The Infected 1: Proxy (61 page)

Warren turned out to be one of the main chefs for the restaurant on level one, the one a bookcase had fallen on earlier. Apparently a big and heavy bookcase, since the man looked pretty messed up. The guy must like to read, Brian figured. Good, maybe he could lend him some books if he ever found any time for such things himself again.

"Warren? I'm Brian. Doctor Burrows tells me she'd like to move you to a functional hospital for the night, the only problem is that this whole little... thing here today is supposed to be kept quiet. Would it be all right with you if we sent someone with you to the hospital? Just to make sure no reporters bother you or anything? You can talk to them, the reporters, if you want, your health has to come first, but I'd consider it a big favor if you'd be willing to help out here by keeping quiet for now? As a group we don't look too good here today, you know?"

The cook looked at him and rolled his eyes. "Thanks. Yeah, I can keep quiet. You don't have to handle me like I'm five though... Or if you are going to, at least try and bribe me with some candy or something."

Laughing a little Brian stood. "Got it. Would you be all right going with an agent or two? They can keep the cops off of you too, if it comes to that. I'd go myself, but an agent would be better for this I think. Lower profile, plus, you know, they all look so intimidating. Let me see what I can arrange." Warren tossed his head just a little, which Brian decided to take as agreement.

Taking a deep breath he headed over to the director, who spoke into a phone again. The man sounded tired, like he'd almost forgotten who he'd been speaking to. After the fifty plus calls Moore must have made that day, who could blame the guy? Not Brian. This time he was arranging for experts to come look at the structural soundness of the building and trying to convince whoever was on the other end that since there were no windows in the building, it didn't matter if it was daytime outside or not when they got there. After nearly ten minutes of wrangling and trying to deal with the person on the phone, Brian asked if he could talk to the man. The director looked amused and baffled but handed the phone over anyway.

"Hello? This is Brian Yi. We need to have our facility here up ASAP. If it isn't and people die, I'm going to make a point of calling you twice daily and reminding you of all of their names, every day, for as long as I live. This is important and we need you to make this work, no matter what, do you understand? If you don't make this happen, no one else will, it's up to you now. Thanks in advance, we'll have everything you need waiting for you, just let us know what it is."

He handed the phone back.

After a few seconds the director started murmuring that they could do that, whatever that was and after less than a minute he smiled and thanked the man on the phone. Then he turned to Brian, his eyes tired in the dim light, night having fallen and portable floodlights on trucks being the main source right now, but those where focused on the hole where the main building had been. Sighing he waited for Brian to speak a small smile on his face for a moment.

Brian shook his head slowly.

"Don't get too happy with me yet. We're moving Warren to the hospital. He's agreed to keep quiet and have a couple agents with him to protect him from the police and the press. It's the best we can do. If we keep him here we're endangering his life. Burrows was being too polite with you earlier, which makes sense, you being her bosses-boss or whatever. Can we borrow transport and agents or do we need to steal them?"

His voice sounded flat again, so he grinned and wrinkled his nose when he finished, trying to show he was being playful and serious at the same time. Moore glared at him, not looking nearly as happy as he had a few seconds before. Holding up his hands Brian continued.

"It's a risk, but, seriously Warren seems to be with us, so we should look out for him. Um, you know, we need to tell the press something... probably the truth. Better they get the whole truth from us than bits and pieces of it spun by Hooper and his friends. We could hide this, maybe, the building being gone, explosion or training accident, stuff happens here after all, but we can't hide it if Scott and Charlot go to the press, which... Right now, could you blame them if they did? Speaking of that, I need to borrow a phone again soon and get in touch with them, so they know what the situation is right now."

Moore looked around and saw Karen, then waved her over.

"Karen, be a dear and lend Brian your phone please?" This came out so strained that the man actually seemed to grate the words out through his teeth, sounding more hostile than he'd heard him before, even when clearly angry. Brian shrugged. If he needed to be mad at someone, then it may as well be him.

After all, Brian already knew he didn't care. Yelling at him or not, these people weren't going to get anyone else hurt if he could help it. Not Bridget or Charlot and not Warren either. He heard the Director ask for transport and two agents for Warren, then Brian went back to Burrows.

"Well, Warren should have transport to the hospital soon. Moore may have me killed in my sleep... so, if it comes up, I'm not currently feeling suicidal, but he agreed to let Warren go. Are you going with him?"

Burrows shook her head and told him that she didn't want to be off site if she could help it, as department head her responsibilities were to the operatives. Shrugging, she told him they'd send Clinton with the patient instead. Brian shook his head and asked if someone else could go.

"Nothing against him, well, except that if he goes, he may suddenly decide that medical ethics means he has to contact the press or something. I was kidding about Moore having me killed... I think. But if that happened..."

She sighed and looked around. "Fine, Kern, get over here, fun things all around..." She explained quickly, leaving out the reason for the substitution. As the small Asian woman finished, Doctor Clinton came over, his expression about the same as almost every time Brian had seen him, sour and a bit angry.

"I thought he was my patient? Is there some reason that I'm being penalized or is it just harassment because your friend here doesn't like me?" Glaring first at the other doctors and then at Brian, his lips went white with anger.

Brian laughed and put out a hand to shake, which the doctor, professional that he was, took, even while angry. "I do like you, I mean we don't hang out, but I don't have a lot of time for that most days anyway. No, this is just because I have an uneasy feeling about things." Letting go of the other man's hand, he raised his right hand and shrugged. "It's probably not rational, but Doctor Burrows is humoring me because I put my butt on the line with the director to get Warren to the hospital. I think... I don't know, but either we need Kern at the hospital or you here for whatever reason. I know this is stepping on toes, but... Look, it's been a long day for all of us, right? Please don't take this personally and, I don't know, if you could stay ready? Just in case?"

Brian didn't have a clue why he'd phrased things that way exactly, but his read on Doc Clinton seemed accurate, because the man relaxed a lot after he heard all that. His smile still looked strained and a little like a foul odor was in the air, but no more complaints came. After a minute Burrows passed Brian back over to Marcia and sent them both away with several flicks of her wrist. Mark had vanished, but showed up in front of them as they walked back toward the director's staging area, which actually had chairs now. Mark's work, Brian was willing to bet.

Penny put her arm around his shoulders again and made a small noise when Mark popped into view, a tiny gasp that sounded cute. Mark smiled and handed Brian a piece of paper with the Ridgemont's number on it with the room that Scott and Charlot were in. At least that's what the paper said.

Brian took a deep breath and pulled out Karen's phone, then dialed quickly, hoping that the Chamber's family hadn't decided that he was just as evil as everyone else probably felt to them right now. He asked to be transferred to the room, which the cheerful woman on the other end did without asking any questions, so he thanked her and held his breath.

Charlot picked up, her voice sounding strained and brittle, with more than a little anger underneath her professional demeanor. "This is Charlot Chambers, to whom am I speaking?"

"It's me, Brian. I'm calling with an update on things and to check on you three, is everything all right? I mean, other than the obvious stuff, of course. You have enough money, people are treating you well, that kind of thing?"

Nothing came from the phone for a while, long enough that Brian wondered if the phone had died or if the signal had gotten lost. When she finally spoke the tone had shifted from anger to filled with sadness and tears.

"For years we've all worked to build a life for ourselves, even Infected as we are, tried to make things work and actually help people. Not like you do maybe, but we all did what we could... Now everything is stripped away from us and all the people we thought we could count on have proved themselves to be... well, let's just say we can't trust anyone right now. Except you. You're the only one left..."

"Nope. That is simply and completely not true Charlot. A lot of people here would have stopped what happened today if they could. People you may not even know were pulling for you and trying to protect you, all of you. Yeah, most of them weren't able to take down some of the more...aggressively angry people, but that doesn't mean no one tried. Like that new guy on team two, Hobbs? He really worked to get things calmed down you know. You saw him step in front of Lauren to protect you and Scott and let me tell you, that's not something you do lightly. Plus, Rachel Chambers is coming. Your mother in law, so I don't know if that thrills you personally or not, but it might help Bridget feel better. She should be here in four and a half hours or so, and then I've arranged transportation for her from here. Look, Charlot... This whole thing may go a lot deeper than any of us can even imagine. I know it's not fair, but do you think you can try to keep things calm there for a bit? I don't think there should be any physical attacks for now, but if there are, you have backup. Not just me either, but some very tough people here. I can't fix this... it's already happened. I know that, but I really want to do something about the people that made this happen in the first place."

They talked for a bit, and he talked to each of the others in turn after Charlot ran out of things to say. When Bridget got on the phone she sounded glum, but didn't complain about anything.

"It'll be good to see grandma. Will you come with her to see us? If you can, I mean? Please?" This set off a chain of pretty pleases with sugar and other confections on top until he told her he'd come if he could. For all he knew Rachel Chambers would hate him on sight, since Brian was the one that told her about the whole thing, she might be setting him up as the bad guy already in her mind. People thought weird things in stressful situations, crazy things sometimes. He'd done it himself more than once, so knew that one first hand.

Brian walked over to Karen, letting her have the phone back, and collecting a hug in return, which was a sweet deal considering it was hers to begin with. After a few seconds she kissed him, then held him for a while as they stood in the middle of the courtyard or whatever it was called. Brian realized he didn't know, which made him smile a bit.

Dharma came out then and Brian got ready to ignore her. Nothing he was willing to do with her sister in front of the whole world should really get her too worked up, right? True, if it felt like his kissing her was a first hand thing, that could be creepy, but it happened almost daily now, so she should be used to it.

"Brian! Emergency in about fifteen seconds. Melany again, bad! Bad! You need to run and hard!"

He pushed away from Karen, hoping she'd understand and did just that, ripping past people as fast as he could go just as the tingling started.

He was suddenly in another place, dark, open and filled with creatures all heading straight for him. As he expected they were the same as before, a weird hybrid of movie werewolf and zombie, gray skin, long jaws and hundreds of different kinds of clothing.

As he ran he wondered if wetting himself would help anything at all. Maybe lighten him so he could run faster?

Hundreds. Closing from every direction but one. Brian ran as hard as he could into that gap, throwing himself into it completely. His legs started burning seconds into the sprint, fear and adrenalin pushing him faster than he'd ever gone before. It very nearly didn't matter, the fastest of the beings caught up to him in seconds. Fast, as he'd noticed before, but not at the level of some of his friends. They moved along at about thirty miles per hour, which seemed to be about their top speed, about eight miles per hour over his own.

A hand, at least it was most likely a hand, struck him in the back hard. Brian flew through the air, rising higher than anything had hit him before, about twenty feet up. He'd fallen from that high before in practice, higher actually, down on level fifteen. As he flew he tried to stabilize his flight and realized that there must be a cliff if front of him, the pale ground that could barely be seen giving way to an inky blackness. Probably why none of the beings had rushed him from that direction. Brian didn't bother to panic, since that ship had sailed a good ways back in his run.

Whole seconds before.

In training this had been discussed, but never practiced. Even Carl, who thought a few broken bones should just be expected now and again, thought it was too dangerous.