The Infected 1: Proxy (60 page)

After a few minutes, the Director got off the phone finally and walked over to Brian, not looking overly pleased.

"Brian, you're being a little... bossy for one of the new people here, don't you think?" His voice sounded serious, but his eyes held a hint of a smile.

"Yeah, I am. Sorry about that. I'm going to be doing that for a bit longer though. You mentioned Scott's mom, she may be able to help us with... Well, things. I don't know what I'm allowed to say or not. What you and I talked about in the hospital room? Plus, if we bring her in it may allow those three to feel a little more comfortable here with us. Not that I blame them for leaving, but I don't think we can afford to let them go without at least trying to fix things. So, if that seems like a good idea, can I borrow your phone?"

The older man handed it over, a tiny phone that didn't even have buttons, just a touch screen, it took Brian a second, and three tries, but finally the phone rang, and after three rings a sultry voice answered.

"Hello?"

The voice sounded smoky and warm, relaxed and at home with itself, even if the phone call came from a stranger. It sure as heck beat the rasp that his own voice had become over the last few months. It didn't have any magic quality, but sounded a little like what Brian would have expected from a phone sex operator. Sexy or sultry, one of those kind of things that he'd almost forgotten could exist in the world. For a second he wondered if he'd accidentally gotten the wrong number.

"Um, hi, this is Brian Yi, I'm not sure if I got the right number... is this..." Brian realized that the woman's name wouldn't really be Foggy, but he'd never heard another one for her. Becky chuckled in his ear, standing beside him suddenly.

"Rachel Chambers" The ghost girl smiled and gave him a wink, probably because she once again knew something he didn't.

"Um, Rachel Chambers? Bridget's grandmother?"

"Oh! Yes, you must be that Brian then! Bridgies told me a lot about you. Is everything all right?" Her voice sounded a bit concerned, which given everything made a lot of sense, and sent Brian scrambling.

"Oh! Important stuff first, sorry! Yes, everyone is all right. Scott, Bridget and Charlot are all a little banged up, but nothing that needs a hospital, I don't think. There's been a problem here..."

The voice took a deep sounding breath that shuddered on the way out and went silent for a minute.

"Is anyone dead?" The words were soft and dark, as if fearing the worse.

"Not today. In fact the first half of things seem to have been cleared up, they're all staying at a hotel in town, The Ridgemont I think I heard, I can double check that for you in a minute. The thing is, well, there's two things really, first they kind of need a friendly face right now, which really is the most important thing right now, but... I don't know what I can say about the next bit over the phone and I can't provide any proof at all, but I think it's possible that some... old friends of yours might be behind this..."

She hesitated and then fished for more information, until finally Director Moore took the phone.

"Foggy? This is Less. It's them. This reeks of them..." Then the man immediately put the phone back in his hand.

"Right, so, it's them. At least it might be. What I'd like, if your able and willing, is to have you come up and visit as soon as possible. I'll cover your expenses myself if you want. Again, I can't prove anything, but even if it's just coming up for Bridget and Scott, it's worth it."

Diving in he told the whole story, the suspicions, the video, the fight and the damage from it. The line went silent as he spoke. A rustling and crackling sound on the other side, as if something was being shifted, a sound of fabric and fasteners. After a few moments the line came alive again, the voice sounding a lot more practical suddenly.

"I'll be there in six hours. Can I get a car from there to this hotel?"

"I'll make it happen. Thank you..."

The line went dead suddenly. Handing the phone back to Moore, Brian told him the situation and requested a car be ready for them to take the woman to the Ridgemont when she got in as directly as possible. A man standing next to Moore raised an eyebrow, but made a note of it on a small hand held computer. He'd started out in a suit, clearly, but had taken the tie off and loosened the top button, smudges of dust and grease or something on his jacket, which he kept on, for warmth most likely, the night air starting to get a bit cool.

Thank god it's not raining, Brian thought, then not wanting to jinx things glanced up at the sky and saw with relief that it really was clear. Thinking about the situation and how cool it was likely to get he looked around at the people left, the ones that hadn't been bussed out already. They could keep most of them in the outbuildings, if people were willing to sleep on the floors, he realized, working the math as well as he could by approximation.

"We need to get rid of more people, about a third of them, if everyone's going to be sleeping inside tonight. Are there any hotel rooms left, or can, I don't know, people double up or something?"

The man that had made the note about the car hit the pad in his hands a couple of times and looked at him directly.

"We can't find any more rooms in town, but we think we can double up for enough people to do that. A few people will end up being cuddly or sleeping outside... can't be helped. We do have enough sleeping bags for everyone and food for about four days. Water's fine, we have well water here anyway and the power for it hasn't been disrupted at all, the generator complex is outside. We can even have showers, if a water hose hanging from a building roof counts as a shower in your book at least."

That sounded well planned out to Brian, so he decided to leave it in the man's obviously capable hands. He asked his name, just in case something came up, since he seemed to be the go to guy for this kind of thing.

"Sam. Sam Morris. Pleased to meet you..." He obviously searched for a name to go with Brian's face, holding out his hand, the shake a little weak, and the hand much softer than expected, even though the guy looked at least average in fitness level. Then, he was an admin type. That he looked as hard as he did probably meant a lot more work than most people would have bothered with. Then that was just part of the IPB wasn't it? Even the cooks looked a little hard really.

Smiling he let the man have his hand back, speaking just a little later than would be normal he knew, tired from the day's events even if it wasn't that late yet. It threw off his timing.

"Brian. Thanks, I appreciate all the help on this stuff."

Marcia sat on the spread sleeping bag next to Penny, both of them watching him closely. Not that he'd be that entertaining he knew, but with this little going on anything probably seemed interesting about now. It was a major problem with potentially life threatening events, they got you all amped up, but that effect would often last a lot longer than whatever needed to be dealt with. That meant sitting around being bored for a while after things calmed down, no matter how important it might be to stay ready.

He walked over and asked if he could sit too, since he didn't have anything left to do for a bit at least. Brian's stomach told him he could eat, not having had a chance, but that he didn't need to yet, not really. Carefully he settled on the blanket, close to Penny, his leg gently touching hers, enjoying the feeling of warmth and closeness. She took his hand for a few seconds and patted his leg, but didn't move away from him.

Marcia looked at him and grinned.

"Damn Brian. Pulled it out again didn't you? Everyone even got out alive. I heard that Denis made a pain of himself earlier and almost got Crandall killed. We should just sneak over and off him when it gets dark. That guy's just going to keep being a problem until he's stopped. You can't keep a class four locked up forever if they're hostile. Speaking of which," She turned her whole body, the loose sweat pants pulling halfway off in the movement, she looked annoyed and pulled them back up, then stared into Brian's face, her own going hard and slightly angry.

"What's the deal with letting Clark go? I'll give you Peggy, she shouldn't have ever been locked up anyway, that was all politics and public image, but Clark? He was sleeping with a twelve year old! That's pedophilia... I mean, OK, granted, other guys did too, but waking up with a girl on top of you in the dark might give them a pass, once, maybe even twice, but Clark was doing it on purpose... a lot!"

Brian nodded and went over what the Director told him the psych profile said.

"It's not good and the guy deserved to be locked up for it, but supposedly he's not into kids, just desperate for sex. Not," holding up a hand to stop Marcia from hitting him before finishing - even though she hadn't really started to even protest yet - Brian paused briefly. For her the time between mild reaction and beat down could be very small, hence the nickname, so he wanted to make sure she didn't overreact. "That being desperate is an excuse for what he did. But he's not likely to re-offend with anyone but Bridget and I told him that if he touched her or even got too close, I'd kill him. Not that I intend to, but the Director OK'd it, we just have to make the body disappear. I think he was even serious... Still, let's give Clark a chance... So far the one potential meeting he had with Bridget ended with him running off in the other direction as fast as he could, so... good sign, right?"

He could tell Marcia wasn't happy about the whole situation, but it certainly made more sense than trying to hold them prisoner without any facilities at all. It would be hard enough to control Denis. Brian told her he kind of agreed with her take on the man and that if Denis did anything more hostile with his power than give someone warm fuzzies, he'd kill him.

"So, if something happens and I do have to kill him, back my story. As it stands I'm probably going to overreact to something small at this point... Sure, I could see him having a problem with me, but he almost got Prime killed earlier and Charlot too, a single blow going the wrong direction and she'd be dead. If he wanted to pop off and try to torture me with his power, I could forgive that, but this? No. Plus, he made Soar attack Prime. What if Scott hadn't held back and waited for me to protect him like I'd asked? I mean when you think restraint and calmness, does Prime really pop into your head first? As it is I nearly murdered a man already once today because of what Denis had done."

Trying to change the topic he asked Marcia how she got her new hair cut. The story turned out to be a fairly interesting one, involving being buried under two of the huge weight lifting machines on fourteen, ones Brian had never even looked at too closely, because the weights were just so vast on them. They might as well have been giant sculptures as far as utility to him.

"So long and short of it, I got a haircut and my work out uniform got destroyed, I mean just ripped to shreds. Bridget and Lis had to get me out, which took a while, since neither of them is really strong enough to lift those kinds of things alone. No one is. They managed. I did find out something interesting though - my bones don't break. My legs got trapped and bent across the shines, almost in half," making hand gestures she indicated how the legs had bent back. "But when the pressure was taken off, they just sprang back into normal shape. Luckily I don't feel pain. I'm betting that would have been uncomfortable otherwise."

Touching her arm gently got her attention and she looked over at him. "But you can feel some things?" He asked, curious.

"Oh, sure. Most things, at least to an extent. A warm shower feels warm, a hot shower feels hot, my hand in a pot of boiling water feels hot too, but not to the level of pain. Punch me and a feel I tap, tickle me and I squirm and giggle like anyone else."

Penny sat up and got a devilish grin on her face. Without warning she ran her hand under Marcia's right knee, which really did make her yelp and gasp suddenly. She looked at Brian smiling, then cast around for Penny, looking for some tickle retribution. They stopped when Penny inadvertently pants the other woman, the sweats ending up around her mid thighs. At least Brian thought it was on accident. She scrambled to get them back in place before anyone saw anything, which didn't work too well. A large group of team two members sitting about fifty meters away had been watching her antics and started clapping and yelling for her to take it all off.

He moved in front of her and put his arm around her protectively, mock glaring at the "hooligans" with their cat calls. He told Marcia not to take it all off, since it would probably start a riot.

She smiled ruefully. "That bad?" Her voice held a bit of chagrin.

"Nope, that good. Even if you weren't just teasing them, this is the wrong place for a giant orgy. Especially with visitors coming in a few hours. Have to keep up appearances and all that. So let's try to keep your clothing mainly on until at least dark, all right?" He grinned and pushed her shoulder playfully.

Most of the people that had the powers for it helped clear debris out of the way, stacking it to the side. Not having anything else to do, they all decided to go and make sure the makeshift hospital had everything they needed. Penny moved better already, but Brian had her put her right arm over his shoulder and walked slowly anyway, trying to take as much weight off of her as possible. No need to take chances when they didn't need to, right? Besides, her arm felt warm. The temperature had dropped enough he almost wanted to wrap himself up in one of the sleeping bags. Ever since the lake thing, even a little chill annoyed him.

The square was outlined by what equipment people, mainly Mark, had managed to get from inside the complex, nothing electronic, but a full table of drugs, first aid kits and real blankets sat stacked up, with new things suddenly appearing along with Mark, who just asked what else would be needed and where it might be. He didn't wait to say hi, just blinked out and back in somewhere else, then asked again, a new pile of things having appeared, after about ten of these Burrows laughed and told him that should do it for now, then thanked him several times.

Brian looked at all the stuff and shook his head. "And here we were coming over to see if you needed anything. Should have known Mark would have thought of it first." He smiled at Mark and then the doctor who gave him a considering look for a moment.

"Well, I know that it's probably not strictly needed, but I'd like to get Warren to a functioning hospital. The director wants to keep this all under wraps, of course, but Warren may have some internal injuries. I've already talked to Moore, but he doesn't want to risk it unless it becomes absolutely needed, but the problem there is that by the time we know it's indicated for certain, it might be too late."