Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day

The Infected:

Impulse

(A Whole New Day)

P.S. Power

Copyright 2014

Orange Cat Publishing

Contents:

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter one

There was an explosion behind her, a good ways off. It was expected, so she only jumped about six inches into the air in surprise. The town had been pretty quiet before that moment, the birds chirping a bit in the trees giving the only sign of life. That, and a man delivering the local papers to the boxes that ran around the central square. Why they needed more than one or two she didn't understand, since the thing was as dry as dust, as far as reading material went. It was just past dawn, Bridget knew. That had been done on purpose, to keep the casualty rate for civilians down.

The orders were for zero, but she had a problem doing things that way, all the time.

The first blast was followed by four others, three of them happening almost at once. It was nearly musical, but showed the weaknesses in the technology they were using. There
should
have been only one explosion sounding, if in five different places. A simultaneous boom that woke everyone in the town and got their blood pumping. The idea was to use biology to keep everyone off guard for the real deal, thirty miles away. This showed that even synchronized clocks and timers could be slightly off. It was human error, of course, but something that had to be planned for in the future. People screwed up, all the time, if in little ways. Not that it made a big difference in the moment. All of them
had
gone off, and that was her cue to get inside the police station and start making some noise.

This part of the plan had been her idea. A chance to take a little bit back from the people that had been making problems for her and her friends for the last few years.

Taking a deep breath, she walked into the place, met, a bit unexpectedly, at the door as three of the men in blue that worked there tried to storm out. One knocked her to the side a bit absently, but had good enough reflexes to reach out and steady her as he jogged past. It was done by reflex, but showed more concern for her well being than she would have expected. The cops there hadn't been known for their love and concern for the town's citizens.

"What the
fuck
was
that
?" He pointed at the smoke behind the scant tree line of the central park, ignoring the other blast areas so far. As if the smoke he could see was all that mattered. There had been a loud noise, so that
had
to be where the danger lie. Not with the tiny girl that stood almost at his elbow, barely being noticed.

Bridgie grinned, knowing that she looked a lot different with her disguise on. Fat for one thing. At least compared to what she usually seemed like. She actually was lumpy around the middle, which had nothing to do with her abs showing as much as they normally did. She'd used putty to build a fake nose, like Clari, the IPB make-up lady, had shown her, and had given herself a honker to impress even the most jaded of people. Normally. Explosions trumped that, it seemed. They didn't even notice her curly black wig, she bet. Or that she was nearly five-six. A whole foot taller than her real height. She felt like a giant.

That part was down to the wonderful shoes she had on under the long purple and blue dress. It was a thing that might have looked right in the sixties, she thought. Or the seventies. She wasn't that great with the actual timing of when certain fashions had been popular. Not even the modern ones. She'd lived on a quasi-secret government base her entire life, so that could probably be forgiven. Not that she hadn't seen fashion magazines and things like that, they just hadn't been important to her.

Clari, however, knew about that sort of thing. It was driven into the woman so strongly that she breathed it, day to day. So too, as odd as it was to realize it, did her mom.

They were why she was there that day. Both of them had powers, like all Infected did, naturally. That wasn't the problem, since they managed them pretty well. Charlot Chambers was only a class three, and while she could handle regular muggers with her force blasts, or even some low level threats, like an armed military man or two, or the cops, she wasn't ready to take on an army alone. Clari was even worse off that way. She was a class one, her power not even addressing combat. The ability to do perfect make-up was neat, and useful at times, but didn't stop trained super soldiers from slitting a person's throat. Not if their orders were to not take pretty and well coifed prisoners.

It had come to the IPB's attention that that kind of thing might be in the works. Soldiers coming for them, to lock them up. Killing them all had been mentioned too. They were a threat that wasn't easily managed. That they were the ones responsible for protecting all the regular people from other Infected only mattered to about two thirds of the government. The rest thought that the Nazi's had a great idea, with their camps and magic death showers.

Like she could be taken down with Malathion gas?

That was why she was doing this however. She was safe from pretty much everything, but her mom? Clari? Even the people that worked in the restaurant at the base or the cleaning staff... Those people could be hurt. Killed or worse. Meaning she had to do
something
.

So Bridget had come to town to help distract the locals, while everyone back at the base made their escape. To be technical about it, they mostly
had
already. Over the last three days, very carefully, and without anyone noticing, the place had been emptied of people. She was really there to make it seem like they were still there. Her job was to shoot the three men that had pushed past her. Like a terrorist. That was how she'd decided to do it. Before she saw how haplessly they all stood there, ignoring the danger right beside them. Unaware of what was about to happen.

It was a lot easier to consider hurting people when you didn't know them. Sometimes things had to be done though, even if you didn't like it. Everyone had told her that, her entire life. It was practically a mantra with some of them too. Eat your vegetables. Study your boring lessons. Don't have sex with strangers in public. Bridget Chambers was well used to making herself do things she didn't want to.

Smiling she started to dig in her back pack. It was green and slightly military in appearance, but had a cross, a fish symbol, and a TCC logo on it in black ink. Totally Clean Christian. That was all hand drawn, but part of her cover. She was going to be playing an anti-Infected bigot, to throw everyone off the scent for as long as that lasted. It was her real job for the day. Everyone had hinted that killing wasn't the best option. Still, they let her come, thinking that was exactly what she'd do, hadn't they? Like she couldn't come up with a different plan if she wanted to?

It was like they didn't even know her.

"
That
, gentlemen, is the start of the war against the dirty Infected scum that
you
failed to handle." She pitched her voice as low as it would go, which still made her sound like a young girl, even if it nearly matched her new apparent size a bit better than her normal tone would have. Normally she sounded a lot like one of the munchkins from that movie that her friend Denis had made her watch.

Thinking about it nearly had her singing about the yellow brick road, but she held that one in, with a bit of effort.

One of the cops nodded, but didn't turn to look at her.

"You think? Those freaks have pretty much torn our force here down over the last nine months. Most of the people here are new, anymore. The rest are out of a job. It wouldn't shock me if it was Proxy coming for us. That killer... I don't know why no one can see him for what he really is. Not in the government. I hear he has the President on speed dial, so maybe that's it? Get the right connections and no one cares if you go around scaring everyone, and threatening their lives? I just can't see how anyone can ignore the body count."

That sounded about right to Bridget, but she didn't mention that part. After all, Brian
was
friends with the President. So was she, as far as that went. Not close, let's have sex in the oval office, kind of buddies maybe, but she'd stayed with him and his daughter as part of a protective detail, for several months. It was close enough that she probably needed to send the man a Christmas card, at least. A present wouldn't be out of line, either. A tie, or something useful and boring like that.

That thought was interrupted, even as she dug for the first of the weapons that she planned to use that day. None of the police noticed anything. That probably wasn't too shocking, since sudden explosions at just past sunrise
could
throw a person off. If, of course, they hadn't set them off. Like she had.

It was nearly funny, how they just didn't see her with the guns though. It was almost fun for a bit, until a new batch of people ran out to see what was going on. One of
them
noticed her. There was no drawing of weapons in response however, since standing right next to the others made her seem official, she bet. Like some kind of chubby, gun toting, police groupie.

They
did
look all cute in their little outfits, she had to allow.

"Hey... Um..." This one was a female, and even with her fantastic stilt shoes on, was a few inches taller than Impulse was. "What's the deal?"

That got a few other people to finally look at her, instead of listening for more booming sounds in the distance. It had taken them long enough.

Bridget looked at her hands, filled with black metal. They were both nine millimeter weapons, because her hands just weren't big enough for anything really impressive that way. She had the strength and even the skill, to use them, but being tiny had its drawbacks in life. That was one of them.

"These? Oh, I'm here to shoot this place up. It's a protest of sorts, since you all kept failing to do your duty and get rid of the Filthy Infected, out at the base. The rest of my people are going to nuke it, so you might want to start evacuation plans. I..." She tried to make it seem real, keeping her voice under control. It was acting, which wasn't a thing that anyone had taught her really. She was just a natural at it. It was just an impulse on her part, hamming things up and spinning the story like she was. The plan had been for her to just shoot at the walls, until the men and women there used up all their ammo, trying to shoot her.

None of them had even drawn a weapon yet. Not even after claiming she was there as a terrorist. It was almost too easy. Like dealing with helpless little puppies.

The lady cop, who was a bit square through the face, and had nice brown hair, that she kept up, rather than cutting off, made a sound that distinctly seemed to indicate she didn't believe Bridget.

"Nukes? The last time the government tried that, the old man out there, Moore, made them all vanish. Even the ones that had gone
off
. I know that Chief Ryan wanted to get one, and even had some men lined up for a suicide run at the base, but no one would give us anything like that." She looked over at the Bridget, and instead of doing the right thing, and shooting her, the lady shrugged, a bit slowly.

It was a defeated thing. One that spoke of long frustrated goals and dreams. The dream of killing Bridget and her family, no doubt. All of the dirty Infected that sat out there on their secret base... Protecting people, and otherwise leaving them alone. Damn their eyes.

The man that had bumped her waved at the hardware in her hands.

"You probably don't need those. Making holes in our uniforms won't fix things. We're... Sorry that we haven't been able to stop them yet. We
tried
, but no one will back us up. Even our new people basically won't hear a word against them now. If that isn't a sign of just how powerful those people have gotten-" There was a blast of white light then, that probably would have left someone blind, if they'd been staring in that direction. The low buildings and trees shielded the ones standing near her, however. Then, about thirty seconds later, the sound hit. It was enough to rock their world. Even she jumped, and
she'd
known it was going to happen. Loud sounds did that to her, so she rolled with it.

Going with her new plan, that she'd just made up, not wanting to kill tiny kittens as a rule, she put the weapons away. After all, if these cops were her terrorist buddies, and
she'd
just nuked the IPB, killing them all... That had to be better than everyone finally figuring out who she was when they couldn't kill her after hours of fighting. The man, officer pushy, turned to stare at her. For her part, she spoke rapidly, using focused meditation to keep her voice low, and in the right pitch zone. It always amazed her when it worked.