The Infected 1: Proxy (33 page)

In the hall, standing in the middle and staring at the door, stood Lady Glory, glaring and fuming. Her body language spoke of a person ready for violence. Brian relaxed, ready to fight if she wanted. Normally he didn't like to hit girls, but if she forced it that would have to be what happened. Her glow intensified and she hit him with her full power, the intensity so great Brian cried, feeling everything keenly, love for everything, compassion for everyone. Everywhere. He walked past her moving smoothly, not overawed by the feeling any more. Not after the first few seconds. Looking around for the threat, the one always present when LG pulled this stunt. He found the Director staring at them instead and waved the man over.

Smiling and feeling the man's plight, how hard all of this had been to manage, how wonderful he'd been through it all, he spoke, really meaning it and feeling bad for making things harder for the guy at the same time.

"I'm trapped. I can't stay here and I can't leave. I... I think I have a solution. She needs to stop that now though." She didn't, even when the Director asked her to. Moore carried the gun he'd brought.

Good, he'd been afraid he'd lost it and that might inconvenience someone. Guns were expensive and they had to account for them being gone from the armory eventually, right? Smiling he took it back, the man not resisting or acting silly about it, which made him feel good about the guy. He really did try hard to keep everything running smoothly.

Brian could see that now. Everything was so clear.

Then in one fluid motion he clicked the safety off and put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his right thumb, sorry about the mess it would make on the outside facing wall.

It clicked, empty.

He looked at the director and asked him, filled with love, if he had the bullets.

Glory finally stopped hitting him. The feeling tore through him, half relief, half something so dark he didn't have a name for it. Death rage? Something like that might fit.

He turned on her and rushed forward as fast as he could. She just stood, as if frozen when he hit her - a tackle, inelegant, taking her to the floor - then he hit her over and over again until she stopped glowing. Brian stood up and demanded that they lock her up, at least until they could find out why she'd tried to kill him, again, after everything.

No one moved.

When he looked down, Karen lay on the floor, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

His stomach dropped.

She'd been spying on him? Or... He didn't know, but she'd pretended to be his friend and then tried to kill him? Why? Had he done something that wrong? How? All he'd done with her is go around a track and do some sit ups! She'd seemed nice... If she had a problem with him, why hadn't she come and talked about it? He would have listened...

Crying, tears streaming down his face, he walked away. He didn't know what to do now. Putting a gun in his mouth seemed like a good option. There was another one down in his room. He took the stairs, not trusting the elevators right now, they could be controlled remotely he felt sure. Slowly he descended, missing the ninth floor and needing to climb back up two flights to get the right door.

Brian moved like a zombie, feeling detached. It would work, he knew, a solution to all their problems. No one here liked him, they just pretended to, to keep him going while waiting for him to die. He'd created all those problems the day before. If he would have just let the police kill him, everything would be fine now. So, it was a good plan. Walking to his room, he thought he heard something but he didn't, it must have been imagination. Going to his closet he dug out the second gun he'd hidden there. The weight felt nice in his hand, sturdy and solid.

Checking for bullets first, he clicked off the safety and put the handgun in his mouth again, the metal tasted bad, a little, but that wouldn't last long, he pulled the trigger. Nothing. His arms and legs were just strapped to a bed suddenly.

He howled.

Knowing it wouldn't to any good, he fought at first, but of course, nothing happened. This bed had been designed to stop people a lot stronger than him after all. He tried to convince his subconscious mind to get him out, but it wouldn't, foolishly choosing survival over the sensible course of action.

Brian cried.

Karen? Why?

After a few minutes someone came in and gave him a shot, which put him to sleep. He woke feeling cold. Not physically, but inside. No emotions, just logic. The restraints hadn't been removed, so he waited calmly. His ability, he knew now, worked in part on emotion. Too bad they hadn't figured that out two months ago. A life without emotion would have been hard, but better than what had happened. Except for the lives saved. The math there made sense. One life spent playing video games and packing toilet paper into boxes didn't equal the nearly forty he'd saved since then. If even one of them managed to do something with their life, even just have children, or help a stuck motorist, the equation balanced. Morally. Math wise it didn't work, the variables couldn't be balanced, too many things were subjective. But the made up math in his head worked perfectly.

After a few hours a doctor came in, one he didn't recognize. The woman smiled and asked how he felt, getting an exacting answer that made her laugh. She explained the drug that had been given, how it worked to shut down most of the emotion centers of the brain, and that it couldn't be used often without permanent damage.

"It's safe occasionally, but we try to save those uses for when it's really needed. Now why do you think you tried to kill yourself?"

Analyzing it without emotion left him feeling oddly clear about the whole thing. Why had he done it? Thinking for a minute first, a picture came together. Lady Glory had hit him over and over again with her power, probably stressing the neuropeptide production of both compassion and love chemicals in his brain. Self-sacrifice, his first mode, required some of the same brain chemicals to function properly. It left him empty after a while, his brain forcing itself into overdrive. Along with the events and the incredible stress he'd been under the last months, torturous things by anyone's standards, connections had been formed internally, linking the ultimate in self-sacrifice with the solution to all the problems being faced at the moment.

Depression also played a role, an imbalance created by half a dozen factors, most directly stress, but also Lady Glory, Karen, and the repeated assaults on his mind.

The doctor's eyes went wide.

"That's... insightful. Some of the science is a little off, but not that far. What we have to do is restore the balance. Unfortunately that's going to take time, about a week, and during that time, we can't treat you with Dipherial, the drug you're on right now. It's probably not going to be a lot of fun for you, in fact... well, it has to be done. On the good side, the Dipherial in your system right now will build a backlog for the next fourteen hours or so, which will give you something to work with as far as the needed brain chemicals are concerned."

She went over what would have to be done, that it would be hard, uncomfortable, and possibly deadly. That he'd have to be in restraints at first, and probably feel suicidal. She covered the medical portions, the I.V.'s to keep him fed and hydrated, the catheters.

Then she left. Sleep came, for a while, then pain. Inside, the world, everything he knew, collapsed in on him. She'd said suicidal, but that didn't cover it by half. Unable to move ,he tried to will himself to death. That didn't work, so he tried to chew through his own tongue so he'd bleed until he died. He thought he was alone, but someone had been watching, because he woke up with a plastic piece in his mouth, or at least it appeared and he didn't remember anyone putting it there. He let the saliva pool in his mouth for an hour and inhaled it, but they came and saved him again then too.

It went on for days, sleep followed by trying to die. The doctor had said it would be about a week, but that proved optimistic. After a week he still wanted to die and felt helpless and incompetent after failing so many times. Didn't they understand? He was dead anyway. The police wouldn't let him live. They'd keep coming after him until they were all dead or he was and there were hundreds of thousands of them and only one of him. He couldn't kill them all.

On day ten he had his first visitor. People had come in each day, doctors and nurses, once a janitor, a kind older man that talked to him as he pushed around a broom and mop, telling stories about his family, how his grandson was about to graduate from high school and had been accepted into a state college and his granddaughter had won a school art contest. It made Brian cry, so the man left early, not understanding why. Brian was just happy for the man, having people that loved him and to love. Something he'd never have. Not now. But then he never had.

The first person to visit surprised him.

He'd expected one of his teammates first, Marcia or Mark, Christian not really seeming to care for him that much. Penny... she wouldn't come, he knew, which hurt, but was just the way of the world. None of them came at all. He'd thought that Lancaster or even Doctor Tull maybe, would come and try to prop him up for a while, if only because he could prove useful in the future and it overlapped with their jobs. Or the director, because it might be politically advantageous.

After that... maybe Bridget? She didn't seem to hate him, or she hadn't before. He had kind of beat up Karen. And her dad. Again. None of which made him look very good. Thinking of that made him want to die again, so he pulled away from the thought. None of them came at all.

The first person that did come was Dharma, the emo-goth he'd met that one time in the gym. Not able to talk, his mouth stuffed with plastic, a tongue protector and tubes to make sure he breathed and didn't choke, he had to listen. Her grin looked wicked as she needled him.

"Oooh, boo-hoo. Little Bri-bri doesn't feel wuved..." She started, pacing around the room. "Seriously, stop being a little bitch-dude. You'll feel better soon. Being loved is overrated and that's not your deal anyway. Remember, it's all about saving those people. Keep thinking about that. Focus on it... And don't make me look bad. I came to cheer you up, so snap the fuck out of your funk and get with it." Snapping her fingers she chuckled darkly.

"If you don't I'll have to kick your ass. I think I can take you right now, all things considered."

She walked out, the door moving silently when she passed through it. A few minutes later the door opened again and a nurse came in to check on him, the door far noisier when she worked it.

This particular nurse didn't seem to care about him at all, always being rough, pulling on the catheter tube when checking it, the same with the tubes in his nose and throat. It wasn't needed, he knew, others managed without causing discomfort. The lady just seemed angry all the time, like her job weighed on her so much that taking it out on him only made sense.

Each day after that Dharma came back, usually with the same basic message, stop being a dweeb and snap out of it. Sometimes she added a barb about his looks, just to keep things interesting. No one else came in to visit at all. It made him wonder if Dharma had lost the drawing of straws to see who had to bother with him.

They'd probably forgotten about him, or just didn't care at all. Fair enough... But if they didn't care, why bother keeping him alive? After a while he decided it must be habit. Medical professionals saved lives, they didn't spend a lot of time reflecting on the value of a given life. They didn't have that luxury. Save this one, move to the next and repeat.

Brian shrugged a little, limbs aching from being immobilized for so long, even though a man came every day and stretched his arms and legs for him, one at a time. That hurt too, but it felt better later, so he put up with it. Plus, tied down like he was, he didn't get much of a say in the matter.

When he woke up on the fifteenth day, at least he thought it might have been that long, the doctor - the woman who'd first talked to him - came in and asked him if he felt ready to get out of all this, gesturing to the restraints and tubes. He thought about it carefully. Would he kill himself if he were freed? He didn't think so. After all, he really didn't need too, others would do it for him soon enough. Nodding a tiny fraction, he tried to let her know it would be safe.

She took the tubes out and the plastic thing from his mouth first and sat with him, waiting and offering him sips of water through a straw, his throat left raw and dusty from lack. He'd had a drip, but without drinking or eating, he felt pretty bad. They talked for a long time, and he tried to be honest with her about how he felt, knowing that he probably still wouldn't be right in the head for a while.

Even when he told her about not needing to kill himself and why he felt that way, she decided to let him loose and finally undid all the straps. He moved his limbs, aching and weak-feeling and then tried to get up.

His legs failed him, letting him fall to the floor, the doctor didn't move to help him up, watching instead as he struggled to stand. He made it after five tries. It left him leaning over the bed to stay kind of upright.

"Good! Will to live restored and a bit of fight left in you even. A harsh test, but you'd be surprised how many people just fall down and lay there, defeated, even if they haven't gone through all you have. Keep fighting..."

They moved him, within the hour, to floor seven, one of the rooms he'd been in before, he noticed. That he could tell the difference between identical hospital rooms made him a bit sad. This one had holes in the wall from where Prime's TV had been mounted. Shaking his head, Brian decided to follow that advice he'd gotten.