Infected 8: Impulse: A Whole New Day by P. S. Power

actually shrugged, then looked around the place.
    "I can manage, I think. I used to work in a place that wasn't too different from this. Could you show me the till system first?"
    That got them all walking around for about half an hour, as everything in the place was explained, if briefly. To her it seemed pretty complex, but Doug had a good handle on it, so they left him and Charity to go and make a large pot of rice and some vegetables. Stir fry, with some kind of gravy that Mary liked. It did smell good, Bridget decided. They just worked, and no one came to the shop at all. She would have heard them if they did. Or she thought so. There was no way a car would have gotten past her, even being all the way behind the building in the little blue house that was about a hundred feet away.
    Marching feet should have set her off as well. Alerting her instantly. She was surprised then when the sound of a bell came, and she turned toward it, and pointed.
    "Someone's here. They didn't come by car. We might want to check on things." No one had spoken yet, but there was movement.
    Finally, as she moved in that direction, Doug spoke, his voice sounding professional and like he was pretty comfortable in the position he held now. Like he really had done it all before.
    "Hello! How are you folks doing today?"
    "Very well, thank you. And yourself?"
    She wasn't running toward that location, and didn't recognize the woman answering. Not exactly. She'd heard her before, she thought, but where didn't come to mind right away. Mary stopped her at the door, and put a hand on her shoulder.
    "This is my place, I'll go see to our custom. I'm certain that Douglas will have it fairly in hand."
    The lady spoke again, her tone pleasant. Like she was really just there to shop.
    "I was hoping that you'd have a cold case. Which I see you do! Ah, there we go, chilled water. It was a long trip, getting here. I haven't been by this way in a long time."
    They both walked into the store, moving around the donut display counter in the back, after clearing the kitchen. There was a little store in the front, since people this far out were normally traveling, but it was the kind of thing that only carried one or two of a lot of things, and then jacked the prices up, because there was nothing else available for a long time.
    Mary walked firmly, like the proud owner of a store, and Bridget followed along behind her, feeling... Funny. Odd, and like something was very off suddenly. Not bad, perhaps, but not right. There was a tension to the air that wasn't coming from her or the other people. It was...
    She didn't have a word for it.
    She was preoccupied with that idea however, when Mary stopped dead in her tracks. She managed to do it too and not walk into the taller woman, but still nearly rushed the woman and the rather Japanese looking man that was beside her. He looked a bit young to be with the other woman, but she had a nice face, with very high cheekbones and evenly tanned skin. She was about fifty, or possibly sixty, at a glance. The man looked like a well preserved forty or so.
    Really, she looked like she could have been Charity's grandmother. Which was, no doubt, possible. They were in the right area and really, Braid was known for pulling shit like that.
    Without even pausing to be totally certain who she was facing, Bridget sped up. No one even got a word out before she hit the man. That was important she thought. She had to do it and make it stick. He was Tesseract after all. The world's only known class nine.
    The world slowed down around her and turned a brilliant purple, in a hundred shades. All of them made things glow a bit, as her fist hit home along the side of the man's jaw. He wore a suit, and it hung well on him, but it wasn't tailored. Her dad only wore the best, and so did her buddy Jason, from Team One, so she could tell the difference. This man, whoever he was, or had been, didn't seem to care about that.
    Her tiny fist was moving at hundreds