by P. S. Power
Even if she didn't understand exactly why she had to do it.
“That’s right. Me, Cindy, then you, as far as who’s responsible for the mission. I’m in charge, which is basically what that one means.” She managed firm and commanding again, which was reassuring to the other woman.
Not so much for Cindy, since she understood that until it came to the killing portion of events, Penny was kind of out of her depth. Except that just making good decisions was enough.
After that, the disguise portion of events being done, they managed to trade off driving for the next four days. It would have taken a lot less, but they didn’t travel in anything approaching a straight line. That included doubling back every few hundred miles, and hitting tourist destinations at least once every day. That included the stupid ones, like the world’s biggest hoe and a Tigger petting zoo. Not tiger. As in stuffed animals from Winnie the Poo. It was cute, and ridiculous, but they paid their four dollars each to stand there and pretend to be a couple on vacation.
Kerry didn’t mind that part too much, which was interesting.
It meant that they got a quarter mile away from the training camp, a thing with fences, cameras and actual guards on the wire, at about three in the morning.
Then they just parked, as Cindy tiredly found the right people. They were all awake, busily torturing little kids into being superior human beings. At least by the standards of Mariah the Divine Wind. Other groups did things differently. Some of them were incredibly harsh with their kids compared to the light electrical shocks and drug therapies being used behind the cyclone fence line that evening.
“We need to start now. Kerry, come sit and get comfortable. I’m going to…” Really, what she needed to do was push the other girl into actually doing what Cindy wanted. Otherwise Kerry was planning to get halfway through the whole thing and then quit. No one in the world would be able to make her perform, after all. Not against her will.
Except that, Cindy realized, she kind of could. Without warning she presented the data to the woman’s book, then wrote on the page underneath it.
Kerry is meditating, deeply.
Then she used the words of the story to lead the other woman through bringing things to her conscious awareness, and then destroying the brains of each of the adults in the place, one by one. They really should have taken the kids as well, she understood. Leaving them just meant that they’d have enemies later. Doing that would have broken Kerry’s mind and they still had use of her for a while longer. Penny just watched, the words over her head wondering if anything was going on at all.
After the second one, she waved and spoke softly, indicating that Kerry wasn’t disturbed by the words.
“We’re on the third one. This is all me doing it. Not Kerry. She’ll need to know that later. Otherwise… Well, she won’t handle this well. I’m so going to be waking up on fire, aren’t I?” That got a chuckle, but no denial. After all, it was more or less likely. Thankfully Poltergeist was more into rocks and water, which wouldn’t end up with them losing their transportation as easily.
Then, if she could take over the woman’s powers like she was doing and her mind, then getting her to not strike out at her might also be doable. How that kind of thing lasted long term she didn’t know, however. That it was doing anything at that moment was kind of a big deal.
Cooper smiled, which was invisible, but the words showed over her head about the whole thing.
“Got it. Great work then. Um, keep going? No alarms have gone up yet. Can we stop that from taking place?” How that was supposed to happen, the other woman didn't seem to understand, but Cindy kind of did.
It required her to find the person who was about to find the next body, and simply getting them to decide that there was nothing wrong at all with bodies having fallen to the floor while going after little kids for training. Kerry did her part however, so the people dropped like flies over the next hour. Finally, all the adults dead, Cindy had to find a little girl who had been being raped into having dual personalities to untie the bonds of the others. It didn’t fix their lives for them at all, of course.
Even calling the police wouldn’t. Most of them were far too young to actually run away even. So when the ten adults were dead, Cindy started the van and drove off into the night. After making sure that Kerry would stay centered and focused for a while, processing what had happened fully, without too much emotion.
From there they headed straight to Texas. Driving except to get gas, food and once to shower at a truck stop, which felt heavenly. It was nearly two days later when Kerry started sobbing, the initial instructions having faded away.
“I killed… All those people. I don’t even feel anything from it. I’m just… Sad, because I’m not feeling anything!”
Cindy was driving at the time, but Penny’s disembodied voice did the talking for them, so she didn’t have to pull over or try to take control of the woman again.
“Cin set that up, so you won’t have a problem with what has to be done. Right Cindy?” It was clear that the killer was making things up, trying to give Kerry a crutch to keep her going.
“Literally true. You weren’t in control of yourself for the kills, either. That isn’t a joke or trick, Penny. I really did also try for some emotional control. I can do it again now, if you want? Or fix it so that you’re in total control that way. Whatever you think you need, Kerry. I won’t do it unless you need me to, for the mission. Or, you know, weight loss or to stop smoking. I can totally hook you up that way.”
If the idea of a psycho having that kind of power over anyone occurred to either of them, they didn’t let it come to mind at all.
Instead Penny just nodded, which wasn’t visible except in print.
“Neat. We won’t need that for now, but keep it in mind as an option, right Kerry?”
That got a nod, and a soft voice.
“Yeah. So… That was really you? Not me just being… Evil?” The word actually meant something to the woman. It was a dark thing that held weight in her mind.
“All me. Well, not the first one, but those last ten were literally my doing. The first one was my responsibility, but I didn’t have control of you then.” It was probably too honest and she should have lied, but the woman actually felt better, knowing that part, for some reason.
They didn’t speak about anything except food until they got to Texas. This time the house was smaller, and very isolated. The man who lived and worked there was far from an easy target however. He was old, but looked youthful and powerful. As in strong in a fight. He had cameras, but nothing in place to read his, or anyone else’s mind. In fact he had baffles for that, in case anyone tried to look in on him that way.
The man, literally called Tex, wasn’t much of an inventor, but he was a great thief of other people’s work. His entire job with the group was all about doing that kind of thing, helping them to stay ahead of their rivals.
Penny waited for daylight, planning to just walk up and shoot him in the head. Except that, when that took place, the man dodged the bullet, and started to fight. With a woman who couldn’t be seen. Well enough that Penny wasn’t going to get the job done. When Kerry tried to slam him into the ground from the van, nothing at all happened, either.
That meant Cindy had to rush in, running full out as Penny slowly started to lose to the man. He couldn’t see her at all, but he worked out where she had to be, and even where she’d tried to shoot him next. It wasn’t creativity, but it was brilliant on a level that reminded her a lot of Brian Yi.
He did things like that all the time. Just figuring out what a person would likely have to do next, faster than they could think of it themselves. It wasn’t a psychic power, just a smart person who was really good at hand to hand fighting.
When she engaged, things changed though. Mainly because she just tackled him around the legs, pulled them together with superhuman strength and the man, who looked vaguely Native American, went down. Slowly toppling over. Penny managed to
shoot him several times in the head, hitting Cindy twice as well. Even as he died, the man kept struggling.
It wasn’t enough to win, but it was closer than she would have imagined happening. Reading his story, she pointed at a strange copper device on a fence post between them and the van.
“That’s what stopped Kerry. It’s not one of a kind, but they’re rare. Believe it or not, these people aren’t that worried about telekinetics most days.” She grinned, and looked down at her blue t-shirt that announced it had been purchased at Lew’s Truck Stop. It had two new holes in it now. “You owe me a shirt, Penny. Talk about sloppy.”
“No doubt. That was different. Closer than I thought it would be. How high up is, I mean, was, this guy?”
That took checking, and they hid the body inside the tiny home before they drove off. It was early morning, but the man had been outside, working under the light of the sun. Mainly because he was just so old that it made sense to him to do that kind of thing. There was a table out front, with several technological looking gadgets on it. She could name them all, but had no personal use for them. Instead, she moved in and broke them all, crushing most of them, to deny them to whoever came to find Tex later.
It would take a while, she didn’t doubt. The man was a recluse for a reason, after all. He hated most people, or had. Especially the other assholes involved in the secret organization with him. That part was surprising, but not too much so. Most of them probably didn’t really enjoy their peers, given their early upbringing.
That they worked together at all had to do with it being tortured into them, more than love of their movement. Even the final goal was just a thing they weren’t allowed to do without, rather than a thing they wanted personally. For most of them.
It took her three hours to destroy everything of value. Then she broke into a safe, using the code from the dead man’s mind as well as his right hand, which she left attached. That gave them some pretty hefty files. All on paper, in folders. The trick there was that stealing them didn’t fit their mission. So she burned them all, outside. As they drove off, Penny reviewed the whole thing, her voice a bit wry.
“That was different. We nearly lost. He was kicking my behind at least and Kerry was blocked. Thankfully you got there in time, Cin. We need to keep that from happening again. Can you do that?”
She shrugged.
“Now that I know about it as an option? Probably. The thing there is that I honestly didn’t know to ask the right questions until now. Without that… Well, it can come up. I’ll research things more closely from now on.” It was about all she could do.
Cooper took a deep breath, then winked at both women. Again, it was invisible, so Kerry missed it all. Cindy got it however.
“Good. That’s about all we can do then. How close are they to working out that this is going on?”
She paused for a second, then glanced back toward the woman, who was sitting in the back as they drove. She didn’t linger long on it, since there was nothing much to see as far as Cellophane went. That was her thing in life, after all.
“They know that their members are dying. So far they don’t know who’s next or how to guard against things, however. Really, we need to take out a few more hard targets for a bit, since they can’t have the easier ones removed from the public eye for all that long. The next easy one is in Arizona. So, we should blow past that and head up north, to Seattle. We can stop in Vancouver on the way. Or, well, we shouldn’t. That would be a dumb idea. I just have friends there.”
Well, one friend. The idea got Penny to snicker a bit, her voice a bit softer than normal.
“Oh, is he cute?”
It was teasing, which they hadn’t done a lot of since the first day or so. Certainly not once they all realized that they were going to be going off to kill a whole lot of people.
“Meh? Wally is… You remember Clark Clarkson?” She didn’t know if the other women would, but Penny had a good picture of him in her story. Kerry just had his name lined out in red, being dead like he was.
“Yes?”
“Wally is his brother. His non-pedo, hardworking brother. They look a bit alike. Wally is better though. For one thing, his worst sin was always being too nice to the women at work. Hopefully they’ve been kinder to him. I should have been checking up on him, in case I needed to kill a few of them. Maybe we can swing by when this is all over?” Sure, he was a bit like a pet of hers, but unlike her cat, she wasn’t sharing him with a neighbor.
When she’d been caught, she’d just had to abandon him.
Kerry cleared her throat.
“Clark was kind of powerful. A telekinetic. Is…” She wanted to ask if his brother was Infected, but it was considered rude to ask that kind of thing.
“Yeah. Powerful, too. Much more so. Except that it’s weather manipulation. So, yeah, he could kill millions if he wanted, with floods or droughts, but it isn’t useful for anything. Maybe farming, but other than that, not so much.”
That got a conversation going, while Cindy drove, carefully not working while she did that. Reading and driving was about as dumb a thing as could be done, after all. When they stopped, getting greasy fried chicken, potatoes and slaw, she started to work on the topic at hand. There was a hardened underground base above Seattle. A thing that they couldn’t get inside of at all. Unlike the last few places that they’d found, this one was staffed with Mariah group members full time. The big wigs, so to speak.
Five of them. Enough that, if they could kill them all, it would actually wake them all up to the danger of their situation.
“We have a great chance here… It means more work for us, Kerry. For me really. It might not be that easy.” Mainly because at least one of the people there was totally unknown to the others in the same underground building. Only one of them knew who the others were, which was a person that had been known to Tex, which was how Cindy had worked back to the man in the first place.
The paranoia was a bit annoying, but mainly because the creeps were both correct in their need for that kind of thing, as well as good at it. When she wasn’t driving, Cindy had to spend most of her time working on finding out more about the people, so that she could help kill them all.
Without them killing them first, using special powers or skills.
In the end though, she knew they weren’t going to be able to do enough.
Of the four people she could reach, one of them actually managed to defend themselves against the psychic attack that Kerry put forward. As in they used magic, saying spells and that kind of thing, to block the attempt on their life in a way that worked. The last person of the five there wasn’t reachable at all.
The interesting part was that Cindy tried something that she never had before as soon as Kerry was thwarted by the mentally tough regular man in the underground shelter. She got Kerry to try again, while she used the man’s story to stop his breathing. It took two hours, but in the end, working together, they ended his life.
Or to be more honest about it, she ended his life, while Kerry distracted him. If she could work out how to do that more quickly, it would be a useful skill.
Leaving one woman locked up inside the place. Unknown.
They found that one out when they went inside, physically. The lady was a bit older seeming, but had a pleasant face, when Cindy ripped her door open. She was shot instantly, a few times, naturally. The lady inside wasn’t exactly weak, after all.
In fact, she sounded a bit bemused, as soon as she realized that her weapon wasn’t going to work on Cin.
“Well. That’s an interesting ability. I suppose you’re the one that’s been killing us all over the last weeks? I have to tell you, the higher-ups are rather impressed with your work. I take it that you’re Infected?” She seemed uncertain about that part, since she could have been part of one of the other groups, or even from a different reality.
Cindy just shook her head then, working out that, while a true genius, the woman in front of her simply wasn’t
her equal in a fight. She wouldn’t have been even if Cin didn’t have any powers at all. So, being her, Cindy decided it was probably best to screw with the lady. Not that she had any reason to do it, but it just felt right.
“Oh… No. Not at all, mother. I’m surprised you don’t recognize me. To think, we had all that quality time together… What was it, ten minutes?” Then, while the woman stood in shock, Cindy killed her. It was a single step in and a punch to the head that snapped her neck back, fatally.
The interesting part was that, while the woman wasn’t her mom at all, the lady had died simply believing it to be true. That the child she’d been forced to abandon to the group had come back, finally. Then executed her, for what she’d allowed to happen to her. There were some diagrams and pictures to illustrate the idea. Even if it was mainly guess work.
It let Cindy know a whole lot about how Mariah the Divine Wind treated their people. The whole story about why she’d thought that wasn’t nearly as fun or wholesome as it could have been, either.
In fact, it left Cindy feeling more than a little ill, after she read all about it in the dead woman’s book.
Chapter six
The next two months were spent in two ways. Both actually had their uses for Cindy. First with her putting up with Kerry getting increasingly angst ridden and annoying. It got so bad that after a while Cindy had to resist killing the woman in her sleep. It was a good mental exercise for her.
The other part of things was how she responded to the whole thing, which was going in and rewriting the other woman’s story, so that she’d behave halfway decently. Doing it with permission from both Penny and Kerry. Openly. Over the course of days, Kerry went from a somewhat weak seeming waste of Infected talent, to a hardened Operative. One that didn’t whine hardly at all. When she did it was about missing her important work. Cooking on television.
