The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  The man at the counter, who was quite clearly a lot more interested in checking out Karen’s behind from across the room than doing his job, managed well enough to hand over all the needed key cards to her anyway. She had everyone’s since it would be easier that way. Plus she was bossy. It was, as Prime had just pointed out, her job, after all, too.

  That and waiting it seemed. She was a little bored by the time the cameras decided they had enough, and several other food related celebrities worked into the mix as well. She didn’t recognize any of them, because as a rule she didn’t watch food programs. There was no point to it, except to remind herself how much fun everyone else got to have eating. It was fine for a week, if she had to put up with a bunch of elaborate meals the whole time, but a juice box and a pack of crackers was the same to her. Actually she liked that a little better, because the texture wasn’t generally as bland.

  No one paid attention to her though, until Lauren and Peggy came over to get their key cards figuring out what was going on without asking. The only surprise there was that they were both sharing a room with Denis. Marcia had known that Peggy and Denis sometimes hooked up, though she didn’t think it was all that serious. Lauren though… She was a giant walking suit of insect like armor. A wonderful person inside, sure, but could she even have sex? Marcia actually knew the answer, from the medical records in the woman’s file. It was no.

  So why would they all be sharing a room? What was the point? Maybe just simple convenience? Lauren was on guard duty after all. That wasn’t real, but it did look better if she stayed with the other woman all the time. If that was the case then Level was doing a lot better at her new job than Marcia had thought would happen, to tell the truth. She was a powerhouse and a sweet woman when you got down to it, but hard working had never really seemed like one of her top traits. Mopey, downcast, and pretty normal in most areas that weren’t physical, apparently a good singer, but not all that dedicated to the job.

  Of course, who was? Their job was about going and finding Infected people that had problems, and nine times out of ten, killing them. It wasn’t a fun thing to consider, because they were people too. Sick people that weren’t half as lucky as most of the IPB operatives were. If Marcia had been hit with a different first mode, even pure paranoia instead of the advanced state of caution she actually had, which was a pretty fine line when you came down to it, she’d have been one of the people that the IPB would have hunted down and killed. They would have tried at least. She wouldn’t have made it easy for them to do.

  Especially if she didn’t have a choice.

  She shook herself out of her own head and focused on the room, which was finally moving toward her, the others seeing that Peggy and Lauren were holding their keys already. It didn’t take long to get everyone assigned. They only had six rooms for the eighteen of them. The agents all got to share one, and they had plenty of space, but it left Warren as the odd man out. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t have taken him; the guy just didn’t think they’d be comfortable with him in the room all the time.

  She looked at him, and shrugged.

  “You can camp out with us if you want. Bridget, Penny and I. I warn you though, it’s a no sex room, so if you want to get any, I suggest you find someone with their own space. That, or get Penny to do you. I mean, if I can’t see it, I can’t complain, can I?” She knew Warren was gay, hence the offer in the first place, but the man sighed.

  “OK, but really, shouldn’t you check before you just give her virtue away like that? She might not be interested.” He smiled about it, and waved down his rail thin body. “Though what’s not to love?”

  The voice in Marcia’s ear hit about six seconds later, and sounded like the girl was standing right beside her, on the right. It might even have been the case.

  “Um, all right. Won’t Carl get mad though?”

  That got a response from everyone within about fifteen feet. The range was a little off on the devices still, so it sounded like she was speaking directly to everyone that was close enough and had an ear bud in.

  Marcia blinked, but didn’t say anything. Somehow, in all of it, she’d forgotten that Warren and Carl the level fifteen physical fitness trainer were an item.

  The man in front of her didn’t though.

  “Good point. Well, we’ll just have to keep it to friendly hugs and backrubs then.”

  That line seemed to please Bridget a lot, since she grabbed the man’s bag and started walking, since everyone else was on the sixth floor along with them, and had already located the elevators.

  The tiny girl sounded excited then.

  “We’re going to have so much fun!”

  3

  The room was pretty nice from the open doorway, even if they did have to share four ways. Functionally speaking that was about perfect as far as she was concerned. Marcia needed a room with enough people in it that no one would miss her too much if she vanished for a while. It would have been better if they had four visible people, but she’d make do. Odds were that anyone watching would be focused on her right now, out of this group at least. So it would take more work on her part to hide herself in the crowd.

  At least if they were talking bad guys. A cameraman tried to follow Warren, snapping pictures the whole time as they walked through the door. It was obvious enough that Marcia nearly confronted the man, to take the film, but Bridget took care of it instead, accidently grabbing the camera and crushing it before the man could do anything but gasp and call her a little bitch.

  The girl glared at him.

  “There have been at least two terrorist attacks on IPB personnel in the last two months. One of those was a camera crew that had a bomb. Do you have a bomb? How about a gun? Huh?” She started patting the man down as he worked very hard to get away from the tiny thing that was trying to reach into his pockets. It didn’t work very well. She was just too fast for him and short of hitting her there wasn’t a lot he could do about it but squirm.

  “What’s this now?” Holding up her hand Bridget showed everyone what looked to be a used condom at first. It had some white powder in it at the bottom. So it wasn’t the man just being considerate after his last rendezvous, not unless he had a major medical problem.

  “I don’t have very good drug identification skills, but I’m betting that no one walks around with drugs in a rubber as a rule. They certainly don’t carry sugar or flour that way… or wait… is that a cooking thing Warren? Condom cakes or something gourmet sounding like that?” The man was being pushed against the far wall by the time Marcia got to him, for some reason holding very still.

  Probably because the girl had a hold on his testicles and was squeezing just enough to get a reaction. Not a happy one either. The man eyed the camera that was in tiny shards on the floor and wisely didn’t say anything for a while.

  When he did speak the words were kind of predictable, if out of place.

  “I want a lawyer. This is police brutality.” He whimpered just a bit as the pressure increased.

  Marcia tossed her bag into the room behind her with a flick of the wrist, aiming carefully for the far bed, and looked over to see half the IPB operatives and all agents closing on them. Denis and Lancaster got to them first, with Denis putting a hand on Bridget’s shoulder from behind gently.

  “Easy now. No need for us to get worked up over a bit of would-be drug trafficking. Not our job. Let’s get Chris to make certain he’s on the up and up and then, if he is, we can cut him loose, don’t you think? Good catch though. I’m really having to wonder why someone would walk around with a condom full of… let’s see here… Meth is it? Those look like nice crystals to me.” He took the condom in a well manicured hand and held it up to the light a bit, but didn’t open it. After a few seconds he passed it over to Lancaster who did much the same and nodded.

  “Yep, looks like. Enough to get a person in a lot of trouble if they got caught with it too. Really strange way to carry. Why is that I wonder? Get this from a mule?” The musc
ular agent didn’t wait for anyone to ask more questions, just taking the guy from Bridget and handcuffing him in the hallway, with Reyes and Burke standing back; ready to shoot him if he so much as twitched wrong. It was just procedure for them. Anyone could be Infected on their jobs, no matter what they looked like and that meant anyone could suddenly whip out super-powers without reason. If things got even remotely tense, they’d start shooting.

  Then without a word the agents packed the man away with them into their room.

  Bridget clapped happily.

  “See? Fun already! Let’s go to the beach. I brought my bathing suit. Come on.” She sounded hurried, but that was normal enough for her. She didn’t even wait for the door to close before starting to strip off her clothing, even though the hallway was filled with people and not all of them ones known to her.

  Marcia was about to stop her when Penny did it instead, picking the girl up, so it looked like she was floating, and carrying her further into the room. It got her to stop for a few seconds.

  “Modesty, Bridgie. Everyone here has cameras and would get in trouble if they put up a picture of you online nude, being underage for that. Save them from themselves.” There was a low chuckle that followed the words, which sounded festive enough.

  Marcia grinned and closed the door.

  “Yeah, plus, not to be creepy, but it might look wrong if you strip off in front of Warren. Not that he’s going to stare or anything, but still, there are some perceptual issues there, you know? He’s famous and being linked to a young girl known for her lack of modesty might just be a bit too much this early in his career.” She glanced at the man who nodded but didn’t say anything about it.

  “Still, let’s actually do that beach thing. There’s a while before dinner, and I don’t think we have anything planned for the night. We should stay in a group though, or at least groups, as much as possible. Penny, you’re with me, if that’s all right? Warren, if you could…” Who the heck was she going to put him with? He didn’t have powers and was a chef. If something went wrong she didn’t want him to be in the line of fire, did she?

  Nothing should happen, but given everything she didn’t really trust that. Thinking fast she finally shrugged and pointed to Impulse.

  “Would you stick with Bridget for now?” She turned to the girl and gave her a serious look.

  “I know this is a vacation for Brian, but face it, you nailed that situation in the hall correctly. There are real terrorists around and Warren has to be a target, just for working with us and being high profile. A good choice too, since he doesn’t have any powers and everyone knows that. If anything starts to happen, your job is to protect him and get him to safety. Bodyguard detail. It may cut into the fun time a bit, but…” She had nothing that would work on a fifteen year old girl after that, not when she was basically canceling part of her vacation suddenly. It was a real point though, wasn’t it? Warren had to be a target, for selling out and working with the IPB so openly, even though he wasn’t one of them. He would have been one of the top five targets in her book at least, if she were the crazy bigot trying to make a statement. Of course Bridget was on that list too, and so was Brian, but anyone trying to take one of them out was dead. If the bigots were thinking, they’d realize that.

  Bridget for some reason didn’t pout or complain. Instead she stopped moving, which was incredibly obvious since she had a tendency to be in motion all the time, almost fluttering in anxious movement. It was tied to her power, since the girl was just that much faster than everyone else. Argos and Rachel both did something similar and so did Tweek from Team Two. It was a super speed thing that they largely couldn’t help. After about ten seconds the girl spoke, her voice eerily calm again.

  “All right. What level of danger are we looking at here? Do I need to be on alert all the time… like for real, or is this about making sure I keep a watcher with me?” She didn’t sound put out by it even. It was impressive. Insightful too.

  Marcia looked around for a second, wondering at it all, then realized that twice now the girl had obviously controlled her first mode directly, even when it was probably hard for her. Almost impossibly hard. Most girls her age would have been more emotional about the whole thing, but she was holding it together. Like an adult would have.

  Plus, like it or not, the girl was a full IPB operative. True, on Team One, which meant being part of the public face, but this part of things seemed to actually count for that, didn’t it? The whole thing came together after a few seconds and she made up her mind to stop treating the kid like a child, even if she did look like one.

  “Both, to an extent, though it seems like you don’t need a watcher right now as much as I thought. I’d say we should be on orange alert level for the duration of our stay, unless something happens, then we go to red. Now, before we go to the beach, we should sweep the room for bugs and search for cameras. In all the rooms. For once this may not even just be me being too cautious. We have actual celebrities with us and are at an event that people knew was going to take place. If the rooms aren’t covered with cameras I’ll buy dinner for everyone tonight.” She had the money, so it wasn’t a huge thing if they didn’t find anything.

  They did though. A lot of them. They pulled at least one button cam from each room, and found more than one in several. No one knew who was going to be in what space, of course, unless they had a precog working for them, whoever they were, so it was probably the whole floor being covered, not just their rooms. There were several listening devices too. Unfortunately it was all good quality stuff. If it had been bad quality or clumsily placed, she might have thought amateurs had done it, but this was clearly decent level work. Pro’s, or at least people with a lot of experience spying on others.

  She sighed when she finished searching Brian and Karen’s room.

  “What the heck, right? We need to get with the network people and check all their rooms I suppose. At least the ones that don’t want unauthorized sex tapes showing up on the internet. This is why I didn’t want to come in the first place. We have no clue who planted these. It could literally be anyone.” It was actually a bit frustrating for her, since she hadn’t had time to even read the note in her pocket. That was important, but if someone was watching her, she didn’t want to waive the thing around in front of a camera.

  When she got back to her room, she checked it again, in case anyone had come in while she was gone. Bridget and Warren stood holding towels and had swimsuits on already, though neither looked impatient yet. He had a pair of blue Speedo’s on and a body that, while a little thin, kind of let him pull the look off. Bridget was wearing something that actually covered more flesh than Marcia thought she’d go for, a black one piece that hugged her body. It didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see, so it kind of worked.

  Speaking in a normal tone, Penny’s voice entered her right ear.

  “Get changed then. We can play security agents for everyone else when we get back in. Most of the rooms don’t even have anyone in them yet. They’ll have to let us in to check them out. The hotel might do it, because we can pull rank, but I don’t think we should, if we can help it. Best to just make the offer and let people take it if they want or not. Some people might want the cameras watching them. I can’t think of why that would be, but then I’m not famous either.” There was a push that came from behind, it wasn’t hard, but it sent Marcia rocking forward anyway.

  It was like the world had bucked under her feet or something. A kind of movement that just shouldn’t have happened, the force vector not existing until she was in motion. The hand on her back wasn’t recognizable to her, even though that was probably what had happened. It was one of the reasons Penny creeped her out. The girl was there, but even knowing that, Marcia couldn’t keep the idea in her head most of the time. She had to though, since they were teammates for the week.

  “On that. I think I packed a bathing suit at least.” She knew she had. If there was beach work to b
e done, she needed it as potential camouflage. It was a blood red bikini that didn’t take up a lot of space in the luggage. It showed almost everything, but she didn’t need to hide a weapon on her, so that worked well enough. Besides, changing meant she could go into the bathroom alone for a few minutes which would give her a chance to read what was on the paper in her pocket.

  She changed first, and then pulled the message, if that’s what it was, to find that it wasn’t a full length letter at all, but just three words with the code phrase written under it. Blue Boat: midnight.

  It was a basic set up for a meeting. Now she just had to find the blue boat. It probably wouldn’t be something hard to find. Not given the fact that she didn’t know the area. A lot of people seemed to think that spy work involved a bunch of cryptic puzzles to solve, but that was almost never the case. When you passed a message to someone, the point was to be understood. Almost always. The cryptic part came into things only occasionally, when you knew someone well, had similar training, or time to plan, you could arrange things in a way that meant the individual getting the message would understand what was being said when no one else would. That made it seem like a special code and really could be hard to crack, but it was more about shorthand between colleagues than ciphers.

  In this case though it was probably simpler than that even. Morris wanted to meet with her and the secrecy was probably just habit, so it was most likely going to be something easy to find. An actual blue boat on the beach or something. Grabbing a towel from the rack to lie out on, she moved to go with the others. They had more than one mission after all and getting a vacation for Brian was pretty important. It might be the last one he ever got after all. That meant doing things that might be considered fun while keeping up with the other stuff. Marcia put a smile on her face before anyone could see her, just in case she seemed worried.