Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (24 page)

Cin nodded, and gave a
sympathetic expression, not really caring about it all. Cindy
knew
it
would be hard for most people, even if she didn't think it would influence
her
own thinking that much. She was the different one though, and Bridget was more
regular that way. Luckily. If Impulse was
her
, then a whole lot of
people probably would have died. A whole lot more than
had
.

That most people thought the girl
was a monster had to do with what she'd done, not, it seemed, what she really
was inside. That seemed to be a kid that honestly wanted to do the right thing,
all the time, even at the cost of her own youth, and happiness.

Worse, the people in her life,
her parents, Brian and Rachel, all kind of seemed to forget about that idea.
Bridget was only sixteen, and yet she'd been put out on the front lines of a
war, and allowed to kill, simply due to her own powers. Even that very day,
they'd let her go off with a known serial killer, as a guard of sorts, instead
of locking Cindy in a room at Lyn's and doing the job themselves. It was great,
and comforting... To
Cin
. A stranger that they had every reason in the
world not to trust.

They weren't even trying to be
neglectful or anything. They wanted to be good, and tried to be parents and
grandparents to the girl. They just sucked at it. They were a bunch of heroes,
and it was far too easy for them to look at the situation and see little
Bridget as one of them as well. Because her powers kind of forced her to be.
She was raised to be one, and trained that way since she was a little kid.

Even stuffing blueberry pie in
her gob at the moment, looking about fourteen, at most, she was still watching
everything closely. Ready to fight if she had too. Ready, at need, to kill
Cindy, if that was what the job required of her, even as she thought of the new
woman as being a potential friend.

There was a constant stream in
her head, or above it, that was analyzing the whole thing carefully. Alongside
a list that suggested they get Cin's life in order, to impress the people back
at the base. Cancel the phone, the computer service, the power and so on.

Cindy wrote things down and then
shrugged, not hiding what she was doing, reading the ideas from the air.

"The power and water aren't
in my name. I rent. I need to go collect that stuff. Why don't you watch the
news while I get my notebook? It has all my info in it, which will make it
easier." She half expected the girl was going to come with her.
Everywhere.

Instead there was a cute nod.

"Good plan. Organized, too.
I'll just eat this pie, and let you get to that. Then we can help you pack up?
You'll want some stuff. You won't really be allowed to go anywhere for a while,
but there are some things to do on the base and you won't be in uniform all the
time."

That got her to stop and make a
face.

"Uniform? Like
fatigues?" Cindy shuddered a bit, as Bridget grinned at her.

The cute kid took a bite and
danced in place a little.

"Even if you work in the
office. At least you already know how to fight. Kill, too. That means you won't
go into shock when you have to work out each day too. You said Hobbs was going
to work with you too? So you'd probably be with me and Denis, Tobin, too.
Really, that gives us kind of a little team, doesn't it? Cool. They're all
nice. Not like me, or you." There was darkness in her eyes and words. Then
a searching of Cin's face.

That she wasn't a good person was
kind of a known thing, being a serial killer, but Bridget's tale told of a bit
of self hate forming, which got Cindy to shake her head.

"Wait right there. Yeah,
I'm
kind of evil. I won't even hide that from you. I am what I am. You on the other
hand are sweet. Good, and professional, too. You
killed
, but you also
had
to. If someone hadn't gotten things to calm down we'd still be facing
destruction right now. Most can see that. I mean, yeah, people are afraid of
you now, but that's their fault, after a fashion. If regular people would have
gotten out and done it, stopped the fighting, protested the violence
themselves, then they wouldn't have needed you to do it. In a way, that part is
what a lot of them really fear. Not that Impulse will come and get them in the
night, but that they could have at least tried to do something, and
didn't." Cindy shook her head, her short blonde hair moving a tiny bit.
"No, they forced a little girl to stand up for them instead. That's what
they really dislike. Their own cowardice."

Bridget wasn't a fool, or that
innocent really. She sighed and shook her head.

"So that explains what, one
out of a hundred? Most just think I want to hurt them. That's what they say. I
hear it all the time, and have for months."

"Sure, they run their mouths
online, and shit post, but that's deflection, not the
truth
. I mean,
yes, some of the bad people have a good reason to think of you, and Proxy, that
way. I kind of knew that if I was ever taken down it might be you two, myself.
People like me don't go online and talk about it either, since that would give
you guys a way to find me. No, the people running their faces are the ones that
know they should have stepped up, but didn't, out of fear. Not that they didn't
have a
reason
to be afraid. Those losers would have died if they'd tried
it. Still, a lot of them are going to feel that way. That they, the big strong
men, the loudmouthed feminists, the church going believers... They, and not a
kid, should have been in the front of the things, calling for peace and
fighting the threats."

It didn't really seem to be
helping Bridget to feel better, her words. That was because the girl was
smarter than that. Oh, the whole thing was
kind
of right, too. After
all, most people were pretty unrealistic that way. Bridget had been the right
one to send out front like that, given her powers, but she also shouldn't have
been there at all. Ever. Not given her age.

So the good people wanted to find
some reason that they hadn't done the same thing. That ended up being her
Infection. Her powers, which made her able to do what no one else could. If
they stopped there, it would have been fine.

Cindy turned and walked to her
bedroom, getting into her little black case, the one that looked like an
accordion on the sides, and was made of black plastic for the rest of it. All
of her forms were inside. It really was organized, since that made her life
easier, in the end. It was a big part of her life, being able to get at facts
using computers and various research aids.

Jogging back, not wanting to
leave the girl alone for too long, given the topic, Cindy kept thinking about
the situation.

Those people, the basically good
ones in the world, needed to find a way to live with themselves, so they turned
their savior into a boogey-man. Rather than just admit that she was strong, and
willing to take the hit for them. That this little girl would have literally
gone and fought the biggest dangers in the world for any of them, even if they
were unpleasant or hated her, was lost on them all. That she would have tried
even if she'd been a regular girl was too.

Cin didn't keep talking about
that, since the T.V. was on. It was the news, and was actually playing Brian,
talking about the would be coup.

Then the news casters started
talking about the thing in a way that had nothing to do with the real problem.

There was a sour faced man, who
grinned under his horrible expression. His hair was done well, looking silver
and slick. He was dressed nicely, and made up too. It didn't make him seem nice
however.

"Mr. Yi, once again stealing
the headlines. Notice how he managed to do this on Thanksgiving? Once again
trying to claim that the Infected are some kind of perfect and untouchable
class.
All
their problems are the fault of normal people. We've heard that
from him before, haven't we?" He seemed pretty certain and smug about that
part, but the blonde woman next to him sneered right back, and sounded like she
was about to rip the man a new orifice over the whole thing.

"Did you not listen to what
he said? There are murder plots, and an attempt to subvert part of the Federal government.
What part of that is self-serving? I think your bigotry is showing again,
Bill."

That
didn't
go over well.
In fact it started an argument that looked like it was about to come to blows,
to tell the truth.

Cindy pointed at the screen, and
shook her head.

"Wow. Here I thought
I
was the unreasonable one. That's not normal, is it?"
She'd
never
seen anything like it herself really.

Impulse stood up, moving fast,
and tapped the screen, standing to the side.

"Bill Coleville. He used to
be a friend of several of the hate movement leaders. Got inside information
from them to help his career advance. The lady here is... Well, she
was
having an affair with my dad, before he learned not to be that dumb all the
time. There was a thing and Brian had to save her. From my dad. He'd kind of
lost it, due to his first mode. So this is about right. Bill wants to take down
the people that slowed down his career, and Carol wants to protect the man that
saved her life."

The whole thing suddenly came
into focus, and she started to read not only Bridget, but, after a bit, tried
to get the people on the screen. They were live after all, and while there was
a time delay, the words came into focus.

It was different than what it
seemed like on the screen yet again.

The woman was terrified, for all
she seemed ready to throw down. Her job might well be on the line for doing
what she was in the moment. The sour man was on rocky ground as well. Their
co-host, a quiet man in the middle, wasn't in on either side, and was actually the
one person there that was sensible most of the time. He wasn't talking enough,
and had to get in on things, or else his boss was going to wonder why he was
there at all. Not that his job had been threatened directly, but if his friends
here went down, so did he.

That got Clint to start talking,
almost as if he had lines to read.

"Let's get back to what was
said? If there is an attack and takeover plan we need to address it. So far we
haven't seen any release of data, but it might be that this will short circuit
it?" He sounded reasonable, and had a voice talking in his ear. The
director.

When she switched to reading them
Cin found a very pleased man indeed. As long as his talking hairdos didn't
actually hurt each other or refuse to do their jobs, their antics were going to
help the ratings a lot. People loved to watch conflict, and the news was all
about getting eyes on the screen, anymore. The trick was to agitate them into
action without making things unbearable at the office. He didn't want anyone to
quit, after all. They certainly weren't about to be fired. Not from one of the
most popular shows in the news world at the moment.

Bridget turned the channel, to a
more bland version of the same thing on a different channel. She was about to
explain the whole thing, but her story told all about it first.

The kid didn't hate a lot of
people, but she was kind of close to feeling that way about some of those
individuals, on a personal level. It really was hard for her to listen to that
kind of thing for long, and tossing the sofa through the television would be a
bad thing, given it wasn't hers.

Cindy appreciated the idea
herself, even if she was about to lose it all.

It didn't take long to get all
the numbers down that were needed, since there were only five of them. The big
one was the landlord. She'd never met the man, or woman, that owned the place,
only their caretaker. That man had been friendly, polite and willing to come
help her out. True, he kind of also wanted her to meet him at the door in
lingerie, but it was an innocent kind of thing really, and not predatory or
pushy. On the few times she'd needed plumbing help, the man hadn't really been
sad to see her in jeans and a t-shirt when she came to the door. Then, she had
been wearing shirts that were tight enough to be interesting, giving him a bit
of a show as a reward.

About the time she was done
writing, Bridget changed the channel to the weather.

"There, the one news channel
that isn't about me. It never is, thankfully. It looks like it should be clear
tomorrow. That's good, if we have to travel."

The girl was going over what she
needed to do, which involved a check outside the place, without being seen, and
then finding a place to sleep. Part of her kind of wanted to do that with Cin,
but she was too twitchy and flopped around in ways that made sleeping next to
her nearly impossible. Plus, she wasn't totally certain that she might not try
to make a move on the woman. She was cute enough, and if she were right there,
it
could
happen.

Not that it would, but that kind
of a thing was a consideration for the girl. Cindy considered it for a bit,
since it might be a way to get her to not kill a certain lovable serial killer
later. The thing there was that a story unfolded then, about a man that Bridget
had once thought she loved, and had had sex with.