The Infected: Ripped to Shreds (Book 1): Hush

by Power, P. S.

  "All right. That's probably a good idea. I hadn't realized that my joking could seem like that. I was just trying to be friendly, not really tear him down."

  Which was why she'd hidden her attacks from the man. So that it would just be her playing. Not being an evil and horrible person. As well as a bad boss. The woman wasn't that bad, compared to most. Not if Cin was going to be fair about it all. It was just that killing her always felt so right, even for the little things that she did. That made it hard to be nice to her all the time.

  She kept talking a little gleam in her eye.

  "I didn't know that you liked him that much. Are you two dating?" It was supposed to seem clever, and a little sly. Like she was trying to needle her over it.

  That wasn't her real intent. She was trying to get an admission, so that she could fire them for a real cause. It was against the rules for coworkers to date. Other people did, but that wasn't a thing that Cin had control over and wouldn't matter in court.

  "Nope. I do like him best, but I haven't really dated anyone in years." That was the simple truth. She hadn't since she'd woken up one day feeling cool inside and seeing script over the heads of others. It hadn't taken long to figure out why it had happened.

  The woman tried again, cajoling.

  "Oh, are you sure? No going out for coffee? Maybe the occasional dinner?"

  That just got her to roll her eyes.

  "No. He's never asked. Anyway, I need to go. Those IPB people are supposed to meet me for dinner. I don't know what they want. Probably a free tour guide. Which I can do. Not that they don't freak me out. I've had nightmares about two of them, after all." She hadn't, but that wasn't the point.

  She just needed to give a reason why she'd be going with them.

  Glenda nodded, her eyes going wide. They were a blue green, and seemed a little murky. Muddled and confused, all the time. Especially now.

  "I understand. I didn't know that little girl was the same one from television. All those murders... What... I don't need this. We don't need that kind of person."

  That seemed a little over the top to her. After all, Glenda was a bigot, but not that huge of one. She was already coming to grips with the idea that Wally, their buddy, wasn't a bad guy, no matter what. Even if he turned out to be Infected. Looking up, she saw that the woman was processing things, and actually trying to just be concerned about the killers.

  Cindy had to fight a smile.

  "I hear that one. Still, they fight for us. We should give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, if you were about to be murdered for your skin, wouldn't you want Proxy to show up and take your place?" Thin, tidy strips of flesh being cut off... Red trickling out from the knife work...

  That got a nod, and the woman backing up a little.

  "Well, I won't keep you. See you tomorrow? We close at five, I think I saw you on the schedule?"

  She was on the thing, which the woman knew. Put on it, along with Wally, because they didn't have anyone that would miss them, working on the day before Thanksgiving like that. It was bullshit, but she could use the money, and it wasn't going to be hard. No one really slammed the library that close to the holidays. Even if they did, she wasn't really going to mind doing her easy job. Plus, Glenda had put herself on it too, all day. She had a family, complete with three kids, so some part of her was trying to be fair about it all.

  "Nine to five. Well, see you then!"

  She got out of there, wondering if she should be more concerned with her boss working out that she was Infected, or that Impulse could accidently rip her spine out.

  Oddly, the idea that they'd work out she was the very killer they were sort of looking for didn't even cross her mind. It was probably narcissism, but she felt like they wouldn't be able to work that one out very easily. In all the world she was one of the last people that anyone would consider as being a danger to anyone else.

  That was done on purpose, a lot. Her mind was wicked and so were her hobbies, but she managed to seem fairly mild, most days. Getting after Glenda about Wally had been a mistake, though one long in coming. Out of everyone there he was the one that no one should be messing with. They did it, because he was a little awkward. He wasn't the biggest, strongest looking guy, and seemed a bit off. So all his hard work, the extra time he put in... Even his guarding them from possible harm, that stuff didn't count.

  It was kind of pissing her off, she realized, as she drove away.

  Sure, he'd made some difficulties for her, by being too attentive for a while, but his heart had been in the right place. It was a strange thing to her, considering that. It wasn't that she felt things like love really, at least she never had, but the man was hers. Like a dog might be. She didn't feel that strongly emotionally towards him perhaps. That still didn't mean he could be kicked without her saying something about it.

  As she drove it away, Cin shook her head, and then paid attention to the road. It was raining out, and cold. Not freezing yet, but it felt too close to her liking.

  "If I wanted to play in the snow, I'd move to the freaking mountains. Grrr."

  For a moment she wondered if this was actually something that Wally was doing. Not on purpose, just because he was kind of stressed. There was no way to know it, but it felt like snow was coming and that was wrong. It was November, in Vancouver. That just didn't happen. Not that it really was yet. The rain that came down had a thickness to it. It was well and truly dark, and what was coming down was slush, not delicate crystals.

  Luckily her car had good tires on it, and she knew how to drive in the snow. That came from learning to drive in Minnesota, originally. Before her family had moved, six years before. So that made one person on the road that knew how to do it. She grinned, feeling a little wickedly about the whole thing. After all, she had snow chains, if it came to that. Unused ones, but she could make her way around, when a lot of people would end up locked in place.

  It didn't take her a long time to get back home, and changing into something a bit dressier wasn't a long trip for her. A black blouse, a long skirt and some make up did the trick well enough. Her soft blonde hair wasn't too long, being around her collar, but she spent a bit of time on it. Not because she wanted to impress anyone, in particular, but due to the fact that normal women would.

  Cin was single, and there were going to be three fairly eligible men at the meeting with her. It was a meal too, which drove the sense of the thing closer to being a date. A group one. Most likely she wouldn't have to be putting out at the end, since that kind of thing would be pretty confusing as far as who she was supposed to be with. Proxy had been thinking she was decently cute, and seemed interested in her, but there were two others that might be her type. If she had one.

  Gravity... He was kind of an unknown. She'd seen some pictures of him on the news, and he was good looking, in a slightly blocky way. Not fat, but the kind of man that had a powerful jaw line that reminded her a little of a brutish type of person. His power was pretty neat though, being the ability to manipulate gravity. She'd seen him fly, which clearly meant he did more than make things heavy.

  The red haired man, he was odd. His words had been strange and very different than the others. Odds were she wasn't going to want to be around him all that much. Not because he was a bad person. No, it was just too hard to know what he was going to pick up on.

  Bridget, the tiny powerhouse, she was dangerous. Honestly, they all were, most likely. Proxy was clearly a genius for instance. He thought in math, at least part of the time, and things came from him nearly as fast as she could track. Trying to play him would have to be done very carefully. The leaps he'd been making... They were huge, and tended toward being accurate. It made sense to her that he could know the future, at least on some level.

  Nothing happened after that. Not for a long while. Really, she kind of wondered if something had happened, or if they were just going to blow her off. That might, she considered, be the case. The chance at a date might not be as important as doing the actua
l job they came for. That might also include wanting to spend time with family, and not some strange half cute librarian.

  Just as she was about to go and take her makeup off, her cell phone rang. The tune was the one she'd set up, being a bit like a music box. It tinkled along, catching her attention and seeming very girly. That was her point, so it worked pretty well for her.

  "Hello?" She didn't give her name when people called her. Cindy was the only one that ever touched her phone, so if they dialed the number, they got her. If they didn't know that, it wasn't her fault.

  "Cindy? Brian Yi here. We met earlier, at the Library?"

  It didn't take a master of the world to understand that this was Proxy. The voice was the same, for one thing.

  "I do remember that. It's probably going to be a shock to you, but when the IPB shows up and outs you at work, you tend to remember it." She let herself sound happy about it, or at least wry.

  There was a sharp inhalation then.

  "Fu... You didn't get fired, did you?" The man actually sounded upset by the idea, which was kind of nice to hear. It meant he wasn't an a-hole. Even if he was dangerous to her.

  She shook her head, but got the real idea. If she'd lost her job, it was going to be that much harder to get her into the sack. Not that he'd been thinking that exactly.

  "Nope. Glenda, my boss, suspects Wally though. I think I managed that so far, but it isn't a great thing. We need him though. He does about a sixth of the work there." She paused and shrugged. Not that anyone could see her, being in her own living room. "We have fifteen people on staff, so you get the idea? If Wallace goes away were all going to be stuck doing our jobs. No one wants that."

  There was a polite chuckle then. It was warm, and very nearly friendly seeming. That was a thing she'd noticed before in her life. When she spoke on the phone Cin couldn't read what people were thinking about, and what they meant. It forced her to focus on how they sounded instead. That was more work, but she was smart enough to get the basics of it. Most people lied, constantly, including to themselves.

  In this case the man was probably worried that he'd actually made Wally's life harder. Pissing off someone that could ruin the world's weather if they decided to wasn't a wonderful plan. In fact it made much more sense not to mess with him. In this case not getting him fired had to be part of that.

  Cleverly, Proxy changed the topic.

  "So, we were thinking about just going to Denny's for dinner? I know, it's a bit high class, but Bridget's paying and she eats a lot." He sounded a bit wary.

  Cindy didn't really care. After all, she hadn't eaten all day, and someone else was paying. That worked for her. Free food was a good thing. Plus, it wasn't really a date, they were supposed to be getting together for some kind of professional reason. That was a bit too shy, really. Proxy had been hurt though, recently enough that this was nearly the first date that he'd had since his break up.

  How she knew that, Cindy wasn't all that certain. It was close to something that she'd read earlier, but not exactly the same. It was right. She knew that, but how it was happening she didn't understand. It wasn't until she looked up that she got it.

  Even though they were talking on the phone, she could see his words in front of her. Floating in the air, in multiple colors. The things were big, and see-through, but normal enough that she hadn't realized they were there at first. In fact, she'd been reading them the whole time, not even being aware of it.

  That had to be about her level of focus on the man. She tried to concentrate on him, which did very little, but when she stared at the words, the image became darker, and clearer to her eyes.

  The story wasn't that great of one.

  Proxy, Brian, had been ripped around as far as relationships went. Women that he'd trusted had betrayed him, and used him sexually. It was pretty much rape in at least a few cases, too. Enough so that if he'd been a woman someone would be in prison at that point. Instead they'd all walked, since no one really cared what happened to men that way.

  So he was recovering, on his own. His last real relationship had been a trick, too. Something set up by Devorah Timberland to mess with his head and try to control the world.

  After a moment the voice in her ear came back.

  "Did I lose you?" He sounded concerned, and the words explained to her that he was worried that she wouldn't be impressed enough with Denny's. That he should have found something nice, and possibly even asked her out like a real person, instead of taking the safe route. Just as he began to give up, she cleared her throat.

  "I'm good. I was just reading. Your info? I've never done that over the phone before, so it was distracting. Denny's is fine, by the way. We can see if we like each other well enough for a real date later?" That was dangerous, being too forward, but that kind of thing most often worked for her.

  People liked what they thought of as honesty, as long as it didn't hurt their feelings too much.

  "Um... That sounds good. Luckily I'm used to people reading my mind." There was a bit of scolding to the tone, but not enough to make her feel like he was really upset.

  "I'm not, really. It's more like reading a textbook about Brian. Or whoever I'm researching at the moment. I don't get to control what I get, and it isn't your thoughts directly either. So, it's useful, but, you know, it's just not the same thing. Plus everyone presents differently. I probably wouldn't even have gotten anything right now except that the whole IPB thing is freaking me out." Admissions of things like that tended to make people feel closer to you, she knew. It was a trick that she'd used before, many times.

  In this case it was working pretty well, too.

  "So, we can meet at Denny's in half an hour? We're already here, and have a table. Bridget couldn't wait."

  That got her to nod.

  "Hmm. Ten minutes? I live pretty close. I'll be right over?"

  "Sounds good. See you then!"

  He hung up, but the words didn't fade at all. Instead the story went into things about her. It wasn't nearly dirty enough to be entertaining, since most of it was about his self doubts, and about how many ways things could go wrong between them. It was a little sad, watching it all, but she was deep enough to know that things like that were normal. Proxy wasn't some kind of sad sack, he was just like most men.

  Except the part where he could kill her in a fight, even if she got the drop on him. She'd seen him doing it, on the news. Taking out a small army of Infected people. Each of them had powers that should have killed him in about ten seconds. Class fours at least, for most of them. Instead they'd all died, in less than a minute.

  It had been impressive. Now that she'd been learning to fight herself it was clear that it was a lot more special than even that. Cin could kill, and fight, but she wasn't an idiot. Proxy was way out of her class that way.

  Seeing what he was like inside was confusing, actually. He seemed... Nice. Really, like Wally was, in a lot of ways. If Wallace had less sex running through his mind all the time. Weirdly, Brian was going on about relationships, and being close to people a lot more than anyone else she'd ever read. It probably meant he was either a stalker or the best boyfriend material possible.

  She had to stop paying attention while she drove, and lost the page in her mind. Otherwise she probably would have crashed, since there was actually snow coming down now. Not sticking, but that would come, she didn't doubt. It was inconvenient, so of course it would work that way. No one else got that yet, so Denny's was actually busy. It was about eight, so that was right.

  She couldn't see anyone inside. Not that she recognized, at any rate. There were people, but those were just bodies to her. She didn't know them, so they didn't count as more than background decorations. Walking in she looked around, wondering if it was the wrong place. After a few moments, a tiny redhead in a pink dress and running shoes, which were also pink, popped around the corner to the left.

  "Cindy! Over here!" Impulse waved at her, happily.

  Like they were old friends, n
ot people that had just met that day. Then, she'd figured out why Cin had been invited to the meal already. Both because she was bright, and because she'd heard the entire phone conversation. It was also clear that the girl had smelled her coming. For half a minute she wondered if she should have taken a shower first, but that wasn't a problem. The girl enjoyed her scent. Bridget was just so keen that way she could pull her profile from a room full of people, grabbing it from under the food scents.

  That was impressive, really.

  So she waved back, smiling hugely.

  "Hey! Is everyone back here?" It was the case, and the girl, helpfully, gave her a page of data on everyone as they turned to walk.

  Doug Tibs, Gravity, was Brian's best friend. Bridget kind of liked him, as in wanted to have sex with him, but was playing a long game there. She was still a bit too young for him, and looked more youthful than her real years. She was sixteen. Her looks made her seem closer to thirteen or fourteen.

  That had to mean that Wally's brother had been a real life perv however. Impulse had been twelve, which was young, when she'd started having sex with Clark. But she'd looked about nine. It was all right there on the page, but that shifted back to the people at the table, as soon as they got there.

  The other man was Hobbs. He was probably the best fighter in the world. That news surprised her, a little bit, but the man was going over related skills still, his mind an illustrated manual of fighting techniques, as far as she could tell. His face held a placid and relaxed smile, but he was all about combat.

  Brian half stood, his face happy enough to see her. Too much so for some woman that he'd just met. Then, she'd set the rules on the phone, and he knew this was the interview portion, as far as dating, which was important to him.

  She went first.

  "Hi! I'm Cindy. Cindy Mableton. Call me Cin?" She waited, looking at each of them closely. Looking for any hint that they knew her secrets.

  They didn't. Doug thought she was cute and felt a bit sad that Brian had gotten to her first. Not that he was going to make a play for her, not now. He was a good friend that way. Hobbs worked out fifteen ways to kill her, using the objects on the table. A few of them were clearly too fanciful to work, which was noted in the text. Sugar packets just weren't that great as a weapon. Still, they could be used to distract a person, if thrown into the face, either closed or opened. Salt was the same, but more of an irritant if used right.