Underground

by P. S. Power

  The Infected: Alternates

  Underground

  P.S. Power

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Copyright 2019

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Pam-Pam

  Chapter two- Gift

  Chapter three- Nero

  Chapter four: King Rat

  Chapter five- Pam-Pam

  Chapter six- Clover

  Chapter seven- Martha

  Chapter eight- C. C.

  Chapter nine- Brian

  Chapter ten- King Rat

  Chapter eleven- Pam-Pam

  Chapter twelve- Tim

  Chapter thirteen- Renner

  Chapter fourteen- Nero

  Chapter fifteen- Pam-Pam

  Chapter One: Pam-Pam

  The street was dark, even though she tried to stand under the lights. The ones that still worked and hadn’t been broken out by the people who normally worked in the area. There was no one else out that night, the other girls working the more lucrative main drag, two streets over. It was a bad plan, of course. The dingy street she was on had maybe one cop come by every few hours. Just a few hundred yards away, they came by every ten to fifteen minutes. Pam moved her blonde hair out of her blue eyes, showing her face as the car pulled up.

  That was a bit sinister seeming, but it always was.

  Men willing to approach a seventeen-year-old girl at night, asking for sex, always seemed a bit creepy for some reason. Even if they couldn’t possibly understand how old she actually was. Pam didn’t look that young or anything, so at least there was that. Everyone was too young to be out selling their ass on the street at night. She smiled, trying to seem like her plan was all about giving the man in the car a handy, or more, depending on how much he was willing to spend.

  “Hey, Sweetie… Are you looking for a date?” Pam-Pam sounded nice. Kind and flirtatious. At least she thought so. She honestly wasn’t the sweetest person in the world all the time, being a bit bitchy by nature. It was her first mode, so she had to fight against that portion of herself in the moment.

  At least if she wanted the man to get close enough for her to stun. For that, her power, to work, she needed to have skin to skin contact with another person. It had to be a human being, too. Then she could kind of shock them, making them freeze in place for several minutes. It didn’t work on dogs at least. Pam had tried it a few times, since whatever it was she did didn’t really hurt anyone. They just couldn’t move for a bit. She figured it was down to the fact that they were covered with fur. It was like armor against her. Someday, if she ever wanted to be that bold, her plan was to stick a finger in a dog’s mouth and see if that worked for her.

  In the moment it didn’t matter.

  The man, who looked older and a bit nervous, smiled at her.

  “Um… Sure. I… Don’t really know how to do this. This isn’t something that I normally…” The guy tapered off, seeming embarrassed, as if she wasn’t the one out there to sell certain services to him.

  Which was correct, even if he was pretty unlucky that night.

  She nodded at him, since the idea that most men didn’t go out looking for whores on a regular basis was one that she’d actually come up with before. Most of those men didn’t end up on Skidmore at one in the morning, looking for sex, though. It happened. Normally when they got drunk and desperate and finally realized that no one was sucking anything on a sixty-year-old man if he wasn’t paying for it.

  She could have been annoyed by the idea, but wasn’t. After all, her victims had needs. Just like she did. They wanted to get off and she wanted to eat. That and to keep her friends in food and clothing. It was pretty much the same thing. Plus, they were all breaking the law. Claiming that her robbing them was better than them paying for an illegal service from someone providing it of their own, nearly, free will, was insane.

  Pam-Pam just nodded as she spoke, leaning into the dark blue car window. It was nice enough to show the man came from money. That something, somewhere, in his life had gone right. He didn’t even have a wedding ring on, which could mean he was just lonely, not a cheating creep that was planning to bring diseases back to his wife.

  Trying to seem sexy, she used her eyes to flirt.

  “We can go someplace? I have a room, if you want? You should pull your car around and park it in the alley. That way no one will bother it while you’re gone. This way.” She didn’t get into the vehicle, just walking away, and pointing to the alley as soon as the man pulled the large thing around.

  Probably breaking half a dozen laws in doing so. She wasn’t certain, not knowing how to drive, herself. She lived in the Underground, after all. No one there had things like cars.

  The man did most of the work then, actually pulling cash out first thing, to show he had money on him. Pam smiled, then moved over to him, as if to take it, as he got out of the car and locked it. She reached for the bills, touching his hand as it happened.

  Stunning him instantly, with just a bit of focus on her part. It made a yellow flash as it took place. The effect was interesting, running over his body, even on the outside of his clothing. Then, instead of crumbling to the ground, the man stood, frozen, not being able to move at all. He could still hear her, of course. See her as well.

  She pulled on the cash, gently, then pulled her cell phone out and took his picture. He had his wallet on him, so she got the rest of the cash he had too, then took pictures of his driver’s license as well.

  “Now, you may feel like reporting this to the police. I can see that. Fair enough, even. But if you do, I’ll make sure that everyone you know, your wife, if you have one, your kids, your neighbors, find out why you were here, trying to score sex with an underage girl, in a dark alley. I might go down for taking your money, or not. You will suffer for trying to do that, do you understand? Your best bet is to just leave, when you can move again in a few minutes. Take this as a lesson and go home to your life. Use your hand or get a sex doll. That’s what porn is for.” She stopped lecturing then. After all, she was already blackmailing the dude. Even feeling bitchy about it, she was willing to walk away without rubbing things in deeper.

  Plus, he’d be able to move in a minute or two and she needed to get out of the area first. The idea that a sixty odd year-old man could kick her behind was real enough to her. It had happened before. Men coming out of being stunned and simply hitting her hard and fast enough that she couldn’t stun them again. A man. Once. She hadn’t been raped, but her face had been turned into hamburger for two months.

  For her power to work, Pam had to touch them with her fingers and focus, after all. It worked every time, or had so far, but that didn’t mean it was impossible for her to mess up. Early on she’d gotten cocky and it had cost her. She’d learned not to do that kind of thing, over time.

  Pam-Pam didn’t count the money, hoping that it would be enough. Most men didn’t tell about being rolled by her, either taking her words to heart or having some other reason of their own. That didn’t mean the cops might not be coming past, if this man was willing to go to them and talk about the prostitute who’d taken his money without providing the required services.

  She was in heels, since it was part of the uniform for prostitutes, and walking away with clopping noises as the scene was fled. No one was out to follow her, as far as she could tell. She looked, probably seeming a bit nervous about the whole thing. After all, she had money now and didn’t want some freaking mugger to stick a gun in her face and take it. Again. She wasn’t in a great neighborhood, after all.

  As she moved, she reached into her bag and pulled a cheap looking plastic poncho out. It was long enough to cover her to her knees. The color was an ugly green, a bright color instead of a dark one. The goal was to stand out as being poor, in the momen
t. To seem as if a piece of plastic was the best she could do for herself. Plus, to cover how she was dressed. The stockings and heels showed at the bottom, but the nearly see through top and skin tight shorts she had on were fully covered.

  It instantly changed what she looked like. Her hair was the same, but ended up being tucked in at the back. If you weren’t close paying attention, she wasn’t going to match a description that might have been given to the cops.

  After walking five blocks, she found the bus stop that she needed, and just waited. Calmly and as if she had no concerns other than being approached by someone begging. That meant watching everyone on the busy street, without being too paranoid about it. At least she hoped that was the case. Two different cop cars moved past, but they seemed to be watching almost everyone but her. She wasn’t the only woman on the street or anything, even if it was late at night. It was, in fact, busy enough that just inside her view of the situation were a few hundred people. Even if it was late. That was due to being close to the club district.

  There was no sound of sirens, so Pam-Pam didn’t freak out. No one spoke to her even, since she didn’t fit in with the others there, seeming to be just waiting for her bus to come by. Which was the truth. Not that she couldn’t have walked the distance in the time it took for her to finally get on the nearly empty vehicle. The problem there was the heels, since they pinched a bit. They were a stupid invention, even if they did make her rear end look good. A bit thick, possibly, but still, the basic shape that men liked was there.

  The driver accepted the change she gave him without actually looking at her and then let her sit before taking off, into the night. Moving her closer to home. That wasn’t her going to a better neighborhood, unfortunately. Just a different one. She rode for ten minutes, then got off, finally walking into the zone.

  The one area of Portland where even the police didn’t go most days. It was where all the Infected people lived, after all. Not that you could tell that was a problem, that late at night. Not until the whistling started. That was a single, sharp thing, reflected ten seconds later from the window of a building about half a block away. The sentries doing their duty. They were a better alarm system than the best money could buy, since some of them had powers that let them be incredible at their tasks. Like their incredible ability to whistle in loud, sharp tones. That was practically magic.

  She just called out, since, for some reason, she couldn’t whistle at all. Not even softly. It was a failing of hers. Half of her wanted to blame her narrow lips, but those were actually pretty normal.

  “It’s Pam-Pam!” The noise stopped then.

  No answer came. Then, it wouldn’t. If no one recognized her, she’d be followed and watched. If she tried to hurt anyone, then the alarm would go up and everyone would fight to protect their friends. That was the real reason the cops didn’t try to make them move. A hundred and twenty Infected people, even if most of their powers sucked in a fight, were too dangerous to mess with.

  Mainly because a few of them weren’t that bad when it came to combat.

  Even she was almost impossible to arrest. Oh, the cops could kill her easily enough. If they touched her, say to put handcuffs on, then she was going to win. Sure, if they wore gloves she was sunk, but that was part of why living in Portland was a good thing. Even in winter, most cops didn’t cover their hands all the time. It wasn’t cold enough to force them to.

  Not that it was her job to fight, in particular. She would if it came up, but they had coverage that way. Her job was to get money for the others. Then, during the day, to do things like go shopping and to interact with the rest of the world.

  An innocent looking blonde girl with pretty blue eyes, even if she was a bit chunky in places, didn’t get a lot of attention. It meant she, unlike a lot of the others, didn’t have to stay in the Underground all the time. Really, she didn’t actually have to live there at all. Her first mode was manageable. She rubbed a few people the wrong way, but a lot of people were just as bad, without being Infected at all.

  No one followed her too closely as she went into the Brick, the old run-down building, that used to be a fire station she thought, which linked to the Underground just outside the basement. That, the Underground itself, was amazing. It wasn’t some kind of tunnel system or anything. That might exist in Portland and she’d heard rumors to that end, but where she lived wasn’t part of that. No, the Underground was better than that.

  The door on the side of the building was just a door, but unless you had the original floor plan, you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t supposed to be there. It looked old, but even a year before it hadn’t existed at all. Complex, one of the three founders, had used his powers to create it. The rest of the Underground as well.

  She didn’t knock, since there was no guard on the door. Not a visible one. If she were a cop or even a SWAT team, she’d already be fighting, trying to get inside. She was Pam-Pam though, which meant that she simply got to walk into the dark, shut the door behind her and then try not to fall down the pitch-black stairs to a long hallway. There was a handrail along the whole thing, even after it straightened out. It always felt like it took forever to get inside, but it was really only about three minutes.

  Only the clip-clop of her sexy red high heel shoes showed that anyone was there at all. At the far end she had to feel around for the door handle. It was there. She often wondered if it wouldn’t be one day. Complex had mentioned it being possible. The place was real, but the man could make changes at will. If things ever got too hot for them, his plan was to seal them all inside. Then to make new exits. So far that hadn’t happened. The police had been warned away, early on and hadn’t come back after that. Not much.

  Once a month or so a few of them tried to come into the zone. They were whistled at from hidden locations until they left. It wasn’t even a violent threat. It was eerie though. Pam had heard it herself, a few times. It was like something from a freaking movie.

  There was light inside the next hallway, which opened into a giant cavern, nearly three city blocks deep and wide. The place had a ceiling, about twelve feet overhead, which glowed gently, all the time. That way you could see, without needing candles or flashlights. In the rooms off to the side there were controls inside the doors, letting you turn the lights on and off. Those were just switches, like anyplace would have. They didn’t work the same way at all, but if you didn’t know better, it would seem normal.

  The temperature was cool but always stayed about the same. Fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. You bundled up inside, since there was no electricity. Interestingly they had running water, working toilets and the kitchens had weird ovens that created heat, as well as refrigerators that seemed to be built out of space age material.

  All of it was part of Complex’s power. If he ever decided to leave, they were screwed. Then, there were a few people like that there, really. Most of the others were both low powered and strange looking. Too much so to be easily accepted on the surface. The honest truth was that she could make it on the outside, if she had to. Sure, she was a bitch, but cute enough that most people didn’t think it was that big of a deal. The cash she brought in for everyone would be enough for her to live on alone, pretty well.

  The Underground was better though. Like a family, if a strange one. Plus, the others needed her there.

  After a few more minutes of walking, she finally saw someone she wanted to bother talking to. The man, who was black skinned on a level that stood out, being like the night, smiled at her brightly. There was a wave as well. He was always very polite and kind to her.

  “Pam-Pam! How did your evening go, in the lands above?” His voice was rich and cultured sounding, all the time. It was an affectation.

  She knew that, because he’d told her about it, once. Faking that, being cultured, was his first mode. A thing he couldn’t help but do. That wasn’t a bad one, really. He made himself sound slightly British all the time, and didn’t use foul language.

  “Not bad,
I hope. I caught a guy trying to get with underaged girls, if you can believe that, and took his cash home with me, after I gave him a bit of a lecture about being better than that. He seemed nice, other than the creepy parts of it.” She grinned. “Which makes it sound better than me just stunning him and taking all his money, which is probably closer to the truth. There were no problems, though. I got…” She grimaced a bit, realizing that she hadn’t counted it at all. Everything went into the common fund, which Nero collected and controlled for them on the night shift. She awkwardly pulled her poncho off, so that she could reach into her bra, where the funds were being held for safe keeping. Her outfit didn’t have pockets, since pervs didn’t think a certain kind of woman needed that type of thing.

  Except that she was the one who had picked the clothing. That probably meant she was the perv. Not that she really was.

  “Let me… Here you go, slightly sweaty boob money. All warm and fresh from the mammary vault.” That was what she called her bra. At least part of the time. She was ready to growl at the man if he made fun of her for it. Not that they’d fight.

  He was built, outweighed her and could make all the light go away in a certain radius from his body. It wasn’t invisibility, but you weren’t seeing him inside that space. For some reason he could see just fine there, though. Nero even knew where to hit her to avoid direct skin contact and had probably figured out that she couldn’t deploy her power fast enough to knock out a person that had hit or slapped her. Now, if they tried to choke her, she could manage it.

  The man, who was dressed in regular clothing, a tight, tucked in, t-shirt that showed his abs through the material, blue jeans and running shoes, with a brown belt to finish the look, smiled as he counted.

  Then there was a soft whistle. Rubbing in the fact that she couldn’t do that sort of thing. She scowled a bit, even knowing that wasn’t his real point. It just kind of pissed her off. Then, most things did. Most of the time.