The Infected 1: Proxy (38 page)

"I don't know what you've been doing, but everyone deserves a little down time. We can't afford it for you, but a few minutes now and then..." Her hand went to his shoulder for a bit, the contact warm and friendly. He nodded, it had been one of the suggestions in the file, increased contact, especially from women. Mainly because he was too lame to get them on his own. It didn't say that part, but Brian knew that's what they meant.

It really did help, so he didn't say anything about it, even if she had to force herself to do it. Marcia wasn't a big touchy-feely type of person, keeping to herself most of the time that way.

He told her about the training, and the fights, fishing, and camping out.

"It was fun. Peaceful... well, not the fights, but even those worked out better than a lot of things do, so I can't complain."

She laughed and slapped him on the back as the elevator opened, this time the move seeming more genuine and spontaneous than before. "Only you'd go into the forest for some of the hardest survival training available and come out calling it a camping trip! I haven't seen Conroy in years. Did he say anything about..." She tapered off, her voice going suspicious and low.

Smiling Brian shook his head.

"He mentioned you, called you Cast Iron... other than that he didn't say anything much about you, said he couldn't, so whatever secrets you have with him are safe. Now I'm curious, but I won't ask... Not right now anyway. I have to get a shower. I smell like a locker room." One someone had dumped a bottle of pine freshener in without cleaning it first.

They parted at the door so he could get ready. After he'd cleaned up, he dressed in his best outfit and newest shoes, then walked to the elevator and got in alone. Marcia followed quickly to go with him, so he held the door for her. Standing close, bumping him with her shoulder as they stood. He smiled at her, realizing that if he hadn't read the file it would have seemed like she wanted him, rather than just trying to make more contact. Over selling things a bit, he thought. He nudged her back with his own shoulder, smiling. Why not? It was probably as close to sex as he was ever going to get, so make the most of it.

On seven he walked over to Doctor Burrows and asked if she could give him some of that brain chemical, the wake-up one. If it wasn't addictive or anything. He could go with caffeine if he had to but wanted to avoid the jitters on stage. She smiled, said the name - Allistatine-A - and went to get a syringe of the stuff. When she came back she rested her hand on his shoulder for a bit after the shot, a lot more contact than she'd ever bothered with before, and then helped him with his sleeve, winking at him when he stood to leave.

He noticed that she had new shoes, cute white and black checked tennis shoes, they looked unprofessional, but made him smile. He complimented her on them, which got a smirk from Marcia, who probably thought he was flirting with the woman, he realized as they walked away.

Like he flirted? That would be a huge waste of time, wouldn't it?

At the elevator he took a deep breath and asked the time, which was almost ten now, she told him. He swallowed and closed his eyes, trying to get ready for what came next.

Then trying to act casual, suspecting that no one would want him to do it, he asked where Karen had been staying for the last month, so that he could go see her. He tried to fight the grimace from his face when he realized that no one closed their eyes like a moron before trying to be all suave and relaxed.

Yep, he was smooth.

Holding up his hands, as if trying to keep the woman across from him from beating him up he explained a bit. "I've had some... insight into the matter... maybe. If I'm right, then I need to get with her and fix things. If I'm wrong... Well, then today is going to suck. For me, I mean. But I think I can do this without violence. So..." He tried to look hopeful about the idea, rather than show how very much he dreaded it.

She told him that Karen had spent most of the last month in her room, refusing to come out, or even talk to anyone about what had happened. Brian closed his eyes again and tried to steel himself. If he was nuts, this might go very wrong, he knew. It almost had to, didn't it? He got off alone on the first floor, the fast elevator leaving his stomach behind as it climbed like always. The repair work had happened quickly, the holes in the walls from Prime and his fight were all gone, everything looked nice and new. Tasteful too, if he was any judge. But then, reporters and cameras might actually try to sneak in here occasionally. Searching for a story or trying to get candid pictures of someone. Or video proving that Prime had lost it one day...

As he walked the empty hallway, done up in burgundy and wood, with what looked like silk wall paper instead of the cream stuff on floor nine, the fine pattern woven into it meshed seamlessly from one piece to the next, which spoke of care and quality. As he walked, Brian realized he had no clue which room Karen lived in. There were no name plates, probably to throw the reporters off a little and deter unwanted guests.

Like him possibly.

Becky appeared and held out a hand to stop him, pointing at a nice door with the number four on it. Trying not to panic and run like the geeky junior high student going over to the cool girl's house, what he felt like doing, Brian made himself knock instead.

No reply came.

"She's in there. I can feel her. Knock again." The emo-goth, not-ghost in his head said. He knocked a little louder and finally heard movement, a soft sound, like someone standing on the other side of the door. Knocking a third time he decided to call out, feeling awkward about the idea, but not wanting to leave anything untried.

"Karen? Um, not to be a pain, but can you tell me about Becky?" He hoped that would be both interesting enough and noncommittal at the same time. He could play off "Becky" as him having misheard something if the girl had never existed. Of course he'd have to report seeing the girl in his head to psych either way, which could have him locked up no matter what, but having some indication that it might not be all him would be good. He'd probably know in a second or two. Really he just hoped that Karen wasn't going for a gun while he waited to chat with her.

That... would be fair, given their last meeting, wouldn't it?

The door opened a crack, a single green eye peering out at him, looking scared. The face around it looked bad, no make-up, and lacking in normal color. What bit of red hair he could see looked like it hadn't been washed or even brushed since the last time they'd met. She didn't seem to be covered in bruises at least, making the whole thing easier for him. Seeing her damaged from what he'd done would be... too much for him to take easily. Brian smiled tentatively, hoping he wasn't about to be blasted by unending streams of blue light and compassion.

Becky looked through the crack of door. "She looks like crap... Ask her if she still has the green and black family album. It should have pictures in it..."

Brian took a deep breath and spoke the words, asking softly, trying not to scare her off. She didn't look too steady, what bit of her he saw. She opened the door more fully.

"Brian? You want to see my family photo's? Um... I guess... I..." She opened the door all the way and started shaking, trembling really, that started in her hands, small and pale, the skin smooth and unwrinkled still, that somehow looked old. Tired. When the door opened all the way, she stood in front of him, hugging herself, arms just under her breasts, body turning away. She wore a light pink bathrobe and some kind of flannel pajama bottoms, her feet bare. She looked bad, like a druggie that hadn't gotten a fix in a long time or a person that needed to book a stay in a mental institution so that they could "rest".

Stepping into the room, he carefully closed the door behind him, not wanting to share his hallucinations with everyone walking down the hall if possible. Not yet. The woman held her ground, but looked down, defeat in her eyes, like she expected him to hurt her, or at least yell at her. Tears started to run down her cheeks leaving damp tracks that glistened in the warm yellow light from the single lamp she had lit. There were no windows of course, so the lamp, a very nice antique looking thing, with a brass base and real wood bulb cover, one that looked hand carved, didn't do a lot to make things seem cheery.

"Right. First things first I guess..." Holding his arms out slowly he smiled at her, hoping he wasn't about to be hit by her ability, since his brain probably couldn't take much of that right now. After a few seconds she moved toward him and wrapped her arms around him hard.

"God," she gasped out, her head buried in his chest, her breath choppy, little sobs making her voice sound shaky and weak. "I never meant to hurt you! I just..."

He patted her back softly, the image of Dharma walking around her, watching the scene unfold. The ghost image in his head asked him to get her talking about the girl she might have been, eager to get at the truth. Brian just held her for a while and let her cry until she didn't want to any more, which took nearly two hours. He got up and found her some toilet paper to wipe her eyes with, the boxes of tissue having all been used up, waste baskets all overflowing with the wadded remains. She'd taken to using the rolls for this herself, he saw. A little low rent considering how nice the decor was, but who was he to judge? He'd just spent a week using leaves for things that he'd kind of blocked out. It worked, and so did this. Good enough, Brian noted as he held on to the small, trembling lady.

Not that she was all that small, but she felt tiny to him. Like a little girl. One he had to protect. One he'd hurt. It was a horrible feeling when he thought about it.

Finally she started talking again, bored with doing nothing or maybe just wanting Brian to leave soon. She didn't sound happy about the topic at all.

"Becky... I guess it would make sense for you to put that together. Yeah, my sister... she... died. It was my fault. If I would have tried harder, sooner, I could have saved her. She wasn't happy... Infected, but not like me, dark and moody, kind of depressed all the time." A wracking, shuddering breath came and she told him about her sister, all of which basically confirmed what the image had told him herself. Everything but a few matters of opinion.

Dharma loudly denied that Karen had killed her, which Karen believed on a very deep level. Karen talked about how smart the girl was, which Becky downplayed herself, telling him that she was a lot smarter now, living in his head, than she'd ever been in her own. She tried to hold her sister, and the effect looked right, but Karen didn't feel anything, so Brian did the holding for Becky so that she could feel it too.

"So, when I saw you, in medical and there were those police... I didn't know the whole story, I just saw you fighting and figured you'd lost it. I mean, that happens here. People are fine one day, then their first mode gets triggered somehow and they go over an edge... I hit you and... you didn't stop. Everyone stops when I do that, that much love and compassion, you can't act through it, unless... you're not sane any more. I don't mean first mode crazy, but like... gone upstairs..."

"Becky did that, at the end. She... jumped off a building, but I was hitting her at the time and... She couldn't have jumped, but she did. I watched the footage, over and over again after it happened, she made an obvious and huge leap, she didn't fall... I killed her." More tears came, but this time she kept talking, sobbing and hiccupping, her nose turning red from all the rubbing with the tissues.

All the time she spoke, Becky listened and stayed silent, shaking her head no, a look of pity on her face. She wanted answers, Brian knew, but didn't have a clue about how to start the conversation. Was he supposed to just drop it on her? That had kind of been his plan, but right now, the woman being a mess like she was, it didn't seem very kind. Instead he asked if she had a picture.

"Yeah, lots. She hated having her picture taken, but she was pretty, if... Well, you'll see." She came back with a green and black album, it looked inexpensive, the kind of thing you pick up at a dollar store, not have provided by a government that wanted to keep you particularly happy. Given the look of this place, Brian figured that the people in charge here would have gotten her pretty much anything she wanted, if they could buy it for her.

The pictures were eerie, Becky, the one in his head, looked identical to the one in the pictures, pretty much meaning that he wasn't just crazy, that the image had been put in his head somehow. Dharma provided the names of others in the pictures, her mom and dad, Karen's old gymnastics coach Bill, and a childhood buddy of Becky's named Sara. All of this didn't mean he was sane, Brian knew, but it did give a little more weight to the idea. All to the good as far as that went.

Impulsively Brian leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, she stiffened, but then relaxed into his arms. The sofa under them was the really soft kind that kept pulling them one way or the other, this time with her landing a little on top of him. Her face looked flat suddenly, as if worried he wanted something more than to comfort her, which he did of course, but not bad enough to let her worry about it.

He sat up with her, laughing as he did. She followed suit, a little weakly, dabbing at her eyes again, then her nose.

"I've had time to think, after things, after my time on floor eight and given this - what we talked about - I think I understand part of what's been going on here... Each time you hit me, I felt all the love and compassion just like everyone else, but it interacted with my own first mode, so I became hyper-aware of the danger to others and out of love and wanting to protect them, I kept fighting. Self-sacrifice, at least the kind I have, is pretty narrow, I protect people in danger, but normally only those I feel close to, innocent people, the ones I replace, that kind of thing. It's why I can fight and not give up, even though it means hurting bad guys. Each time you hit me I had a reason to react as I had been. They may not have always been emotionally clear ideas, but they weren't without compassion for someone... Really I always feel that when I have to fight. Even when I was attacked by Denis, I had to fight as best as I could, because I needed to live in order to save those other people. The ones I might help later."