Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day (10 page)

She stopped, having just the slightest sense that she'd actually scored a point in there somewhere. It could have been that Devorah was busily trying not to let her mouth drop open at the words, and mainly failing. Or it might have been that something else was going on. Some kind of special power that she didn't know she had before? That one wasn't likely. The IPB had pretty good testing for things like that. They'd even known that she'd have force blasts and the ability to fly before she had.

Of course, they hadn't told her about that either, had they?

After a bit of searching the shelves behind the coffee bar, which was behind where Bridget stood, the older woman, who looked to be a well preserved fifty-something except for the gray in her hair, made a sour face.

"That... is
exactly
the plan. Almost perfectly understood, as well. It's nearly as if you plucked the information from the future itself, if not very well. You might wish to think about that. You have three days to remove the Elcampayn children Mary. It's Zevros Wyrdcraft coming, bringing in a team of six Doyles. Your friends here, your son, Scott, and his friend Denis, can defeat them in battle, but not before they remove the children from your control. If you run, and seek a new world, and stay gone for a long enough time, you will elude them. You may return, eventually, but the Carlie
won't
, which does play, as this girl said, into my plans." She spread her hands, her face looking smug. Like she'd won already.

Which, Bridget knew, the understanding of things coming to her solidly, she probably had.

Mary would seek to protect her charges, and Liz would do the same. No matter what it took to get that done. It was a matter of honor, or something stupid like that.

Shrugging her tiny shoulders, she looked over at Charity, and then Doug. What she wanted was for one of them to come up with a distraction, so she could try and take out Devorah before she could leave. It was probably expected, but if she could move faster and harder than the lady could respond, it might work a bit. Even if all she did was hurt the woman, that might be distracting later. It probably wouldn't work, but if that was the case, then it didn't matter. Plus,
not
trying wouldn't do anything either.

She wanted to try and send that thought to Charity, but her emotions were all over the place, racing, along with her thoughts. Heading in too many directions to be useful.

"So, Braid. What did you want to tell me? That I'm stupid? That I'm not very cute? Maybe that no matter how hard I try, no one will ever love me. Except, apparently, for
Tesseract
. What's with that one anyway? He really seems into me. Not that I can blame him. I am, after all, the total, if pint sized, package." She grinned, ready for almost anything to be said. It could be a lie, but would probably just be something true that she wasn't ready to know about. That had been the deal though, and she could handle it.

Maybe. That was the real problem with Braid, the one that
everyone
always came back to. She could use the future too well. There was no way to beat her, because she was ready for what you did, before you could do it. Always.

Like the all out punch to the head that Bridget intended to try and throw, if even one little chance would come up. There
wouldn't
be one though. Doug was a great guy, and would make a decent boyfriend, but he had the aggression of a rag doll. Charity was so scared that she wouldn't even be able to distract the room with some creative soiling of herself. Mary was fierce in her own way, and might be able to hold Tesseract for a bit. That...

She held up a hand, and turned to her, her face calm, she hoped.

"Mary, can you keep this man from leaving for about ten seconds?"

There was a pause, but only a brief one, as her face tightened.

"Aye, it will be hard, but can be done. To what end?"

Bridget winked, "I don't know. Not at all. I have no clue what's going to happen."

Not that it would
help
. Braid
wasn't
a telepath. Simply not knowing what you were doing wouldn't keep her from knowing about it. She saw what you actually did. Possibly what you most likely would. No one knew exactly, which was a real problem.

Still, after Mary gave a nod, Bridget stood for the first five seconds and looked at the woman, as if waiting for her to speak. For her part, the older woman shook her head, and
tried
to jump back. That got her legs kicked out from under her, mid-step. Bridget hadn't even known that she'd moved, her right leg lashing out fast enough that it was probably hard to see happening. Something in the other woman's leg broke, as she jumped in, reversing her momentum using all the strength she had.

Stomping the other leg as the lady fell, unable to support herself.

"Doug! Kill Tesseract! Charity... Um...
run
!" It was random and silly seeming. Braid didn't cry out, since whatever else she really was,
tough
seemed to be part of the package. There had been crunching noises, and there were lights in the room, flowing between Mary and Tess.

Which stopped when the man smacked into the ceiling, thanks to gravity suddenly reversing. It distracted him enough that the lights stopped. All of them. Mary fell though, to her knees, gasping as if she'd just run very fast, for a long time. Charity did try to run at least, which added to the movement of the room, but didn't stop Braid from throwing a can of coconut water at the back of her head, which hit with a thunk.

She cried out.

"
Ow
!" Though she kept
going
, which was a good idea. Even limping and injured, it would save her a second can of expensive and foul tasting coconut juice. Her dad loved the stuff, which was a funny thing to remember while a fight was going on.

That move was just enough to let Tess get them away, since Doug moved to shield Charity with his body. The world suddenly flashed black and purple. Alternating, as Tessie's creepy looking stretched and warped form came through the wall to the left.
And
the right. At the same time. She was back to not being able to move, and this time Mary didn't do anything useful, already seeming pretty tapped. What had worked against one Tesseract couldn't hold out against three, it seemed. Doug didn't move, but did drop the man he was holding to the ceiling, which was the same being that were in those other places. Probably from the future, having come back to make sure he didn't die. Again.

How the
hell
were they supposed to handle that? Using four class nines in a fight was just
cheating
. Maybe the
first
one didn't count, but the others still did. It wasn't fair!

She wanted to scream, but by the time she could, a few seconds later, the purple light gone from around them and space not seeming as wavering and bent out of shape, Braid and all three of the Tesseract's, were gone.

Naturally.

There was a piece of paper on the floor, where Braid had been. It was folded in thirds, length wise, and on the outside had her name. Bridget Alison Chambers.

She picked it up, not too worried about the others yet. Doug was unscathed, and Charity would have a knot on her head, but would be fine. Mary was winded, but not
injured
seeming. Just tired.

Bridget really expected it to be a note saying that to save them all she had to kill Proxy. Or herself. That, or something so bizarre that there was no way she could even understand it. Instead it just said four words. Ones that weren't even an insult. Just wrong.

"You're a class eight." She said the words out loud, but the only person that responded to them at all was Doug, who just looked at her blankly for a few seconds, then came around the counter by the till and went to the soda fountain for some reason.

Where he got a cup of ice. That got handed off to Charity, to hold to her head. It took a minute for him to collect the girl from outside, and she was crying when she came in, but he looked at Impulse again and made a face.

"You're
probably
a class nine and she wants you to undersell yourself. If I have the right idea that kind of thing is what she does. I was told you were probably a class seven, but no one wanted to let you know about it until you could handle your impulses. They weren't wrong keeping it from you, so that part shouldn't be a problem. That leaves what I just said, I think." He was pretty cheery about it all, which did make her feel a bit better than she might have if she'd been stewing on it.

"Wait, everyone lied to me? For how long?"

Mary stood up, her hands on her thighs though, still gasping a bit for air, and not bothering to chat, as Charity moaned softly.

Doug snorted at her, as if fighting a laugh.

"I'm going to wager that it's been a
long
time. Years at least. For instance, I have it on pretty good authority that there is no Santa. It's just your parents putting the presents under the tree. Same deal with the Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy... Well, that one is clearly real, but you get the idea?" He pretended to be serious, but she nodded, after a bit.

Thinking about it, she did get the point.

"Right. I kind of knew that, already. I was told, or at least it had been hinted at. But, a class
eight
? No one is a
physical
class eight. A class nine is considered nearly unstoppable by human forces. As in, they could take the entire world's combined armies in a fight, at one time. Like what that jerk wad just did in here, bringing four of him to the fight like that. A class eight would need to be able to do about half of that, and... That isn't possible. You can only be in one location at one time. I mean,
I
can only do that."

Doug moved to Charity and put a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to be a caring gesture, not him trying to get in good with her, for later nookie opportunities. It might end up being that too, if he played his cards right. She was old enough and looked it, so it might work. The girl didn't shrug him off, at any rate.

"I don't know. That might be the trick then, yeah? You go into a tailspin, trying to figure out how it would work? Even if it's true, but you just can't figure it out yet. That could waste a lot of time. My best take on this for the moment is that we need to let everyone else know what just happened and then follow the current plan. We need to get those kids to safety, but I can't love the idea of the healer going away. Brian might not survive that. You nailed that one though, didn't you? It has to be part of the real plan. Why Braid wants it to be done her way. If only we could save them and figure out how to stop her plan?"

Bridget waited for a bit and went to get a cup of filtered water from the machine, then held it out to her grandmother, who was nearly back to normal, finally. She took it as if it were exactly the right thing, and timed her sips to be in between the gasps.

"Thank you... Dear. I'll... Be off... In a.... moment." Then she handed the half full paper cup back, the waxed cup seeming slightly damp to Bridget's fingers, and just stood there for a long time, until she was back to her regular self.

Charity had recovered too, and was awkwardly holding the cup to the back of her head. She looked at Bridget, and seemed worried.

"Who were those people? I was here the whole time, but I don't think I understood half of what just happened."

It was a recovered shopkeeper that spoke, her voice a bit sour sounding and her face matching, as she looked at her ice cream case. The one that had imploded a bit, under the force of Doug's power. He saw where she was looking and winced.

"Ah... I'll pay for that. Sorry." He really seemed to be, but she shook her head.

"Nay, Douglas. You did as was needed and protected us all with your sporting gifts. It was as needed." She'd gone a bit formal, but didn't keep that up, grinning at the man after a bit. "I do think that he was rather surprised by that, don't you? Anyway, Charity, to answer your question, you just faced battle with two of the most dangerous beings this world holds. The villains known as Braid and Tesseract. I think, after a fashion, that we managed well enough this day. They fled the field, and we all still have our lives. That was not an assured ending, if I sense the flow of things correctly."

Bridget had to agree with that sentiment.

"No doubt. I think that... I don't know, we managed to do something unexpected, in there. That's a big deal. Not that I can really tell you what threw things off. Something Proxy did? Or his power?"

Her grandmother, looking young and a bit too cute for the situation, nodded primly at her.

"Or, given what was said on that paper, and by Devorah herself, your own ability. You are related to Brian, after all, and the Wyrdcraft line. It is not impossible that your own powers would be influenced by his. Before your birth, I mean. He was in this world in the early eighties, with his full abilities. That might be part of the reason for it. Not that I understand the ways of your Infection. The rules seem to run sideways to good sense, most days."

Doug cleared his throat and actually rolled his eyes a bit. "No doubt. No one even knows how it really works. We call it an infection, but it's not that. It isn't any kind of virus or bacteria that anyone has found yet. Not nano devices either. Like you said, if it has rules, they don't work in any way that I can understand. So, what's next? Go and get the kids off to a safe place?"

It might have made sense to do it that way, but Mary just looked away and didn't mention what she was going to do in any way. She didn't even hint at it. Instead she looked at Bridget.

"We should seek to salvage the meal, before we do anything." It was pretty clear that to her mind a little thing like a fight with Tesseract and Braid was just to be taken in stride.

Charity looked shocked at it, but Doug just started cleaning the place up, unplugging the cold case first, then trying to find a dust pan and broom.

The meal took about forty minutes to finish up. While it was good, and Mary shut the front door while they ate, they did it in the store, in case soldiers came to get drinks, or goodies. It seemed unlikely to her, but at seven-fifteen, almost exactly, about two hundred people descended on them all at once. Most walked into place, though some rode in various military vehicles. They were polite and friendly enough. Also filled with information about the shoot out that had happened earlier. A good hunger for ice cream bars as well, since Doug marked them at half price, for a limited time only. Otherwise they'd melt anyway.