by P. S. Power
Denis focused slightly, filling Kerry with a sense of relaxed calm and confidence, then added just a bit of focus to the mix. It wasn't hard. The difficult part was keeping the whole thing low key enough that he didn't get his ass kicked for it later. If a telekinetic got pissed at him that could end poorly. After that she nailed it so well the Director clapped when she finished.
“That's what I want to see. Great take. More of that from now on?”
Kerry nodded and looked baffled, but pleased. She didn't stare at him though, so that would work out. Mark did though, giving him a skeptical look along with a small half smile. He obviously saw the connection. Denis tried to look innocent.
The whole thing took about four hours to shoot, because they were all new and had to try out a couple of different on air personas each and all the extra cakes were needed. Greedily Denis wanted to grab them before anyone else could have some, but laughed at the thought. He wasn't a little kid and he'd be allowed more cake than he could eat if he wanted it. There was plenty after all. The rest... All first mode crap. He tried to breathe through it and let the thought go. After about fifteen repetitions of that it almost worked even.
Prime struggled with his own issues, keeping himself from being on the screen and at the center of attention had to be tough for the guy. He fidgeted behind the camera like a five year old waiting for ice cream. The large golden man did it though, hard or not.
When the wrap came the Director informed them it was just the first wrap. Next they needed to show the cake at the Director's birthday party. Mark looked slightly panicked and jumped in place, his power having kicked in. Denis got the idea instantly, there was no real party, was there? All a ruse. All meant as IPB propaganda.
That just meant people could get their asses in here and fake a party, didn't it? The Director wanted the good press, so he could step up. They all could.
“That's your cue Prime.” Denis said softly, “we need all the key people for the Director's party as soon as possible. Can you make the calls? People will believe it if it comes from you...” He smiled and took a deep breath, trying not to spaz out and pick a fight with the bitch that decided they needed to do that part too, but couldn't be bothered to tell them ahead of time.
“Mark? Where would you like that set up? In here or... maybe in the restaurant? Here we have cameras and we can borrow some tables and chairs, right?” Denis made his voice servile, or tried to. It actually sounded a bit patronizing to his own ear. Mark didn't seem to care though, just looking grateful for the help.
It took running, which was in his new job description, and a good bit of help from the already busy people in the restaurant, but inside an hour a fairly real looking party had started, Charlot Chambers showed with her daughter, Bridget, a tiny girl that even three years later looked so little and young he kind of felt like going and kicking Clark's ass for sleeping with her.
Christian from team three, Sparks the team two leader and Brian Yi, who'd dressed all in black again. They didn't have streamers but the borrowed tables and place settings looked refined, five star all the way. That and Rachel had shown up looking even hotter than earlier.
Really, Denis couldn't begrudge the old guy from grabbing a hold on that if he could. It just didn't make sense. Or at least it didn't until Prime saw her.
“Mom! Over here by us. We can all be on together as a family.” He actually sounded happy about it, shared limelight or not.
The hot looking girl he wanted to bang was Prime's mother? Dang... she either had him when she was five or the age she looked didn't have a lot to do with the age she was at all. Once they got side by side he could see that Bridget Chambers looked just like her, but about a half foot shorter and twelve. Well, that explained part of Christian's boot to his shin didn't it? Director Moore wasn't robbing the cradle, he was just really lucky. Chris had been saving him from looking like a fool, not protecting the Director's feelings.
Ah. That was new then.
The idea that the team leader would actually try to help him out was an odd one, but the woman looked at him and smiled knowingly.
They decided not to do any candles on the cake, since that might look a little too Hindenburg, which meant that Kerry was able to levitate the whole thing in as if it were actually able to float in the air on its own. It looked good. Amazing to tell the truth. Denis decided to ask them to do something similar for his own birthday. Only bigger and on fire. Much bigger.
Of course.
They sang happy birthday as it came in and landed directly in front of Director Moore, who applauded and smiled as if this really were his birthday. It seemed real enough for TV at least.
“Look at all the freaks trying to pretend they're real people and not monsters.” The number two cameraman said under his breath.
It got Denis' attention, because through the rest of the show the cameramen hadn't spoken at all while working. So it was odd. Then the thin dark haired man in the yellow and black flannel shirt pulled a solid black handgun that had been taped under part of the camera mounting, out of sight.
The bead he drew, aimed at the Director's head, had a nice clean line of sight. No one else had noticed yet, the cake still stealing the show. Not having time to plan anything too clever Denis went for the only feeling he knew that made it too hard to act easily. Numbness. Pure and perfect. If dropped on someone without warning they generally couldn't coordinate well enough to do anything for about a minute. At the same time he ran toward the man screaming like a little girl with Tourette's syndrome.
“Gun! Gun! Fucking gun! Fuck, fuck!” It came out high pitched and squeaky.
Four people got to the man before Denis could and the camera guy went down hard. It turned out to be a tie as to who made it first, Rachel and Bridget hitting at the same time, the older woman controlling the weapon nearly instantly. The moves were sharp and professional, even dressed in a black skirt and emerald green blouse. It really worked with her red hair. Like a sexy off duty cop, Denis thought, grinning.
Prime got there third and nearly took the man's head off with one of his energy blasts. Marcia was there before Proxy, but it was Brian who told Prime to stop, at least until they could get what information they could from the man. That came out calm. Dark though.
Oddly, the woman running the mobile cam kept filming the whole thing. Taping? They didn't use film or tape anymore, did they? Recording then, Denis decided a little abstractly.
Why would she be doing that? More to the point, why had she been recording the guy as he pulled the weapon in the first place, shouldn't she have been getting reaction shots from the other people at the table, since that had been the plan?
Set-up.
The words rang through his mind hard, so loudly that Christian glanced over at him, her face pale, then at the woman with the camera. After ten seconds she turned back to him and pointed, her hand barely going up, a one finger gesture toward the camera woman. Den got it. Take her down. Probably armed.
This time he tried for something special, that feeling he sometimes got when he woke but couldn't move for a bit. Sleep paralysis. If he could fool her enough... make her really feel it...
The woman went down, crumpling in place, not able to balance on her own feet anymore. Hey, Denis thought, excited, it worked. Didn't even have to torture her. Well, it would add to the arsenal if nothing else and he hadn't even hurt either of the people. No matter who they were.
So no one could even say he'd been a prick about it, there was a problem and it got taken care of peacefully. That had to be worth a smiley face in his record, right?
Christian scanned the room and indicated the sound guy too. What the fuck? Denis couldn't believe it, half the television crew? They had to know that they wouldn't get away, not from this room, in a building full of super-powered beings. That meant some kind of suicide thing and transmission of the events. Probably live online.
Crap.
The sound guy tried for his bag, no matter what it held, they
couldn't let him get to it. Especially if it turned out to be a bomb. He dropped the guy with retching, one of the first things he'd learned to do on purpose, so his automatic fallback when things got tight. It worked to keep the man off the black sports bag at least, attention split he walked over and looked in. It was a crude device, a bomb, with only a manual detonator. Unless the rest was hidden.
“Bomb in the bag. It doesn't look active, but we should clear the room I think.” Running away would have worked for him, panic wouldn't though. He needed to stay focused to control the people on the ground.
Brian came and looked over too.
“Yep, that's a bomb alright. Let's get everyone away and get it out of the building. We just remodeled after all. Do we even have a bomb squad?” It was a valid question, since what kind of fuck-nut would sneak into the IPB headquarters with a bomb? That these folks hadn't been counting on getting out alive was clear now.
That kind of pissed Denis off. After all, he kind of liked Beardo the wonder cameraman, afraid of Infected or not. Either he was in on the whole thing which would suck, or the guy had been considered not worth enough for these others to worry about because they'd decided he didn't deserve to live too. Either way, damn.
Marcia smiled, putting her body between the device and everyone else firmly, her white outfit looking “festive” thanks to a teal sash she wore with it, a soft cloth looking thing. Her hair was short and still a deep brown, which looked cute enough, but she'd looked just as good and a little more girlish before with it in long curls. Maybe it was a statement about something? Going to war footing, or maybe just not wanting to deal with long hair anymore? Denis didn't know.
She grinned as she spoke, turning the smile into something harder. Meaner.
“Clear the room and the hallway going out. This looks to only be on a manual detonator, but just in case it's timed or remote detonated lets hurry. Chris, as unpleasant as it is, could you read Mcbomby's mind here and find out if the thing's booby trapped too? Probably best to do that down the hall though...”
The cool looking blond nodded stiffly and just walked out, waiting for the others to bring the new captives along. The rest of the show crew looked freaked, no one paying attention to them at all.
Denis sighed. Out of everyone in the whole room, he really shouldn't be the one trying to wrangle civilians, should he? He'd try for polite, he decided.
“Um, you, bitchy Director woman?” He said, pointing at the slightly scared and shocky brunette. “We need to get your people out of here now. Let's move.”
Nope, he didn't manage polite at all. Darn. He nearly grinned, but that would have been rude. Ruder. The woman looked at him and nodded sharply, her voice harsh and freaked out sounding as she spoke.
“Fuck you errand boy. We need to get this recorded. Gary, get the walk-around cam going, Rene, you do sound. Get the backup system going. Hurry!” The others fumbled and scrambled with the gear, taking an extra thirty seconds while everyone else left the room except for Marcia, Prime and oddly, Brian. They just waited patiently.
Denis smiled.
“Not to be a prick about this guys, but seriously, bomb? Brian, you get out too, and let's leave this to Marcia.” Fuck. It took a second but he got the idea. Prime wasn't staying with the bomb or the emergency, just the cameras. Brian... It seemed hard to tell, at a guess he stayed to try and protect Marcia of all things. From a bomb. Just brilliant.
“Prime... You get with the cameraman there, um, Beardo. Use your body to keep them safe and then do commentary... outside. Go! They're, um, civilians. Brian... Shit man, unless you've developed invulnerability in the last six months, come with us and let Beatdown here handle this.” A bit of panic crept into his voice. Didn't these people have any common sense at all? No one did anything.
“Move morons!” He finally blurted sounding exasperated.
Hopefully that wouldn't get him sent back to lock-up or have Penny slitting his throat in the middle of the night. Really though, it was a fucking bomb and he was standing in the room with it. They needed...
Mark really.
No shit. The guy that could stop time.
“Mark!” Denis yelled, a scream really. That it had taken that long to think of it... Denis did it several more times right in a row, as loud as he could.
The man appeared next to him, calm and relaxed looking, it both reassured and scared Denis a little. That peaceful look in a situation like this. It didn't seem sane.
“Yes?” Stasis said, looking at Marcia's back.
Denis took a deep breath and tried for Zen himself. It almost worked, a little.
“There's a bomb in that bag, manual detonator, but may be booby trapped or some other cock-smoking dick terrorist move like that. Could you take it past the perimeter fence for us and get away before it-”
The bag blinked out, and Stasis stood in a slightly different position wearing the same gentle smile.
“All done, I put it in the dirt off to the west side of the base, outside the fence, behind the hill there? Is that good do you think?”
Brian chuckled. It didn't even sound nervous or anything, just a little harsh, raspy, “way better than in here. We just have to hope it isn't a dirty-nuke or something like that. Now we need to search the room for anything else while Christian finds out what the hell this is really about.”
The bitchy Director of the show, now out of danger, started barking orders. Loudly. It would have been cute except that she kept calling Denis “boy” as if they weren't the same age roughly. She wanted to get the whole thing down, which oddly enough Marcia agreed with. She pointed at Denis and smiled grimly.
“Alright Den, get these people into a good position with Scott and let him run commentary like you said before. You can set it up, since it's your plan. Inside the fence and back a ways though. We'll look bad if they get blown up. You can get them drinks, these things always take forever. Hours of waiting before a little noise and smoke, but newsworthy for some reason. Plus we aren't even the bad guys this time. Hardly even roughed up the terrorists. Scott, be sure to mention that a couple of times, right? People with weapons and bombs, subdued without use of force?”
The large good looking man smiled.
“Of course.”
Whee, he thought while waving at everyone to follow him. Then, the deal was that he had to do what everyone told him for six months, wasn't it? That didn't mean he wanted to be called “boy” all day though. The trek had them taking the stairs for safety, which he explained twice while the bitch woman complained about having worn the wrong shoes for this. She had. On her feet were black high heels. With a freaking pant suit? Why bother? To add two inches to her height? The woman was already taller than most people. Five-nine or so. It made her look like a man in drag. A decent looking man in drag, but still, women weren't supposed to be nearly six foot. Not that he was being judgmental or anything, he thought, keeping the smart-alec comments safely inside.
He needed names for people because his nicknames tended toward abusive Denis knew. Like “Bitch woman” or “Beardo”.
“OK, just because we're all going to be working together and I don't want to go back to prison for torturing anyone today, how about we get some first names down here?” He said, walking out the front door, the lobby vastly improved over the last time he'd seen it. Way bigger and with a decorative fountain and modern looking glass front. From the outside it looked sweet. A slightly skewed but glimmering jewel of a building instead of the old ranger station looking thing they used to have. Much higher class. Like they were almost proud to be the IPB instead of just trying to hide in the middle of nowhere.
Outside most of the teams had already collected, along with the non-Infected personnel, most of them standing around the would-be terrorists menacingly, with Proxy standing in the middle of the group. The angry, angry group of super-humans.
“Back off!” The harsh voice worked and everyone stepped back a bit. One of the people, the bomb schmuck, had vanished. That
meant Brian had taken his place? It seemed about right. Denis kind of wanted to put a hurting on the creep himself and he was far from the most volatile person in the area at the moment. Still, it seemed a good enough plan, didn't it? The prick had tried to kill him.
But fuck it. He had to be all “good guy” now right, didn't he?
“Hey!” He yelled, sending a wave of calm over the assembled teams. “Let's deal with this like adults here. Set up a group to backup the gate guards in case something else is about to happen and...” Nothing else came. This kind of thing wasn't his strength, giving orders. Especially polite ones. Proxy finished for him.
“Right. You heard Denis. Team two take over on the perimeter. Team one, half of you stay with me once I get here, the other half with the cameras. Team three guard the Director, our Director, and make sure that the non-powered people don't get hurt.” Then he vanished leaving a shocked looking bomber in his place. Denis kept the calming field going while people spread out. It wouldn't last as soon as they got out of sight, but the longer he kept it going the greater the lingering effect would be. Emotional inertia he liked to call it. If you started happy, you tended to stay that way until something outside of yourself acted on you. It worked in the short term at least.
“Sorry.” He said, starting to walk again. “So anyway, I'm Denis. This big guy here is Scott Chambers, Prime. Names for the rest of you?”
The cameraman mumbled from behind the box on his shoulder, one with a strange arm sticking out to stabilize the whole thing.
“Gary.” No last name, but that didn't seem important. He was just “Denis” after all.
The sound woman took a deep breath. Just a bit plump, wearing work clothes and soft shoes, with short hair that made her look a bit like a dyke. That didn't matter either, Denis told himself firmly. Looks didn't make a person a certain way and even if she liked women, that was considered cool enough, outside of the religious community. Trendy even. The Prophet Darren had always gone on about it being a sin in the eyes of the lord, but if that fucker said it, the opposite almost had to be the truth. A real God wouldn't have made mistakes that way, would he?
