The Infected 1: Proxy (52 page)

The next day he woke to find himself in the woods again. Literally waking up in the forest, which meant he'd gone in his sleep.

Fucking hell.

It mean that from then on, just being asleep didn't mean he'd be safe.

This time, thank god, nothing seemed hard on his trail. Since he hadn't been sleeping in the armor, just in a pair of sweats, and didn't even have shoes. Brian wondered if he'd survive the fight, just for a moment. He took a deep breath and steel his nerve. After all, he'd fought without armor before and if he had to, he could chew a rough end onto a stick to fight with.

Eventually he realized why he'd come and moved closer to a source of water, making sure there were no big animal trails to it, so bears at least wouldn't be a problem, then caught enough fish for several days, collected berries which he stored in an envelope he made of broad leaves and dug roots, hoping the ones he found tasted better than what he'd had before. He recognized the leaves as being from an edible plant. He tried a bite, which tasted fine to him, like raw potato.

Then he build a shelter and cooked all the food that needed it. Making sure there'd be enough fire wood to get through the night, hoping that it wouldn't draw the creatures to the girl. Brian would have to get into his armor just in case, sick or not. When he had things set up as well as he could for the girl, he left and found himself back in bed, exhausted from the tiny bit of work.

After that he found himself providing food and water for the girl, remaking fires and shelters, though to his surprise, Brian found that on the third time he went she'd put up her own little shelter of branches. He rebuilt part of it, hoping she'd get what he'd changed. It would be annoying and probably frightening if her shelter fell on her while she slept. He knew he'd freak if things started falling on him at least. Especially with monsters hunting him.

Brian finally got back to regular training and got to spend nearly two weeks on it uninterrupted, except for the regular missions every day or two. He still felt a little weak at times, but that was just residual from being ill, he knew, because medical told him to expect it. He hadn't felt that sick, but it seemed like it wanted to linger, refusing to let go of him for some reason. Doctor Burrows suggested that it was because they were working him so hard all the time and that depressed his immune system a little. Not that he could afford to do less yet.

The girl-Melany- seemed to be working her way steadily south and figuring out what to eat on her own, since he didn't have to go and help her as often any more, about once every five days. No one knew exactly where she was, but that seemed to include the big creature that followed her. If it still did.

Oddly, things settled into a kind of peaceful sameness for a while, Brian didn't feel like complaining, but he did start to notice when little things started happening that he ordinarily might not have. People giving him strange glances now and then or whispering when he worked in the gym with Karen. Nothing big, but enough that it drew his attention.

On the fourteenth or fifteenth relatively peaceful day Marcia kept giving him careful looks at dinner one night, which seemed suspicious and finally asked if Penny was there. When he said that she was Marcia nodded but didn't say anything else. A few minutes later she casually asked Penny to stay after dinner for a while. Then, with not nearly as much subtlety, she invited Brian and Mark to leave. Christian didn't move at all, which both Mark and Brian got instantly. Some kind of girl thing. Both men looked at each other and shrugged, then left while they could. They had mental training anyway. If Marcia didn't want Brian to know something like that, it must be pretty bad. He'd heard the woman cheerfully discuss the merits of cannibalism on the battle field as a potential policy. Not that she was a cannibal or liked the idea for herself, she just thought it would freak out the enemy in most cases and save on rations. So anything she thought was too much for him got his instant attention and respect.

After that, for nearly a month, he barely saw Penny at all. Karen came and visited him a lot, and asked after the invisible girl, even suggesting that Brian and her might want to get together, since it would be hard for her to hook up with anyone else. He shrugged and gave her a grin. "Yeah, you'd think, but she just wants to be friends. With the new intercom set up her potential dating pool has gone way up anyway. I mean, a lot of people can feel her, so that part isn't really a big problem for her. It's just making sure that the right person wants to do something at a given time. Now she can."

The idea didn't set as well with him as he'd hoped, but if that's what she wanted, who was he to get in the way? That might be what she'd been off doing, for all he knew. She showed up for meals sometimes, so he knew she was around, not on overseas assignment or anything. He didn't let himself feel too jealous. If she'd found someone that made her happy, then he'd be happy for her. No matter what.

A day after that, fairly early on one of his infrequent off days, Brian decided to just walk the halls for a while. Sometimes when he did that he could strike up a conversation or meet someone new to him. It was a little bit of a desperation move, but they didn't exactly have a club he could go to in order to make new contacts or anything. So pacing the halls it was.

Dharma appeared beside him and held out her hand, telling him to stop.

"Brian..." Her voice sounded so tentative he found himself staring at her, "There's a fight, one... Person? Thing? I don't know, this feels weird... Wrong. Be careful..."

The tingling started almost immediately then.

Instead of finding himself facing a normal fight, or even the zombie-like class fives Brian found himself in a room with a being that no longer seemed to approach human in any way. It wasn't big, only a few inches taller than Brian, but weighed about as much, from the way it looked at least. It glowed, an eerie purple black and looked... odd, as if he viewed it through moving water or something. It distorted the space around him so much that the movements Brian made, tried to make, didn't correspond to what he could reach in the room at all. He really couldn't touch anything he found, no matter how hard he tried.

But it could touch him, and did. Painfully. He didn't know for sure, but it felt like some of the things it did with its long purple black fingers hit inside his body. Hard.

What he normally did in a fight didn't work at all, and as it stood, perhaps twelve feet away, its right hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing, making the world go black, he figured out that he needed to go through the space within himself to reach the being at all. Simple fourth dimensional physics. Taking the fine black knife from its sheath, he tested his theory by stabbing through his own left hand, letting the thin blade slide between the bones carefully. It damaged him, like fire ripping through the flesh, but the creature squealed in horrible pain too. Brian smiled grimly. That worked then. Well that, or the creature was a fantastic actor. Possible, but it would have to be a telepath or something to understand what his thoughts in stabbing his own hand had been.

Not all that likely.

Working the knife slowly, he stabbed through his own armored chest, the knife sliding in easily, moving under the armors hardening threshold. The cut burned, but the creature gasped in pain as Brian smiled and a wound opened on its chest. A white rent appeared in the purple-black background.

Brian looked at its blank face and grinned.

"I'm willing to die to protect the person you want to kill. Are you willing to die trying to kill me in their place?"

Apparently the creature was, because it tried to crush Brian's heart with a sudden movement. Working the blade in he started to make the cuts that would destroy his own and the other beings hearts, planning to take it with him into death.

Before the cuts went too deep, the being, black as the void itself suddenly, seemed to decide that Brian wasn't bluffing after all and fled, giving a slight bow first, then walking backwards into the wall. Or rather a space that took it through the wall, but that normally couldn't be seen. It looked like it shrank and rushed backwards without moving at one point. It was strange, because while it moved, the path it took was clear, as if anyone could follow it. Brian pulled the blade out as four armed men ran into the room shooting at him, he covered his face with his arms in time to save his head from a bullet.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" A voice bellowed, all of the men stopped firing, but none of them lowered their weapons. As soon as the men in their dark blue and black jackets stopped, Brian went back to the hallway on floor nine, not too far from his room.

He staggered down the hall, hoping he hadn't nicked anything in his heart too badly. His left hand bled freely, so he wrapped it in cloth from a low table that he snatched up while passing it and stumbled toward the elevator. When the door opened Tobin stood there, gapping at him. The small man, green and black skin shining softly, reacted quickly and supported Brian's weight as they went to medical on seven. Tobin carried him in his arms like a baby at one point, running as fast as possible, not knowing what was wrong, but figuring it had to be bad if Proxy didn't just walk himself. The smaller guy muttered this as he moved, carefully trying not to jostle Brian too much.

Brian had to peel the armor down with Tobin's help before Doctor Clinton understood just how hurt he was, but after that the man worked quickly and called in help fast enough it seemed. The room kept fading in and out, but that was all right. After all, whoever he'd been there to save lived. That's all that was really important.

For a while after the room went dark, he heard people working on him, not seeing or feeling it at all. They used medical terms, most of which he recognized by now, however a few of them were new to him. He wondered if he'd ever learn what they meant?

Brian woke up some time later, the lights low, the sheets crisp and warm. Looking around he recognized the room as the one they normally put him in on floor seven. Home, he joked to himself. He didn't laugh. His chest didn't hurt much, so hopefully he didn't do any permanent damage. He waited alone, because no one was there. That was fine, he knew where they were, most likely at least. They'd come if they needed him. Until then, he could sleep. That worked well enough as a plan.

He woke up again knowing it was much later, but not how long he'd been out. He felt stronger this time and ran the bed control up so he could look at the wound on his chest. It was sealed pretty well and only had a light bandage on it. It didn't look stitched or even glued when he peeked under the dressing. Brian stared at it for a bit. While he did Burrows walked in and smiled, then pointed at it.

"Something fairly new, an Israeli process, using lasers to cauterize the wound. The inventor said he got the idea from Star Trek, of all things. We sealed it all the way down, it worked because of how little damage your knife did. That was... either the bravest thing I've ever heard of, or the stupidest. Possibly both. You'll live. We can even send you back to your room as soon as you're ready. No hard exertion for a week. If you have to fight, don't do anything fancy, just kill them and come back, got it?" She stared at him from about ten feet away. For some reason her eyes looked wet like she wanted to cry or something, instead the doctor turned quickly and went back into the hall.

A few minutes later Lancaster came in, looking like he always did, black suit, short blond hair and like he could pose for GQ without having to audition. He walked in slowly, carefully, watching Brian tentatively the whole time, as if expecting him to do something strange. Maybe be extra twitchy? Had something bad happened while he'd been out? Brian wondered but didn't ask, not wanting to stir things up if he didn't need to.

Brian smiled instead. "Lancaster! Haven't seen you for a while. Everything all right?"

The agent gave him a wry look and nodded. "Fuck yeah it's alright. Stop me if you've heard this one, some asshole politician, McCreedy, Hooper's little bitch on the house floor, gets himself attacked by the only known class eight, a freak that calls himself Tesseract and some other asshole takes the senators place and get this, takes Tesseract out of action by stabbing himself in the heart."

Brian shrugged.

"That makes sense. The name I mean... A tesseract is the fourth dimensional analog of a cube. It exists both inside and outside itself at the same time. Is the... Representative all right?" Normally he'd know. He lived, so the man would be fine, but there was a small chance that when he'd stabbed himself and Tesseract that McCreedy had been involved too. If he'd been stabbed... Well, Brian had gotten help pretty fast and knew what he'd done. The politicians people wouldn't have had a clue and probably didn't have high powered medical help on tap either.

Lancaster told him the man was fine, shaking his head then taking a few steps forward.

"Tesseract normally keeps to his own business. The last time anyone fought him was nearly thirty years ago, the first version of team two. They were called Bravo team back them. We changed the designations for all the teams after that. There were forty-two of them Brian, twenty six class fives on that team, the rest tough as brass class fours, and all of them died in fourteen seconds. We could say that Tesseract is slowing down I guess, but the distortions around the event have been reported as being stronger than during the last known incident by about twenty percent."

Brian focused, using his mind in a way he hadn't in over five years, going back to the way he used to be, once upon a time. After a minute of staring blankly he tilted his head and looked at the taller man.