The Infected 3: Cast Iron

by P. S. Power

  He was probably the most deadly regular human being Marcia had ever met that didn’t have nuclear codes or an army to call on. Not a large one at least. It wouldn’t shock her to find out he could call in a few companies at need though. People still owed him favors after all. A lot of them.

  “Conroy, can I get with you for a few minutes? In here is fine. We can chat about something while Warren changes. Penny, I need you for this. Do you have an extra ear piece around?” It was just an idea, but why not?

  “Um, sure. For…” She trailed off. That made sense, being that Alan was still at the door, even as he moved to let Conroy in.

  “For Mike. We’ll leave Alan alone for now, if that’s alright? Though you two can do lunch sometime or something? Maybe tomorrow? You should clear that Alan. Say about twelve?” She was kidding and Conroy smiled about it, understanding what she was doing. Alan just flipped his schedule over and shook his head.

  “How about two? We have Chef Boyer doing a two hour show on soufflés; I don’t want to miss that. Would that be alright Miss Cooper?” He spoke to the room as if he actually believed there was something there. It was both cute and correct. Most people didn’t manage that kind of thing very well at all.

  “Um, sure.” The man couldn’t hear her, so Marcia translated for her.

  A few seconds later Alan was gone and Warren was off in the bathroom. Mike’s head bobbed a bit, which he didn’t seem to notice and then Penny spoke, just a little loudly for some reason.

  “How’s that? Can you hear me?”

  He covered his ear with a hand, dipping a single finger in to check what was there. He pulled it away after a few seconds wincing at the loud sound made from touching the microphone there.

  “Time delay?” He’d always been quick to understand new things.

  Marcia explained it quickly and got him to sit on the edge of the bed with her. The unmade bed. At least there were two of them, both with matching floral print quilts and soft tan blankets.

  “I’d like you to train Penny. It means staying at the IPB at least part time, but she needs it for field work and it really should be someone that can do it as a full time activity, which the rest of us just can’t. We can get Brian Yi in on it for some things, though he has his own work too and doesn’t know everything Penny needs to learn. Assassinations, spy work, demolitions, sneak and peek, the whole thing. She’s a natural. I told you how she took out Morris and Harpo? She can do that to almost anyone on the planet if she wants. Until now though, without these ear pieces, we haven’t had any way to really communicate with her like this. She’s been with the IPB for years, but this is close to the first time we could make something like this work. What do you say?” He might say no, since it meant being around his bitch of an ex, she realized. Or he might even say no because it was a lot of work, trying to figure out training for someone you had not real feedback on. Almost impossible. It was one of the reasons Marcia wanted him on it. He was good and had trained most of the others that she could get to do it at one point or another. Even Brian, though that had only been for a week or so.

  He tilted his head and made a soft humming sound.

  “I don’t know. Is it something you want to try, Penny? It will take a lot of self-motivation to get it done, probably a lot more than most people have to put forward. If you want to do it, you’ll have to be your own harshest critic, because no one else can really do it for you. Not yet at least.” He didn’t explain that, but he waited for an answer instead.

  “I guess. Not to sound like I don’t want to, but, I mean, killing people isn’t… It’s not something I want to do. I don’t want to let anyone down, but I’m not… I mean, I guess I am a killer, I just… don’t want to be.”

  The older man nodded and held out his hand to shake, which after a few seconds moved on its own.

  “Good enough. We can do training to make you a hardened killer, that isn’t a problem. Heck, half the video games on the market should work just fine for that. They’re designed to be brainwashing tools to make it easy to kill. Besides, it’s the rest of the things that will probably be the most valuable. I say we give it a shot. We’ll stay at your place for the first bit, and then move to various locations for the rest so we don’t get bored. For now, well, why not enjoy your vacation? Grab some friends and go to the beach? Marcia and I have some things to discuss. Private things that would make a proper young lady blush no doubt, so…” He gave his most charming grin and waited again. He was good at waiting.

  Penny sighed.

  “Cast out again. I suppose I could get some breakfast and see if Brian and Karen want to go. Too bad Bridget couldn’t have stayed. Is… this, the training thing, why you wanted me here Marcia? Instead of at the Whitehouse I mean. I don’t know what I could add there, but it would be neat to see the place.”

  “Nope. We may have an actual mission coming up. The same reason we want you to have training is why you’re up for this too. We might have to track people, or even end up in a shootout. For that matter, we need to make sure you have a vest. No one can hit you on purpose, but that doesn’t mean that stray bullets will bounce off. I should have done that before. We don’t have anything here, but as soon as possible I’ll get you something. In the mean time hide behind solid objects if the bullets start to fly, OK?” She held her own hand out, and saw it move, but couldn’t feel Penny at all. It was weird.

  “OK. I think I’m allergic to lead anyway.”

  “Who isn’t?” Conroy shrugged and waited for a reply, but Marcia beat the girl to it.

  “I’m not.”

  She really wasn’t. Well, possibly if she ate it, but otherwise, not at all. Unlike most Infected with extra invulnerability, she was armored on the inside too, but she could possibly digest poisons. She’d never really worked up the nerve to try it. If that didn’t work, then the only way she had left to die was drowning or smothering to death. Neither one sounded fun. Not that she was planning to die any time soon, but if it came up, she really wanted a way out that wouldn’t involve choking to death. Even that might not hurt now, but she’d nearly drowned as a child and the memory still haunted her.

  They waited for Penny to leave, following Warren to his event, since he promised to feed her and being invisible burned a lot of calories. As soon as the door closed, Conroy ran his right hand through his hair and suddenly looked tired.

  “What the hell Marcy? Do you have any clue what this is really about that you just haven’t told me? Cutthroat said that all we have to go on for certain is a car rental? He has Reyes and Burke running that down while he gets a few hours sleep. I can see why someone would want the old crew in on an assassination, they’re all pro’s at it, but why keep the rest of us out? Just because we wouldn’t try to take down POTUS? I wouldn’t have thought any of them would either. No one even tried to feel me out on the idea.”

  She shrugged, not knowing where to start. She didn’t have anything solid, just a hunch that pointed in a specific direction.

  “I can’t remember, but, how did they all react when I turned, all those years ago? Do you know? The group had been reassigned after the Lisbon job. I hadn’t been keeping in touch with anyone really.” She watched his eyes as he figured out what she meant.

  “Oh… Um, of the four here… I, uh, don’t recall all of it. I know Morris wasn’t pleased. Said something about you not being fit to fuck anymore, if I recall correctly. I kicked his ass for that. The others… Well, I know that Weathers was never a fan. Always afraid we were going to run into some super Infected and get killed. Kept pointing out how training wasn’t enough against things like that. Always called them “things” too, now that I think about it. I really can’t remember with Harpo or Mic. I don’t think they were happy about it, but no one mentioned anything to me. Of course, they wouldn’t, since we were married by then. We only met up occasionally after that, and really, no one talked about you too much. I think that was about sparing my feelings though, not because they all suddenly hated you.
” He settled back on the edge of her bed and propped his weigh up on his hands for a second, leaning back a bit.

  “We should ask the others and see what they have to say about it. I can see where you’re going here and I can’t say that it’s all wrong. I want it to be, but it could be… It might be something like that. Just hate. I don’t get the whole thing where you and the crew got called down here though. Unless…” Conroy’s eyes went huge for a moment, but settled quickly enough.

  Marcia just waited. He’d speak when he was ready, or he wouldn’t. He had an idea though, which meant he’d probably share it sooner rather than later.

  “You never used to be that good at just being Marcy. It’s an improvement. Now if I could just get you to trust me again.” He grinned like he used to when he was younger but shook his head.

  “Never mind. We both know how that story ends. OK, so… What if the guys called you and yours down here, away from the main event, so that you wouldn’t catch the blame for it? If they have something set up to kill the President of the United States and blame some random Infected person for it, maybe they wanted you and the guys out of the line of fire? They should have tried for Felix too if that was the case, but he’s doing mainly PT now right? Working with Yi and Team three? I need to talk to him about Cooper then if that’s the case.”

  Marcia thought about it for a while before answering, wondering if that might have something to it at all. Could it have been as simple as just trying to save them from suspicion? Why else would they all be taken away from the base like that?

  “Oh fuck.”

  Conroy looked at her for a moment, baffled.

  “What?”

  “I was just wondering, what if it was about really trying to save us? From something that would have killed me and the guys? Like a massive attack on the base? A nuke or something? What if it isn’t about the President at all, just about the IPB? Not an assassination at all...” She took a shuddering breath and grabbed for her cell phone, hoping she was wrong.

  Knowing on some level she just wasn’t.

  “What if it’s the opening salvo of a war?”

  9

  There was a real problem with being her, Marcia realized as she called her suspicions in to headquarters. No matter how right she was at any given time, everyone always had to wonder if she was just being paranoid. Her first mode wasn’t that harsh and generally didn’t cause her to run that far off of what was real, but in cases like this, where she just didn’t have a lot of proof yet, it made her pretty easy to ignore.

  Worse, she had to point it out herself first. A good agent would after all, and she really could see all the possibilities. A lot of them anyway.

  “So, we don’t have a time frame and I could just be wrong. If there is a threat though, we need to do something about it and failing to act could be catastrophic.” Marcia ran her fingers through her curly, fairly short hair; it was kind of a boyish look at the moment, but easy to care for. Clarice, the woman that did her make-up for shows and events had said it looked fun. Like she was the ultimate tom-boy or something.

  She liked it better long, but an accident had ripped half of it out, so she had to wait for it to grow back. For all that she seemed to heal fast enough from pretty much anything on the incredibly rare occasion something managed to hurt her, or even just scuff her skin up a little, it didn’t make her hair grow any faster than normal. Her fingernails didn’t seem to grow at all. It was handy, since they were harder than steel. It would be a pain to try and get them trimmed regularly. Why her hair grew at all she didn’t know. It was only the stuff on her head though. She was completely smooth otherwise.

  The theory was that a big part of an Infected’s powers and maybe even their first mode was controlled by their subconscious minds at the point of Infection. So someone basically good would tend to accentuate those traits. Like Karen, who felt compassion all the time, for everything. Or Brian, who had probably always been willing to sacrifice himself to save others. In her case it was like someone had just turned up the power on her personality. She’d had a reputation for being careful, even a bit paranoid before she’d popped, and she’d spent a lot of time trying to make sure she didn’t get hurt. Bullet and shrapnel resistant clothing, keeping good cover in mind and just being careful all the time.

  So it wasn’t a big surprise when she’d become what she had. Not to anyone that knew her before. Her original code name was even based on her nickname of the time. Cast Iron.

  The Director spoke calmly in his ear, his voice a bit patronizing, but his words made sense, so she tried to ignore the tone.

  “We could… Send people away? To different locations? I hate to scatter our forces too much, especially now, but it might be good for people to get out of here for a bit anyway. How does that sound?” He made his voice into his friendly one that seemed designed to try and trick people into thinking he was just an old man or something.

  “That’s a good idea. Hopefully this isn’t just a wild goose chase. If Braid’s behind it, we could be playing into her every move without even knowing it. How do we beat that?” It was maddening, but so far she didn’t have a clue what they could do and neither did Moore.

  “We can’t. Not at this point. We just have to assume that not everything will be Devorah and go on from there. She has great insight into what to do to influence the future, but she’s still only one person. Not everything is under her direct control. She used to complain about that at times. I always thought she was joking, but it seems that it’s a common condition for members of her family. A need to be in control of reality to a level that even they can’t manage.” He didn’t add that the information had come from Hobbs, who came from the same alternate world that Braid did. They both knew the score there and kept it quiet for the most part.

  It wasn’t a secret, it was just so unbelievable that no one sane would buy it most of the time. Bothering people with things they just wouldn’t be able to accept never really helped. It just made people hate you, in the end. It was hard enough being Infected without bringing up a possible hostile takeover attempt by what were basically inter-dimensional beings.

  The actual plan had to be implemented fast, because they didn’t know the real time window. No matter why it had been done, she, Lancaster and Reyes had been lured to Florida for a reason and that probably meant it was close to some event in time. Either to move them away from, or toward, ground zero. Possibly both. She really needed to get more information and fast. As soon as she got off the phone, she took Conroy by the hand and led him out into the hallway, toward the restaurant on the first floor. They both had to eat after all, no matter what else was going on.

  They walked that way, hand in hand, getting a few stares as they did. It wasn’t until they got to the lobby that Mike leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It was sweet, but not exactly how their relationship had been going for the last two decades. She could feel the gentle pressure on her skin and smiled, wondering what it was all about.

  Then she noticed the cameras. At least three were watching them. It wasn’t a big deal, except that she hadn’t put any make-up on, which was the rule for Team one members going out anywhere. Even on base. The only exception was going to the gym and that only because no one knew how to keep it off of the mats and work out equipment. She’d hear about it from Charlot, no doubt.

  The hardest part about intelligence work was the waiting. It always had been for her at least. Conroy just sat at the table with its expensive cream colored cloth after holding her chair out for her. It was a joke of course, an old one that dated back to nearly the first time they’d met. It had never been funny really, but for some reason it always got her to smile. She’d never needed anyone to hold the door for her, or move a chair around, but he always did it anyway, smiling the whole time.

  Before she could say anything the waiter came over, looking relieved for some reason.

  “Hi, I’m James. I’ll be your server today. Would you like menu’s or are yo
u ready to order?” It was clearly something he was used to saying a hundred times a day, and it showed. He sounded polite, but empty inside somehow, like the job was crushing the life out of him. That was a shame, because he looked too young to be broken that way yet. Maybe in his low twenties. About Brian’s age.

  “Menu’s please.” Mike didn’t look at the younger fellow at all, his eyes staying on Marcia, a small smile on his face. “This could take a bit. She tends to be a picky eater.”

  She shrugged.

  “Not that much anymore. But yes, let’s see the menu? We don’t want to miss out on something because we don’t know it exists.”

  He scurried off and back in less than twenty seconds, presenting both with a rather nice leather bound folder in green. A deep color that reminded her of pine trees for some reason. Looking at it more closely she decided it must actually be vinyl or something, since not only would real cow leather be too expensive, it would tick off the environmentalists. Not that vinyl or whatever it was wouldn’t pollute more to make than using a cow would, but it was a thing these days, catering to every fringe group that had the money to lobby congress.

  James leaned in, his eyes going a bit wide, and he whispered, directing their attention toward the lobby through the glass front of the space they were in.

  “I thought that we’d be in for trouble with all the Infected around here the last few days, but so far the television people are the worst by far. The crocodile lady that came in was sweet even and her little toad friend was cool. They sang a song for me and left a nice tip. I had some guy dressed like a chef throw eggs at me earlier, because they weren’t cooked exactly like he wanted. I mean, really… Eggs. They were still hot too. I had to refuse to bring him coffee, just because I value my skin. He yelled at me for that like I was the one with the problem, but there are limits, right?” He blushed a little looking down. He wasn’t tall, maybe five-seven or so, which made him look even younger with the bashful expression on his face.