The Infected 3: Cast Iron

by P. S. Power

  “If you need help with anything, just give me a call. What’s your name?” It was field work one-oh-one, if someone was agitated, don’t ask hard questions. That would just confuse them. Keep it easy and simple, things they knew without thinking about it.

  “Janice. Um, Janice Renfro. Pleased to meet you?” It was a question, but sounded polite enough to let slide.

  Luckily Lancaster stood and started packing the jack and flat tire into the trunk, taking time to stow it all carefully, so it wouldn’t slide around. He spoke as he did, sounding almost bored.

  “You’ll want to get that tire repaired as soon as possible and put back on. Also, really do make sure you learn to change your own tires. Take a class on basic auto repair or something if you can. Getting stuck in a remote location isn’t a good idea for any woman, especially one that’s trying to hide her Infected status. Avoiding trouble and bad locations is key to that. You seem to trigger when you get scared or nervous?” He waited for her to answer, which got her to blink first, but finally she took a breath and nodded.

  It came out as a slight shudder.

  “Mainly. I can do it on purpose too.”

  Lancaster looked at Marcia and shrugged.

  “If it’s all defensive that probably means she’s a class three based on the pressure it looked like you put on her field. We can ignore that and call it a high class two, since she doesn’t seem prone to violence. Agent’s discretion… It’s your call though, since you’re the boss.” He gave Marcia a look that had hidden meaning to it. She got it, since she’d known the man for so long. He didn’t think they should get this woman involved with the IPB if they could help it.

  She was low enough in power level to leave alone and seemed to be fairly innocuous, so it made sense to her. That class two was BS though. The woman was at least a class four. Marcia didn’t think her force field activating was work for her at all and if it could stop physical forces like her hand and keep her stable at the same time she could stop bullets and probably explosions. Then again, if she couldn’t fight, no one in the government that mattered would care.

  “Of course. We don’t even need to make a record of this anywhere. Janice, nice meeting you. You have my number if you need it; hold on to that, just in case. Otherwise, make sure to stay as calm as possible and remember, when in doubt, run away.” She held her hand out to shake, and got back into the car, not attacked at all.

  Janice hung back, trying to distance herself from them almost instantly, but she followed them for miles. It left Marcia feeling vulnerable, though it was close to what she would have done too, if it were in the tailing car in a similar situation.

  “So…” She spoke into the silence, the soft purr of the car engine soothing after the strange events that had been happening.

  “Any bets as to if this meeting was somehow set up by Proxy?” She didn’t explain, and neither agent needed her too.

  Lancaster held his head stead and spoke without hesitation.

  “No bet. It has his power written all over it. There’s a feel to the things he does, even if he doesn’t know about it. I mean, what are the odds of this happening by chance? If that’s the case, we can almost bet we’ll be meeting up with Janice Renfro again sometime. Hopefully in a good way. She has the looks and sort of power to fit on Team one, if it comes to that. If she can’t learn to hide. I don’t know for certain, but my guess is her first mode basically makes her averse to confrontation or something like that. People in her line of work can’t really avoid that though, not for long. Social work… Well, I wish her luck. Not a job I’d want. I’d end up shooting someone in my first few weeks.”

  Marcia felt the same. It was really the only thing the woman could do though. If you had the ability to pass as normal, you just did. If you didn’t, you either died or managed to run to one of the Infected communities around the world. They were pretty secret, because when they got found out the government would send in troops or even try to bomb them, at least in theory. The truth was that they were generally allowed to exist, because it collected the Infected up into easily managed groups. That was a last resort kind of thing though. No one wanted to live with a group of half insane Infected. Those communities were known for being about as bad as prisons for most people. You were liable to be attacked fairly regularly and rape was epidemic. There were no rules, other than the ones enforced by whoever was strongest. Most of the time that wasn’t a good person, because negative emotions were a hallmark of popping positive. People didn’t think about it often, but over half of all emotions were negative when expressed at high levels. First modes didn’t have to be emotions, strictly speaking, but obsessions and that kind of thing were dangerous too.

  Get in the way of a lady that had to collect elephant statues and she might just cut you.

  After that they didn’t really talk about much until they got back to the agents room, where Lancaster called in the situation to the local FBI office. The person on the phone was polite enough, but didn’t seem to think the situation needed a lot of attention yet. No reports, other reports, of missing or possibly kidnapped people had come through channels yet. They weren’t trying to ignore it, but as the voice on the phone told them, they had rules, like everyone else.

  “Still, I can flag this, since the info is coming from our friends at the IPB. I’ll keep you in the loop if we find anything.” The man on the phone, an agent named Foster, sounded normal, like he was actually just fielding a call from another agency, rather than acting like he was the big bull in charge or something stupid like that. Of course, they were coming to him with it, not keeping him out, so that might have made a difference.

  After that Marcia was pretty much at loose ends. Oh, there was always something to be done, but for a few minutes none of it was right in her face. She decided to just go and check in on her people. Bridget first, since the girl was actually working. Penny too. She made sure she had an ear piece in, so she could hear her. Having the tech and not using it was moronic. The little flesh colored thing didn’t register as a weight to her at all, so it wasn’t exactly some kind of hardship to keep in. It was keyed to pretty much only let Penny through, though how that was done she didn’t now at all. It didn’t replay everything she heard though, thankfully. It had sort of worked for Warren though, when he’d been invisible earlier. Marcia thought he’d been shouting though, so it wasn’t perfect that way.

  The only problem was that she had no clue where anyone really was, which meant walking around the conference rooms, trying to find which fake kitchen the team had been shifted into. There were events going on, each with a camera crew, and most with a fairly small audience. It was the first day of the thing, but the truth was that a cooking show network thing wasn’t all that exciting. Not, skip work to go and be at the live taping incredible at least. It took going into three different demonstration spaces before she found Mark and Warren working to decorate a cake rather frantically. She watched for a few seconds before Bridget found her, walking over with a sense of purpose and serious look on her young face.

  “Hey. Everything is going pretty well. I did catch some guy from Cake Kings trying to sneak in with a pint of cream for some reason. It was expired but hadn’t turned yet. I dumped it on his head to check. Figured I was going to get in trouble for that, but the Network people thought it was hilarious, instead of criminal assault. So did the cake guy. I think we’re supposed to try and prank them back, but that didn’t sound very professional, so I figured I’d let the others deal with that part.” There was mirth hidden in the words, but it was a controlled thing, so Marcia ignored it.

  “OK. Probably could have done it without dumping cream on people, but that seems to have worked out. You’re correct on the rest. This is actual work for you and the IPB can’t be seen as endorsing sabotage. Especially since we can do a heck of a lot better than just a pint of old cream. I take it that was meant to be put in something? Otherwise what would be the point? I mean Penny or Mark could trash their entire s
et and never even be seen doing it. For that matter Denis or Kerry could do it too. I suppose that means, if we’re going to be sporting, we should send Warren in.” It was a plan. The idea tickled her for a second, but she shook her head. She was the adult here after all.

  “Not that we should respond. Not yet at least. Have you been keeping in touch with Cooper?” On duty they were supposed to use last names. It made it all seem more real somehow. More military. It was her rule, one she’d put into play nearly fifteen years before, so she kind of had to do it now.

  “Yeah. She’s been watching the back entrance, and staying with the cake crew when Warren and Mark had to go be on panels. Lancaster gave me this thing.” She taped the headset she wore gently; it was black and had a wire that hugged the girls face like a black worm.

  “It’s special, since it lets me hear her at a distance on a time delay. We should really all get one of these, it’s pretty cool. Here…” She tapped over her right ear and spoke in her high pitched voice, trying to sound official.

  “Cooper, report.” Waiting she nodded.

  “Got it, situation normal here. Carry on. Report if anything happens.”

  Grinning Bridget tapped the side of the flat black piece again.

  “Like that. I know I sound like an idiot, but it gets a little boring, just standing around. I almost hope those guys try something else. It’s the only thing keeping me going. That and the fact that Mark promised me cake later. After the show though. I loves me some cake!”

  Marcia didn’t, it was just so much goo in her mouth as far as she could ever tell, but she nodded anyway. It was normal to get bored, and finding something to keep them entertained and on task was a good idea. Thinking for a second she shrugged. She didn’t have anything to do really, so why not?

  “Let’s set up a recon mission? We’ll send in Penny and Chris to see what might be coming. I can guard the back door for a while. It will be fun. Possibly entertaining even.”

  That got things into motion pretty quickly, since everyone was just sitting in the audience chairs, with a few people from the public, or possibly the Network. It was hard to tell. The people working in the fake kitchen were all on camera, but no one was paying much attention to the rest of them. Oddly enough Tobin was working away on stage, making sandwiches for everyone, complex things on what looked like fresh bread. Mark had probably made it earlier in the day, or had it made at least. He wouldn’t let people eat store bought if he could help it.

  After a few minutes of activity, as Bridget arranged the operation with the others, since she was in charge, the bitchy director of Marks’s cooking show snapped an order out at Tobin. An unreasonable one at that.

  “You… Toby, be taller and orient yourself toward the counter, not facing away to the left. What are you anyway? Three foot tall? Someone get him something to stand on.” It wasn’t the words as much as the tone, which got the little guy to turn brilliant green instead of the black and green he had been.

  For a second Marcia thought Denis was going to lay into the woman, but instead he just looked at Tobin, who shifted color again just as fast as he had before, to a nice brown and black that was kind of like what Lauren had going on. She noticed it because the armored woman was the one that brought him a chair to stand on. He climbed up before looking at the woman and smiling. It was a massive thing that just about looked like his head was going to split

  “Four foot-two, ma’am. I’m not really here to be on camera, Warren just asked me to help make these sandwiches for the picnic later. Also, it’s Tobin. Not Toby.” He didn’t sound put out by any of it though and just returned to making the sandwiches.

  The director wasn’t done with him though, for some reason.

  “Hmmm. Tobin. We can work with that. Can you shift color on purpose? Maybe something to match the cake being made? Like a chameleon? Do that and we can have you serve the judges later. We’d need a cream color for that I think, or maybe pink. That cake is too boring to beat the other show, so we need to dress it up a little. Presentation counts.” She was just talking, as if it weren’t a discussion, but Tobin answered her anyway.

  “I can only do green, brown and black. You should get Kerry to float it in anyway. It’s safer than carrying it and it’s huge. Besides, people don’t normally want their food touched by Infected people that look like me. Like it will make the food bad.” It was just matter of fact sounding, but the woman nodded, which made half the room want to punch her, no doubt.

  Marcia kind of felt like it at least. Until she spoke.

  “Yes. That’s true. Still, lots to do in the kitchen that isn’t food handling and I’ve seen you washing your hands constantly, so it isn’t a real thing, just prejudice. You’re the singer, right? We should get you in the show at least part time. You can partner with Prime and maybe do up some dishes? Or work with Denis and Kerry, actually making some dishes. I’ll have to check that out with Mark, since it’s his show, but I like the idea as a bit. Looks like you’re a decent worker.” She started ignoring him then and Denis went back to what he was doing, which looked like making about fifty pounds of frosting. Three different types if Marcia had it right.

  She headed behind the set to where the back doors were. They had an alarm on them, but it had been disabled, since people were using it as an entrance too regularly for that kind of thing. This kind of duty wasn’t strictly needed, not for a cooking show, but the fact was that the security provided seemed pretty lax so far. She’d noticed a single guard walking around and assumed there were others, but they were mainly there to stop people from stealing the camera equipment and lights. Those were expensive. Worse, they were needed and people in the industry apparently felt entitled to “borrow” those kinds of things from other sets without asking. There was a chance that terrorists could attack too though which had to be taken seriously and was best handled by someone that knew what they were doing. They couldn’t cover the whole building though, not without permission. It meant anyone could go almost anywhere, if they were careful.

  Almost as if to prove that point, the man that Penny had followed from the bar walked in just then. Dressed like a tourist in a light green button up shirt and tan colored walking shorts. He even had a straw hat on and sunglasses. Like that would hide who he was?

  She smiled and walked over to him directly, not waiting for him to realize who she was.

  After all, she didn’t want him to get away again, he’d done it twice, she realized, since he’d been in the crowd at the restaurant they got asked to leave too.

  “Miss Turner?” The man took his glasses off, slipping then into his front pocket without any concern for the lenses. They looked cheap, so maybe he just didn’t care? He held out his right hand to shake.

  “I believe we have some acquaintances in common? From your old line of work?” He didn’t smile about it, the look on his face being somewhat stern instead. It was a trick she’d learned herself in training, decades before. Act like a person was in trouble and they’d very often respond as if they were inferior to you. That or get pissed and adversarial. She decided to skip both those option and didn’t reach out to shake, leaving the man hanging. After a bit, he pulled his hand back and smiled.

  “I’m Wilson. Sandra Barris asked me to look you up, since we were both in town and might just have similar interests at the current time? She says you should give her a call to check things out.” The man wasn’t good looking, not close up. Not ugly either, he just looked like a businessman on vacation. Most of the CIA really did, outside the movies. Businessmen and college professors. The good ones did at least.

  Sandra Barris. It was a name she hadn’t heard in a long time. Ten years at least. Her old handler back when she’d been just an up and coming field operative and didn’t have any pesky super-powers to get in her way. Instead of asking more questions she pulled her cell phone out and tried to remember how to get in touch with the woman. Sighing she dialed Conroy’s number instead. It was embarrassing, but short of calling
up the CIA headquarters, she didn’t have any other way of getting the information. Wilson could give her a number, of course, but then she could end up talking to anyone. Did she even remember what the woman sounded like for certain? No, she’d have to do this the hard way. Mike might not have the number either, but he’d been on her mind and she really kind of wanted to talk to him anyway. If he was someplace that could be reached.

  That wasn’t certain, she knew that. He often stayed out in the wilderness for days at a time, living off the land and hiking.

  The phone picked up on the second ring.

  “Mike Conroy. If you want me to changed long distance providers no thanks. I also don’t need more life insurance, though I might be interested in a time share someplace warm, if the price is right.” He sounded jovial enough, his voice perhaps a bit rougher than it used to be, age catching up with him as the decades passed. He’d been a few years older than she was when they married and like a normal person he aged. Unlike her.

  “Mike? It’s Marcia.” Now her voice sounded timid and like she was scared suddenly. Not too bad, but enough that she’d have noticed it, given everything, if the call was coming in to her. Worse, Conroy was better at that kind of thing than she was.

  “What’s the situation?” He sounded cold suddenly, his voice filled with steel. For a minute she wondered if it was about her, about how things had ended. Had he finally decided to just hate her for what had happened? She couldn’t blame him, but it would hurt if he did. He kept talking though, going worried instead of commanding after a bit.

  “Is… Well, you should be alright, but… is it the boy Cutthroat sent for training? Brian Yi? I know he’s been put into some dangerous set-ups. Crap. I’ve tried to follow his career over the last few months. In the news a lot. Something finally take him down?” The man actually sounded sad about it. Like he really thought something could take Brian without it being on the news.