Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day (21 page)

The rest of the site was cleared easily enough. No one had worked around behind the podium, except for one boy that looked to be about twenty. He was far from cute, having a large honker in the middle of his ratlike face, and heavy glasses on. He'd also failed to dress up for the day. About half the people were camera ready, but the tech guys and gals wore a similar work uniform for news services. Jeans, and for some reason, t-shirts, with button up shirts over them. The favorite colors were blue and plaid.

This guy had picked the latter, with a nice red and black pattern woven into it.

Slowing from her jog, she waved to him, since he was either her new phone buddy, or the world's worst and most obvious terrorist.

He looked at her funny, which probably had to do with her plain clothing, rather than her good looks. After all, her calling
him
ratlike was a bit rich. Her code name had been Rat-girl for a reason, after all. Then, she was, if a bit slowly, growing out of that. Her face was already rounder. That was due to her jaw and cheekbones filling out, but also a thickening of the armor under her skin. It was pretty much what she had instead of fat. Her breasts might not have been whoppers, being a modest a-cup, but they could stop a fifty cal. round from ten feet away. Probably closer than that, but she'd never tried it out. It just hadn't come up.

"Are you Kenny the Intern?" She managed to sound professional, and use the phrase like it was his superhero code name.

"Yeah. Impulse?" He waved at her and smiled. "I saw you run in. I got a podium up. That... I actually, um, borrowed it from a local church. It's a little plain. The stage is from the school, since they had a mobile one. The mics, well, everyone got to set up their own, so we need to check that. In order to prevent feedback. I told them two-thirty. It's ten till two, right now. So we have forty minutes. Is um... Quartz going to be here before that? I got her a trailer." He seemed impressed with himself for that one, it seemed.

"Two minutes or so. I'm checking things out first. We're going to have a problem with the protestors. Who let them inside the town, anyway? Are they locals?" That seemed like the case, being that she kind of recognized one or two of them from previous problems they'd had at the base.

"I... Don't know. They were just here. I don't think we can send them away. Should we cancel?"

"Not yet. Get that mic check, and point me to the trailer? I need to check it for bombs before we start. That, and other kinds of attack." Not that desperately, but the man went wide eyed, and showed her where it was. About a hundred and fifty feet away. It was a tiny thing, and had a channel five news logo on the side. Kenny's bosses.

"They're happy to be of help. Um, I was supposed to ask if you need anything? Clothing or food? Someone to give an exclusive to?"

"Um..." She nearly said no, out of habit, since regular people didn't help the Infected as a rule, unless they were related to them. Except that Kenny here
was
. It might be that she simply had the wrong idea about how real people thought, seeing only the worst of them, most of the time. Will, from the day before, had seemed all right. He was there, standing away from the crowd, with his back turned away, as if trying to divorce himself from the angry muttering that started up when Marcia ran into place. "There she is. Early, of course. As to the question, yes. We really could use some help. We lost
everything
. As it stands I don't even have a change of underwear. I had to beg for a toothbrush last night."

He nodded then, looking over at Marcia, as if suddenly realizing that she was sort of pretty. At least in potential. The no hair thing and played down clothing threw things off a bit, but not so much that the guy might not try to get with her.

"No problem, I'll get to the next town and pick up some things for you. Can you get me a list? I'm going to look good buying a load of women's clothing, aren't I? You probably need girl things, too. Tampons or pads." There was a sour kind of dark humor in the words.

Bridget nodded.

"Yeah, all that kind of thing. Some condoms too, in case Doug gets lucky later. I need a vibrator too, so I can get my groove on. Let me check the trailer there." She was kidding, of course. Her deadpan had been really good though, so Kenny just rolled his eyes, and nodded.

"Batteries too, then."

She smiled, but went to check the little white and blue trailer out, as Quartz moved closer to her position. It didn't take long for her to do the search, crawling all over the outside and then the nearly empty interior. It was clean, but also her job to make certain of that kind of thing.

"Clear! Turner, go. I'm on the plan." Which meant that if anyone rushed Marcia, she'd have to fight them off alone at first. Unless they were complete morons, in which case they'd try to attack from the line of protestors, who she was planning to be standing right behind.

Very near where Will was, to tell the truth. Not that she needed to be by the hunky looking young man, really. It was an excuse to go over, and famous in certain circles or not, no one seemed to recognize her. Not even Will, who just smiled a bit blankly in her direction as she sauntered over.

Waving at the back of the protestors, she winked at him.

"Come to watch the circus?"

"Oh yeah. My parents and little brother are clowns in it. The one holding the sign that says all Infected are demons? That's him. Cute as a button, don't you think? Except for the hate slogans. Not that he got a choice, my parents are really into this crap." Turning to her he held out his hand, which was rare for people that met her. They either shied away from her because she was super strong, and might hurt them, or they didn't think she was old enough for that kind of thing.

He was, she thought, being ironic. Still, she got to use her handshaking lessons, so returned a firm, but not too powerful, grip. She managed to not hurt his hand this time, too.

"I'm Will. Pleased to meet you."

That seemed to answer how deep what Charity had done went, didn't it? That meant she was a class three for certain, if she could do that kind of thing.

"Bridget. Um, if it comes up, I'm one of those Infected demons. You might not want to invite me over to dinner, given that. It would be awkward, you and your brother hitting on me, while your parents make the sign of the cross, and keep asking me to get their behinds."

"You mean get behind them? I think that's how the saying goes. 'Get thee behind me, Satan'. I've actually heard that one a few times at home. Used as a joke."

She nodded, "I know that, but what do they think I'm going to do once I'm there? Especially if
invited
like that?" She meant it pretty seriously, but he laughed, as if she were hilarious.

"Point. So, shouldn't you, I don't know, be up front?"

"Nah, I'm working security. So, you get the general idea, you might just want to go and get your parents and brother and move along. Not because I'm a jackboot, but if anything happens, the way that they're all packed together in that gaggle, people will probably die. One shooter, and the whole thing becomes a blood bath."

Without saying anything, Will shrugged.

"That will go over well. Let me see if I can tell a lie that will get some action?"

He moved toward his family, and she stood and watched, because that was her responsibility. It was boring, and no one did anything. There was a man and a woman, not too far from Will's family, that caught her interest. Mainly because the lady was pregnant, but still hateful enough to come out on a halfway warm day and chant about how Bridget deserved to die.

Well, in this case, they weren't saying that. No, they were saying that Quartz
should
have died, and was unnatural. The last one was just the truth, but they meant it to be hurtful. The intent counted too, didn't it?

Her new protest buddy, Will, didn't go in and try to drag anyone away, just acting natural, and speaking softly enough that she could just barely make out what he was saying, under the various chants going on. Those got blocked out, except the one of "death to all Infected". She noticed
that
part, pretty well.

Kenny guided two men in suits to the little trailer, just as Will convinced his parents that putting Bradley, which seemed to be his brother's name, off to the side, near the cameras, would probably work pretty well, as far as being easily noticed while the events happened on stage. That got a few other families to move that way, since a group of little hate monger children would look better on television. That wasn't wrong, she knew. People loved seeing things like that.

Heck, half her own appearances in the media had been about the same thing. Catching attention, because she was too young to be Infected. Only, the Infection didn't care about your age.

The men and Marcia came out, a few minutes later. Bridgie watched the assembled people closely, her stomach rumbling at her in a combination of hunger and excitement. It wasn't until they all got to the mics that things got interesting. One of the men turned out to be the mayor, and the other the Chief of police.

She marked the face, which looked like a bulldog had gotten to his mother before his father got home one day, and, made herself
not
rush him in anger. He'd tried to kill Brian at
least
three times. If she got the chance, and could do it without being caught, the man was going to die. He'd betrayed the public trust, and more than anything, she'd come to notice about herself, she
hated
that. Betrayal left her feeling angry and like she wanted to kill people. Even if it wasn't done to her directly.

It was the mayor that spoke first, his introduction short, and if not sweet, simply perfunctory. It was about right, really.

The Chief moved back and to the side, watching the crowd a bit warily. Only he wasn't doing
that
, was he? He was looking at the pregnant woman and her husband, as the people around them slowly moved away, giving them space. They didn't really seem to notice themselves doing it, however. It was like what happened when there was a belligerent drunk in a crowd.

Because that was normal?

She got it just as the man of the pair started screaming, before Marcia could speak.

He bellowed the words, as the woman ran at the stage. The Chief was off the back, running at full speed to get away, which had
her
dashing forward at nearly full speed. A few bigots got knocked out of the way as she did it, not caring about them.

"This is the start of the Clean Revolution! Stand against the tyranny of the Infected!"

Bridget picked up the woman in her blue dress, around the upper thighs, and didn't slow down at all. The impact killed her, no doubt. There was a loud cracking sound of her spine compressing and then shattering in several pieces. No one got in her way as she ran however, heading away from the media at a forty degree angle, which took her almost directly toward, and then behind, the little trailer, when the bomb the woman was wearing exploded.

It wasn't a little thing either, and Bridget was blasted into the ground, the world around her turning into fire.

Chapter six

Bridget thought the blast tickled at first, until she realized that the air was still burning as she took a breath. That didn't exactly
hurt
, like she would have suspected, but she'd been running too fast and using so much energy that she couldn't help it. There was no sense of relief from the lungful of chaos that she got either. The fire greedily used most of the air before she had a fair chance at it.

In her arms, well, there was nothing left, except a bit of charring flesh where once there had been a woman. The explosion could have left bits of blood and brains all over the place, but it hadn't. By some strange chance, the woman had nearly vaporized. Just like most of her clothing. Her jeans, which had seen a good bit of wear on the run over anyway, had failed at the seams, and her thin t-shirt was gone as well. Her tiny bra and underwear had been cute, but not designed to take that kind of punishment. That meant she was standing there, still on fire, wearing nothing at all. Except for the flames, which died away once the fuel was gone. Her
hair
was fine however. Unlike a certain bald woman she knew, her hair and nails didn't melt.

When Marcia was blown up, hers would have burned off. With Bridget it was different. Rather than be left bald all over, she was left with the hair on her head, eyebrows, lashes and a nice mound of pubic hair that matched, showing that she didn't dye anything. It would also let the pervs of the world know that she wasn't a kid. In all, that was a thing she decided she could live with. It was bad enough to be on all those porn web-sites that catered to people like that. Being their
dream
girl was a little too much.

After all, she was sixteen, not twelve or thirteen. Not that anyone in the world would care about that. She'd probably be taken to task in the press for being caught nude, too.

Because the media
loved
the Infected.

There was a sense of desperation, due to the lack of air, but she managed to move back a few steps, and not breathe again until the horrid pain in her lungs subsided. She wasn't armored in there, so sucking in flames meant having to heal. That would mean a cost in food later, too.

The healing didn't take long, and like it or not, as painful as it was, she started to gasp as soon as she could, taking in a nifty amount of smoke as she did. That and charred terrorist.

She looked down to see that her feet were bare, too. In that way she matched now. Totally without covering, standing in front of twenty video cameras, all of them trained on her. Which meant they missed the second bomb carrying woman coming up behind them.

No doubt the plan had been to go for them, Marcia and her, after the first blast had softened them up. Except that was so stupid that Bridget cringed, even as she started running, her lungs burning the whole time. This woman didn't make pretense of being with child, at least. No, she just had a bomb strapped to her front, openly. That, and a dead man's switch in her right hand. Bridget didn't call out or point, just trying to get to the woman, who looked a bit homely, and was in her twenties or so, by the looks of her face. It seemed to take forever, but she had to get there in time, or else the crowd of shocked and milling bigots was going to die. Along with a lot of the press that was there.