The Infected 3: Cast Iron (11 page)

Scott walked alongside Charlot, close, but not holding hands and Karen was with Brian, who wasn’t wearing his body armor, but had long t-shirt on with shorts. His legs had scars in places, but no fresh wounds. She hadn’t really thought about that part of things. At the base he almost always dressed in the clothing she’d gotten for him, not brightly colored red vacation clothes. His power meant that he could have to fight at almost any time. He was free of that for a bit, supposedly, hence the lack of his nano armor, but he wasn’t used to showing off his scars. That it might have been an issue for him wasn’t something she’d taken into consideration. At the base no one would have thought twice about it, because they knew what he did. Here he could almost just pass as a regular guy for a while.

The others just looked good. Except Level, who looked incredibly out of place. She was a giant black and brown armored form and that didn’t change just because she was on a beach. People had turned to stare at them as they made their way closer to the water, most of the attention going first to Lauren, then Tobin. After that each person was watched for a long while and at least a few people snapped pictures of them, most trying to be covert about it. It took a while, and some walking, to find a space big enough for them all to put towels out and still be together. Once they did Bridget wanted to run into the water directly, but waited for everyone else to settle first. Finally, with enough energy that Marcia felt a little envious, she jumped to her feet and grabbed Marcia by the hand, pulling her off her towel into a standing position, laughing.

“Come on! Let’s at least splash in the surf. These others can watch Warren for a bit. Please?” She wheedled and sounded a bit like a little kid for a second, but something around her eyes gave away the fact the girl had something else in mind. To Marcia at least. Looking over at Chris for confirmation the blond woman looked up, her skin freshly oiled and wearing a golden yellow suit that was probably see through in the water.

She nodded. Something was up with the girl for real then? Marcia smiled.

“Sure kiddo. We shouldn’t go alone though. Brian, why don’t you, Mark, Denis and Penny come along to? Brian can buddy up with the invisible girl there, so we don’t lose her. Chris, you should come too.” It shouldn’t have worked, but either the other people in the group didn’t want to go swimming, or they all got the idea that there was about to be a secret meeting.

One that involved Bridget. That… really didn’t seem likely. Marcia realized suddenly that most of them probably thought she’d selected people randomly. Only Karen was looking at her funny. She didn’t know about Alpha Squad at all though, did she? It wasn’t that the woman couldn’t know, just that as a group the people in on it hadn’t wanted to worry everyone yet. Nothing could be done about Braid and the rest of her people really, so why bother?

It was a point, wasn’t it? The idea of keeping things a secret didn’t make sense for the most part, not with their friends. It was an old habit for her, but just not needed in this case. The enemy literally knew what they did. If they wanted to at least. They couldn’t hide anything from them at all. That was mainly because of Trivia, one of the original super government agents. She literally knew what everyone else on the planet had in their memories. That didn’t mean she’d think to check it all, luckily, but if she did the information was hers. Nothing they had would stop that. Not at all. If she wasn’t checking them daily… Marcia couldn’t see that happening at all. The woman simply would be. It only made sense.

So the enemy had all their plans and information, but their friends didn’t? Well, maybe it was time to start changing that? The only people that couldn’t really know the whole deal was the rest of the government and the press. The IPB was safe and it was getting to be a pain to protect the information anyway.

“Karen? Would you come along too?” She sighed and looked at everyone else.

Why the hell not?

“Everyone should come, I guess. We… should stick together.” They could watch their things from the water after all. No one sane would bother it.

Christian gave her a funny look, but didn’t say anything about it at all, just standing, stretching back, arms over her head, which got looks from half the men on the beach, including Scott, though oddly not Brian. Denis noticed, but looked away so smoothly Marcia felt slightly impressed. A year ago he would have flat out asked Chris if she wanted to fuck in front of everyone, even with a teenager and the woman’s boyfriend standing right there. Now he was being a gentleman.

Prison had been good for him.

Bridget got everyone playing as they moved toward the water, tossing handfuls of sand and getting people to chase her a bit. No one there could catch her, unless she wanted them to, but she didn’t put on a display of power, letting them dump sand on her head, then letting Warren brush her short hair until it was all gone, laughing the whole time.

“OK, no more sand, I think I have some in my suit. That’s not going to be comfortable later.” Bridget pulled at the bottom of her one piece as if to prove her point. If anything fell out, Marcia couldn’t tell.

The water was surprisingly warm for the ocean. At least Marcia didn’t feel the slight coolness that would indicate anything from about sixty degrees down for her. It felt almost body temperature to her, but was probably cooler than that. No one else shivered though and Prime walked out into the waves quickly, swimming after just a few seconds, but coming back as everyone else moved out just a bit.

Before she could formulate an actual plan, or come up with a way to explain anything, Bridget bobbed over to her with a splash and help on to her shoulder tightly. The water came to her chest, which meant the girl was already swimming.

“So, are you going to tell us about what’s going on?” The eyes that looked at Marcia were almost red, holding just enough brown that they didn’t look too out of place to be on a human. A nictitating membrane covered her eyes from the side just a bit as she spoke, then all the way as a wave caught her gently in the face.

Sighing Marcia tilted her head.

“Yeah. Not everything, but I think it’s time for the big stuff.” She didn’t know where to start, but Chris, who was reading her mind, had the right idea and started talking without preamble.

“There’s a group of very powerful Infected that are trying to start a war. One that will kill millions if not hundreds of millions of people. They were, at least their core group was, the original group of Infected government agents for the United States. Alpha Squad, they were called. They’re… Powerful isn’t really an adequate term for it. They’re led by a woman named Devorah Timberland. Her codename was Braid. Just to make sure were all up to speed and no one is taken by surprise later; she’s married to Director Moore, though they’re estranged. We have two of their original team working with us, Moore and Rachel Chambers. This is, most likely, one of the most dangerous situations any of us have ever faced. The problem is that Braid is… different. She’s from a different world, the same one the Hobbs from Team two is from in fact, I believe.” She glanced at everyone and then Marcia.

“Anything else you want to share with the class?”

Did she? What? After a second she nodded. She might need their help anyway and if they were all trustworthy. It just wasn’t their concern.

“Um, well.” She looked at the agents, Lancaster and Reyes at least, who both looked totally deadpanned. No help there at all then. If they knew that she needed to keep her mouth shut, they weren’t saying. What did she really know though?

“Not much at this point. There’s a situation. Possibly. Some old friends of mine have gone missing. Maybe, if the information I got is correct. I’m here to check that out. It may or may not be related to this other situation with Alpha. So far I can’t say anything more, because I just don’t know. It may turn out to be nothing. Hopefully that’s the case.” She stopped talking then, expecting glares from Reyes at least, but he just shrugged.

“That’s about my take on it too, except that I didn’t know about this other situation at all. Kind of a big detail to leave out of the briefings, don’t you think? What with a possible mega war being in the offing.”

Brian, who was still wearing his t-shirt, smiled darkly.

“It was really only done to keep you all from worrying. We literally have nothing we can do to stop these people. We can get you all more specs on what they can do if you want, but right now we’re basically just trying to pay attention and hope they come to their senses. I mean, if you ever face any of them in a fight, try to kill them, but honestly, you’ll probably fail. The weakest of them is a class six at least. Plus, my take is that they’re working through minions for the most part, so we can’t even touch them directly.

Still, if you have any ideas about this, please get with Marcia or me. In the mean time, I guess we should all stay ready to help get these missing people back, if possible. We have a good group for that here.” He looked around and started nodding.

“A really good crew. Almost exactly the team I’d have come up with myself if I needed to recover people. I take it that’s not a mistake?” Brian ducked down in the water a little, wetting his shoulders to keep cool, but kept his gaze on Marcia the whole time.

She looked back and smiled.

“The whole thing is still an unknown and most of the people are here for the reasons they think they are. Yes, I did make a point of getting everyone I could from Team three, except Rachel, but I figured that she’d call too much attention to us for right now. Besides, we have Bridget with us. I would have liked to get Hobbs on it too, but I agree, if we have to do anything, this is a great group to have. Understand, we probably won’t. We still need to be aware of other threats too. Terrorists for instance, which might well be being steered at us by Braid and her cronies. Also spying from a half dozen sources, and just normal travel things. I trust no one will get mugged at least?” That last bit got a chuckle, except from Warren.

He moved a little closer to her and made a splashing motion that didn’t reach her at all.

“Speak for yourself super-woman. I don’t even have a gun. What am I supposed to do here? Cook the muggers into submission? I can’t even do that; much less handle the rest of this stuff. I’m about useless here.” He didn’t look away or seem upset by the idea; he was just stating a fact. One that most of the people seemed to agree with without question, Karen looked worried and Brian shook his head, but everyone else looked like that was about right.

Proxy had a different opinion though.

“That’s not true. Not at all Warren. As far as we know cooking Braid and her crew them into submission may be a viable option. Heck, maybe it would actually work, if you ever get the chance? Win them over and point out that not everyone in the world is someone they should risk in a war? More seriously, you’re just as close to this as the rest of us. It might really come down to what you, personally, can do, in the end. When we get back to the base I think we should start you on firearms training and hand to hand. Just in case. If nothing else, we don’t want you getting mugged. For now…” He seemed a little lost and just stopped talking.

Bridget smiled, still clinging to Quartz’s arm.

“In the mean time we stick to the current plan where you and I watch each other for the week. That totally means we’re going to Disney World and the Epcot Center though, so get ready for that, you can wear one of those little hats with the ears. It may be a day trip, so clear your schedule.” She stopped then and went still again.

“I mean, if that’s something we can do? I can put it off I guess, and go some other time…”

It wasn’t a bad idea, since it was supposed to be a vacation, but that would have to be checked out. For one thing, Marcia didn’t know were those places were in relation to the hotel. She looked around, but they weren’t visible from the beach, so it was probably going to be out. Unless they could all go of course. In that case it sounded fine.

Except that people kept trying to blow them up and kill them. They might not want to take that into a family place with a bunch of kids. The hotel was bad enough. She mentioned that part, not thinking about it, but it got a nod for the girl on her arm.

“I… see. That’s a good point. A bit disappointing, since I’d like to go, but lives have to come first. Ok… I…” She went still again, then after a while made herself smile. It looked sad, but it wasn’t her just running off either once the idea was in her head. It was something far more controlled, Marcia was sure.

“Right. Well, then we’ll just have fun here. I’m sure there will be a lot to do. Maybe we can grab more camera people to shake down. What was up with the one I caught earlier anyway?”

That started a conversation that was almost like the set up for a joke. The man was a real photographer, but he’d been trying to make ends meet as a drug courier on the side. He’d been supposed to swallow the drugs to get them through customs into Canada, but he hadn’t been able to get it down. As it was they’d actually managed to help him out, since Burke decided the best thing for the man was to finish his mission for the drug cartel. He’d agreed to it and they wouldn’t be kind to the guy if he failed to deliver on his first run. They’d half killed him getting the drugs down, but it worked after only about thirty minutes. Chris cleared him as not being a terrorist, so that was that.

They were the IPB after all, not the DEA. The man wasn’t Infected as far as anyone could tell, which meant they weren’t responsible for him at all. It wasn’t like being a cop; they were just there to do their job. Nothing else.