Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (29 page)

That got a nod, as she settled on
the hard white bench, kicking a leg over and sliding her butt a little, trying
to get comfortable. Olga actually wanted to know if Bridget was getting her
food for her, but didn't want to imply that the girl was her servant, instead
of comrade.

So Cin shrugged, which the woman
understood easily enough.

"I really only need to eat
every few days. Then I eat a lot, but not every day. This isn't a food day for
me, but I'm new, so I tagged along with Bridget. She needs some food. We're
going to be setting up a watch for the base here, I think." She knew it,
but people didn't talk that way.

Olga, who was kind of new
herself, was actually in the loop, and had been brought up to speed on the
whole coup thing. She'd also been cleared. All the Soviets had. No one had even
tried to bring Spetnaz Ultima into the whole thing. Some of the agents had been
felt out, they
thought
, which might provide some leads as to who was
really behind it all.

The Team Two second looked at
her, and wondered how she could get some of her people on that special team.
They were just training and sitting a lot, since things had been really quiet
since the conflict had stopped a few months before. There were occasional
problems, but her best guess was that Bridget had killed most of the biggest
Infected trouble makers, so it would be years before Team Two was really
needed. So it was on her to find a place for them.

Most of them were a little bit
low in self-esteem however, and needed regular work to make them feel like they
were worth anything. It had been bothering her for days, since most hadn't been
able to leave for the holidays, not having anyone in the world that wanted to
see them. Like her.

Cindy could see that, after a
fashion.

"Say, do you have people
that can help with that? We need to clear them, for... The thing? I can do that
part. My power... I read people? Like books. So I can see if they're with us or
not pretty easily. They don't even have to know about that part, if it will bug
them." She didn't care that way.

Neither did Olga it seemed, who
was smarter than she looked, and worked it all out, including that Cindy had
gotten that info from her. She ate for a few seconds, kind of attacking a mound
of coleslaw, then smiled.

"That would be fine. We can
bring nearly thirty, if that will help? Varied skills. Patrols, and searches.
You clear all? We should do the rest. Whole base. Bridget is in charge of
this?"

It was the girl that answered,
coming from the food line with three large trays of food, stacked high with
food. It took super powers for her to manage it, and she'd probably need to go
back for more, later.

Still, she'd heard the whole
conversation, so was up on things.

"Yeppers. We can use the
help, and I agree, we need to do our own check of everyone. I'll take Cin
around later to meet them all. Oh, um, she's a serial killer, so if you see her
killing someone that she isn't supposed to, stop her." She was dead
serious, but it came out sounding too playful.

That threw Olga off. The woman
figured that the tiny pretty lady with her golden hair and normal brow ridge
was soft and weak. A being incapable of doing more than sitting and talking.

That was fine with
her
.

Bridget started eating, since
they had a plan, and Olga finished her own food. Instead of being bored, Cindy
started reading people as they came in. The first one that really got her to
smile was an all blue man that was staring at her. His story was a bit dull,
and of course, all done up in blue, on a different colored light blue
background. She smiled anyway, since exciting or not, he just kind of wanted to
have sex with her, which was refreshing to see. He was also not in on any kind
of plan, even though his power, a force field that protected him from any kind
of physical event was pretty strong. Some people couldn't even touch him if he didn't
want them to.

She waved at him, but he looked
away, instead of trusting that his natural looks would be enough for any normal
looking woman. It was a bit too much of a negative reaction really, given that
he was exotic, not ugly. A lot of women wouldn't have had a big problem with
the guy in bed for instance, though he didn't really have much luck there,
failing to even
ask
most of the time.

Then, as Olga had pointed out a
lot of the funny looking Infected there really did kind of have low
self-esteem. Rather, her story had shown that to Cindy.

The rest of the people that came,
at first, weren't that against the rest of them. Oh, some hated almost
everyone, but they weren't trying to take them down to get at Bridget Chambers.
It wasn't until a fairly familiar woman came to sit with them, personally, that
Cin noticed the first of the people who were actually in on things, coup wise.

She was the girl from the
Infected cooking show. Kerry. One of the incest twins. Not that her and her
brother were twins, but they did look a lot alike. Incest could do that, it
seemed.

Her nose was a bit buttonish, and
her freckles brighter without all her makeup on, but she wasn't ugly or
anything. She was, in fact, fit, and while not a great fighter, she had some
skills there. She was also one of the better telekinetics on the planet,
and
was dating Tobin Peterson, the famous singer. He came to sit down next to them
too, holding a lightly filled tray.

He was right next to Kerry, who
was near Bridget, which meant the third in their group, Denis, who had short,
but very curly, brown hair moved in next to Cin. He bumped her lightly, doing
it, but he'd
meant
to, trying to cop a feel of her breasts. Worse, he'd
missed, but really wanted to have sex with her. With him it wasn't just
attraction however. There was a powerful greed involved that ached inside of
him for a moment. Then, suddenly, turned off completely. When that happened a
single word showed above his head.

Meditation
.

It was very similar to what
Bridget had done to control her own first mode that one time.

Everyone was kind of curious
about her, and were waiting to see if she was new, or perhaps a visitor. A
relative of someone or other, slumming by eating with them. Tobin, who wasn't
nearly as shy as he used to be, thanks to the treatment he'd gotten from Dr.
Burrows, smiled at her. His lips were thin, but almost seemed to split his face
in two. He was totally bald, and a mix of green and brown at the moment. His
skin had tiny color changing scales all over it, she noticed.

"Hello! I'm Tobin. This is
Kerry, and Denis." He waved in the right places for each of them, but
didn't finish with the normal greeting.

That would involve going over
their various powers and first mode, since that kind of thing could come up.
You weren't supposed to ask, really, since it could also be personal, so you
told people if it were a problem.

That was news that only Tobin was
going over in his story, for some reason. The reason he didn't do it was
because they had a lot of new people around and not all of them were Infected.
To him she was a
pretty
woman, like Olga had thought about. Normal and
even good looking. That could mean she'd be insulted if he suggested that she
was wrong, like the rest of them were. The only reason that he'd come over was
because the others had. Olga was right there too, which he realized probably
meant that this new woman, whoever she was, might not be all that bothered by
him.

She smiled again, and tried to do
it right, the way he was thinking.

"I'm Cindy. Mableton. Former
Research Librarian. My power... I read people. Like books? Their thoughts,
hopes, dreams, emotions. Who they are, and were. What they hope to be... That
kind of thing. I don't know where they plan to put me really. With Christian
Pours? Team Three?" She looked over at Bridget, who nodded, her cheeks
puffed out with food.

They all got that one, and Denis
blinked.

"Okay. So you're powerful,
or they wouldn't bother with that. Given what you just said you
should
be on either Team One or in admin somewhere." The words over his head
filled in why that was. She was cute, and not threatening. That worked for Team
One, which was pretty much the front piece for all of them. The pretty people
that did photo ops.

Also, Team Three was where the
most powerful people were put. For her information power to be at that level
meant something. That she was actually considerably more than she seemed. His
leg bumped hers, but this time it was actually on accident.

Out of all of them, it was Kerry
who was quietly panicking inside. She'd betrayed them all, or planned to, and
while so far Chris hadn't read her mind about it all, not that she'd heard
about, she had no clue what this new person might do. Not that she didn't have
her reasons. Rage shook her then, or tried too, and she had to fight to keep
the table from rising up and smashing Cindy down into a fine red pulp.

Things had been a lot better
before they'd taken all her drugs away. That was why she wanted to help shake
things up. Dr. Clinton from medical had promised her drugs, if she helped him
protect them all from Impulse. Not that the girl was a bad person, but Kerry
needed
the downers in order to keep going. There was only one man willing to help her
out that way on the base. The stuffy doctor that worked nights.

Why he wanted to do that didn't
make a lot of sense to Kerry, but that wasn't the point. He'd already given her
some pills, to help take the edge off her rage. It wasn't enough, but she was
holding on. Meditation didn't work for her, even though she'd tried it. Prayer,
oddly enough
did
, but it also brought flashbacks and fear, so she didn't
like doing it.

That story was long and involved,
though well written, and almost artistic. It involved Denis, too. Her half
brother. They shared the same insane, Infected, father. Or had before he'd been
murdered. Neither of them were sad about it, since he'd been a horrible
monster.

She went on, since it was a good
distraction.

"I'm here to get that first
mode gene therapy thing. Like you had, Tobin?" The big headed little guy
nodded, his mouth full. He had pretty good manners as far as eating, so waited
to speak.

"I don't think any women
have tried it yet. I was told that might be dangerous, which is why Kerry
hasn't been offered it?" He was about to get mad on her behalf, even
though he didn't really know how to get that done yet.

Cin cleared her throat, and let
her hand rise a bit. Like she was in school.

"I'm a serial killer. It's
probably my first mode, since I wasn't like that before. Also a psychopath, but
that
might
have been there all along, just without the killing. So I get
a choice of being the first to try this out, or dying. If I live, you can try
it next, Kerry."

That got a slow nod and wide eyes
from the other, as Denis swore under his breath.

"Fuck." Then he looked
at her directly, and shook his head. "That thing in Brian's hometown?
Those men?"

"Yeah. You should all be
safe enough. Anyway, Denis, you can make people feel anything? So you're in on
the guarding of the base with us? And Tobin, you... Sing?" She got how it
worked as a power, but had caught a little of it in the news, since it kind of
stunned people when he wanted it too. Really it made them see psychedelic
lights at the same time, which sounded interesting.

They both nodded, so she turned
to Kerry, and smiled.

"Kerry... If I can get you
more drugs, you'll come back over to our side? We might have to steal them, but
that works for me. Like I said, psychopath. I don't care much if I break the
rules."

There were two things that nearly
happened then. One of them caught her totally unaware. The first was that Kerry
was about to cause her to slam into the ceiling with her mind, and then run for
the door. The other was that
Denis
slammed a sense of pure calm and
control over his little sister without hesitation, causing her to not do
anything.

Bridget got it first, her eyes
wide.

"
No way
. Kerry?"
It was easy to see it took her by surprise, but someone had to be in on it.

Others were looking at them, but
only a few understood what it really meant, since most weren't in the loop.

"She's just in it for the
drugs. A, um, Dr. Clinton? Gray hair and glasses? He's been giving her some
drugs to help with her first mode. She hasn't done anything for him yet, not
even given him a BJ or anything, but she's supposed to be in on the whole
thing. The takeover? So, seriously Kerry.
I'll
get you those drugs, but
we need you to work for us. We'll get you the good kind too, and not be too
stingy. Are you in?" Not that anyone would be good with that, but Cin
didn't really want to know what the ceiling of the place tasted like, given a
choice.

There was a slow, dazed, nod
then. The voice that came already sounded drugged.

"Can you really do that?
How?"

That got a hand to be held up
while she tried to work that out. It wasn't that hard really, since Marcia
Turner, who didn't like Cindy much, personally, thinking she was a bad
investment that would bite them in the ass later,
was
pretty good with
the idea of drugging the fuck out of people that needed it. It was even inside
the rules, it just had to go through medical, which was all Clinton was really
doing. It was even in the official paperwork, and
not
the big secret
that Kerry had been told.