glow again. This time a richer lavender color that shifted into purple and then warped through a rainbow of colors to green. Whatever her power really was, it was pretty. Marcia waved at her a little and made herself look friendly. It was pretty common for Infected people to freak when the IPB came for them. It normally didn’t end well. They weren’t there for her though, so it wasn’t really needed.