Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (34 page)

"Kennedy Carter Burwell. He
lives at home. His room is just up the inside stairs. The first door on the
left, right before the bathroom. His teacher's name is Carol Lipscomb. He walks
to school each day by heading over to Elm, cutting between the old warehouse,
and the abandoned church. He always wears a blue and green coat." She
could have gone on, and this was all stuff that the father knew, having touched
his own kid often enough that he could completely copy his life if it came up.

Still, that she knew all of that
got a gasp.

"Don't... Don't hurt my boy.
I'll do what you want. I swear, it was just for the money. I didn't meet anyone
though. Not in person. You can have the cash. All of it..." The man folded
like a wet towel after that.

Cindy moved back again, having
crept forward a bit to speak. Director Turner smiled at her. It was a look that
was almost friendly, for some reason. Happy that things had worked out so well.
So was she, since it would be a lot more work to go and find the man and his
kid for themselves than it would be for them to arrange to have him picked up.

Except that they couldn't, of
course.

Normally they'd call in the local
IPB agents to do that, but now that was all the way out of the question. Any of
them could be doubles, after all. That was a thing that took her a minute to
get, but she did, after a while.

Sam Burwell wasn't Infected.
Really, before six month prior to that date he'd just been an out of work
factory laborer. Laid off from his job making car tires, which he'd had most of
his adult life. So when a strange call came in, offering him a whole lot of
money, with only a little danger, complete with super powers, he'd kind of
jumped at it.

That didn't get said however,
until the conversation was done, and Brian Yi was tasked with going to collect
the man. Brian.
Not
Proxy. Marcia was really clear on that point.

Cin didn't wait, reading up on
whatever projects that the military guys and the Senator might know about, of
which there were several.
None
of them allowed for shape changing like
that however. As soon as Brian was out of the room, heading toward the man in
question a lot more rapidly than anyone would have suspected, teleporting like
he was, the whole place went silent.

Marcia Turner was smarter than
she looked, it turned out, and had manage to put a lot of what Cindy had picked
up from the man on the phone out all by herself, from some pretty small clues.

"So, it looks like we have a
new player in town?" That was spoken to Cin, directly.

She nodded, her face in a faked
up forced grin.

"It looks like I chose the
bestest of times to join up, doesn't it? People like Sam there, if there are
more... They could be anyone. I barely even noticed that there were two people
at first."

Bridget tilted her head, and then
shook it.

"Not
anyone
. They
can't copy powers. Just thoughts and faces, right?"

Cindy shrugged then, and had to
shake her head.

"I don't know. It hasn't
come up for Sam there yet, but my guess is that it won't matter all the time.
If they can get people into place, then..."

Well, then no one could be
trusted.

Not that she did, but it would
probably be a little bit hard on everyone else, when they found out about it.

It was strange, trying to sleep
in a new place. Made harder by the raw fact that Cin didn't want to be there in
particular. Worse, she woke up after about six hours of sleep, with nothing to
do at all. There was no television in her room, which when she checked turned
out to be because she'd need to buy one, if it was wanted. Books were out too,
since while the base did have a little library, it mostly had e-books and would
have taken her about ten minutes to organize for the week, given how few people
used it.

She took most of that from
Bridget's mind, though as far as reading went she ended up with one of the
cooks. Warren. The man had a head full of stories and seemed to be decent, as
far as being kind went. When he wasn't feeling indignant about others being
wronged. He did that a lot, but it wasn't his first mode. The man didn't have
one. He was just strong willed that way. Like a normal person might be.

She ended up lying in the dark,
for about three hours, waiting for it to be light enough outside to go for a
run. It was boring, but there was no point in getting up yet. No one
interesting to her was around. Especially not Lancaster. If he had been...
Well, then she would have been trying to end his life in bloody splendor. Most
likely not living through the attempt either.

The man might not have been the
best fighter in the whole world, but he was way out of any league that would
have her in it. Even if he hadn't been that good, his power would have made it
hard to really get him. She'd always relied on her looks and the element of
surprise when killing before. That wasn't going to work with this particular
man.

He knew, now that Turner had
squealed on her about wanting to kill him, which she picked from his thoughts
directly. His words, at any rate. So there would be no letting down of his
guard that way. Worse, he was off the base and three states away. He did know
what was going on with Sam, the imposter, and was with Proxy, trying to find
out what, exactly the man knew about whoever it was that had changed him into
the thing he'd become.

The perfect mimic.

It was true that she'd finally
gotten that something was wrong and had worked it all out, but there were
probably only a handful of people in the world that might have made that
connection. That she'd been there to do it, and hit on things at the right time
was happenstance. Unless, as she read from Lancaster himself, Proxy's power had
set that part up. It was another thing that had been kept out of the news, but
many things that happened around Brian Yi really did seem to be compelled into
being by his reality warping power.

It was neat, of course.

The only good side of things that
day, at least as far as she was concerned, involved her getting up before the
sun, planning on that run. It was nice in a way, because at six-thirty, when
someone pounded on her door, loudly, she was already up and dressed for the
day. It took some focus for her to be able to read who was on the other side of
the door, and what they wanted, but she recognized the old fashioned parchment
looking text. There were overlays of illustrations, all to do with fighting,
which gave the whole thing away.

The text portion, in all black
ink, spoke of both meditation, and what was planned for her that day. By Hobbs,
who grinned when she opened the door.

"Good morrow! I did not know
of a set time to alert you to the day, so sought this hour, for first approach.
I see that you have prepared for a run? That is an excellent use of our time.
We should go and see to recruiting the others that shall accompany us this
morn? All are here, within this building, so it shall not take ere long."
Then the man went still, his face fixed in a pleasant expression, even as the
words on the page above him told of how he expected her to balk at the idea.

She really
had
been
planning to run, so it didn't seem like too much to ask.

"Sounds good. Who all is
going?"

The answer, to start with, wasn't
Bridget, since she needed to run about as much as she wanted to get to the food
quickly. Her body didn't get out of shape, it seemed, and exercise didn't help
her to do better that way. She mainly practiced and just did physical things
for fun, and to burn off extra energy.

Plus, it was hard for her to wake
up in the morning, so Hobbs didn't really want to bother with it, knowing that
rest would be more valuable to her.

His words came along with the
text that hung above him.

"We should have Denis with
us, as well as young Kerry. I was asked to see to her aid by her brother, who
wishes the best for her. That..." There was a shrug then, and muscle moved
under the gray sweat shirt the man had on. It was clear he worked out a lot
from that. "She might be nonplussed to see you this day. Do you wish to
reset our time for this? I hate to lose the light of day, but we must see to safety."

That wasn't wrong, so Cindy
checked with Kerry's story, and while the girl could be a hot head at times,
she wasn't exactly evil or anything like that. She didn't even blame Cin for
ratting her out. That was what Hobbs feared might happen, but the girl wasn't
that kind of person, being better than that, in the main.

"We should be fine. If
not..." She wasn't afraid of much, and knew that there wasn't particularly
going to be a beating for her from that direction. It probably meant she was
being too cocky about things, but she had a smile on her lips when she spoke.
"Well, then I'll leave the area. I don't think it will come up
though."

The man smiled, which was genuine
looking, and hid his real fear that Kerry would actually go for Cindy, who was
in his care that day. It would mean that he'd have to battle the other girl,
which given her powers, would lead to death as a likely outcome. He couldn't
give her a chance to bring them into play, so began to try and run through
several different tricks that would allow him to do just that. Then he went
over more that would let him keep her alive.

To that end they went to collect
Denis first. The man was already awake, and didn't complain at them or
anything. Instead he just looked at Cindy and smirked a bit.

"So, ready for the wheel of
torture?"

It was clear that he really meant
that, too. It seemed that what Hobbs often did as far as meditation was closer
to trial by ordeal than anything else. While holding your mind still, or
focused on a different topic. That day it wouldn't be too bad, however. Not to
save
her
, in particular, but rather so that they could get Kerry to go
along with them. Cin had already agreed to do what Hobbs wanted, including
painful and humiliating sex acts. While he did expect her to have a problem
eventually with what she was told to do, the man also expected her to
try
,
at least at the beginning.

She was on the first floor of the
building, and her door was outside, having only a small covered porch area to
keep the rain or snow off. Walking to the front, Cin knocked for them, blocking
the door with her body. That meant she was seen first when the telekinetic got
to the door, her face a bit blank seeming. That was how she hid from the world,
rather than being a prelude to attack, which was what Hobbs feared was
happening.

"Hey! We're just about to go
for a light jog. Hobbs thought that it might be good if you came along? There's
some kind of meditation thing after, and we don't want you to feel unloved,
after getting in trouble like you did. So, five minutes to change?" That
was asking a lot, but the girl would have said yes to almost any demand at that
point. Being included in a running club wasn't exactly some big hardship for
her or anything. She ran daily anyway, or close enough to it.

As soon as she came out, dressed
in sweats that said Team Two on them, like what Hobbs had on, being all in
gray, they started to move. It was a slow pace, with Hobbs in the lead the
whole time. Denis was right behind him, and Cin was in the rear.

Following along, trying not to
fall back to far. Thankfully she was in decent shape, since these people
weren't really cutting her any slack that way it seemed. Even as they ran,
Hobbs started to call out things.

"Focus all of your mental
being into your right foot, as it is covered by your shoe at that location. Let
not your mind fly from this. Hold steady there, and do not fail." His
voice was almost dead calm, which was due to his meditation on his foot, of all
things. Like he was telling them to do.

Then, roughly every mile, or so,
which was about half a lap around the interior of the fence that surrounded the
complex, the fellow had them change to a different object of focus. They
weren't all body parts either, which made it harder. Trying to focus on the scent
of the number three for instance, was pretty much impossible. That was the
point however. It wasn't about actually doing it, but forcing their minds to
keep going back to something very abstract and hard to hold in place.

On the sixth lap, which was just
under twelve miles, they were allowed to stop and have some water. Of course
they had to follow each swallow of it with their mind as it went down their
throats, since it was part of the program for the day. Denis was pleased with
how nice Hobbs was being to them, and figured that it was really for the girls.
Not because they weren't tough in their own way, just because they were new,
and it wouldn't do to scare them off.

Not until the second or third day
at least.

Then, just standing in the open,
on the cool morning, the sun coming up, but made dim by the clouds, they
practiced fighting. That was a lot different than what she was used to, the
techniques nearly alien to her. Which, she understood after a moment or two,
checking with her power, they were. Even given that there was a lot of
crossover in things. Just emphasis on different movements.

Hobbs toned down what he was
doing on purpose, staying just ahead of whoever he was working with, skill
wise. So close that it probably seemed to the others like they were nearly as
good as he was. It wasn't the truth. The man was at least fifteen times better
than she was for instance. She wasn't horrible, but the difference that was
really there stung her mind. To Hobbs it was nearly like she was untrained. On
the good side he
did
think she was better than Kerry and nearly as good
as Denis. That wasn't enough to overcome her lack of size totally however, so
the other man would win in a fight, unless she managed to start the conflict
without him knowing about it.

The problem there was that all
three of these people were bordering on paranoid as far as attacks went. With
her, but also with life in general. They'd all been in enough fights that they
couldn't really help it.

After about four hours of work,
Hobbs led them into another round of meditation, then let them go with a wave.

"After we cleanes our
bodies, we should meet to break fast. Do either of you know what the plan is
for today, as far as the security we are to proved?"

She didn't know anything, but
Denis nodded, and waved toward the front of the place.

"I need to go see Lauren.
She's a friend of mine. I can't believe any of this. Bridget... I mean, I kind
of get it, but..." There was a long pause. "Her arm. Her body, really
that's all she has, you know? I don't know..." He was thinking that she
might kill herself, but the fact of the matter was that the woman very nearly
couldn't manage to do that. She could, in theory, drown herself, but it was
clear that Denis didn't want that to happen. He was, after all, the traitor's
friend.

Cindy didn't have that problem
however. The woman could have done anything in the world, and she'd picked to
go against the people that were actually there for her, all the time. That was up
to her, and what she'd chosen, but that didn't mean that those she betrayed
weren't going to hate her now. They
should
, really.

Being soft on her now wasn't
going to help anything. That would just let others think it was all right to do
the same thing, since no one ever got in trouble for it. Losing an arm was a
good starting place, but it probably wasn't going to be enough, long term.

Worse, they had some great mimics
out there now. Any one of them could be replaced, at any time, and only a
handful of people would even know about it. Most of the telepaths would
probably be fooled by whatever had been done, too. Cin doubted that Trivia
would be, but like her, the woman couldn't know everything, about everyone, all
at the same time.

What she could do, probably, was
find the source of these things. Cin had tried with Sam, but to no avail. He
honestly just didn't know that kind of thing. Everyone else had gone quiet at
the mention of Lauren, but no one spoke out loud about what seemed obvious to
her.

Kerry could do things like fix
car bodies, and even cracks in rocks. She could rip things apart on the atomic
level, then reassemble them. Perfectly. If she could do that, which it was
clear she could from her own mind, then fixing even an armored arm would be
doable. She just needed a basic plan for it. Medical would have x-rays of the
woman's entire body, and probably have pictures of what that was supposed to be
like.