by P. S. Power
"It's what we decided to do initially. It wasn't like she could communicate with them, so we told her it was taken care of and then hinted to her parents that she was probably dead somewhere, so they wouldn't worry too much. I know it sounds horrible... But that's because it is. Still, it made sense at the time."
Brian grunted as he climbed in the passenger seat, trying not to touch anything with his bloody hands, in case it wasn't all dried yet.
"Not so much now. Her little brother is probably Infected and this is the third time that I've encountered him. It might be more than that. Whatever else he is the kid is a trouble magnet and doesn't seem to back away from a fight. We need to have him picked up." He filled in the location, which got Marcia to pull over and call the whole thing in to the base, which got action a lot faster than Brian would have figured. By the time they were driving onto the base he was safely with the IPB, people getting him ready for a flight to the base.
Luckily the rest of it wasn't his problem, except of course that Penny was his friend and probably would rather hear the news from him than from the Director, even if she liked the man. This might change that of course. Telling her family that she was most likely dead, instead of the truth... It was about as dumb as anything he'd heard in years. For one thing she could just make a phone call now, and that she hadn't was... Amazing.
Or would have been, if she hadn't known about it already. It was nearly impossible to keep a secret from her if she wanted to know something after all.
He went to find her first thing, and did, sitting at the dinner table in the Team Three dining hall. Not everyone was there, but the meal did have a few useful people, including Mark and Denis, as well as the Director. Rachel normally ate with them and Bridget too, but they were gone, probably at a family meeting. Karen was gone too, but he could look her up later. From inside the kitchen Janine, the evening cook walked out smiling and actually gave him a little hug. She was always sweet though.
"Hey you! Did you enjoy your vacation?" That got a strange look from everyone else, but Brian smiled at her. She wouldn't be in on everything, just being a cook.
"Not bad. Longer than I thought it was going to be too. The thing in D.C. wasn't great, but some of the rest wasn't too awful."
Then, as soon as the dark skinned older woman walked out of the room he turned to Penny and took her hand.
"How have you been?" He should have started right into the whole thing with her brother, but decided that he could work into it slowly. Maybe over the course of an hour or so?
"Great! I've been, you know, actually training. With Conroy? Learning to shoot and fight and all that. Now that you're back we're supposed to work together, since you can actually see me messing up. It'll be fun I'm sure."
"Good to hear, um, so... Penny, how do you get along with your brother? Jeremy?" If he had the wrong name he'd find out soon enough, but she sat up straight and grabbed him.
"Jer? He's missing. My mother said that he ran away from my aunt's house. It was kind of tense for a while..." She glanced at the Director, who was looking right at Brian, his eyes squinting over his charcoal gray suit jacket. He always wore suits, so it worked with his image.
"Brian... They told my family I was probably dead. I'm not wild about that. I haven't mentioned it to anyone, but... why did they do that?"
"I don't know, probably because they didn't think you'd ever be able to call home? Anyway, Jeremy is coming here right now. From Phoenix, so it won't take long. You might want to call and let your parents know that you're both alive." He was about to add that she could probably do that after dinner when she ran out of the room.
"Heh, a little bit excited I guess. Not that I don't get it. You kind of messed up, Moore." Brian didn't sound that mad though. After all he wasn't the one that they needed to apologize to for having messed up her parents' lives like they had. Maybe there was even a real reason? Just because Moore hadn't mentioned it to him, that didn't mean it couldn't exist.
He was about to ask when Dharma popped into the room, her voice a lot more tense than it had been earlier. It took him a second to make sense of what she was saying at all, because it was going out so fast.
She had to slow down and start over again.
"Run! Now!" He headed out the door as fast as he could go, not paying attention to what else was going on. In a moment he was somewhere else, the hallway of a building that wasn't that much different than the one he'd just left, except it had hard tile flooring all in white and his feet tried to slip a little the whole thing polished to a sheen. The walls were a stark color and it looked like a hospital, more than anything else.
Dharma paced behind him, her voice smoother now, but still scared sounding.
"In a second you'll see it, you need to keep going, you can't beat this thing in a fight, so don't even try. The woman you're taking the place of... She's food for it. They put her here as dinner... Here it comes." She sped up then, making him go faster in response, pushing himself as best he could. Thanks to the bit of healing he'd gotten earlier he was a lot faster than he had been for a while. It still wasn't superhuman, but the thing behind him wasn't going that fast yet either. It probably could, he realized, just as soon as it rounded the corner, catching a glimpse of it as he did.
It was all tan in color, like a lion or other big cat in build. It definitely wasn't human in origin, but it wasn't exactly a kitten either. It was huge for one thing, probably about ten times heavier than he was at a guess. It made noise as is ran, the claws scraping against the tile, making a glass like skittering sound. Even as large as it was and clearly doing no more than loping along slowly, it was closing on him fast. The windows he passed all had bars on them, so he couldn't just jump through. That meant finding some other way to escape. He struggled for the knife strapped to his right leg, panic not coming to him even as he felt the thing closing on him, the slim handle of the carbon nano tube knife hard to grasp, his moving leg making it almost impossible to manage. He got it anyway, just as he closed on the door at the end of the hall.
It looked to be a fire door, which would mean multiple pieces of metal to cut through if he tried it. The blade was sharp, a hundred times more than he'd need even for metal, but the thickness of the door would take time. He just didn't have the kind of strength to cut it with a blade at all. Not quickly. Instead he turned and ran the other way, using the wall on the right hand side to take a couple of steps and planting a hand on the creatures back to help him vault over it. That was a mistake, since the thing lashed out at him with a paw, faster than he could even see, hitting his arm so hard the whole of his armor froze in place for a second, his body tumbling after that as he flew through the air, coming out on the other side.
He didn't think that getting to his feet was really an option, but if he didn't the lady he was replacing would just die. He had a knife in his hand still and armor on, plus training. All she could do was scream and die. At the very least he could do his dying with dignity, as if that made any kind of difference at all. He rolled as soon as he could and ran again, back the way he came, still not having a plan at all. Not one that would work.
It wasn't until he saw the air vent that he came up with something. The plan wasn't a great one, but it might work, if the creature wasn't bright enough to figure out that it could just hit the ceiling and take the silver sections of vent out. Of course Brian wasn't small enough to get inside the thing, since this wasn't a movie. It was only about six inches across after all. The thing there wasn't that he could get inside of it, but if he could climb into the fake ceiling space, he could, possibly use it to crawl along and find some other way out. Daring to glance behind him he noticed that the thing wasn't in the hallway yet, so making a desperate move, he tried to run the wall in front of him and go straight up, stepping on the solid brick for extra height.
It worked, after a fashion, his head ramming not only through the tile there, which didn't hurt, but into a four inch mental pipe, which did, nearly taking him out, ma
king his vision go black for a few seconds. He took hold of the pipe without being able to see it and held on tight. Thankfully it was a cold water section, so he didn't have to burn himself to do it. Not at first. The smaller one inch lead colored line along side of it was hot though. He tried not to touch it, but failed several times as he wedged himself into place along the side of the air vent, both of the things too close to the true ceiling for him to get on top. He could crawl that way though, working along slowly, hoping he didn't slip or fall. The creature below him didn't make any vocal sounds, but he could hear it walking and on occasion, sniffing the air.
It was a bit distressing.
It took awhile for him to figure out how to get out, but the answer was right in front of him the whole time. Or, given his current orientation, right above him. He could see the floor boards and the lines that ran between them. All he had to do was use the knife in his right hand to make a hole and then he could try to escape from there, from the floor above. Hopefully that one wouldn't have its own monster. It took a bit for him to manage that feat, nearly slipping a half dozen times, barely holding on as he cut and resisted prying with the thin blade. It shouldn't break, but if it did he was stuck. That was so clear he didn't even have to think about it.
After nearly half an hour, he managed to poke his head through the hole in the floor he'd made above him, working his way through carefully, trying to ignore the armed men standing there, staring at him as he climbed up.
It was only two uniformed guards though. He didn't bother speaking, since no one would have been trying to point a weapon at him if they weren't in on the whole thing on the floor below them. Not unless they just didn't know about it.
"Freeze." One of them yelled at him. Like a cop. That got the man taken down almost instantly, his buddy cut several times before Brian even knew he was moving towards him too. It was what he was trained to do, but if these guys just happened to work in the same building as the thing downstairs...
Well, what were the odds of that? No one would keep that thing in a downtown office building, would they? He didn't think so. It wasn't a point anymore anyway. The men were dead by the time he could stop to think about it. Brian took the key card from the less bloody one and moved to the door behind them, ready to use it if he had to. It stood open though. All the doors leading to the stairs did.
He was almost tempted to run up, but realized that if he was in a regular building, escape would be easiest from the ground floor, as least once he got out of the thing. That part was remarkably easy to do at least, until he got to the lobby level and found another four guards, all wearing matching white shirts of heavy material, black ties and pants, standing there, looking at the front of the building, away from him. There was something to check out, after all.
Outside there was no light at all, not even a glimmer of one. Instead it was just a wall of dust, not solid, he didn't think, just a smoke screen that was nearly perfect. As he watched, moving toward the front door without stopping, he saw the form gently moving through the thick glass. It was hard to tell what it was at first, but it looked human and clearly had a space of clean air around it. Given the cat thing upstairs, he didn't want to bet on it being a person if he could help it. He did use the distraction to hit the closest two guards on his way past, trying not to slow down as he did.
That was nearly impossible, because the kind of coordination needed for running and punching something that didn't move was hard to master, but he did get them to fall down, leaving the right hand one with a deep cut on the back of the neck. It wasn't done on purpose, but he hadn't put the blade away yet. The next two men turned, one of them actually getting a hand on his side arm before they went down as well, the one on the left trying to yell something. Running he got to the main door just as it opened, the person stepping through being smaller than he was by nearly seven inches. She was old too, but the clothing was clean. So was her face.
Angry looking too. Bitchy even. She growled as he got to her, a huge plume of dirt flying at his face as he drove a palm into the center of hers, which made her nose pop loudly, even over the sound of the shifting dirt outside. It dropped from the air as she went to the ground, slapping the pavement outside hard. He turned after he passed her, kicking her in the throat as he did, then stomping the old head twice before the world cleared enough for him to actually run. The dust was still thick, but it wasn't that bad. He stopped though and decided that he had to kill the woman too. After all, she was a Class five or six Infected and each time he left her alive there was a greater chance that she'd wise up and kill him the next time they met. Earthling had a reputation for holding a grudge after all.
It took a minute, because he didn't feel like going easy on the woman, and did the deed by stomping, rather than the relatively quick knife. It still left the animal in the building, but he couldn't do anything about that, he didn't think. It wasn't a natural thing and if Dharma had been right, he couldn't kill it at all.
"Of course I'm right. This building... I think it must be Braid's. We need to go back in and see what we can find out." It was nearly a command, and one that fell on deaf ears as far as he was concerned.
"I know, but I have to get this woman away from here first. I don't have any way to do that without... doing it, that means running. I don't know who else is around here either. We kind of have to call this one a win and hope we can figure out what the hell this place is later." He started running away and kept going through the slowly drifting dust for a long time, the dirt working into his nose and lungs, but not too much so. It was about as bad as being in a desert he decided. It wasn't one though, it was a town. Not a huge one though. It didn't have a wall or even a fence around it, so he was able to head out and just get away.
Except that he didn't leave. That probably meant that he was being followed. The woman was in danger if she was caught, clearly, so he had to keep going until the people here couldn't find her. That wasn't easy it seemed, which meant they were either really high tech, or something else entirely was going on. He kept going though, until he found a river about fifteen miles from where he started. He drank some of it, hoping it was clean, noting that there were animals tracks by the edge of it, which was a good sign. If there were tracks and no bloated and dead bodies, it might be safe enough.
For a while he wondered if the big cat creature had been sent after him, but as night fell he felt the familiar tingle come, which probably meant they were tracking him visually. Night might just end that if it was the case. He fought the feeling for as long as he could, running in a different direction for fifteen minutes, hoping it would put the girl in a safer place when she came back. The woman. It was funny, but as sometimes happened he was picking up a little bit about her. She was around thirty and had been abducted from a grocery store parking lot. She had a daughter, but thankfully she hadn't been taken too. No one had spoken to her, they'd just dumped her in the hallway and the cat monster had come.
Then she wasn't there anymore.
Hopefully she'd be smart enough to keep running after he left, because he just couldn't hold it off any longer. The buzzing on his skin was stronger than normal, or he was being more sensitive, but he just ended up back in the hallway of floor nine.
There was no one around, but he'd been gone for quite a while. He didn't know what to do for a bit, so he just sat on the carpeted floor and waited, resting as he could. Finally he got up and went down to floor eleven, not knowing how late it was at all. He couldn't wear a watch after all. Brian tried to knock politely, instead of pound, but anyone bothering you too late would seem to be too loud, right?
The Director opened the door, a halfway amused look on his face as he did, obviously having gotten directly from bed.
"Emergency?" His voice was concerned, almost worried. That made sense, because Brian wouldn't have got straight to him if it wasn't something important, would he? They weren't that close.
"No, a report. Um, Braid, I think, has some kind of facility doing
genetic experiments, making monsters capable of taking on a class three or four. I'm not sure, it could be more than that. It wasn't intelligent. Not the one I saw. Big and fast though. They were trying to feed a woman to it." He leaned against the door frame for a second, exhausted. "Oh, also, Earthling was there. I killed her." He was about to turn and walk away when the man's voice came at him, slightly awed.
"You took her out in a fight? I've seen her kill hundreds of men at once and she only seemed to be getting stronger over time..."
"Um... no. I figured out who she was and didn't give her a chance to respond at all. I'll save you the details, but it wasn't nice." He did leave then, knowing he had to sound totally insane. Walking back to his bedroom, taking the stairs for the extra safety they afforded, he wondered what he was supposed to do next. He'd finally gotten one of Alpha, but it didn't make him feel any safer. No, for that he needed to take out the head. He had to kill Braid.
So far though he'd never found her on purpose. Really he hadn't even tried. That would have to change and fast, if he wanted to get anywhere near stopping the war that was coming. So far, for all that it felt like the IPB kept winning the engagements with their enemies lately, they were still losing the most important battles, over and over again.
The reason for that was pretty easy to see, of course. People hated the Infected, and the IPB as a whole, even the agents, were viewed by the normal people as being pro-bad guy most the time, because they didn't kill every little old lady or child that could make themselves smell like cheese or glow under a black light.
On the other side, the Infected were afraid of them, thinking that just meeting with the IPB was a death sentence, because that was all the news cared to show most days. They were losing the propaganda battle and Braid didn't even have to really try. It felt that way at least. Team One went out and shook hands, met important people and even did speaking engagements, but it just wasn't enough. Not anymore. How to improve on that he didn't really know.
