Underground

by P. S. Power

  “It’s mainly safe now. I won’t claim that I never get funny looks if I go out to get donuts looking like this, but no one really hassles me much, any more. Portland is pretty liberal too, so I bet we could all go and do that now. Well, you know, if those jerks weren’t going to shoot at us if we poked our heads out. That’s… Kind of a pain in the rump, you know?”

  Ryan did know. That he could have gone out for coffee in public didn’t seem real to him, though. That was because it probably wasn’t. Not really. Even if Nero could have pulled it off, or even Clover, that didn’t mean people wanted a giant rat around. No one seemed to be picking up on that fact though, clearly questioning the validity of the other statements.

  That the IPB was there to help them was actually an easier sell than the idea that people suddenly loved, or were at least willing to tolerate, the Infected. Still, if it was real, then they’d missed a whole lot of cultural change in the last year or so.

  After a bit, Ryan snorted.

  “It’s like after world war two. When they found that Japanese soldier on that island, like twenty years after the war? Where he thought it was still going on, but it wasn’t? I bet it took him a while to get that he was being told the truth, huh?” He glanced around, but Mindy, seeming a bit angry, locked eyes with him.

  “Worse, the strange men that came seem to be claiming that our side won. I don’t know if I can go for that. How did that happen? Also, what politicians went down?”

  That it seemed, was a real story. Brian moved forward as if no one would be worried about him being there, once they knew he was friendly. His pretending that kind of worked, even if Clover and Nero weren’t really acting relaxed. Interestingly, Pam-Pam and C. C. were being pretty chill about the whole thing.

  Keith cleared his throat.

  “About half of them? We got proof that a lot of them were actually part of a child murder cult thing. I mean, us as in America. No one knows who actually did the work on it. They put up video online and took over almost every television channel, all at the same time, then played the evidence for over a full day. Things are still reeling from that one, let me tell you. Still, most people are coming around to the idea that Infected people aren’t instantly dangerous killers. We also have a few ways to help get rid of first modes, now. Some other things, as well. I mean, I was like this for years, twelve, but… No one jump, I’m going to change shape.” Then the fellow did.

  He melted, from being a purple lobster man into a fairly muscular normie. One who was better than average looking, even. Manly, and the same size, nearly as he was before.

  The man patted his t-shirt in the front.

  “There’s a man, a friend of ours, Tim. He didn’t just take out my first mode, he convinced the Infection to let me have two shapes. I still have to have the other one, for some reason, but… yeah, this is kind of neat. Different people have different things that the Infection allows, but so far everyone has been able to get rid of their first mode. A couple of people have died doing it, so it isn’t risk free or anything, but of the thousand or so that have gone, we’ve only lost six and they were really different.”

  Ryan looked down at himself, then snorted.

  “So, I can’t be helped?” He glanced at Clover, then Nero. Each of the men nodded at the words.

  Before he could say more, Keith laughed.

  “No, the people it didn’t work for were really, incredibly, different. I don’t know that the Infection will let you change shape, but most people get something that way. It can be a bit weird. There was a guy that had to have a tail, for instance. He started out with it being like yours but managed a nice squirrel thing after the work was done on him. Things like that happen. Not all the time or anything.”

  C. C. looked at the man strangely, then made a face at him.

  “You keep talking about the Infection letting them change, or demanding they be a certain way. Like it’s a person.”

  After a moment, Brian shrugged.

  “Right. It’s an entity. One single being that has partial possession over all of us. It isn’t a disease at all. It never was. It has some kind of plan, we think. No one knows what that is, yet. We, Tim and his friends, they keep trying to find out. So far, it’s hazy. We can introduce you all, if you want? Later though. Right now, we should probably see what you all want to do. Then I need to check in and see what the boss has going on. I… Does anyone have a camera? We should see if we can get the army shooting at us on video, if possible. Though, I’m getting Bridget in for that part. I hate being shot, to be honest. She barely notices.”

  Everyone else seemed fine with that. Ryan felt a tendril of fear run through his nose.

  “Bridget… Who’s that? Impulse?” He didn’t know that at all, and was joking about it, since Proxy was already there and that was the only way it could get worse, but Brian nodded, almost instantly.

  “Yep. Exactly. She’s my granddaughter, so, you know, don’t hit on her in front of me.”

  Ryan just muttered back.

  “Right. I’ll be sure not to do that.”

  Not hitting on well-known killers was actually one of the things he was pretty good at in life. It had never occurred to him before that moment, but still, that one was just true.

  Chapter eleven- Pam-Pam

  Pam was normally a bit dour. Really, internally she tended to think of herself as being a bitch, as often as not. She didn’t want to be, but it was the kind of thing that Infected people had to put up with. It was, she knew, always something.

  It didn’t explain why she felt so paranoid at the moment.

  Looking at Brian, who seemed like he was a nice guy, she just couldn’t trust him. That was, probably, down to being IPB. A Fed. One of the people that murdered people like her, almost daily. For most of her seventeen years Pam-Pam had lived with the knowledge that, if she ever met that kind of person, an IPB Operative, her death would most likely soon follow.

  Now she was standing in Nero’s office with two of them. Alive and everything.

  “This pretty much has to be a trick, doesn’t it?” She looked directly at Brian, one of the biggest serial killers in history, locking eyes with him.

  Wondering if she were about to die for running her stupid mouth.

  Rather than draw the gun he had on under his gaudy Hawaiian shirt, or even stepping in to slap the noise from her mouth, there was just a smile. It looked almost gentle. Like he was flirting with her or something. That or as if he thought of her as a real person without any thought of doing her up the behind at all. That one was probably not real of course.

  Her entire robbery con was based on the fact that most men wanted to have sex with her. She wasn’t the single best-looking woman in the world, maybe, but she was easily in the zone where normal men tended to respond to her as if she was good enough to take to bed.

  The IPB agent, Brian Yi, let his head bob up and down a bit. Agreeably.

  “No doubt. If you only watch the news and pay attention to people that hate and fear the IPB, then the idea that we’d come in to actually protect the Infected has to seem… Nearly insane.” He seemed amused by the concept, rather than angry at her doubt. “The Infected Protection Bureau. Not the Republican Protection Bureau. Not the Communist Protection Bureau. Infected. The job is explained right there in the title.”

  Keith, who was back to looking like a lavender lobster, meaning he was fitting into the Underground a lot better than Brian was, laughed a bit.

  “Sure. Sure. Except that we had twenty or thirty years of bad press. Every time someone goes off the rails, if they’re Infected, we send out Level or some of the others on Team Two and just kill them, as often as not. If you only see that kind of thing, or Bridget taking out a hundred Infected at once, you wouldn’t imagine that we’re the good guys.” He looked at Pam, then Nero, his funny lobster like armored face nodding. “We are though. When we take out a class four that’s going on a killing spree, it isn’t about getting our rocks off. Most of the time it�
��s about first modes and we literally can’t talk the person down. They never send us in first even. Just some normal guys in black suits.” He waved his claws a bit, being expressive.

  More so than a lot of the people she knew, actually. That everyone in the Underground tended to be a bit quiet and subdued hit her suddenly. Even the ones like her with bad modes.

  Instead of coming across as a mega-bitch, Pam bit her tongue for a few seconds before running her mouth. Not that she wasn’t going to say what she wanted to anyway. Someone had to do it.

  “That’s exactly what someone trying to trick us would say, isn’t it? My first mode… Look, I come across as hostile. That doesn’t mean I’m a nut job about it, though. How can we trust you, given… Well, even what you just said. We really have seen a lot of killings. I popped at seven. Most of my life I’ve lived in fear of the IPB. Now we’re just supposed to… I don’t know, trust you to save us? How is that going to work?”

  Instead of smiling again, Brian looked away, then glanced at Nero, as if looking for him to provide the answer. That didn’t happen. Pam tilted her head. His looking there, at the strange all black man, for support, meant something. It might anyway. That the man wasn’t a bigot, at the very least. So far she had to admit that neither IPB guy had acted that way at all. Even less than some of the people there, in their own group, could manage, day to day. Like they just accepted everyone, equally.

  After a few moments, Yi nodded.

  “Do you have a real choice? On the good side, we really aren’t going to hurt you or anyone here. We have people on the outside trying to fix this, peacefully. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll get others in, to fight for you. After that, when nothing happens, at least on our side, you’ll have a chance to see that we aren’t the bad guys. Maybe. It’s always a hard sell with some people.” He sounded a little annoyed, in the moment, but it wasn’t that big of a thing. Not like he was planning to betray them, she didn’t think.

  Then, a good con man would be able to play them all that way. Using minor shifts in mood and expression to make himself seem like a real person, instead of a government goon getting ready to infiltrate and kill them all.

  The only thing there was that Pam wasn’t at all certain that Brian couldn’t just do it, if he wanted. Taking on all of them, at once. No one really understood how his powers worked, but the man was famous for having fought and killed hundreds of class four and five threats. Some of them at the same time. A hundred at once, if the stories were right, on at least one occasion.

  Most of the people there, in the Underground, were class ones. Nero was one of their tough guys, and he was pretty much a class two. Thinking about it, she shook her head.

  “Sorry, I was just thinking that you could probably take all of us, in a fight. Alone. Maybe even if Keith here threw in with us. I’m basically a less painful version of a taser. Nero here has cut rate invisibility, making a smoke cloud of pure black. Carrot Cake just makes gems, for goodness sake. I mean, like an ounce or two at one time. It takes her a while to get even that done. I suppose she could try to bribe you with pretty rocks, but…” She looked away, her face hard.

  Brian, instead of acting superior or even humble, just shrugged.

  “Yeah, I was thinking about that. It sounds like the big targets here would be your friend Gift. Clover and possibly Ryan. I haven’t seen anyone else yet, so there could be more. Plus, the ones that have hidden their abilities.” The man shrugged and glanced at Nero again. “We do that, too. The IPB hides how powerful our people are, about a third of the time. We’ll need to do that with Gift, too. He’s… Probably a class seven. Maybe an eight. You said that he doesn’t really control his power?” The whole room shifted over to look at Pam then.

  Gift was one of her people, so that made sense. It also left her feeling pissed off. Giving away her people’s secrets couldn’t be a great idea. Even if Brian was claiming to be her friend. Their friend. At least in theory.

  She sighed though, since too many people knew that about Gift for her to hide very well.

  “Yeah. You have to touch him and then make a wish. It has to be said that way, too, and you have to speak out loud. Like, I wish I were a hundred feet tall, or something like that. He needs to hear what it is you want. Class seven though? I don’t… How does that work?”

  There was a shrug from Proxy, his eyes going dark for a moment.

  “Uh, wish the opposing army into the center of the Earth? Or for them to just die, or to be turned into puppies?”

  She got it then. It had never occurred to her to even think of something like that before. Then, she was a bitch, not a killer. Brian, clearly, had lived a very different life than she had.

  “Holy crap. So… We could just wish the army away? I… I mean, if we turn them into puppies they’ll turn back, after a day. We could do that and run, if we needed. Wish for that every day until we got into place. That, being a dog for a while, might be distracting even.” She growled a bit. “I suck ass at this kind of planning, don’t I? They want to kill us, or take us as slaves and I’m thinking puppies and kittens. That will work, I’m sure.”

  Mindy, who was sitting across the room, not talking much for some reason, finally did. She sounded calm and collected as she did it. Perfectly so, in fact. As if that might be her first mode.

  “We shouldn’t need to do any of that, if the IPB can actually bring enough attention to things for us? We should get a plan ready for that. Removing the Fifth Armored from play for a while, if possible. Killing them all using Infected abilities would probably have Portland hit by a nuke. A day as a puppy might too, but having them just sit there and sing a song for a while. That or… I don’t know, they could all go AWOL and then get really, really drunk?” She raised an eyebrow, seeming elegant as she did it.

  Seeing her close up, it was clear that the woman spent a lot of time on makeup. The hair over her eyes was perfectly groomed. She had on enough makeup to be television ready, even. Pam could, nearly, pull off the same thing, she thought. If she had the skills for it. Before she’d assumed that Mindy was just that pretty, all on her own. It was a trick though. Art, instead of nature being at play.

  Which left her feeling a good bit better about the woman, even if she was too manipulative, part of the time. Being perfect was annoying. Making yourself better just showed that you gave a crap about life in general. Pam wanted that for herself. The ability to care about things.

  It was possible, of course. Her first mode made her hard to get along with. The rest of her emotions were the same as what everyone else had. Making herself be a better person wasn’t beyond what she could do. That it was hard for her was, she thought, all about her life so far. She was used to people being down on the Infected, and it had left her feeling angry and helpless.

  She wasn’t though. Sure, her power kind of sucked, since a guy with a stick was pretty much her equal that way, but normies managed to get things done in the world, part of the time, with no powers at all. She was even good looking. At least in that she didn’t have tentacles coming out of the back of her head or something. On the street, no one knew what she was. Hiding that was cheating, maybe, but it could work for her, if she did it right.

  Shaking her head, she forced a smile, making it look as real as possible.

  “Good plan. We need to take the high road here, as long as it will work. So, for now we trust Brian and Keith? I don’t think we have another choice.” She shrugged then, making an effort not to alienate the people that had probably come to help keep them alive. “Plus, they seem cool and not like they plan on screwing us over. We should give them a chance?’

  Nero answered, his features looking questioning, but not rude or impolite at all.

  “Perhaps. I don’t see a better path for us, at the moment. Mindy, you’re our leader, what do you say on the matter?”

  She shrugged, then heaved a fake sigh and waved at Brian.

  “He’s bailed me out before, when he didn’t have a reason to. I sa
y we trust him and his friends. For now. After all, even if the plan was to come in and take over or kill us all, they’re already here. We should probably invite Impulse in and see if she takes us out. If not, then they might be on our side?”

  The lady seemed to be joking, but for some reason Brian held up his right hand.

  “Good plan. That should set everyone at ease. She’s incredibly sweet. A great girl.” Then, as if it made any sense at all, the man vanished.

  Keith snorted.

  “See? Now we’re going to have a ball of energy running around for the next day. Eating all the food. The girl is tiny, but she eats like a horse.” He shrugged then and looked at Pam, directly. “Honestly, she eats more than most horses, calorie wise. If she’s really coming in, we need to make sure she brings her own food. Really, I bet we can trick Mark into catering this whole thing for us, if we work him right. The man loves to cook, after all.”

  No one responded to the name, so Pam didn’t have to feel too bad about it. After a bit, Keith, still looking lobster-like, winked at her.

  “Mark Steinburg? Steinburg and friends cooking show? You have to have heard of it, it’s the only show on the air that had a cast mainly made up of Infected people.” He seemed baffled when no one responded with more than strange looks. Exasperated he rolled his eyes. “Um, Prime is on it? Denis Thompkins? Kerry Yoder? Warren is… Well, he’s a regular human, but is pretty cool. Gay, so at least there’s that. I’ve personally seen him throw down with angry protestors just to protect Infected people. That should get him in with us, or at least doing cooking for us all. It’s a treat, if we can pull it off.”

  There was a soft sound from across the room, Mindy seeming interested.

  “Denis and Kerry are on television? That’s… insane, really. I wouldn’t have ever guessed that one. That’s real?”

  There was a nod from the lavender man.

  “Oh, yeah. They’ve been on there for a few years, too. You mean to tell me you don’t watch every episode they do? I know I do. I can’t even cook and I watch it. It’s hilarious.”