The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  Director Moore didn't smile but he stared at the guy on the ground.

  “I see. So aiding and abetting terrorism with a set of illegal acts? I think that makes them needed by the DHS, unless I'm incorrect there Agent Galley?”

  “That's not wrong. We don't coddle terrorists anymore in the U.S. Especially domestic ones.”

  Denis watched for a while, just standing and making sure no one did anything too stupid. Their people had stayed good, except little Bridget roughing up those cops earlier, but no one mentioned that at all. Who would? If the police whined about it they'd look ridiculous. Especially since they hardly made an arrest without more violence than that themselves anymore. They tasered grannies on the internet and no six year old was safe from their mighty wrath and all that. The claim was that they had a right to get home safe, and since anyone could be Infected and have super-powers, everyone had to be treated as if they were armed and dangerous all the time now, six, sixteen or sixty. Maybe it was true? Even Denis could see they had a hard job. Well, the real ones did. These guys didn't count.

  Things got cleaned up slowly, the military pulled out and took the cops and the show crew away, just the bad ones, and nearly an hour after that they started clearing up the other things, trash and leftover cake. No one had been that hungry for some reason. That meant that at only three in the morning Denis finally got to fall into bed.

  The room didn't have light in it, except the light blue glow of his digital bedside clock. It was a pretty color he thought as he closed his eyes, not able to keep them open any longer. At about eight-fifteen a.m. someone started pounding on his door. He woke with a start and realized that it didn't come from his door at all, but the one next door.

  Penny's room.

  Denis poked his head out into the hall, not seeing anyone there at all. So yep, Penny. She couldn't be heard if she was too close, so she'd worked at a distance. Kind of clever.

  “Uh, hey, Penny? I don't know if you're out here... Is something up?” It sounded stupid, talking to an empty hallway, but if it really was empty, no one would care. In answer Denis fell into the hall, not able to control himself. When he got up a sharp jolt from behind pushed him into motion.

  “That's a yes then? OK. Just don't kick my ass until I wake up, all right? Can I get dressed first do you think? I guess push me again if it's really important and I'll just go with you like this...” Nothing happened so he hurried in and got regulation sweats and running shoes on. There were a half dozen sets in his closet and all his old clothes had been taken a long time back... and possibly burned. No one but him really liked the look.

  This would be faster anyway, no picking outfits or trying to color coordinate, just slip on the stuff and go. Less than four minutes later he was ready. Not clean and shaved ready, but good enough for an emergency.

  In the hall he put out his right arm slowly. “I guess, um, you lead?”

  That seemed a good enough plan, since he started moving on his own toward the elevator. It felt creepy, like falling when drunk, the world moving without controlling it at all. Even knowing intellectually that an invisible girl had his arm right now, he didn't feel it at all. Just the motion of his own body through space. Running, since that got less pulling. A bit less. It occurred to him that Penny, whoever she really was behind her veil of not-being, seemed a little faster than he was. Either just in better shape or an actual ability, or possibly both.

  The buttons in the elevator worked themselves, taking them to the second floor with that rapid pressure that tried to make Denis' knees buckle like it always did. On the second floor the gold and tan colored box opened and the running started again. Or as he liked to think of it, the half mad scramble not to be dumped on his face.

  The room they ended in held about thirty people, most were admin types that he'd seen around but didn't know by name, but all the members of his new squad were there along with Charlot Chambers, Proxy and all the team leaders.

  They were watching TV.

  Cool. It was just a news show and the footage looked familiar, but that worked for Denis. He hadn't seen a working television in... forever it felt like. Proxy waved them over and pulled up two chairs. One for Penny, and one for him? Nice of the guy considering everything. Denis felt himself pushed into the outside chair a little roughly, probably so that Penny wouldn't have him sitting on her lap.

  “Easy there inviso-girl, I may need my spine later.” It sounded a bit snappish. Denis covered with a smile. “What's up?”

  Brian pointed at the screen.

  “Hooper.”

  Ah. The footage being shown had close-ups of the police being apprehended by a tiny red-head. Blurry close ups were shown of each kick and tickle she'd given them, spliced back to back to make it look like she'd horribly beaten a single cop that kept changing position and skin color. It was a kind of neat effect he thought, the form on the ground distorted to try and make it look like a single person, though it didn't really look anything like what had happened.

  The news caster was “horrified by the brutality”.

  “I can barely look at it. To think that harmless looking little thing took out over sixty law officers like that... It's incredible and terrifying at the same time.” The woman said, her eyes scared and light brown hair looking silky, make-up perfect and skin flawless.

  “That's right Jan,” the man speaking was older than Denis remembered. Fitter and wearing nicer clothing. But it was him.

  Denis went cold. Then hot, sweating as he listened for about ten second. It was him.

  Him.

  “Fucking cock smoking whore!” He screamed, standing and walking toward the screen. He stabbed his right index finger at the man's giant face. “What the fuck is this creep doing on television!”

  The Director looked shocked and walked over quickly.

  “A problem Mr. Tompkins?” The older, heavy man said, a concerned look on his face after a few moments.

  “Fuck yeah there is! That a-hole is a child molesting and abusing psycho Christian cult leader. It's freaking Prophet Darren! He should be doing time in ass rape prison, not chatting up hot chicks on TV!”

  The man had continued to speak while Denis ranted, what he said made the room go silent.

  “Yes, a darling little girl, but Infected. Just as we saw with little Melany Miller a few months ago, even the most innocent of children become monsters when the Infection strikes them down. Why I myself was once tortured for several days by a youngster whom I tried to council in the ways of our lord, unable to control himself when the plague took his mind and heart from God. The feeling of being helpless as you watch a good but troubled soul sink to the evils of Infection... It's heart breaking.” The tone seemed sincere, but it wasn't. Monsters don't get broken hearts. It was a rule.

  Denis growled. It wasn't his kind of thing normally, but words just didn't have the power to convey his feelings at the moment.

  “Damn straight I tortured him! Twenty-seven kids abused by that fucker. Twenty-seven! For years, more by now I'm sure. All the girls raped over and over again, sometimes while he made the rest of us watch. When I could I made him pay. I should have killed the fuck, but I was too afraid back then. We need to take him down.”

  Denis wanted to throw a chair through the screen. That, or pack it off to his own room. Neither happened, instead a hand touched his shoulder, half spinning, ready to fight, he saw that it was Karen. Right, compassion girl. She drew him into a hug. That would have been nicer a few hours before, still Denis took the comfort for a moment and tried to relax. Go Zen.

  A shuddering breath or twelve later he sat back down.

  Charlot Chambers looked at him closely, an evil smile just touching her lips, half a look of disgust, half joy. Pretty much her happy face.

  “How long ago was all this?” She said, her eyes lighting a bit.

  “Crap, um, seventeen years? Something like that. That's when I left.”

  “The statute of limitations has run out then. At least f
or the things you know of right now. All right, we can still use it to silence the man, if we act carefully. Possibly hurt Hooper through association as well.” That... seemed to make Chambers far more happy for some reason.

  Nothing more got said then, because Marcia walked to the front and clicked the television off.

  “The spin is this, the police came to try and free good “heroes” from the evil Infected and were taken down by Bridget. Acting alone. It sounds ridiculous, but the idea is to scare the average person into action against us all. Plus we can't argue that she didn't do it alone, because if she had there would be a pile of corpses instead of arrested terrorist. There's a rally being planned for three months from now, the “million clean march” if you can believe it, apparently they aren't concerned about sounding like morons as long as everyone knows they're not Infected. Before that a whole lot of crap will be coming our way. This has organization written all over it. In four days the first event is to take place in Chicago. A “peaceful rally to show concern over the Infected menace.” The city has granted a permit which means we need to be in place for it.”

  Marcia looked at everyone silently for a few seconds, then shrugged.

  “From there, two days later in Portland, Oregon though that's not confirmed yet, and three days after that in New Orleans, again, not confirmed. Others may pop up and the schedules may change. It's as if the protesters are setting something up on purpose, to throw us off, which shows a lot of organization separate groups shouldn't really have.” The new squad leader looked firmly at all her team.

  “We have to travel carefully, so we leave in twenty-four hours. Unfortunately that means that we don't get time to train together more than once. This afternoon out back. Come dressed ready to work.”

  Then instead of being dismissed they got to listen to Senator Hooper next, rubbing elbows with the “Reverend Darren Jones” as they spun a terrorist act into being all the fault of the evil Infected. It seemed weak to him, an argument that shouldn't have swayed even a bigot. Unfortunately life didn't work that way. When people already believed something, no matter how stupid it really was, anything that supported their argument always made more sense and carried greater weight than the truth.

  On the good side, the full footage had been covered on most channels and they were being far more fair about the whole thing. There was to be a press conference later that day with the head of the DHS even. What would be said there no one knew. Probably a massive betrayal, with them being blamed somehow. Cock smoking government goobers trying to protect their jobs instead of the law.

  The story split into two camps rapidly, the obvious bigots and the people who saw the whole thing as a terrorist attack on a government facility. The bigots were winning by the time they needed to go and practice. Denis didn't really want to do it, didn't want to go and just keep a crowd of actual bigots calm either. They would be just as well off sending in Team Two and killing the lot of them. At least it would make them feel better for a bit. Instead he found himself standing with Marcia in a “crowd” of “protesters” in back of the building. They'd dressed up for the parts they played too, obviously putting some effort into making the experience as real as possible for the defenders. In suits and badly fitted dresses, they waited. Even Level, the giant nine foot tall class five wrecking machine that looked like an armored insect man had a dress on. Well, a piece of fabric wrapped around to look like one.

  Denis hadn't known that she was a girl. Kind of an “oh crap” situation really. Her brown and black form looked hard and manly, so he'd assumed. See where that gets you, he thought, a bit chagrined.

  She held a sign that said, “The Infected want to seduce your children. Then eat them.” Next to her there stood a man in a nice suit and tie, the Team One leader, who also had a sign, his said, “Do not suffer a witch to live. Infected monsters are witches.”

  Most of them had something to make it more believable. One guy had a bullhorn and kept trying to get the others to chant with him.

  “No voting rights for the Infected! They shouldn't get schooling or health care! They drain resources from good law abiding folk!”

  The chants were horrible, but the guy tried. He had bushy red hair and a matching beard and looked to be dressed as a crazy street preacher. His sense of what made a good chant didn't match the costume though. Most homeless people seemed to rant pretty well in Denis' experience. As often as not it was all about self-defense, so a lot of street folk learned to act crazy even if they weren't. Crazy meant unpredictable and possibly loud and both of those things meant “don't mess with me” to criminals.

  The plan was simple. Standing back, dressed as a regular guy, a working man, Denis calmed the crowd as best he could. Just a light version of what Lady Glory did without the obvious glow. If need be he could ramp it up and match her power levels of course. Maybe do even more, since his effect could be spread more easily to multiple people. Hers lasted longer though, people felt pretty good for a while after she hit them. They were both considered class fours, but that had always seemed a little off to him. Not that it mattered. Maybe they'd factored in her looks as a super-power too? Or her tumbling ability. That last one nearly made sense really. He'd seen her do it on TV.

  She'd gotten gypped in the Olympics out of a gold.

  Literally, a single Russian judge had knocked off two full points to sabotage her and that only left her a tenth of a point behind the nearest competitor, who was actually from Argentina. It had been a national scandal at the time. The other girl had tried to resign her acceptance of the medal at the ceremony in protest, but Karen hadn't let her. Even Denis had teared up a little when he saw it nearly a decade before. Lady Glory hadn't even existed then. Karen popped two years later as she trained for the next Olympics, which never happened, since Infected people weren't allowed to be in the games, even if their powers don't affect their performance.

  If the crowd got too big or out of hand, then she'd open up on them too, her blue beam doing about what he did at the moment. Then Tobin would start singing, of all things, and that would throw most of them off. After that, if it didn't work, they ran. If anyone had to hurt the crowd, it couldn't be Infected government agents.

  That's what the cops were for.

  This crowd started harsh and fast, rushing the line of fake police played by some of the people that just worked at the base, mainly un-powered. They had body armor on and sticks as well as a few shields, clear plastic, meant to stop small arms fire and soda bottles, maybe a few rocks. Just like the real cops they hit the sides of their shields with black lacquered sticks, trying to stir the crowd to greater violence. The claim was that it was meant to get a crowd to respect their “authority”, but it never seemed to really work that way, did it? Denis ramped up the juice a little, getting everyone to calm down a lot.

  Then the crowd stopped all at once for about a minute, and started milling. The power level probably didn't match what a real crowd would need, because these people were just pretending to be insane bigots. It made a difference in how much effort would be required by him.

  A single gunshot broke them out of it and Level fell back, clutching her chest dramatically. The blast had come from the “police line”. Into the already subdued crowd. Crap. As a plan it worked and they already knew at least some cops weren't going to be on their side. After the last day, maybe none.

  LG hit them with her blast of blue as Denis increased the force of his own effect trying to subdue them again. It worked on these guys, causing them to freeze in awe for a bit. Then words and a simple tune lit the sky, the ground, everything. Goblin and his magic voice. The crowd started to wobble and shake, just standing and not moving at all. It was all Denis could do to withstand the effect, and he'd known it was coming.

  It worked. Right until the fire hose got turned on them. Not the crowd, them. As he went down Denis caught a glimpse of Jason Monroe the Team Three trainer and the tall blond agent closing in on them with the stream of cold water moving i
n lockstep. He rolled a bit under the force and tried to keep his focus on the crowd. That, he'd been told, was his part. Stop the bigots from becoming violent, the rest was up to the others. Tobin and Argos had to run, but Marcia moved in and hit both men controlling the spray pretty quickly. They went down hard too.

  The robot from the bomb squad, which someone had “borrowed”, tried to overrun LG, she flipped out of its way easily, and returned to hitting the crowd as the “police” ran forward and started hitting people with their sticks. They didn't really hit, but it made Lady Glory aim at them instead of the “protesters”. That worked until a tiny girl ran up and tackled him.

  “Down with the oppressors!” Bridget yelled as she took him to the ground with a decent thump.

  Denis apparently was an oppressor now. That part didn't really fit the role, since she was on that part of the line. He was down at least.

  “Ouch.” He muttered, right knee killing him. For a little thing she packed a wallop. Then she was fast enough to beat both Prime and Beatdown to the gunman the day before, wasn't she? Speed like that meant strength to go with it. She'd also done it in a dress. So had Rachel come to that.

  In the end the crowd overran them and they didn't even get away.

  After that it got worse.

  They learned from their mistakes, that wasn't the problem. The other side learned too however, and weren't above using special abilities to approximate regular attacks on the fly. Or throwing things. Or just cheating. So far just plastic soda bottles, mainly empty flew at them. He'd dodged the ones aimed for him, but poor Tobin had gotten hit in a concentrated barrage three times. That was probably even fair, since anti-Infected people would probably fear the small green and brown bald guy more than they did him. Especially since Tobin's normally black and green skin had changed colors under scrutiny from the crowd. He kept going until he sort of matched the color of the dirt and the scrubby plants left on the ground. It did nothing as camouflage, serving only to make him stand out even more. They were picking on him because of his distinctive appearance. Which would really be hard to disguise in the field.