DIRE : BORN

by Andrew Seiple

  I opened my mouth, shut it. Considered. Tried it out in my mind once more, to test it before voicing it. Hell, Kingsley had already called me by it, I had nothing to lose.

  “DOCTOR DIRE. CALL HER DOCTOR DIRE.”

  CHAPTER 10: Lawbreaking

  “I'd like to say that the police in Icon were good, and that there were never any scandals. That what we had was a devoted bunch of public servants doing hard jobs, and doing them well. And for most of the city, I can say that. But... then you factor in the northside, and shoot, I can't tell a lie. Everyone knows the precincts in the northeast are on the take, have been since the Cavaliognes ran that turf. Good cops who end up there get shit jobs until they quit, and bad cops prosper. Everyone knows it, and sooner or later there's gonna be a reckoning...

  --Statement of a witness for the judicial review board in Precinct 64 versus Icon City, 1997. Name withheld by request.

  For reasons I couldn't fathom, the hospital staff insisted that I take off from the roof. It seemed pointless to me, but as they were treating one of my limited social circle, it seemed churlish to do otherwise than follow their request.

  But once I'd gotten airborne, I decided to loiter in their airspace a bit. Now that I was freed from carrying Roy, I could give my armor's flight capabilities a proper shakedown.

  I found that seventy-four percent synch made things a bit rough. I also found that flying was a hell of a lot of fun. But most importantly, as I saw my vision darken during a tight roll, and my lungs gasp for air, I found that the suit really wasn't optimized for flying. I slowed to a stop, descending to a lower level where the air wasn't quite as thin, and the ventilation could maximize the flow of it. What I had wasn't a proper flying suit. What I had was a kludged-together pile of scrap and devices that were never meant to work together, with flight capabilities tacked on.

  It wouldn't do anything to negate g-forces, or stop me from rattling around inside a bit if I hit some severe turbulence. Hells, it wasn't even properly pressurized. The holes in the back of the helmet that I'd covered with the hoodie would need sealing before I did that. I'd also need an internal layer of some sort between me and the metal before I could seal the joints completely. Finally I finished flight testing and began a slow cruise back to the east, as snow flurries fell around me.

  Much as I would have liked to plan for the next revision of the armor, I didn't see a point in it until I had more materials to work with. So instead I turned my attention to a more pressing matter: The Black Bloods.

  They had to go away. And they wouldn't go away on their own. We needed Martin, Sparky, Minna, and everyone else we could get to help take them down. They'd forced the issue by trying to grab me, and I saw no reason for them to stop trying to do that. Heroes weren't fighting them, and I could see why after what happened to Scrapper. The police had fled or were too meek to matter. The Midtown Militia were a possibility, but Martin's hesitation made me wary. The MRB hadn't gone after the Black Bloods when the city was intact and powered, I doubt they'd be willing to do so now. So, it was up to us. A ragged camp of homeless people, one somewhat aged and unstable lightning throwing veteran soldier, and myself.

  I doubted it would be easy. We'd only escaped the fight in the church without worse casualties because Sangre had been a cocky bastard and Scrapper hadn't been as crazy as they thought he was. We couldn't count on lucky breaks like those happening again. It was time to stop reacting, and start acting.

  But my musings were cut short by a troubling sight as I retraced my path back through the skyscrapers, and past the casinos and tourist traps of the boardwalk. Flashing red and blue lights lined the beach. They seemed to be coming from lights atop three parked cars on the street nearby. My traitorous memory said law enforcement. Had something happened? Two tents lay collapsed, and people were milling around outside.

  Then as I watched, a stranger, a short-haired overweight man in a black and blue uniform, marched Martin out of his tent at gunpoint.

  I accelerated, aimed toward them, and the stranger backed away while pointing the gun at me. I landed hard next to them, spraying sand and snow in equal quantities over the pair. Shouts from down the beach, and more strangers came running. They wore the same uniforms, and had golden badges displayed against blue shirts.

  “MARTIN?” I inquired. “WHAT IS TRANSPIRING HERE?”

  “Freeze!” From behind me. “Don't move!”

  A bullet whined off of my forcefield, and I glanced back. “TRY THAT AGAIN, AND YOU'LL FORFEIT THE GUN.”

  The older of the pair in the lead caught up to the youth who had taken the shot, and slapped the smoking gun in his hands down. “Sir. Please stand down and step out of the armor.”

  I arched an eyebrow at the stupidity of the request. Now why would I do that? So they could shoot me properly, next time?

  “Black Bloods paid them off! Fuckers are dirty cops!” Martin yelled. The one behind him bared his teeth, and drew a nightstick, moving closer to Martin's back. “Shut up! You have the right to—”

  “MARTIN. DOWN.”

  He dropped. I spurred my grav system, kicking up a huge cloud of dust as I stretched out a gauntlet, flying toward the two of them. The cop fired a shot at me that came nowhere close, and then I had him by the arm. He screamed as I jerked him from his feet, sped forward another twenty feet, then whirled and threw him to the ground. He screamed as his shoulder gave... Broken or dislocated, I couldn't say.

  When the dust cleared, the four officers who had been running toward me had stopped, unable to see through the dust. Martin had wisely gotten himself out of there, probably back into his tent.

  And by that time I had my foot on the fallen cop's chest. He whimpered, and lay very still, as I kept the full weight of the suit off of him. Just.

  “NOW THEN,” I stated. “PERHAPS WE SHOULD TRY THIS AGAIN WITH LESS SHOOTING.”

  “Sir. You are interfering with appointed officers of the law undertaking the course of their duties, and you've assaulted one of those officers. Please stand down, and let us go about our business before you make this any worse on yourself.”

  The man doing the talking was perhaps in his forties, overweight and wearing mirrored sunglasses that made him hard to read.

  “AND WHAT IS THE COURSE OF YOUR DUTY HERE?” I looked at the tents. They'd been torn down by the look of it, and the sullen faces of the people by them held no love for the police, as they shot glares at their backs. A couple of burn barrels had been tipped over, the fires extinguished. To the side, Sparky sat glaring, his collar off and some sort of crowbar-and-lock device wedged into his wheelchair. He tugged at it to no avail.

  They'd grounded him.

  “Ask them if they have a warrant!” Martin's voice came from his tent, and the young one jerked his gun, put a round through the canvas.

  “PUT THAT DOWN, YOU YOUNG FOOL! LAST WARNING!”

  I took my foot off of the downed one, and strode toward the four of them. They backpedaled... and the young one took three or four shots at me. I lost count after the second, as I put on a burst of jet-enhanced speed and backhanded him into the laundry shack. He bounced off the wall, fell down and scrambled to the side, took off running.

  And in the stances and motions of the others, I saw fear. A dawning realization that they were in over their heads. But still they fired.

  My forcefield caught a few rounds, as pistol fire registered from the rear, and the boom of a shotgun mixed in with the smaller caliber stuff.

  I turned, and amped my mask to full volume, and bellowed.

  “DROP YOUR WEAPONS, AND KNEEL BEFORE DIRE!”

  And they froze like prey before a predator.

  I stomped forward, ignoring the heat spike that the forcefield's activation had caused. It would fade in a minute or two, so long as I took no further fire. Finally, I stood a few feet away from one who'd done the speaking before. He was looking up at me, his hands behind his head, sweating despite the snow falling thick around us now.

  My sym
pathy for his plight had evaporated perhaps about six bullets ago.

  “SO. DO YOU HAVE A WARRANT?”

  He worked his mouth. No sound came out.

  “A SIMPLE QUESTION. LET'S SEE IT IF YOU HAVE IT.”

  A yell from behind me, and I glanced back to see Minna and Tooms tackle the young cop, wrestle his gun away from him. I looked back to see the speaker crying. His mouth moved again, and after a second he found words. “Please. He's my son. Don't hurt him.”

  “A. WARRANT. NOW.”

  The lone woman among them cleared her throat. “We, ah, had reports of theft and assault at a designated relief center, and the investigation led here. That's probable cause, no warrant required—”

  “DESIGNATED RELIEF CENTER?”

  “St. Augustine's, sir. We've found contraband material and illegal firearms here—”

  “YES, ALL TAKEN FROM THE BLACK BLOODS. WHO ROBBED THIS CAMP'S FOOD SHIPMENT, AND WERE UNPACKING IT AT THE RELIEF CENTER THEY WERE OCCUPYING.”

  “That's an interesting idea. I'm afraid that this camp is full of stolen goods, and you have to admit sir, it doesn't look too good—”

  “Bullshit!” Sparky roared, as Joan and Tooms brought him over, each with an arm under his, and letting his legs drag the ground. Arcs of energy trailed in his wake. “We showed you the labels on them boxes! They were for us, and we had to get'em back!”

  The bald man shook his head. “Sir. We were just going off the information we had, and following orders—”

  “So were the Nazis! You know how well that worked out for them?” His wispy hair was slowly starting to rise, as sparks literally flashed from his eyes. Joan did a double-take, then leaned in, whispering trying to soothe him,.

  “Sir, that doesn't excuse either the guns or the drugs that we've found—”

  “Drugs which you did not have either probable cause or a fucking warrant for,” Martin said. “I know the Icon laws. Doesn't matter, though, you came here targeting me so you could get my ass in a cell. One I wouldn't leave with the Black Bloods after my ass, now.”

  The police started arguing, and I clapped my hands together, metal ringing from metal. “ENOUGH.”

  They shut up. For a minute there was no sound, save for the wind blowing.

  “YOU SAY THAT CHURCH WAS A DESIGNATED RELIEF CENTER?”

  “It was. Now it's a crime scene.” The crying one who'd pled for his son found his voice again.

  “WHY WAS NO ONE IN THIS CAMP INFORMED OF SUCH?”

  They shot furtive looks at each other.

  “WELL. OBVIOUSLY THAT OVERSIGHT HAS BEEN REMEDIED, AS THIS CAMP NOW HAS THE SUPPLIES THAT THE RELIEF CENTER HELD FOR IT. AND THANKS TO THE SELFLESS EFFORTS OF A FEW OF ITS DENIZENS, THE CRIMINALS WHO WERE OCCUPYING THE RELIEF CENTER HAVE BEEN EVICTED. HAPPY ENDING. NO CRIME HERE.”

  The bald one persisted. “The guns—”

  “AH YES, THANK YOU FOR REMINDING HER. PUT THE SAFETIES ON AND KICK THEM OVER HERE.”

  “No, I mean the stolen guns—”

  “DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. ALL FIREARMS IN THIS CAMP WERE LEGALLY OBTAINED.”

  “The Black Blood guns!” Shouted the young one, twisting between Minna and Tooms, trying to break free. “How the hell were those legal?”

  And I straightened up from where I'd been crouching over the rest of the police. “AH. SO YOU ADMIT THAT YOU KNOW WHERE WE GOT THOSE. WHICH MEANS THAT YOU KNEW ABOUT THE BLACK BLOODS OCCUPYING THE CHURCH.”

  His father went pale.

  “AND SO YOU CONFESS YOUR CORRUPTION.”

  “What? No! I...”

  A cold fury rose inside me as he babbled excuses, and I moved over to him, step by inexorable step.

  “Stop!” The father again, chasing after me, clutching at my arm. I shook it off and continued my advance. This was not proper. This was not the hallmark of a civilized society. It offended me beyond reason, to see corruption on such a scale, to see acquaintances and friends treated so.

  I stretched forth a gauntlet, and the youth ceased babbling. He started screaming, as I closed a metal hand around his face.

  I could fix this corruption. I was stronger than them, and I knew that there was nothing wrong with them I couldn't fix, one good squeeze at a time.

  And yet...

  I spared a glance back. Martin was covering the rest of the kneeling cops with one of their own guns, and the father was tugging and pulling on my arm with all his strength. He budged my armor not a bit, and screamed louder than his son. And the group around us was watching, some in horror, but more with joy. Some were even calling for blood.

  If these bad cops were a mockery of a healthy and civilized society, it didn't mean that giving in to mob justice would be any better. It would be worse, in a lot of ways. Even then, I almost closed my fist, almost pulped his skull.

  Anya clinched it. She was there in the back of the crowd, staring, her young face blank. She was standing next to three or four other children of the camp.

  No. I couldn't do it. I collected myself, brought my fury down to a more manageable disgust.

  “CEASE YOUR HOWLING, OLD MAN,” I snarled to the father. He quieted.

  “MINNA, TOOMS, RELEASE THE YOUNG ONE.” They did, and he pried at my fingers, crying. “MINNA, FETCH PAPER AND WRITING IMPLEMENTS. YOU. YOU LOT.”

  I turned to the rest of the police, dragging the young one with me, forcing him to dance along to keep his neck from being twisted. “YOU WILL CONFESS AND SIGN TO YOUR CRIMES HERE. THEN YOU WILL LEAVE YOUR GUNS AND GO. DO NOT COME WITHIN DIRE'S SIGHT AGAIN UNTIL YOU SERVE JUSTICE ONCE MORE.”

  They were silent. “Confessions work better if someone else writes them,” Martin said. “Learned that shit from Law an' Disorder, season two.”

  “FINE. THINK YOU CAN WHIP SOMETHING UP?”

  “Yeah, sure.” It took about twenty minutes of copying once Minna showed up with paper, but finally he had documents that he distributed to each of them. I released the youth, they signed, and ran for their cars as fast as they could go after retrieving their fallen comrade. Some of the camp's population laughed as they went, others watched with sullen eyes. I kept watching until they started the cars and peeled rubber out of there.

  As I did so, I caught movement, from an upward direction. Glancing up, my gaze was drawn to the brownstones which were nearest the beach. There were people in the windows, some gawking openly, others peering through blinds or curtains. Looked like we were the main show for the day. Again.

  Come to think of it, my voice did carry pretty far at the volume I'd been speaking. All that plus action and surround-sound as well.

  I turned back to see the camp settling back in, as some of the residents started helping get the fallen tents back up, and others repacked the food or guns that the cops had been dragging out, and got them back into the kitchen. Minna helped Sparky wrestle with the contraption that was forcibly grounding him. They'd taken his collar somewhere along the line, but it turned up in the pile of 'contraband' that they'd been confiscating.

  “You know that shit ain't gonna work in court,” Martin said, moving up to stand next to me.

  “HM?”

  He winced. “Can you dial it down some?”

  “GIVE HER A SECOND.” I moved behind the kitchen, putting it between me and the street, and decanted from the armor. Straightening my undershirt, I strolled out, shivering in the cold. Minna ran up to me, offered me the fur coat again. I took it with a chuckle as I found Martin again. “What won't hold up in court?”

  “Those papers were signed under duress. Lawyers gonna eat your ass alive if you try to do shit with that.”

  “She could care less,” I said. “We have bigger worries right now.”

  “All right, but I'm just sayin' when the lights come back on the cops gonna come back with bigger guns and a whole lot more bloodthirst. Shit gonna get bad, and we might wanna get gone before that hits.”

  I smiled. “Or someone could hand those papers over to the MRB. They're a higher autho
rity, yes?”

  “Might work. Got to admit, ICPD pigs don't usually give costumes grief. Bloods must have scared the shit out of them. Guess I ain't surprised, they have to want us bad by now. Throwin' everything they can think of.”

  The sunset burned on the horizon, as my stomach grumbled and reminded me of more prosaic problems. “Yes. That's the next issue. We have plans to make, and little time to do it in. Who's cooking tonight?”

  “Bobbi and Steve.”

  “Don't know them.”

  “I'll make sure their asses are on it.”

  “Good. We'll need to have a... war council, over dinner, Dire thinks. It's time to start bringing the fight to them.”

  Dinner was beans. Several kinds, with a bit of meat thrown in for flavor. I couldn't tell precisely what, it was the only thing I'd eaten that day and it was delicious. The water we drank to chase it down was collected from the showerhouse. Julio had been to work on the pipes, checking things over, shutting off the stalls with the worst leaks. Joan confirmed that he thought it would make it through a freeze without too much trouble. Which was good, as the night was only getting colder, and the snow wasn't stopping.

  And as the senior members of the camp crowded in, with the others shamelessly eavesdropping just back from the fire, we got down to business. With no real reason to hide our amenities, we had lights ablaze around the camp. All the space heaters were going inside the bigger tents and the shacks.

  But beyond it, everything was dark.

  “First things first,” I said. “Roy will be all right. He's in the hospital recovering, Dire's going to visit him in a few days.”

  Sparky let out a long breath, and Joan smiled. “I knew it. He's a tough old coot.”

  “Very,” I said. “The downside is he's out of this, one way or the other. Which means that we need to sort this out without him, because Dire doesn't expect they'll wait for him to come back before they attack.”

  “They might come tonight,” Martin said. “Truth is I 'spected to see them by now.”