The Infected (Book 9): Proxy: War Day

by P. S. Power

  "Yeah, saved an old woman. It seems like one of the new IPB people was taking out a building. On purpose. It's a bio-lab. One that Braid owns. There were giant cat creatures, and some kind of plague inside, as far as Marcia told me. I... well, I spoke to her over the operative they sent. It was kind of interesting, but not very efficient. She mentioned bringing him here later? He's on Team Four, I guess? Really polite. The man is at least a class five. Maybe higher than that. I tried to cut him, and he just turned around and went back to work on the building. I hope he's all right. More people came, somehow. Teleported in, I think? It was impressive." He wasn't breathing hard yet, so forced himself to relax, using some of the tricks he'd learned from Mark.

  Then he tried to speak without sounding like he was playing a movie hero. Using his real voice, and not rasping things out like a douche-bag.

  "I mean, to tell the truth, I don't think we, the rest of us, could have pulled that off. They had a team of six people taking on class four creatures in less time than it took me to run a few blocks. If they can do that all the time, they won't need me anymore. Which is a good thing. Now I just need to learn not to rush into trouble all the time." He grinned then, and winked at the man next to him. "So I'd better do something else to be useful. Need help in the kitchen?"

  Mark and Warren had taken to cooking for the entire group, almost from the first day. They had enough food stored there, and ways to get more, even from hiding, but there was a manpower shortage as far as actual kitchen help went. Not that Brian knew how to cook. Denis did though, and so did Kerry, his half sister. Prime had been doing his share too, but that meant those five were working every meal, and people were having to fend for themselves during the evening hours. About half the people there needed to eat more than a regular man or woman did. A few of them a lot more.

  "We really can use the help. I need about five more people that know what they're doing. So... you. Can you find me four more?" He was being nice about it, but Brian shook his head.

  "I don't really know how to do that kind of thing yet. I'll help where I can, but you should really get Argos. Jason can cook pretty well, as it turns out. Just don't let him fool you into thinking he isn't very good. That's his first mode talking. I bet we can get Tobin, too. I don't know what he can do, but he's solid. Even if we're just doing pots and pans for the rest of you, or chopping veggies up. Do you want me to see who else might be willing to help? I can do that as soon as I finish up here. That will only be about two hours. I can go now, if you need?"

  Mark kept his pleasant expression. That was pretty much a constant thing, since getting more than a little tense would have him freezing time for the rest of the world. He startled easily, and his power was all about protecting him if he got scared.

  "That would be great. I haven't wanted to complain, since it isn't so bad for me, personally. I have all the time I need. Warren has been working eighteen hour days for two weeks straight though, and needs a break. He's getting a bit snappish. I swear that Kerry nearly decked him this morning when he told her that her eggs were too dry. They were, a bit, but he could have been a bit nicer about it. She's going through a hard time, too."

  Brian knew about that one, since Svetlana, the new base preparedness expert had told him all about the issue. Kerry had been, and probably still was, addicted to depressants. It hadn't shown too much, because the girl had been using them to take the edge off her normally volatile temper. Really, it had been working pretty well, because Brian had always thought of her as being a sweetheart. She still was, but now things tended to explode around her when she got tense.

  Literally.

  As in a rain of stones could come out of the air without warning, or big gouts of water come out of the walls. Things would teleport around too. Often dropping on whoever she was mad at. She didn't have control over it all, but it seemed like she was actually a lot more powerful than anyone had ever hinted at her being before. To Brian at any rate. So she'd made a point of trying to kill that off with drugs. Where she'd grown up, in an abusive commune, being aggressive wasn't allowed. It was her nature, but had literally been suppressed with torture. So she couldn't let it show now. It came out in other ways, while she showed a meek and calm exterior to the whole world.

  That she nearly punched Warren was actually a good thing. It meant she was learning to deal with her problems more directly. It would be hard to tell anyone else that, but he mentioned it to Mark anyway, who just kept running.

  "I know. It would be even better if she just wrote him a strongly worded letter. Everyone is going a bit crazy right now. We can't leave, even to go outside, or we could be seen. Speaking of which, were you?"

  That was a real question, wasn't it? Had he been?

  Well, Dev'an had, which he knew for certain. The guards, but they were all dead.

  "I have no clue. Maybe on a camera? I don't get a choice, but... It isn't good either. It will shorten the time we can stay in hiding... unless I go back to the IPB and claim I lived somehow? It isn't likely, but I can teleport. It's on the record as having taken place before. Then, after the blast at the old base... Well, no one would suspect that I'd go back, would they? If that had really happened and I lived, I probably would have gone into hiding for real anyway. I'd pretty much have to, if I could."

  It had to be pretty common knowledge that he wasn't, hadn't been, in love with being a government agent. He wouldn't let his friends be caught though. People in the military, and possibly other agencies, had plotted to really kill them all. So they'd faked the death of over a hundred and fifty people, before those others could pull anything like that off for real.

  So far it was working too.

  Bridget and Doug had kept the agency, the Infected Protection Bureau, going. Out of a donut shop. Then Marcia had gone back, since her power of being pretty much indestructible would have let her live through even a nuke sized blast. He could do that too, if it became needed. For a moment he considered doing it that day, but the man next to him shrugged.

  "That's a plan. We should wait though. I need you to learn to cook too badly for anything like that. Our food quality is starting to suffer. That can't be allowed."

  If Brian hadn't known for a fact that Mark's first mode was fear, which was a near terror of everything, he would have thought his obsession with food quality was it. Even knowing otherwise, it was easy to forget that from time to time. He nodded, since doing anything but agreeing with the man was foolish, if the topic was food. He was all pro there.

  "Got it. I'll keep that one on the back burner, in case people start to figure out that I'm still around."

  They ran in silence then, for nearly an hour. Both of them were used to that kind of thing, it seemed. That he was personally made sense. For nearly a year Brian had worked each day like this, often with no one to talk to.

  Mark... He'd had it worse.

  From time to time, he'd been sent to far away locations, on his own. That meant traveling in stasis time, for the most part. The man had walked, and biked, back and forth across the country more times than even he could remember now. Which was probably why he was in such killer shape endurance wise. Nothing mechanical would work when he froze time for everything except himself. Not unless he could wrap a field around it to let it move. Even then, things like engines wouldn't turn over at all. So he had to make do with simpler things. That meant bicycles, hand pulled wagons, and so on.

  It also meant that for months, sometimes years, on end, the man was completely alone. He could see other people, but no one could speak to him. Not unless he came out of the state he was in. On a mission, that couldn't happen until he got to where he was going and fixed the problem though.

  To everyone else it seemed like he just instantly did things, but Brian had a feeling that it was actually pretty hellish. That got something to occur to him. Finally. It really should have before.

  "Mark, you need to eat in stasis time, right? But you can't cook anything?"

  There was a he
ad jerk, and then the man, who was still running, skittered in place, and ended up about five feet away, standing still, but looking calm. That meant his power had kicked in. It did that when he got scared. Then, almost anything could do that to him. Startled was probably closer to the real issue though. The man simply wasn't a coward. No one that did the things he did could be.

  "That's right, why?"

  Shrugging his shoulders, Brian waved the other man back into motion, trying to do it casually.

  "It's just that I know how much you hate poorly prepared or pre-packaged foods, but really, you pretty much have to live on the stuff for months, don't you? That has to be less than fun for you."

  For once the man gave a rather energetic nod.

  "Darned straight! I'd burn Little Debbie to the ground, if it wasn't for the fact that she's kept me alive so often. Worse, I have to steal it all too. I can't exactly afford to carry that kind of cash around. It would take a lot."

  That was something that Brian really hadn't thought about before. Penny stealing things kind of made sense to him, but Mark? The man was so nice and calm that it just didn't seem likely, even after he was being told about it.

  Then, really, did he care? It was theft, but done to keep the man alive, while he went off to save other lives. It was still bad, technically, but Brian decided not to cast stones. His power forced him to kill people, after all. He'd also stolen things to get that done, too. Borrowed them for a while. Things like cars, trucks, and more than once a bicycle. It had been needed at the time. Come to think of it, a few times he'd taken food too.

  From Mark once, actually.

  "I hear you. I used to love those things though. Especially the strawberry shortcake rolls. Those things are horrible, and I know it, but even thinking about it is making me hungry. I should run faster. I'll be by later, with whatever people I can get together for the kitchen?"

  Mark nodded, but turned that into a head shake.

  "I can make real strawberry shortcake that will change your mind about those things. Not tonight, but bring me that help, and I bet we can work something out..." It sounded almost like a bribe.

  He ran then, before he started thinking too much about how hungry he was. He used to be kind of fat, and had managed to lose weight over the last year. Nearly sixteen months now, he knew. Fifteen months and twenty-seven days... and, depending on when he counted from, about six hours. The numbers flowed into his brain without him asking for them to.

  Like they used to.

  When he was a child, and being turned into a math machine for his parents' amusement. It came back to him every now and then, but wasn't all that helpful to him most of the time now. No one needed to live like that. Picking up speed, faster than he was supposed to go that day, he kept his thinking nearly at bay. Right up until he had to go and lift weights. That part was harder, since he started to think about foods he shouldn't eat again. There were a lot of things on that list too.

  Not that he couldn't eat now. It just felt like anything he put in his mouth was going to make him too heavy to do his job. Saving people that needed his help. So he didn't eat most of the time, even when other people were watching him. Not really. He found ways to avoid it. Not consciously all the time, but enough so that when he thought about it, Brian realized he was probably only getting about half the calories he was supposed to each day. Which explained why he kept losing weight.

  As he finished his assigned routine he winced, and started toward the front door of the place. They didn't have elevators, just two sets of stairs, so there would always be a way out. Oddly enough, so many people had been trapped at different times in the old building that a lot of them kind of liked the idea of not being too deep. Having more than one good way out too.

  The men's shower room was on the end he normally used. The one he thought of as the main stairwell. The lady's space was on the other side, a long way away, since the whole place was huge. He needed to take his clothing with him when he worked out, but no one would steal from the lockers in there. Not on purpose. At the old base there had been laundry done for them daily. Here they had to do their own. He knew how, so it wasn't too big of a deal, but some of the others still needed help, even after the weeks they'd been in the new place. Like it was hard to figure out how to separate colors from whites?

  Two months, six days. He stopped himself before he got to the hours and minutes. Even forcing himself not to think about it consciously, the stream of figures filtered through his subconscious mind. It was a never ending thing, even now. Most of the time he tried to ignore it, but that didn't mean it wasn't there all the time.

  Penny, his friend, sat on one of the benches, completely nude. Invisible too, though he could see her like always. She was a bit transparent to him, but no one else would be able to see her that way. This was on the men's side of things, but she was obviously watching the others shower. That was, no doubt, because she was busily perving out at the moment.

  It was an interesting group of people doing showering at the moment, too. Tobin, Denis, and Lobo, who looked like a lavender colored lobster. With claws. Also, as it seemed Penny had noticed, he was hung a bit like a horse. That part was lavender too, but seemed to be made of skin, not chitin.

  That bit seemed to have her full attention, since she was sitting there on the wooden bench, diddling herself merrily, and staring at Lobo directly. There was no eye contact either, which was probably more than a bit impolite.

  Brian stood there in shock for a moment, then shrugged. He didn't know if it was true or not, but the idea that Penny wasn't exactly who he thought she was didn't startle him like it should. To him she'd always seemed pretty innocent and shy, but was that really who she was when no one was watching? It didn't seem so, because after a few seconds she started gasping, then called out.

  "Fuuuuck! Get over here and do me. Now. All three of you. One in each hole. Lobo, you get the pussy!" So, not that shy at all. She kept on in that vein too, her fingers working away at herself pretty well, until she finally screamed, at nearly the top of her lungs. "God! Oh, God!"

  Then, without even bothering to turn around and see him, she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. The others couldn't, but to him she was as clear as she always was. Solid looking even, which had been the case ever since she'd started dyeing her skin all the time. Her first mode made it so she didn't like to be noticed. He'd thought she was shy, but it wasn't the same thing really. If it was then maybe a lot of shy people were a lot more wild inside than he thought?

  Tobin came out first, but the others weren't too far behind, so Brian started taking his own clothes off and setting them on the bench near the locker he was using that day. Number seventeen. Penny didn't even turn until he opened it, to get his clean and dry towel.

  "Brian? Oh... God." She tried to vanish then, in panic, which was normally enough to have most people forgetting she was even there, but he just shrugged. They were friends, but she was also being a pervert on a level that couldn't be allowed for the mental health of everyone else in the place.

  "Hi Penny." He spoke out loud, his voice dry, almost bored sounding, and Tobin looked at him sharply, his towel suddenly in front of his green man parts. He was stick thin, but still about seventy times stronger than Brian was. Currently he was a brilliant shade of green, because he was actually shy and it was clear, being spied on.

  "Brian... Is Penny in here with us?"

  He nodded.

  "Yep. Naked, and doing herself while watching you in the shower. By the way Lobo? I think she wants to have a date with you. At least from what she was just screaming while doing herself. I'd definitely ask her about it. Later, after she calms down enough to become visible again."

  She stood up, embarrassed seeming, but suddenly mad, too. He got that one. There were only so many ways to respond to a thing like that, and begging for him not to tell anyone was right out, wasn't it?

  "What the fuck, Brian! I have to live here you know! You can't tell them that! Eve
ryone will make fun of me!" Her right hand was in a fist, which he ignored as he took his armor off. It was gray in places now, from constant wear. Soon it wasn't going to be any good, most likely. Worn too much for it to repair itself anymore. When that happened, he was probably going to be back on borrowed time. Then, he always had been, so it wasn't different, just a bit more apparent.

  "Why not? If you're going to do things like that, you should really make yourself visible, so at least everyone else can be in on it too. Honestly Pen, if you were a guy doing the same thing, we'd probably kick you out. Now, you should apologize to everyone here. Especially me. I mean... This is... incredibly embarrassing for me." His words sounded dead, and harsh again, but he managed to relax, even as he got naked. His body wasn't perfect now, but it was scar free, and flat over the middle, finally. More than that, actually. He had abs, he noticed, looking down at them. A bit of leftover loose skin too, but it was nowhere close to the pudge that had been there before.

  Denis hadn't said anything, or bothered to cover himself either. After he finished drying though, which he did while Brian spoke, he waved a bit and mouthed... "Where is she?"

  Brian pointed casually. What happened next was interesting enough though.

  Denis stared into space, and after a few seconds, Penny was standing there, fist still clenched, but sagging a bit, relaxing totally. Completely visible to everyone. After all, she had to keep a certain level of muscle tension to stay invisible, and it was clear to Brain that Denis had just used his power to make her relax, almost totally.

  The man, who had short curly hair, pumped his fist in the air.

  "Hah! Got it! Even without being able to see you."

  The other two men covered themselves, but it was Lobo who spoke first.

  "You really want to date me?" The words were almost sweetly innocent sounding. Also a bit too ready to be betrayed.

  Penny gasped, but then let out a long sigh.

  "I... Really, I just want to have sex with you. The rest of you, too. It's hard to find someone, and ever since Lancaster broke up with me, I haven't had much luck that way."