Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day (37 page)

That might mean he'd be back in five seconds, or that he was going to die soon, because hurtling through the Earth like that meant not having air. She wasn't certain which, but was surprised when Trivia looked at her like she was gone in the head. That Bridget had totally lost it.

"He's dead... I... She really will kill Clark. Even if she dies here, so does he, there are orders."

"I know. Or guessed. It can't affect me. Sorry, Devorah. This ends, now."

She nearly did it, she thought. If it hadn't been for the purple and black energy that warped in front of her, moving her blast out of the way, the woman would have simply been gone and the whole thing finished.

"No! Damn it Tessie! Why the hell do you keep saving her? She's insane. We have to stop her!" Bridget yelled at him, using his old nickname. Her grandmother had told her about him. That he was, surprisingly, a sweet and relatively polite man. Or had been before he'd thrown in with Braid. No one knew why he'd done it, either. So she asked. "Why? Why do you keep helping her? You have to know that it's wrong to kill people. What she wants to do..."

The man that walked out of the air, things rippling around him like heat off of a desert road at mid-day, looked... horribly normal. For him, at least. He wasn't all black and elongated, but was the other version of him that she'd seen before. A man that looked a bit Japanese, and part white. He was dressed in a suit, but it was a relatively normal looking thing. The kind that anyone could have. Off the rack. Probably from Sears or Target. Not horrible, but not a sign of wealth or power.

Even the shoes on his feet were just loafers that had seen some wear over time.

So, given that the man could have had pretty much
all
the money, if he wanted, Braid hadn't promised him riches. What did that leave?

Remembering what he'd said the last time they'd met, she nodded.

"Love? She promised you... Um, true love or something like that? That she'd find you your happiest future, with a person that was perfect for you?"

The black barrier was still in front of Braid, if she hadn't run off already. Trivia was still just standing there, her hands at her sides, looking scared, and uncertain. Nearly frantic, Bridget thought. That, or she was acting, and doing a great job of it. Given who she was, and the nature of her powers, it could have been either.

Tesseract smiled at her.

"
You
. She told me that Rachel's granddaughter would be the love of my life and that if I followed her, and did what she requested, we could be together, forever. I know that we haven't met yet, but I've been watching you, for a long time. I feel like we've always been together. Isn't that strange? Parts of that has to do with time flowing correctly for me, but
you
can learn to see that. You have, already. In another part of this reality. Come, join me?"

It was, naturally, about as strange a thing that could have been said as anything. Becky was gone, for some reason, possibly to haunt Braid, and Trivia was looking at her, trying to communicate something with her eyes. Probably that telling the man
no
wasn't a brilliant idea.

No matter how powerful she was, Tesseract was a class
nine
. The only known one in existence. Officially known, at any rate. That was the legend at least, and he really was about that powerful, so it wasn't a game.

Bridget shook her head, which got Trivia to wince. That was a sign of something, wasn't it? She was Impulse though, so shrugged.

"No. You come with
me
. We'll stop Braid and save all those people,
then
we can run off together. I don't know why she told you that only helping her would get me to be with you. You aren't
that
hard on the eyes. A nutbar, to spend your whole life so far waiting for
me
, since that had to take decades, but... Wait, is that your first mode? A desire to find true love or something?" If so it was a new one to her, but Trivia nodded, her face relaxing a lot.

"That's right. Tess?" She turned to the man, who was pretty close to the purple and black glowing wall. On the other side of it was Charity's crumbled form. The girl that she'd killed. To make a point. It was a real one however. She would not be screwed around and used to kill off millions of people. That wasn't in the cards. It never could be, or else everything would be lost.

She still felt horrible about it. Charity... She hadn't known her long, but she'd been a friend. She'd thought.

The man dropped the light show, which had nothing behind it now. Not even Becky. Hopefully she'd be all right. It was clear that Bridget had failed to take Braid out of play, even after getting two chances at it. That left the three of them, standing there behind a Quick Stop, jockeying for position in a game that might just control the fate of the world.

Which, for the moment, seemed to be about her love life.

Trivia looked at the other man and smiled, warmly.

"I... She really means it. If you do what she said, and help her, she'll be yours. It isn't a game for her, or a trick."

The man shook his head then, and bowed toward Bridget a little.

"We will be together, but this
is
a trick, even though you mean it right now. Devorah told me about how you would attempt to lead me astray, which ends with us never truly being one, my heart. No, I must return to the correct path, and bring you to me. We will meet again. We already have, and it's worth it, darling. I promise you that." Then, a bit strangely, he kissed his own hand and blew it to her. It was just an action, she thought, but she could swear that the kiss landed on her cheek too. A gentle tickling on her flesh that was both odd and intimate. A sweet gesture, but one from a man so deep into his first mode that sanity wasn't exactly going to be coming out to play. Ever, Bridget guessed.

It wasn't that bad of a first mode, except for the part where he was going to trust Devorah Timberland to get them together. The woman had to know that she didn't have that power. At least now that Bridget had been thwarting her like she had. If that was real. If not, then the woman had set Charity up to die, knowing that would happen the whole time.

The world flared, before she could do anything. It was all purple and black and reminded her a bit of what happened when Mary took her places. When it was over however, she was standing alone. Even the body of the girl she'd killed was gone.

There wasn't even a bloody spot on the ground to remind her of it.

For a moment she hoped that meant it was all in her head, and that she still lived, but it wasn't. Tesseract had just cleaned up after them. She didn't even know if Charity had been a traitor all along, or a spy. Maybe they really
had
been keeping her father? If so, he'd probably die now that they didn't need him, along with Clark. A thrill of horror ran through her, since each of those deaths could be very fairly piled at her door. She was too young to have to deal with this kind of thing, wasn't she?

Death... She'd always known that it was part of her world at the IPB. People died, and went away. Sometimes in a fight, and at others they killed themselves, but it could happen. It hurt, when it did. It was different though, when
you
killed someone you knew. A person that had a name, and a face. All of the bodies that had dropped to the ground because of her the day before had mattered, to someone. Even Charity had. Bridget had ended their lives, and took away every last chance that they'd had to become better than they were.

Sure, to try and save the world, but she'd taken her chance and missed.

Failure on an epic scale that might well have been part of what Braid had planned for her the entire time. Even recruiting Charity like that might have been designed to set her back now. Some convoluted scheme meant to break her mind, or even just get her to understand that the line between sane and good and unbalanced and evil were a lot closer inside her mind than she'd ever thought.

Walking slowly, she headed to the Sho, and didn't bother to hurry her pace. It took a while, since she
tried
to let herself be distracted, not wanting to report to anyone about what had just taken place. She had to however, and dragging her feet wasn't going to help anyone.

Not even in the slightest bit. Running wouldn't either, she didn't think, so she walked. Each footstep taking her closer to a place that she suddenly didn't want to be. How did she tell them all that she was evil now? Dirty. Tainted by her own actions. She hadn't even let the girl try to defend her actions first, had she? She died because Bridget couldn't handle being betrayed again, even a little.

Because knowing might not have been good enough to stop her, and waiting would have let Braid think she might win.

Everyone inside the new headquarters was pretty normal, since as far as they could tell, she'd gone out for a walk, and then come back. The girls were still working on washing the place up. Purple energy man was still on the phones, and actually talking to someone this time, and Marcia was still off in the back. She was on the phone too.

"That's right, at three-thirty, at the new location, tomorrow. Our press man will be in touch to confirm any changes. Glad to be of help. Bye." She didn't so much as roll her eyes to the ceiling when Bridget came back in. "I thought you were going to get food?" There was a bit of skepticism in the words, and Bridget nodded her head, realizing that she'd put the oil down in the other room for some reason. Jogging she went and got two containers, then closed the door and explained.

"I was under mind control." She sounded pretty serious to her own ears, but Marcia grinned.

Then she started to work the cap on her own container, popping the little foil cover inside.

"By the idea of other food? I hear that. I can still remember things having flavor. Well, bottoms up!" They both drank then, after Bridget scrambled to catch up and ready her own jug. When they finished, a few minutes later, she suppressed a shudder and shook her head.

"Gah, that's awful. Anyway, no, I was under
real
mind control. Forced to walk down the street, about a half mile away. Charity did it. So, given that, she was probably a class four. She was with Braid and Trivia. A traitor, or maybe a spy the whole time. I didn't get a chance to ask. Um, Charity is dead now. I killed her. The big British sounding guy with the bald head? He was one of Braid's people, too. For all I know there are more of them here still." She looked at the pale container in her hand, and felt the slightly dappled texture, meant to keep it from becoming too slippery if you spilled any of the contents.

"Was?"

"Yeah. He tried to fight me, so I removed the soles of his feet, or whatever was keeping him above the ground. He went into it. Trivia seemed to think that meant he was dead. I can't swear to it. I... didn't get Braid. I tried, but Tesseract showed up again and stopped me. Becky is on Devorah Timberland though, I think. I hope that's what happened." She pulled out one of the three chairs from the little card table, and dropped into it. That took a bit of hopping to make happen, but the result was about the same. She looked tired. Exhausted by life.

"Seriously? You aren't just making a joke?"

"With
death
as the punch line? Not even I would do that. No. I... They told me that they have Clark, and wouldn't kill him if I left and didn't come back here for a long time. Five years."

"Clarkson? Did they offer proof of life? A picture or video link? Did they let you talk to him on the phone?" She went through the options on that like they were things that she'd dealt with before personally.

Bridget hadn't even considered any of that.

"No. Nothing like that. They didn't get a chance. I... told them to go ahead and kill him, then killed Charity, so that they'd know that I couldn't be turned into a puppet that way. I... I
murdered
her. She hadn't done anything, except for get me there. She wasn't hurting me or even trying to, and... I killed her anyway. I just did it. Without warning. Boom, blast of energy to the cranium, and she was gone."

Marcia didn't get up, or come around the table, instead she pulled a note pad and had Bridget go through everything again, taking careful notes. It wasn't until they got through it all twice more, dwelling on the deaths, that Bridget got to the last bit.

With Tesseract.

"I guess that Braid told him that if he helped her killed all those people, that he'd get to have his soul mate. I think that wanting that is his first mode, so it's kind of been working for her. Only, I guess that
I'm
supposed to be his dream girl? Not that I'm not fabulous, but... Yeah, it's a bit screwed up, isn't it? I told him that I'd be with him if he came over to our side, but Braid had already told him that when I said that, it would be a trick. It wasn't though. I would have done it. Trivia told him that, but his mind was already made up."

Marcia didn't comment, just writing, until the story was done, and she described walking back.

"All right. That's a bit more intense than I'd figured on. So, can you function? We have the first set of super soldiers coming in tonight, and for all I know, we're going into an ambush. I give it a seventy percent chance. We also need to get the situation Delaura is watching handled. She's been in the field for most of a full day now, without backup. I was going to have Murphy take over for her, but that's out now. The guy you dropped into the Earth? Tibs will have to do it. He's the only Operative we have that has any training other than you and we can't afford to have you off in the field right now."

Bridget stood up, not knowing what she planned to do. It was, as it turned out, just pacing back and forth, rapidly.

"Was it always like this in the head office? Or is this special? Every time we do anything it makes six more things we have to get done. It's impossible."

Marcia, who was still in her clothing from the day before, not having cool TCC gear like Bridget did, patted at it, trying to remove a wrinkle.