Infected: Die Like Supernovas (The Outlaw Book 2) (2 page)

Then, the unthinkable happened. Without warning, a bag was dumped over my head and synched at the neck. Simultaneously my hands and ankles were bound from behind. It happened so quickly, so neatly and so professionally that I was immobilized before I could move a muscle. I cried out, disoriented and confused and angry, and I was lifted off the ground. What was
happening
?! I couldn’t think, couldn’t process. The unseen world beyond the bag swayed and jumped. I got the impression of movement, of speed, of air and power. I kicked and bucked furiously but the hands holding me just clamped down harder. My screams got no farther than the hot bag around my face. I pulled and strained desperately at the binds around my wrists to no effect. It was useless. I could do nothing to prevent the interminable journey.

Someone laughed. A man’s voice said, “He’s mad,” and then I was dropped onto the ground. With a final distressed roar, I snapped my wrists free and tore off the bag.

I was in the clouds! Or at least it appeared that way for a shaky, woozy instant. I tried to stand but the sudden change in altitude made me lightheaded. Plus my feet were still bound. I glared at my surroundings, wide-eyed. I was on top of a skyscraper, sitting on a helipad. What. The. Heck.

“Take it easy, kid,” someone said. “If you fall off then I did all this work for nothing.” A man was crouched on the asphalt three feet away. He reached down with a gloved hand and picked up the bindings I’d just broken. He grinned around a cigarette burning between his sharp white teeth. “Looks like I nabbed the right guy. Those were police grade plasticuffs you just snapped, hero.”

My first instinct was to hit him. Hard. I was trembling, afraid and angry, and my stomach was boiling with adrenaline. But something about the man gave me pause. He appeared… formidable. He was built solidly and gave off the impression of dangerous energy. “Who are you?” I asked warily.

“That depends,” he said and he snapped the plastic cuffs around my ankles with a quick knife thrust. He collected the bag and the two broken cuffs and walked to a black satchel near the iron staircase. He was wearing a black shirt and black cargo pants with a pistol holster clipped to his belt. His features were hard, the lines around his eyes were deep, and he was completely bald. He shoved the bag and the cuffs into the satchel, and he sat down crisscross on the helipad.

We were on top of the US Bank Tower, the tallest tower in the city. The colorful array of light panels gave it away, providing me with just enough ambient light to examine my captor. The air up here was cooler and the wind sang through the antennas.

“That depends on what?” I asked.

“Who I am depends on whether or not you’re insane yet,” he said simply. “I know that doesn’t make much sense. Not yet.”

“You got that right. Do you know who I am?”

“Partially. I know you like to call yourself the Outlaw,” he grinned around his cigarette again. I touched my face; my mask was still on. “Seems a little…stupid, you ask me. But your mild-mannered alter ego? I have a few educated guesses.”

“You were waiting for me on top of that building.”

“Right you are.” He held out a box of cigarettes. “You smoke?”

“No,” I scoffed. “People still do that?”

“Smoking won’t kill you,” he smiled darkly. “Not you.”

“Tell me who you are,” I demanded and I stood up. I was frustrated and feeling punchy.

“Soon, kid. I promise. First,” he said and he blew smoke into the atmosphere. “Let me take a few guesses about you.”

“Make it quick or I’m leaving.”

“The door is behind me and I won’t stop you. First guess, mate. You’re suffering from headaches,” he said and held up one black gloved finger.

“So? It’s been a stressful few months.”

“Two,” he said. Another finger. “You’re having stomach pains too.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Three,” he continued, unimpressed with my surliness. “You’re eighteen or nineteen. Fourth, you’re experiencing intermittent superhuman speed bursts. You cannot predict or control these episodes. Am I correct?”

….whoa…I was speechless.

He kept going, “Fifth, you’re having similar episodes with superhuman strength. Yes? You can run faster, jump higher, or you may be able to climb, or dig, or swim, or throw, or go without sleeping, or think faster, or even seem to make time stand still. Most of those true?”

Neither of us spoke for a long time. His gloved hand, all fingers extended, was like a slap in the face. He’d been right, five for five. Eventually he dropped his hand; he knew he was right. The whole world had incorrect guesses about me. This guy…knew everything.

“Who
are
you?” I asked. “How do you know this stuff?”

“That’s easy,” he puffed. “I know because I can do those things too.”

His words landed like bombs.

“Hold on,” I said. “You’re…you can do things? Like me? Like climb walls?”

“I can,” he nodded. “But I can do them a lot better. You’ll keep developing, over time.”

“You’ve seen the news,” I guessed. “Most people believe what they saw was just camera tricks or a hoax.”

“We both know that’s not true,” he said gruffly. “Where do you think your abilities come from, mate? How can you suddenly jump rooftops? Or do whatever the hell else you can do? Do you ever wonder?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Did you think you’re the only one on the planet? That can do these things?” he asked, pointed white teeth flashing. His voice was gravelly. He had a faint accent, but I couldn’t place it. Australian? It wasn’t very noticeable, like it’d been worn away.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I couldn’t focus. It was like trying to concentrate during a tornado, I was so disoriented. “Wow, this is…this is incredible. How many people like me… like us…are there?”

“Not many.”

“Where are they?”

“We’re scattered, here and there. We don’t all live in a commune, or something like that,” he chuckled around the extinguished stub in his mouth. “I’m the guy that greets the new recruits. And I have four pieces of information for you.”

“Okay.”

“Four things you need to know,” he said again.

“Got it. Four.”

“It’s a good news, bad news thing,” he said while fishing another cigarette from his pocket. “Two good, two bad.”

“Give me the bad news first,” I suggested.

“The first thing you need to know is good,” he said. He lit the cigarette and spewed fresh blue smoke. “You’re not an alien.”

“Oh…okay. Whew? I guess?”

“You haven’t been bitten by a radioactive spider. Nothing stupid like that. The changes you’re undergoing are easily explained. You don’t have super powers. Nothing so glamorous. Simply put, you’re sick.”

“I’m sick?”

“You have a virus, to be exact. Same as me. Same as the rest of us with this unique condition. We call ourselves the Infected.”

“The Infected? You said it was a virus, not an infection,” I pointed out.

“I didn’t pick the name. But you’re right, that’s always bothered me too.”

“And you’ve determined I have this virus?”

“Unless I miss my guess.” He pulled the black satchel to him and from it he retrieved a zippered portfolio. He tossed the portfolio onto the helipad and indicated I should open it. Inside were dozens of x-rays and MRIs. The pictures had circles drawn on them, but even with those clues I still didn’t know what I was looking at. “We don’t know much about the virus. Minimal research has been done. We Infected don’t want to be lab rats, so we’re a pretty secretive crew.”

“What’s this circled between the lungs?” I held up a xray.

“The thymus. It usually atrophies during adolescence. However the virus stimulates the thymus and keeps it active for the rest of your life, which causes growth abnormalities. The x-ray in your right hand is
mine
. The x-ray in your left is a normal adult’s. See the difference? Same with the MRI pictures. The virus also stimulates the adrenal glands, the testes, the frontal cortex, and lots of other crap I can’t remember. The virus is stimulated by fight or flight episodes. These hyper-aggressive states accelerate the virus’s symptoms.”

“All these medical documents mean nothing to me. What exactly does the virus do to your body?”

“I don’t know why I even keep those records,” he sighed. “No one understands them.”

“Sorry.”

“What does the virus do? It causes massive physiological changes. Those of us that survive will have a greater volume of adrenaline in our veins, more serotonin, more epinephrin, better circulation, faster mental processes, a higher quantity and quality of quick twitch muscle, greater bone density, better immune system, rapid healing abilities, significantly heightened hand-eye coordination, hyper-accurate senses, great strength…that kind of thing.”

“Whoa…”

“Now you see why it’s a secret. Pharmaceutical companies would spend millions of dollars tracking us down and slicing us up to bottle the virus. Governments would try to weaponize us. Our lives would be over.”

“Aren’t you stronger and faster than pharmaceutical companies?”

“Sure, kid. To be honest, we could topple a small government. But a small group of us against the might of the American military? Get real.”

“So you can’t fly? Or shoot laser beams out of your eyes?”

“Don’t be an ass, kid,” he growled. “You have a disease that causes your body to overproduce parts of itself. You’re not Superman. It’s your body, just sped up and strengthened.”

“Wait…you just said…
those of us that survive
. What does that mean?”

“That’s the second thing you need to know,” he said with a grim expression. “The virus is powerful. The body isn’t made to endure the changes it’s manufacturing. It almost always over-loads your system and your brain just…turns off.”

“Turns off?”

“That’s the nasty part of the virus. It’s almost always fatal. I’m sorry.”

“Fatal,” I repeated. I felt like someone had poured ice water down my back.

“Those headaches and stomachaches you’ve been having? That’s the virus. And they’re going to get worse. That’s why there aren’t many Infected alive. The virus kills everyone who gets it, basically.”

I didn’t say anything. I remembered standing outside Katie’s apartment and dry heaving in her shrubs because of stress and headaches. He gave me time to digest the news. How much madness could the brain absorb? I had to be near the limit.

Fatal. I could be dead before my senior year. Before summer. No more Dad. No more…Katie. I wanted to laugh it off, but too many things he said rang true. Fatal. Fatal. The concept was still abstract, like it didn’t affect me. Fatal. I couldn’t digest it. I numbly walked to the edge of the helipad. The US Bank Tower was tall. I didn’t know exactly how tall, but it was over 70 floors. The enormous lights below us cast our conversation into surreal shades of neon. I stared over the city, a blanket of glowing crystals sweeping to the ocean. Behind me the lights stretched to the Angeles National Forest mountains.

“I’ve done the math. One kid in ten million gets infected. Ninety percent of those kids die when they
start
puberty. Nine-ty per-cent. The virus is too strong,” he said and exhaled a cloud of smoke. “We call it the Hyper Human Virus, for lack of a better term. You have to be a freak to survive it.”

“And if you do, you’re superhuman,” I mused.

“Those that survive puberty, which apparently you did, almost always die at the end of adolescence. For you, mate, that’s right now. Something to do with the development of the frontal cortex. I’m not a doctor and so I’m probably remembering the wrong terms.”

“So…you’re saying that statistically my brain is just going to turn off soon.”

“Or you’ll go insane. That happens a lot too.”

I barked a laugh and said, “Speaking of insanity…this is the most over-the-top, ludicrous, outrageous, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Can you prove any of this crap?”

“Don’t believe me?”

“Your story would be more believable if you had evidence. Other than your incomprehensible medical records.”

“That’s what they all say,” he sighed, and he reached into his pocket. “Ye of little faith.” He pulled out a handful of quarters and tossed one to me. “Bend it.”

“Bend it?”

“Bend it,” he repeated.

“It’s a quarter. It’s hard. I can’t. You bend it,” I said and threw it back. He caught it and immediately folded the coin over on itself, pressing it neatly in half. Then he did it again, using only two fingers, and he tossed it back. The bent edges were warm. Impossible! “Fine. You’re strong. I’m impressed with your strength. Wow. Yay for you. That all you got?”

“Watch,” he said and he started juggling the quarters. He had at least ten. His hands were a blur, although he appeared to exert no effort. “So, this virus. It affects different bodies in different ways. I’m strong, but not as strong as some. I’m quick, but not as quick as the others. But I do have heightened hand-eye coordination. And you’ve forgotten one thing. How’d you get up here?”

“I don’t know. I had a bag over my face,” I shot at him.

“I carried you,” he said. “And we didn’t use an elevator. Or the stairs. Explain that.” He caught all the quarters in one hand and began flexing his fist. “We went up the old fashioned way. We climbed.” He squeezed and his arm trembled and then he threw me a small ball of hot metal. The quarters had all been fused into one solid piece.

“That’s incredible,” I breathed.

“I have the disease, I survived, and now I can do that,” he said quietly. “You might be able to survive too. There’s a trick to it. That’s the third thing you need to know.”

“Okay,” I said, numb, staring into the ball of quarters. “Tell me the trick.”

“Starting to believe me?” he grinned without humor, another cigarette now dead in his teeth.

“I don’t know. Probably,” I said and rubbed my eyes. “Maybe.”

“If you can get through the crucial late adolescence period, then your mind and body will be almost in-destructible. The changes hit me hard close to my nineteenth birthday. The pain came in waves for a few months, and then it stopped. Everyone says the same.”