DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2)

by Andrew Seiple

  “A VALIANT BUT FUTILE ATTEMPT TO ROCK DIRE’S WORLD.” I brought the armor’s heel down on the stone, crunching it into glowing fragments as I stood over his unconscious form. “NOT FAST ENOUGH, BOY. NOT FAST ENOUGH.”

  Had to maintain the kayfabe, after all.

  “Get away from him!” A deep voice at my back, and crashing noises behind me as Serpent Tina moved in, and I turned as she jumped at the suit. I slammed its fist into her chest, and held it there, digging the armor’s heels in as I was shoved backward, dirt spraying. But I wasn’t still as she was pushing me... my free hand jack-hammered into her skull again and again, as she tried to fight to grab me, succeeded in catching my fist and twisting the arm, wrenching the armor and sending plates flying—

  —And she jerked and shuddered, as I opened the taser at full zap.

  My back hit a tree, electricity sheeting down her and my armor and scorching the bark, lances and feelers of it spearing out to set the underbrush on fire around us. Light flared in brilliant glow, almost blinding even through the armor’s shielded lenses.

  And yet she still moved, still fought to hang on, hair smoking and eyes shut as she strained to grab hold on me, grab my face—

  My loose fist caught her jaw in a straight haymaker, and she wobbled, stunned, and my other hand slipped from her grasp.

  I put all the armor’s strength into a blow to her midsection, and she folded, as I turned off the taser. The emitters were smoking, and I eyed the readouts with a sigh. It would need maintenance before I could use it again.

  I stood there for a second, but she didn’t get up. Still looked like she was breathing, so that was good.

  “PATHETIC,” I rasped. It had been anything but, and my first layer of armor was pretty well buckled along my right arm, but appearances had to be maintained.

  The repair subroutines chimed. Gravitics were operational again. Good, time to get the suit out of there. “REMEMBER HER MERCY, TORCHBEARERS. YOU SHALL NOT SEE IT AGAIN.” I directed the armor upward, moving slowly—

  And errors filled my screen, as the suit froze.

  Something was holding it in place.

  “Gotcha!”

  I killed the gravitics, and it hung there in midair. Metal groaned and gave slightly as I shifted the mask downward. There, where she’d snuck up on me during Serpent Tina’s charge, stood a grey-and-gold costumed teenager. She was wearing a breastplate, and a metal half-faced helmet with the visor down, and she had her own pair of gauntlets. Her lower body was mostly unarmored, save for greaves protecting her shins and knees. Her jumpsuit was gold under the armor, and a red ponytail was visible sticking out of the back of the helmet.

  My heart sank.

  Mags. The current leader of the Torchbearers, and my worst possible opponent in her group.

  “Okay Dire. You’re not going anywhere, so let’s just sit tight until my group wakes up, or the MRB gets here. Unless you want to surrender, and slide out of that armor, maybe?”

  Mags, famed for magnetic powers, that allowed her to control metal.

  CHAPTER 8: PYRRHIC VICTORIES

  “Biggest risk to doing the supervillain thing? Pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory. Seriously, right after you've won is when shit can really go wrong.”

  --Quote attributed to Martin Jackson, felon and known henchman of Doctor Dire

  I pursed my lips, and blew a breath out in frustration. But after some thought, I shrugged. Fine, let her hold the armor for now. It would take minutes for her help to arrive or her teammates to wake up, so I could leave her holding the suit for now, and use the time to save Vorpal. I whispered commands to the armor, to notify me if anything changed, and waved the screens away, giving me a full view of the highway.

  The math checked out, but still... I looked at the forcefield generator again, and turned it on. Then I slid the mask and particle pistol from the pack, settled one on my face and held the other.

  I zipped the pack back up and settled it in place, then looked over the railing. It was a long way down, and I felt sweat bead under the mask. It came down to this, came down to the big question; did I have faith in what I’d built?

  I closed my eyes until I’d found the answer, and then, without opening them, I leaped over the railing.

  I had faith in myself, for I was Dire. I was the maker, I was the architect of my own fate, and inventions that would one day change the world.

  Dire does not build shoddy goods!

  Sixty-four feet to the road below, in the valley between hills. Sixty-four feet, and I barely had time to register it before I struck the pavement and light flared around me, visible through even my closed lids. Sixty-four feet and then hard asphalt below me—

  Then nothing, and I opened my eyes in surprise.

  I was hurtling upward again at an angle.

  The field had held. I didn’t have the mass of the armor, so instead of absorbing the hit and leaving me with only a few bruises when it failed, it had contracted, then expanded. Quickly.

  Throwing me into the air.

  I tumbled, field glowing around me, hurtling like a rubber ball across the highway, dropping again, only to slam into a car or truck and rebound, shunted in a new direction, losing momentum as I went.

  It took every effort of willpower I had to keep my gorge down, otherwise I would have left a trail of vomit all around me as I bounced through my merry trip.

  I came to rest up against a minivan, as the field sparked its last, and disappeared with a wet “pop” sound.

  Mental note; maybe refine the field and test it out in a lab before trying that again.

  I blinked and held my head until everything stopped spinning. But no matter what I did, blue streaks kept appearing in my vision, zipping past me.

  Then one hit the asphalt near me, and a patch of the road boiled and bubbled as steam burst up. Those weren’t visual effects, those were lasers. The guards were shooting at me.

  I scrabbled under the van as I finished the thought, then I squirmed around until I was facing their general direction. No good! I could see a lot of moving feet, most of them running in all directions. Looked like the civilians were getting clear of the firefight, and good for them. Unfortunately, it made for a target-rich environment, and not in a good way.

  Hm...

  I slid a screamer grenade out of my backpack, scraping my arm against the underside of the van, and cursing as I felt something tear my skin. What was it with this week, and crawling around under vans? Just my luck, I figured. I popped the subvocal mike out and the earplugs in, and readied to roll the grenade as far as I could towards the truck.

  And stopped. Some of the feet weren’t moving, they were huddled, hiding, much in the same way as I was. And a few of them were small.

  Screamer grenades were calibrated for adults. They’d wreak painful, bloody harm on children.

  I slid the grenade back into the pack, replaced my mike, and glanced to my particle pistol.

  This was going to suck.

  A laser sizzled to my left, piercing the tire of the van. Molten rubber sprayed, and I was glad for my mask, and the rebreather inside it. The stench must have been hideous. More worrisome, it indicated that they’d found me.

  Without thought, with barely a plan, I squirmed around, and elbow-crawled out from under the van, on the front end of it. I got to my knees, and glanced at the side mirror of the car in front of the van... sure enough, running figures in black, coming up on the right-hand side.

  I flipped the particle pistol to stun, stuck it around the side, and cut loose with a few blaring shots. Yellow beams lanced out, and I was sure I hadn’t hit any of them, but it made them take cover. And I grinned, as I saw them hide behind a garbage truck.

  It was a smart move, really. So much metal that bullets wouldn’t get past it, and even beam weapons would take time to burn through it.

  But they didn’t know the full capabilities of my particle beams. I did some quick math in my head, drew my arm back in, and amped up the be
am to near-maximum power, maximum dispersal.

  Then I dove, rolled to the next car in line to get a better firing line, and targeted the front of the garbage truck, bracing myself against the ground as I did so.

  VVVVVVORP!

  It was a column of golden light, a split-second image that could have been the fist of god itself, and it hit the garbage truck square on.

  Minimum penetration.

  Maximum force.

  The truck was thrown backward, and I heard despairing yells, as it crunched into the guards, before slamming to a stop against a pickup behind it, pushing that vehicle back a good twenty feet, and ramming the whole mess into an SUV.

  Like a mournful, spastic bird, a car alarm wailed as blood dripped onto the asphalt.

  I took a breath, smiled. There had been no civilians hiding over in that direction, I’d made sure of it before I took the shot.

  “Nice work!” Vorpal’s voice was louder, amplified by the fact I had earbuds in. I winced, dialed the connection down before I considered the charge indicator on the pistol.

  “Can’t do that again,” I said, “how’s the other group coming?”

  “I’m stalking the last one now. Give me a minute.”

  “We don’t have one. Traffic will be back up before then.”

  “Scheisse. Ah, how much do you trust me?”

  “You haven’t given Dire a reason to distrust you yet. Don’t.”

  “Alright. Can you make some noise to your left? Run that way?”

  “Now?”

  “Yah.”

  “On it!” If I took time to think about it, I’d regret it. But I’d come this far. I got to my feet, and bolted, feeling the aches from my bouncing ball trip, riding the adrenaline, knowing that the crash was going to be horrible, ignoring common sense and pounding my feet into the pavement.

  About forty feet into the run, blue light ripped past me, and again, and again, so close that I felt heat trace along my back and I whimpered as my scars from a few nights back throbbed in pain... and then they stopped.

  “Got him!” Vorpal called.

  “He let you get that close?” I slowed, stopped.

  “No. I took a laser from one I dropped. They work pretty well.”

  I took a breath, took another, and leaned on my knees.

  Martin’s channel kicked on. “Power’s back!”

  Damn. “There’s still guards in the truck?”

  “Yah!”

  “Can you carve a hole in the side? Into the back compartment?”

  “On it!” She said, and I ran, pushing myself despite my shortness of breath, ignoring the pain, weaving a course through the parked and no-longer stalled vehicles. Some of the commuters hadn’t left their cars, and they were firing them up, starting to inch forward, trying to bypass the abandoned vehicles.

  A muffled blare... the truck had blown its air horn, audible even through the earplugs. I ran faster, and ahead of me I saw a blue flash as Vorpal came from the other direction, rapier flashing free, as black energy coalesced around it.

  And she leaped, flipping head over feet as she came along side the truck, leaped with athletic grace, blade flicking out as she went.

  She landed, sheathed her blade with a grin, and behind her a circular chunk of armored trailer fell out and hit the highway.

  Showoff. Still, I grinned under my mask, as I panted and got within range, climbing up on a nearby flatbed as the truck’s cab reached me.

  I pulled out a screamer grenade, and as the truck passed me, picking up speed, I tossed it into the hole that Vorpal had opened.

  I couldn’t use it in the open air, not when there were people within fifty feet of it.

  But inside, with the truck walls to contain its noise? And with the shape of the trailer amplifying it, right through the thin walls between the trailer and the cab?

  The effect was immediate. The truck listed to the side, crunched into a motionless sedan, and came to a stop, horns blaring. Vorpal looked to me, and I held up a hand, folded fingers down; five, four, three.. two... I gestured to the truck at one, and she ran to catch up to it, slashed the back door to bits, and hauled herself in as it fell around her.

  Damn, she was fit. For my part, I sat and caught my breath. I caught the driver of the flatbed staring back at me through his cab’s rear window, and gave him a little wave. His baseball-capped bald head darted below the window, and I laughed, loud and booming, echoing around the freeway and drowning out the car alarms and horns.

  “HMHMHMHMHMH! HAHAHAHHAHAHA!”

  And as it died away, sirens wailed in the distance. I sighed. To all good things, must come an end.

  “Three crates!” Vorpal reported. “I’ll need help to haul them out.”

  “On my way,” Martin responded. “Now that traffic’s moving I’ll circle ’round. Gonna be tight before the cops get here...”

  “Dire’s going to be busy for a bit, manage it please.” I said, and pulled up the AR interface again, switching over to my armor’s viewpoint. Time to see if I could get my suit out of there.

  When I logged back in, the suit was still held fast in the grip of Mags’ powers. The girl herself was sitting on one of the tree-trunks that Serpent Tina had knocked over, talking with a dwarf clad in a green-and-purple jumpsuit. The dwarf’s head was encephalic, swollen beyond the expected size. Mentot, I knew.

  I considered my options. They were in range for the Screamers, but so were their fallen colleagues. I didn’t want to risk any more exposure. Serpent Tina would probably be fine, but it would be bad to risk crippling or killing Speedbump.

  The micromissile launcher was jammed, and all of them were made of metal, anyway. Mags would just lob them back, even if I could get one to fire to begin with.

  Particle beams or the tasers were my best bet. One of the tasers was practically burnt out, but the one in my right gauntlet was still functional. But I had no idea how much influence Mags’ powers had on electricity. So that left particle beams.

  Gas grenades. I needed gas grenades. I resolved to get on that when I repaired the suit. And it would need repairs. There were plates gouged out of the front and side, and the steel plates of the right arm were in tatters, exposing the ceramic layer beneath—

  Wait.

  I could turn a weakness into a strength, here. Into an opportunity. Maybe. It all depended on whether or not Mags had to see metal before she could control it. The second layer of my suit was hardened ceramic, but the layer under that was steel mesh. Was she grabbing onto the outer armor, or was she also holding the mesh?

  I disengaged one of the steel clamps on the mask. If it loosened, then she was only grabbing the armor. If it stayed shut, then my suit was well and truly stuck.

  With a pop and a hiss, the seal was broken, and vapor escaped from the side of the mask, obscuring part of my view. I pounded my thigh in triumph, and grinned.

  The noise caught the Torchbearers’ attention, and they started in surprise, then whipped around to look at me. I resealed the clamp, and stared back at them.

  “Don’t try anything funny, Doctor,” said Mags. “We’ve got you dead to rights.”

  “DO YOU?” I asked. “WOULD YOU CARE TO LAY A WAGER UPON THAT?”

  I could twist my arm, rip the ceramic underlayer and the rest of the structure free from the metal surrounding it. Once done, it would be child’s play to aim the particle cannon in my palm at Mags and zap her into senselessness. It would cause some pretty heavy damage, strain the motors in that side, but it was better than losing the suit. And I rather thought I could do it fast enough that she’d have no counter.

  She lifted a fist, and squeezed. I saw her grimace, and then the suit’s sensors were screaming, as my armor was compressed by incredible force...

  But only the outer layer.

  Rivets popped, and a few bits of the right arm’s outer layer fell away. I grinned. The kid was making my job easier, without even knowing it.

  “No,” Mags said, unclenching her hand. “Y
ou’re not going anywhere.”

  “INCORRECT,” I said. “THOUGH BY ALL MEANS, KEEP SQUEEZING IF YOU WISH TO RESUME THE BATTLE. WHICH, INCIDENTALLY, SHALL BE QUITE SHORT THIS TIME.”

  She flushed, lifted her hand again— and Mentot reached up, grabbed her elbow, gave it a pat before she turned to me.

  “Mr. Carson told us about you,”

  “SHE DOES NOT KNOW THAT NAME.”

  Mentot tilted her head. “No? He was one of the first people you met, if you were telling the truth. On the beach, I mean.”

  “AH.” Well, if she was willing to be civil, I saw no reason to be rude. “MOST PEOPLE IN THE CAMP USED NICKNAMES OR FIRST NAMES. DIRE HAD LITTLE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN LAST NAMES.”

  “Leon Carson. You called him Sparky?”

  Ah, right. Martin had mentioned that Sparky had gone on to mentor the Torchbearers. Well now!

  The clever little girl was trying to stall me, doubtless, but the bait was too much for my curiosity.

  “WELL!” I let a pleased tone seep into my modulator. As much as I could, anyway. “THAT’S RIGHT, HE’S ONE OF YOUR TEACHERS NOW! HOW IS HE DOING THESE DAYS?”

  “He’s good. Really good. He told us about you. I mean as much as he could, the MRB sealed some of the details. Of you and of the Black Bloods, and all that.”

  I hadn’t known that. Made sense, in a depressing way. This nation’s government is paranoid when it comes to sharing information, even when it would be helpful. I’d suspected this was the reason that the truth of Great Clown Pagliacci never hit the news. Good to have it confirmed.

  A tap on my flesh-and-blood shoulder, and I started. Distant shouting, until I removed my earbud. Martin? Yes.

  “Dire! We gotta go, get in the van!” I cut back to half a screen, clambering in the van as Vorpal finished loading crates. Once inside and belted up, I turned my attention back to my armor’s conversation.

  “DIRE IMAGINES HE HAS SOME GOOD STORIES,” I said. “WELL, NOW YOU HAVE ONE TO SHARE WITH HIM. GIVE HIM DIRE’S REGARDS WHEN YOU SEE HIM, YES?”

  “You can tell him yourself,” said Mags. “Plenty of time for him to visit you when you’re in prison. Seriously, what the hell happened? You could have been a hero!”