Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (22 page)

That was another person that
wasn't at the table, but when Cin checked, she found that he was all the way
back at the base, having left the day before. That was due to him being the
second in command there, even if he was nearly new. He'd gotten the job when
everyone else had vanished and held on to the position somehow. Bridget was, on
paper, the third in command, so killing the others wasn't going to remove her,
just push her up the food chain.

That was probably why those
Agents and whoever was with them were going to trash talk everyone first. That
would probably work better, overall than bloodshed anyway.

Brie looked up then, her personal
page not showing anything for a moment. Then the words came, announcing that
the press had come.

The woman stood, so Cin did too,
because like it or not, she needed these people to think she was on their side.
The best way to do that, at the moment, was to really be.

So
she
said the words. It
was kind of clear the Brie was waiting for her to do it, realizing the same
points that she had already.

"Several news crews. Out
front." Then she stopped, looked at everyone and shrugged. "I don't
know if this is the best plan, but I think you should go and tell everyone...
Everything. At least about the data that's going to come out, and why. It
probably won't help that much, but I don't think it will hurt, either."

It was clear that no one loved
that idea, but Brian stood and moved to pat her back too.

"Right. Come on then. We
have work to do."

The others, most of them, acted
like the press showing up was nearly normal. Cindy was annoyed by it, and tried
to stay in the house, being halfway sane, but Brian took her by the arm, and
pulled her outside with them. He, it seemed, was the spokesman for the group
effort, and while Ron and Lyn got to hide, like they should all have been
doing, Hobbs moved from the back, on the roof of the garage, to the top of the
house. No one saw it happen, but she could make out the words over his head,
which had a lot of illustrations about how to fight the crowd gathering below.

Then Proxy began to speak, and
told them all everything. The press barely had time to get cameras on him, and
a few of the techs were scrambling to go live with it, as he announced the coup
plan. Then he went over how the IPB had lived for years, and how, yes, some of
them were disgruntled about it.

"But, rest assured, no one is
really a cannibal, or thinks we should be. We also managed to catch the serial
killer that's been hunting men in this area. Which is what we were brought in
for. It turned out to be an Infected person, and the situation has been dealt
with. There will be no more killings of that nature here." He didn't give
her name, or say that she was dead, but everyone simply assumed that was what
he would be going for. After all, he was Proxy.

The death that came out of
nowhere.

Instead of going in, like she
would have then, he got Prime and Impulse to fly around in the sky for a bit,
showing off, then did it. The press still wanted to grill them on things,
including who he was dating at the moment. The clear impression left was that
if he didn't have someone, the whole thing could be spun as him being a
homosexual. No one believed it, but that would be good content anyway, so the
person asking would run with that without blinking.

Brian got that too, and actually
blushed. It was kind of adorable, really. Cindy raised her hand, and smiled at
the cameras.

"That would be me. It's new,
so, not that official yet. This is our second date that you're interrupting. It
is
Thanksgiving though, so I guess that makes sense. Someone has to be a
pain, right?" She smiled about it, and people actually laughed. The
problem then was that they all wanted to know if she was Infected, what her
name was and if she had any communicable diseases or insanity that they could
exploit. She read this from several of the people, and managed to hold her face
calm. Charlotte was waiting for her to blow it, and really wanted her to end
things before that happened. Scott however, was really helpful, actually going
over what she needed to do in order to look good for them.

That got her to straighten up,
and smile winningly, like the words were telling her, and look directly into
the camera that the biggest local network was holding. It was a Fox affiliate
at least, which Scott figured would be going out nationally. He also wanted her
to not keep moving her eyes like she was, reading. That he got what was
happening was nifty actually, though it was hard to do.

She just read all the time, and
hadn't realized others noticed it happening.

"I
am
Infected. I
just got a job with the IPB, doing low level research. My power is basically
reading books, so it doesn't help
that
much in a fight. Apparently they
have lots of people that don't go and throw down with the baddies? Now, if you
don't mind, we should get back to the pie? Happy thanksgiving everyone!"
Waving she backed off, as Scott did much the same, smiling vastly. After a few
moments the others did too.

The trick then would be to keep
looking pleased, letting the expression fade a tiny bit only, as they went
through the door. That was what people did with real emotion. Just dropping it
would cue everyone in to it being fake.

Just inside the door, Charlotte
rounded on her. Smiling for real.

"That, was not too bad,
considering the rest of what was said. It seemed both warm and genuine, and didn't
give away anything we can't back later. Plus, this way we can assure people
that Brian is being taken care of. If you weren't a psycho we could stick you
on Team One, given what you did out there. You don't quite have the looks, but
you're close enough that we could work with that. Our makeup artist could make
Brian look like a Playboy centerfold and have the world believing it, so that
part isn't as big of a problem as all that. I'm tempted anyway, but we really
shouldn't risk it. Not until you prove out." Then, almost warmly, the
woman patted her on the arm. "I want you trained for it anyway. Bridget,
would you handle that for us?"

That part, asking her daughter
like that, wasn't the norm. It was, in all truth, a compromise. Bridgie, as her
mother was thinking of her, was both able to defend herself from pretty much
anyone in the world, and able to go over the basic press protocols. Really, she
was fairly advanced that way, and could probably handle being a PR person
herself, having grown up soaking in the idea like she had.

The tiny red head, who was
standing by a larger version that looked older, but otherwise similar, nodded
rapidly.

"No prob. Cin, you're with
me then. When Hobbs and the guys aren't doing you, I mean." Then, playing
like she did, the girl looked around seriously. "I can watch right? As
they do you?"

Cindy tilted her head and then
shrugged.

"Probably. I really don't
think I get to have that much fun for a while." Plus, the girl was
thinking of Brian as being one of those guys, and he was the kid's grandfather.
That she liked him enough to want to see that was, in theory, kind of sick.
Given that there was a slander campaign about to take place, that should
probably be avoided. At least if they could be caught.

Everyone took it as her teasing
back, which it really was, and Trivia gave the briefing floor over to Rachel.
That seemed a little odd at first, since the woman wasn't in any chain of
command for the IPB, but a bit of reading explained it. She'd helped to start
it, at least in its current incarnation. That meant she got to know almost
everything she cared too, and people still deferred to her there. It also meant
that even if she looked like a youthful thirty or so, she was pushing eighty.
Seventy-seven that year, to be exact.

The woman was also kind of
friendly, as far as sex went. It hadn't shown at all, but it was kind of clear
that if Cindy, or Brian, wanted to get some, all either of them had to do was
ask. Lyn and Ron too, but not being a home wrecker, she'd have required both of
them to participate. It was a strange rule, really, but it made a bit of sense.
That way neither of them would be able to blame her for their eventual break
up. Not that she was planning to make a play that way.

Brian, interestingly, was a
person that she'd been interested in since the eighties. That was a time travel
thing however.

The woman looked at Bridget first
and held it.

"This is, ultimately, about
fear. Of you. I can't blame anyone either. What you did had to be done, but it
was showy and dark. We need you to be a lot more friendly to the masses for a
while. Maybe go and work with kids and visit them in the hospital? Do high
profile things too. Save stranded motorists, and... God, I don't know. I really
don't. Char, can you come up with some things and set that part up? We can't
afford to wait. It might also help to get you an age appropriate boyfriend.
Tobin could work, but..." She didn't even make a face, and what she was
going over internally was a lot different than what Cindy would have expected.

Tobin Peterson was famous, and
possibly one of the greatest singers in the world. He also looked very
distinctive, being about four feet tall, and looking a bit like an amphibian.
His skin was perfectly smooth, and could change color, though he was mainly
green, brown or black. He did patterns too, it seemed, which was interesting.

That
could
have been why
Rachel didn't want her granddaughter to interact with him, but it really
wasn't. He was just happily dating Kerry, from the Steinberg and Friends
cooking show. The woman seriously just didn't want to get in the way of that,
even to make Bridget look more stable.

The girl nodded, and a list,
which was kind of small, floated up on her screen. There were pro's and cons to
each one of them, which were well marked. The big one, for most was that they
were too old for her. Almost everyone in the IPB really was. There was a guy
from the town, outside of the base, that she kind of liked, but his parents
were bigots.

Cin nodded.

"Him. Will? Let me..."
Checking on his data didn't take long, since he was clear in the girl's story
really.

His parents really weren't great
people, as far as bigotry went, but they were
trying
not to be total
assholes about it now, since the tide had started to turn against their kind,
in the last months. They really wouldn't be in love with the idea of their boy
dating Bridget, but then he was nearly eighteen, and was planning to move in
June, as soon as he turned. If they kicked him out over it, the IPB might have
to float him a loan for a few weeks, but that was all.

Technically he was an IPB Agent,
too. It had been a joke at the time, when Bridget had said it, but then he'd
been stabbed, working for them. That had, in a very real way, sealed the deal
as far as they were concerned.

He also liked Bridget well
enough. Being a good guy he hadn't tried to date her because of his parents,
but if she went for him, that would work.

Cindy started to nod, and so did
Brie.

The other woman spoke first, her
voice smooth.

"Good call. He's a decent
guy, too. Not hard on the eyes either. You should get with him later and see if
he wants to go out?"

Bridget didn't blush, but she did
look away, smiling a little.

"Like that will work? I
guess I can ask..."

After that, as if things were
settled, people started talking about other things. It wasn't that these people
were too stupid to get the idea that nothing was fixed at all. Far from it. The
fact of the matter was that they were so used to this kind of thing that it
just couldn't phase them. There was always something going on, so if you wanted
to have a real life, you had to adapt. So they sat there and talked about what
was coming up, including the fact that they needed to go back to the base the
next day.

That meant calling in a team to
pack up Cindy's house, which, she read about quickly, she wasn't going to get a
choice in. Moving was required, and leaving her with a home would give her hope
that she could come back, and
that
wasn't going to be a thing for her.
She wasn't being treated as a prisoner, but she was, and stepping outside of
what was wanted by these people would involve her death. They had one card, so
would play it if they had to.

That part was just way too clear.
Even Bridget, who still kind of liked her, would have pulped her head if Cin
got even a little out of line. True, she might feel bad about it the next day,
not being a psychopath, but she'd
do
it. So would Charlotte. Of the
people there, only Scott really wouldn't have done it. He'd killed, it was
true, but he didn't
want
to. Not that the others did, exactly, but they
all felt either duty, or honor, bound. Well, Charlotte just really didn't want
things to get out to the press, but that was a kind of duty for her, so it
still fit.

So, she was moving, and someone
else was going to paw her things, probably breaking half of them, and nothing
would stop it. Unless she burned her house down. That was over the top, so she
just had to swallow the fact that she was powerless now. It didn't sit well,
which took her a little bit by surprise.

About half an hour later, at
nearly seven, the whole thing broke up enough that it was time to clean up, so
she got up to help with it. The other option was to just sit there, waiting.
For what she still wasn't certain. What they were going to do with her that
night...

She shrugged.

"I should head home. After
the dishes are done, I mean." She doubted that would go over at all, but
Brian just shrugged.

"I can't let you go alone.
I'd go with you, but I need to actually get some work done."

Cindy was a bit surprised, but
the words over his head, since he was actually trying to avoid sleeping with
her, in case he had to kill her later. He knew that she'd used him, but thought
she might want to do that anyway, in order to try and get him to let his guard
down. Not that it would happen.

Given that had been her exact
plan, she had to respect his being careful. Not that she was changing up that
much from it, since he was still a great guy. It would just take longer to get
things going, that was all.

Bridget, having heard the whole
thing walked over, carrying all of the dishes from the table. She was tiny, but
so strong that it wasn't a struggle for her. The whole thing still looked
funny. Even at that, Brian carefully moved to offload for her, from the vast
stack. It didn't take him long, and things went next to the sink, to be rinsed
rather than placed straight into the dishwasher.