She squeaked, when Minna folded her into a hug. For a second her hands fumbled to her side, to the blade sheathed there, but Minna held on, eased her grip to show her she could escape if she wanted.
“You are a villain.” Minna whispered.
A snuffle. “Yes.”
“We are not. This is fine. But we need your money or we fail.”
“It is a lot of money.”
“Yes.”
“I could live very well with this money. Far away from here.”
“For a time.”
Vorpal shuddered in Minna’s arms. “No escape. Not from Arachne, is there?”
“No.”
“Let go of me.”
Minna did. Head turned away, tears streaking the dust on her cheeks, Vorpal dug out her phone, tapped a few buttons, and thrust her hand out toward Martin. “Take it.”
Martin opened his mouth, and Minna gave him a flat, level glare. Martin shut his mouth and took the phone. A glance, a low whistle, and he was nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, this’ll do it. In fact, this is enough for the Mister Fixer approach.”
“Just shut up and do it,” Vorpal muttered. Bunny approached, put an arm around her shoulder, and the two of them headed back into the crates, talking in low voices. Minna sighed, and eased herself into a chair.
Two small arms wrapped around her knees. Minna looked down to see button-bright eyes gleaming back, as Anya squeezed her legs. “Hug me too!” the child chirped. Minna scooped her up, sat her on her lap, and sat there, rocking her for a long minute.
Four hours later, with the streetlights seeping in through the cracks of the warehouse and a gentle rain pattering out of the warm night, they gathered around the whiteboard again. Anya snored gently on her corner cot, blankets tucked in so she wouldn’t roll out onto the concrete. Martin scrubbed his face with an old t-shirt, clearing away the last of some sort of slimy goo. He'd muttered something about Hollowhusk and ectoplasm when she asked about it.
Finally he was clean. “Okay. So here’s how this goes down. We got the museum here. Carpark over here. Historical district with a few houses and shops over here.” The marker squeaked as he dragged it across the board. “We also got the receiving antenna for the block over here. Historical district, so they can’t use individual antennas.”
“Antennae,” Bunny corrected.
“Whatever. Point is, the whole block’s power comes in through this point, goes through big-ass antique wires in the ground. Take this out, take out most of the Museum’s security shit.”
“It will also let everyone know we are targeting the museum,” Vorpal objected.
“Not if we go after the wires instead of the station. Dire tore up the street before. City sees her doin’ it again, they might think this is more of her plan. So we get Minna in the suit again, and she starts doing her thing a few blocks away, walks some booms up past the station. Road gets shot to shit, wires go with it, and it also makes a nice distraction while the Steampunks work on the inside.”
“You think they can do this?” Vorpal asked.
“Quiet and subtle ain’t usually their style, but they’re willing to make an exception for all the zeroes I threw at’em.”
Bunny leaned forward. “Okay. So once they get the Eisenkrieger hand, then what?”
“I’ll be waiting for them across the street in the buildings here. When the power goes off I’ll move in. Buncha dark houses back there, they’ll send up a flare and I’ll have a flashlight to signal them. I’ll be in the hardsuit if anything goes wrong.”
“Your suit’s pretty banged up,” Bunny remarked. “Sure you don’t want me on that?”
“Naw. It’s your turn to stay back and mind Anya.”
Bunny gave him a hard, level stare. “You really want to stand on that shit with everything we got on the line? I’m the best ranged fighter we’ve got—”
“And this part ain’t a fighting job. This is a meeting job, a pick up the loot job. They know me, they don’t know you. Besides, there’s only gotta be one person fighting.” He looked to Minna.
“She’ll draw heroes like flies,” Vorpal said. “They’re waiting for Dire to do something like this.”
“Upside is WEB won’t dare get near.”
“Yes, because she’ll draw heroes like flies.” Vorpal insisted, running her hand through her hair. “Scheiße! Am I the only sane one here?” Bunny put her hand on Vorpal’s shoulder, and the angry villain brushed it off. Minna felt her eyes narrow as Bunny looked away.
“I must only survive until the Steampunks are done,” Minna declared. “This I can do. Then the teleporter will get me out safely.”
“If everything goes smooth.” Vorpal sighed. “You will need me for backup, then?”
“Got it in one.” Martin nodded. “Last mission went pretty smooth. Not perfect, but we did aight. If we can do the same here, we got this. This is the last part... get Dire back, get the people out of that matrix, then we can decide if we flee or fight. You know she can take Arachne. She did it before.”
Minna had heard that tale. Yes, she beat Arachne when she had a smartframe that Arachne did not know about. This time Arachne is beating her smartframe. But Minna held her tongue. Vorpal was on the edge, and if she walked out their chances were that much worse.
“All right. Then I will be here.” Vorpal pointed at the map as the group started working out positioning and Minna rose, heading to the back of the factory and the machine that repaired and serviced Dire’s armor. It hung there in a harness, pale face staring down at her with that slight smile, eyesockets hollow and dark. There were no answers in that visage, and only the remotest hint of anything human. Minna put a hand to the armor’s chest, trailed it down, looking for reassurance.
I owe her everything.
There was no reassurance to be had. The world was a hard place, and these Americans that she shared her life with now, they were like children. Worse than Anya, really. Not as tough as they thought they were, not as strong as they needed to be. There were no happy endings, there was no point it ever got easier, just places where it got bearable now and again. When you found someone who had your back, you stuck to them and watched their own backs until your dying day, because the world was pain and terror and death, and the best you could do was struggle to keep it from the ones you loved.
Footsteps echoed on the concrete behind her. “Hey.” Martin muttered.
“Hey.”
“Figure we give it an hour, then we move. You up for this?”
She stared at him. He chuckled, looked away. “Dumb question. Yeah, we ain’t got much choice. Need you in that armor, Minnie. Ain’t nobody else trained.”
Minna nodded. Then her arms were around him, and she was kissing him, deep and hard. He grunted in surprise, pulled her closer, and she felt his excitement against her thigh. With a soft pop their lips parted, and she looked over to the small office in the near wall. He caught her glance, picked her up, and carried her in, closing the door after him while she wrestled with his pants.
Some time later, she curled up against him, feeling their sweat combine and cool in the air conditioning. He was warm, was her man. It helped her forget the fear that chewed at her.
“I can barely fly the thing,” she confessed. “It is twitchy. Often I crashed. Still I crash, sometimes. And the weapons are hard. Not just push a button, but must... fiddle... with them every time.”
“Yeah.” Martin whispered.
“I will fight as I can. But it is hard. It might not work.”
“It’ll work out.”
“If I fall, if I die, you take Anya and leave.”
“Minna—”
Her fingers closed around his ear, pulled his head around as he hissed in pain. “No. You listen. You take Anya some place where she is safe. You give her a good life.”
She let go of Martin’s ear, and he slumped his head back onto the desk, rubbed at the injury with one broad hand. “I don’t know anywhere that’s safe,” he confessed.
“I do not either.” She cried then, and he held her tight. But the tears passed, and she pulled herself free, stood naked in the dim light filtering in through the glass window of the door.
“You’ll come back. That’s a promise.”
She shook her head.
“Minna, you’ll come back. You have to. Anya needs her Moms.”
She shook her head, and the tears pressed against her eyes once more, but she held them back. “No promises,” she reminded him, “no promises you cannot keep. That was agreed.”
Martin sighed. “Yeah. Guess it was. Shit.”
“Yes. Shit.”
There was nothing more to say, and they dressed without looking at each other.
Martin checked his phone. “Ten minutes. You ready?”
She walked out of the door without answering, and found her way back to the armor, ran through the pre-flight checks one by one as she hit buttons, and read numbers on the screen. Finally all was ready. The back of the suit cracked open, and in the moment before the inside lit up it loomed like a coffin, beckoning her to her death. A deep breath, two, and then she slid inside, closing her eyes as the pneumatics hissed and the armor sealed behind her, shutting out the world and trapping her in a titanium casket.
It wasn’t made to fit her, not exactly, but she was close enough that it adapted. Dire had built that in. So she gritted her teeth as the components writhed around her, and the catheter snaked into place, and the breathing caul sealed around her face. She drew a breath of musty air, drew another, then it was fresh as the scrubbers hummed to life.
Vision returned as the screen flickered on, and the helmet of the armor almost seemed to melt away as the wrap-around screen displayed all around her. She raised a gauntlet, flexed the fingers, nodded when green lights flashed to the side of her vision. Then came the other pre-flight tests, and the suit hummed almost like a satisfied teacher while each test passed.
Finally it was done. She clomped across the floor, to meet with the others. Bunny saw her first, gestured at Anya, and nodded. “I’ve got her. Don’t you worry.”
“I AM NOT.” Dire’s voice rumbled, and Minna winced, glanced around furtively. The walls were thin here, after all.
“Still feels weird hearing that voice say ‘I’” Martin said, as his hardsuit prowled out of the shadows. The large dent in the center of its forehead seemed to stare at her, and she closed her eyes. He’d come very close to dying, when that happened. She would fight hard so that would not happen again tonight.
“It will be easiest if you carry me,” Vorpal said, moving up and offering her arms. Minna took hold of her slowly, shifted her around to her back, twisting the gauntlets to make stirrups. Minna shook her head. If Vorpal knew how often Minna had crashed this suit, she probably would not have offered this. Best she didn’t know, she’d done enough whining for today.
The helmet of Martin’s hardsuit swiveled towards the smartframe. “Got any words of wisdom for us, Miss Floaty Head?”
“No. Your fate is in your hands.”
“Right. Thanks, I guess. C’mon, let’s go fuck shit up.” He unlocked the loading door, threw it open. “Remember the plan, Vorpal. I’ll have the van waiting when it’s time to go.”
“I still do not see why we cannot all teleport out.”
“We talked about this. Each trip’s a power draw. Too many and Arachne will trace them.”
“But after we get the arm, it should not matter—”
“We’ll still have to build the thingy.”
“Fine. Fine. Scheiße, fine. The van, then.”
“Yep. Gimme a ten minute headstart.”
The ten minutes passed like seconds, and Minna found herself spending the last of it staring at Anya. She’d woken up with all the shouting and stompy metal boots hitting concrete, and now she watched solemnly, a thumb in one mouth. Just as Minna finally turned away the toddler raised one hand in a solemn wave, fingers waggling. Minna blinked back the last of her tears.
I will not cry.
And then it was a shuffling charge out the door, and a launch into the night sky. Vorpal hissed and clung to her for dear life, as Minna activated the gravitic system, and flew. She had no clue how it worked, or why it did what it did, but it didn’t matter. The slider made her go faster or slower, and she could steer by rotating and tilting her feet, so she focused on that.
“Stay above the lights,” Vorpal shouted, voice whipped away by the wind. Minna did not need her advice. The heroes were looking for Dire, hunting her even now, combing the city. Any sighting, any at all, would bring them running, flying, leaping, and teleporting to her.
Finally, they were at the start of the chosen street. Bilmore? Yes, that was its name. It wound through the older buildings of the district, and branched off into spurs which were made of bricks instead of asphalt. It was a secondary road at best, with little traffic at this time of night. Precisely the reason that Martin had chosen it. She studied the street for a bit, until she noticed Vorpal pounding a small fist against her helmet. Minna turned her head, and Vorpal leaned in close. “That rooftop, drop me off there.” She pointed, and Minna circled, lowering with each revolution, and slowing down as she went. The landing wasn’t perfect... she dug the suit’s heels into the roof, scraped up a few feet of tiling as she turned the landing into an awkward run, but finally she had her balance and managed to switch off the flight. Vorpal hopped off, and sagged against a nearby air conditioning intake.
Minna waited, staring, until the short blonde glared up at her and settled her mask over her face. “Well? Are you doing this or not?”
A breath, two, and she nodded. Minna rose into the air again, got herself turned so that she was facing the run of the street, and aimed as best she could.
Golden light poured from her hands, snapping out in bolts, exploding down among the asphalt and bricks, punching through the road with gouts of steam and dull explosions. Almost as an afterthought she upped the speed, steered herself to cruise down the street, ripping it to shreds as she went. Cars honked and swerved, steering clear, and she aimed around them. More traffic than they were expecting, and she had to skip long stretches of the road as she went.
Between the explosions, she could hear screaming, and the suit’s motion trackers showed her the fleeing pedestrians, the few out this late at night making themselves scarce. Smart. Those beams were dangerous.
She cruised down the street, destroying the road, hearing loose gravel spray upward and rattle off the suit as she went. And inside, she felt nothing. There was no joy in this. It was her duty.
I owe Dire everything.
A woman below screamed, clapped her hand to her head, and fell. Startled, Minna tried to crane her head to look back at her as she flew by, and broke off the motion when she almost flew into a building. I missed her! The beams were nowhere near her! Had there been the sheen of blood back there? Hard to tell in the poor light of the streetlamps. She jerked her head back forward in time to avoid blowing up a parked car, and scowled as a man collapsed, holding his leg. He had his phone out, he had been filming her attack, instead of running. Fragments of the road had caught him, and now he was down, possibly dying! Idiot!
She flicked her eyes to the sides as she flew, and her scowl deepened as she saw more and more people filming the scene, some standing or crouching behind flimsy cover, others not even bothering with that. Why are they being so stupid? She’d steeled herself for this run, known that she could hurt people and told herself she’d avoid it and deal as best she could, but this stupidity? This stupidity didn’t deserve to be spared. These fools deserved to be hurt!
“RUN, YOU IDIOTS!” she shouted through Dire’s mask, and a couple did. But most hunkered down behind cover and filmed her from either side as she flew. “FLEE BEFORE DIRE!” That sounded like something Dire would say. And this way, Minna could look her in the face when she came back, and say that she had tried.
In response, more phones turned her way, gleaming screens flashing
in the night. Minna eyed them with scorn, then frowned as the screens slipped from view. They weren’t turning to follow her. Why weren’t they turning?
The realization struck her like a slap.
Someone is behind me!
She twisted, flailed, managed a wide, slow loop that took out a light post—
And the javelin meant for her back took out her cape instead.
A flash of color in the night as the hero descended, green and black barely visible against the streetlight he landed on and clung to as he glared at her. She slowed her flight, moved to hover. She knew this one.
“BALLISTA.”
“Hola, Dire.”
There was no warning, just the motion of his arm snapping out, and the flash of silver as her forcefield flared and the shards of a spear exploded out into the night. The suit quietly told her that she’d lost six percent charge, and Minna’s veins ran cold. I need to move! Two more spears flashed out as she turned, twisting and dodging, and eleven percent more of her forcefield went away. Minna was not good at math, but she didn’t think she’d last long this way.
As she turned, fighting down nausea, she stared at the lights... and the lights of the museum across the way. They were still on. She’d missed the wires.
I have to do this flight again. This time with Ballista chasing me. Trying to kill me. Sweat rolled down her face, soaked into the liner around her neck. The flight hadn’t been hard, but—
Another spear flashed by and she twisted. It crashed through an apartment wall, and a scream rose from within.
He’d struck an innocent? He’d killed an innocent, most likely.
This was not how heroes acted! Minna never had much faith in them, but even she knew that this was breaking the rules.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU FOOL!”
“Doing what no one else will! I’m stopping you, Dire! Your reign of terror ends tonight!”
Minna flew up, considered him, and tried to dodge spears. Another one struck her, and more of the forcefield went down. Once it was gone, could he damage the armor? Probably. His power was throwing things really hard, or something like that. She hadn’t paid much attention to how this part of it worked. She was paying the price now.
DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3) Page 19
