Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day (32 page)

She mentioned
that
several times. Fiscal responsibility was, it was clear, a big deal when you were at the top of the organization.

"Makes sense to me." Bridget tried not to sound disappointed. She could sleep anywhere, but did like a soft and comfy bed under her. "Some of the places out in the woods are nice. We'll need money to rebuild the base, or get a new one. That's going to take some scratch. Let's get those tarps around and make someplace to sleep for the night. Someone has to stay here, to man the phones. When we have them. Do we have an ETA on that?" She asked the room, figuring that Kenny would answer, but one of the phone guys waved at her.

"We should be good in five on that. We found a bit of static on one of the lines, so replaced some faulty wires. The lines in here are pretty old. We're checking that now." He was the older of the two men, the other one just looked at his work, and seemed like he really didn't want to be part of the conversation. Not even a little. He wasn't old, being young enough that Bridget wouldn't have felt bad about asking him out. Even her parents would have been fine with it, and they could be picky.

She looked at that man for a bit. Something was off about him. Not,
I'm about to kill you all
, but more like he didn't want to be seen. That could have been fear, and he
was
anxious enough, but scared people looked at what they feared. It was skewed the way he was trying not to be noticed...

Wrong
.

"Marcia?" Bridget smiled, and looked at her boss, remembering that she was the Director now, not just someone that she'd known her entire life. Except she was that, too. So, she wasn't a person to give orders to. Which was a shame, since being bossy was so handy, at times. Bridget had picked that up from Brian, who did it as naturally as other people breathed. "Would you show Doug and..."
She waved at the room. "Everyone really, how to find phone taps and whatever? We all need to be looking for that."

Before the woman in her yellow shirt and pretty if out of place skirt could speak, the younger man tried to run for it. Bridget rolled her eyes, but waved at the door.

"Don't let him leave, please." She nailed the delivery too, and waved lazily, rather than seeming tense. She could have caught the man, and still could, but it was the teleporting girl that got there first, standing in the way, with her arms spread, and a panicked look on her face. She'd gotten were she needed to be, but had suddenly realized that she didn't know what to do next.

They could work with that. That showed good instincts. No one else had moved yet, so Bridget jogged over, and put her hand on the shoulder of the man that was nearly to the door.

"Okay,
that
one isn't happening. Come with us. To, um... Well,
this
is the place, actually. Marcia, if you'll start that class? I bet these two will help us out, if we ask nice." She gestured to the older man, who seemed like he didn't know what was going on. "In fact, um, Frank, why don't you show us the new system and see if you can figure out what junior here did? If you do good work on that, there might be a new job in it for you." If he was willing to work with the IPB.

That seemed more likely than not. Frank was there, after all, in the first place.  He even started to move, just based on what she'd said.

"Big guy, Doug and um, angry girl, you're on guard duty. If this one tries to get away or do anything strange, hit him in the head." Then, happily, she clapped. "This is some good team building stuff right here! What fun! First, let's see if he has a name. Joe? Is that right? Your shirt told on you, but if you're actually NSA then that could be a lie. By the way, if you
are
with the government, I suggest you let us know now.
Embarrassing
, but going home to tell them all about the sorry state of our tech department is a lot better than us trying to rendition you for some special treatment. Canada maybe?" She didn't know really. That there were places like that was an open secret, but it wasn't her kind of thing to know about.

Marcia did. Intimately, it seemed.

"Camp Jones, in Venezuela. I know the man in charge, so we won't have to leave a paper trail. All right, you heard her, let's get this done. I want a full run down on all the wiring. Inside first, then I want to do the perimeter, look for lasers on the glass, people with line of sight listening devices, and cameras. Does anyone have a special talent for that kind of thing?"

Joe the spy, or at least
possible
espionage agent, struggled a bit when the big bald man took his arm. Not really getting away, more to let them know that he was annoyed with them.

"Hands off, penis head. I'll break your arms if you touch me again." It was said with conviction, but the large man didn't let go.

In fact he laughed.

"I don't think so. Half the people in this room could take out all the people you know, much less you, dickless. Come along now, or I'll get one of the little girls to kick your ass before we send you back to your bosses. Complete with video footage of it." There was a jerk of the other mans arm, which got Marcia to shake her head.

"Watch the name calling and threats. We don't threaten anyone.
Ever
. We
might
have to hurt them, kill them, or even torture them for information, and there's allowance for it under the law, and our charter. Name calling and threats need to be kept to a minimum, if we can. It makes us look bad. Image is king right now. When you speak from now on, every word represents the IPB and all Infected people, everywhere. It's part of the package, I'm afraid."

She headed toward the back, only to have one of the girls, the teleporting one who had blonde hair, clear her throat. It sounded polite, rather than like she was gargling glass. That meant that Phoebe was a good bit better at healing than Bridget would have guessed. She'd basically smooched rapid healing into the girl, unless she was a fast healer in her own right.

"Excuse me, um, Quartz? I was... Is this
real
? I mean, do we all have to stay in the IPB? I thought you had to be... I don't know, cool or something, just to get in." She glanced at Bridget, which got her to clap again.

"Yay, I'm cool. Not that everyone doesn't know that. To answer the question, yes. This is real and you can't get out of it. It's always been the rule. Well, there's more to it than that, but it's part of the deal you all made. So, you know, grab a good job now, in the beginning. If you snooze you lose. So, tech squad, front and center." No one came forward, so rolling her eyes, she did it, moving toward Frank the telephone guy and Marcia, and pushing in beside the woman.

Refusing to grab her butt when she did. Grinning, Bridget saw where Frank was pointing as he traced an open line along. It wasn't long, and it didn't take a genius to see where a small box had been put, inside the little wall phone box. It was a light blue color, on the outside, and made of plastic. Inside of that was a slick looking matte black box that was about the size of the body of a wrist watch. Hers at least, which was a women's Timex.

It had been, until they'd blown it up, along with her entire set of Debbie Danger books. It was a sacrifice, but she could at least take solace in the fact that they had interesting adventures to look forward too. She pointed, and let her voice lilt, playfully.

"Iiiits a boy! Or a bug. Take your pick. Let's get this off the line, I guess and then go over how to sweep the whole place. Oh, and Marcia? Will you call that friend of yours? Camp Jones? I've heard of that... Isn't it where they start the new prisoners out by taking a big butt plug and shoving it so far in that they-" She was making that part up, trying to be mean to the spy, but Marcia cleared her throat, sternly.

"No. They use water boarding, psychotropic drugs and confinement in absolute sensory deprivation to break down and turn enemy agents. He'll
wish
they offered free anal play, before he's done. Don't threaten people with rape though. It's beneath us."

Bridget blinked, since that was a change in plans. She'd kind of thought that they were just making stuff up, but the new Director was doing it in a way that seemed to be having an effect, where she hadn't been. Probably because that was the reality of the situation. Marcia could play, and even joke around, but she didn't like to mix that sort of thing with work very often. That meant that Joe, if that was his real name, was in for a time of it.

"That, then. Or...
If
you want,
I
can call your boss and have you collected, for the low price of telling us where all the bugs you planted in here are. If you do that, and get them all, we'll just let you go, and not break your legs first." Holding up a hand, she closed her eyes and took ten deep breaths. To anyone else it probably seemed like she was hyperventilating and about to lose it, emotionally. It was really all about giving herself a moment to decide not to break his legs for him.

Not yet.

It occurred to her that it wouldn't be a threat, if she actually
did
it.

"Sorry. What do you say? Help a girl out?"

"Fuck you,
bitch
." He tried to stand up straight, and move toward her, but the big bald guy who liked to steal didn't let him go more than a step.

Bridget smiled.

"Agreed. Sex,
and
you'll tell us where they are? That's a twofer, isn't it? Throw in dinner first and I might let you try anal." She was trying for menacing, but it came out flirty. She thought that was the case, at least, and a few people, including Doug, laughed.

Joe the telephonic spy blew out hard and looked away.

"Great, now I have to be raped by the world's tiniest mad woman, too? I should have never taken this job."

Everyone was watching him, which got him to be quiet again. That wasn't what they wanted. Bridget rolled her hands, toward herself, trying to keep the flow going.

"That's a good starting place. What was the job, exactly? Was it trying to get a camera into our locker room for porn uploading? You look like the kind that watches a lot of porn." Being young and male, that was probably a safe bet.

The teleporting girl, who Bridget decided was going to be her new BFF, suddenly groaned and grabbed her forehead with both hands. It was dramatic and was pretty obvious, as to what she had planned. It was almost exactly the same thing that any psychic on every show, ever, did when pretending to read someone's mind. It was cute, but she didn't want to spoil whatever the new girl had planned.

"I... I can see it... In his mind... He
does
watch a lot of porn! It... gay... something about... horses..."

The man turned beet red, and stammered at the blonde girl. Bridget had to imagine that he was having a flashback to high school, from the look on his face. She'd never gone to a real school, herself. There were a lot of young, hormonal boys there, so it would probably be fun for someone with her general lack of concern over social rules.

"She's lying. I
don't
watch horse porn!"

She looked up at the man and smiled.

"No? Are you sure you haven't caught some, by accident? She
couldn't
have gotten that from you if you've never seen it. That isn't how her power works. We
know
that you've seen both gay and horse sex online. Now, before we have to take all your innermost secrets, tell us about who you work for, what they want, and why you don't need to go to special spy summer camp." It was a pretty safe bet that he'd at least seen both of those things at some point.
Bridget
had and she'd never even put in a search about horses that didn't involve riding. Doing that without a search filter on could get some interesting results in an image search, however.

Watching two guys going at it was just hot, though.

"I work for Monteliss. We're a government sub-contractor. My day to day job is just like Franks, installing phone lines and troubleshooting if it comes up. Then, at times, I get called in to do this kind of thing. I don't ask what it is, just install whatever I'm told too. I get a nice bonus for it. A few thousand. It's not enough to be worth being sent to prison for. I'll show you what I did. That's half of it, the rest is out on the line. We did that before coming in. I did, I mean. Frank doesn't know about my other job."

If the man was trying to protect his buddy, that was a good sign. Still, he could also have been covering for his partner. That the older man was better at pretending not to be a spy might just be down to acting ability and poise under fire.

It was still light outside when they all traipsed to the outside hookup box, which was on the corner of the building complex they were in. So one full shop front over from the Sho, along the far edge. It was a more complicated thing that had more lines than seemed reasonable for him to have put up without Frank noticing. The man grimaced, but didn't explain why that was. The blonde girl did, or tried, clearly faking the whole thing.

"He... was distracted by..." She went wide eyed and stopped talking, then looked away. Whatever else she was, the girl was a good actress. Not perfect, but solid.

Bridget crossed her arms.

"Come on Frank, what were you doing while he was doing that? It has to be pretty dicey if
she's
not going to tell us. What's worse than horse porn?"

The man gave them all a slightly annoyed look, then licked his lips.

"I was using the restroom next door. It took a while. I had a lot of dried fruit earlier, and prunes will do that to you. It's an age thing. Either you're backed up for half a week or get caught out with a time schedule and a desperate need to not be standing around. The door wasn't locked, so I just went it. The computer place? No one was there, but I didn't
take
nothing." If talking about bodily functions was embarrassing to him, it didn't show. That was probably due to his being all old like he was. In his fifties at the very least. She realized something then, that she'd only thought about occasionally before.