I winced as a red wall of damage reports rolled up my HUD. Something had taken out the networks in the Lair’s west wall. Something that caused a lot of massive damage, all at once. The kaiju? I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to face the thing now, not on my own turf. Giant monsters and collateral damage went together like heroes and self-righteousness.
As the central part of Whaler’s Wharf passed underneath me and my neighborhood came into view, I surveyed the plume of smoke rising up into the sky from my property and groaned. No, there was no way to hide this. It’d be a hurried salvage and reclamation for sure.
But that would come later. For now? Vengeance.
I brought myself to a stop, cape swirling in the downdraft as I circled around the front of the building, and...
Okay, that was not what I expected. A motley mix of muscle cars, trucks, and SUV’s were pulled up in a half-circle around the rear of the Lair. Most of them were green, or had green as a primary color, and about thirty bald people wearing camo or some variation of it were crouched around the facility, watching it burn. Most of the western wall was rubble, and part of the smoke rising up was actually dust, thrown up by what looked to be the aftermath of several good-sized explosions. What the heck?
I started scanning through them, and soon found my answer. Several of those bastards were packing rocket launchers.
That was a concern. My force field could tank two or three, maybe. What the hell was going on?
I settled on a rooftop to the side, back from their pickets, and started using the universal remote to sniff around. Sure enough, I found a tactical net. They were using linked headsets with cameras to direct their people, real military-grade equipment. And like most military-grade equipment, encryption was a secondary concern. I slipped into their networks and listened, reading texts and gridmails with grim irritation.
In a matter of minutes I had two things; answers, and an urge to pound my fist through my mask to knock the stupid out of my brain.
This had all been my fault. I’d set up shop near one of their main safehouses without noticing them at first beyond an ‘oh hey, gangers’ reaction. I’d figured that I would be quiet enough that they wouldn’t really mess with me much, and so they hadn’t...
...until I’d started grabbing vehicles and moving them inside. Then different vehicles came out. They noticed that sort of thing. They had people around the neighborhood watching for that sort of thing. And it didn’t take too long to figure out where their stolen van had gotten to.
So they’d sent a few guys to kick in my door and tell me about their displeasure. They’d hit the automated defenses, panicked, and came back with every available guy in the area and all the hardware they had lying around... which was, quite frankly, a lot. The smoke I’d seen through the cameras was the result of smoke grenades. They’d been destroying broadcast collectors and generators to knock out the defenses, and there wasn’t much left at this point. The bombardment of the western wall had been the last straw, and they had people moving in now, looking for me.
They didn’t know it was me precisely, but they figured some ‘costume freak’ was behind all of this, and they aimed to kill him.
Police sirens screamed in the distance as I finished my review of their actions, and I growled as I saw the orders come down their tac-net from their boss. They were to search the place for whatever they could grab, and get out of there.
I contemplated killing every last one of them. At this range, from stealth, I could amp up the particle beams to maximum penetration and mow them down before they figured out my position.
But the more I thought about it, the more the idea rankled. It would be a slaughter, and the last thing I needed was more kills on my record. Moreover, they hadn’t damaged anything I wasn’t prepared to lose, yet. Slaying them would be a disproportionate response. The final nail in the coffin, however, was the fact that I was dealing with bigoted fanatics. If I went bloodthirsty here, they’d take the loss and use it as recruitment propaganda. That was how these sort of groups work... they drum up fear and offer a solution. And the world has no shortage of gullible cowards, or ignorant fools. Killing thirty now would just give them ninety in a year. Martyrs are currency.
Leaders, on the other hand, never even got in the field of fire. The boss calling the shots was piping his orders in from elsewhere in the city. I noted that his grid profile seemed to be calling in from a good part of town.
So. I couldn’t kill them. How should I hurt them?
A few seconds later my grin stretched wide under my mask, as I set my plan into motion.
The first step: communications. I remembered the Black Bloods fight. They had the advantage of communications, and I’d damn near lost because of it. No sense in giving the Kriegers the same advantage.
I hacked into their leader’s connection, and started lowering the quality, filling it with static and distorting his voice. Once it was bad enough, I quietly locked him out. He’d hear nothing until I was done here, not from his tac-net or any of the phones that I’d flagged during my examination of their network. Meanwhile, I quietly stole his credentials and fused them to a hastily-created false profile. Now when I spoke into the tac-net, it would seem to be coming from their leader. A little voice modulation to deepen my tones, and it’d sound like the broken voice that my prior interference had arranged.
“Everyone inside, report!” I barked.
A chorus of replies chattered through, and I nodded in satisfaction. They’d explored the western end. There were still a couple of defenses active on the eastern end so they were having to avoid those, and only a few of them had made it up the stairs to the living area. They’d grabbed my desktop computer, but hadn’t found the super-computer... nor would they, unless they started tearing the walls apart. Well, more than they had, anyway.
I studied their loadouts, when I saw them cross the visual feed. Bandannas over their lower faces to cut the smoke and dust, headsets and eyepieces, assorted weapons, and flashlights. An odd mix of improvised and professional.
Then one of them spoke up, and my blood ran cold. “Found some crates in a cargo container. They looked important, but there’s nothing in them except flowers.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Whatever that pollen was, they’d dosed themselves with it. Well, no time to cry about it. First step was to pull their teeth.
“Leave it and get out,” I said. “Close those crates, then set charges and blow the place.”
“Uh, boss? We don’t have any explosives can drop this place. We’re almost out of rockets—”
I reviewed what I’d heard of the leader’s speech patterns. Vulgarity was called for. “Fucking improvise!” I roared. “You need someone to hold your dick when you piss?”
“Sorry Kiefer, sorry, sorry, we got this. It’ll drop, no problem.”
The guys outside dug in their vehicles, and started pulling out various bags of explosive goodies, handing them off to the guys inside. Looked like small-grade stuff, from what I could see.
I let them go to it for a second, and called Martin. “Hey. Got Kriegers swarming the place.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Not as bad as it sounds. Dire’s got a plan. You know the Slappy Pizza down Cuttle Street?”
“Yeah. Shitty pizza.”
“Shitty pizza, big, dark parking lot in back. Park back there, get ready to load what Dire brings you. Oh, ignore the explosions.”
“What—”
I had to hang up and cut him off. They’d finished piling things up, and were heading inside.
An incoming call from their leader’s location rang one of his lieutenant’s phones. I squelched it before the ganger could pick up, marked the phone he was calling, and blocked that, too.
The second step was to have them dig their own graves. Well, so to speak. If I did this right, they wouldn’t have a single martyr for their cause.
I tapped back into their tac-net. “Hold on, movement! We’ve got movement inside!”
It was satisfying watching them flee out of the building, running from nothing in particular. “Use tear gas!” I yelled. “Throw everything we have in there, flush the fucker out!”
Got to admit, that one was a gamble. If they didn’t have tear gas, then they might start getting suspicious. But bless their little zealot hearts, they dug out drum-style grenade launchers, loaded them up, and started launching grenades into the warehouse. Gas billowed into the air, joining the smoke and dust already present.
One of the lieutenants tapped into the net. “Boss? Cops are gonna be here in five.”
“Shut up.”
On to the third step; herding them. I blocked another incoming call from their probably-frantic leader, and sealed another lieutenant’s phone. Then with an evil snicker, I pulled out the universal remote, and started checking their cars.
On the third one I hit paydirt. It was remote-enabled. I started it up, and started it rolling forward as Kriegers yelled and pointed. One gave chase, and I had it stop, reverse, and slam into him trunkfirst. He bounced a good twenty feet, rolling and scrambling away from it, limping on a busted leg.
And then I started up every other remote-enabled car I found, a good seven of the fifteen vehicles there.
“Shit! He’s hacked your cars!” I yelled into the link. “Get to cover! Get inside the warehouse!”
That wasn’t too popular an idea. But they were stuck outside, and all the explosives that could have done any real damage to the cars were on the inside. I saw one of the Kriegers jog backwards, fumbling with a rocket launcher until one of his smarter buddies grabbed him and took it away. At this range, the rockets would kill their own people, too.
A few of them tried shots anyway, and they did a little damage before I had the cars chase them around. A few more tried to jump the fence and get away, and the first and fastest managed it, but with a little careful positioning and some vehicular assault, two tons of SUV managed to discourage the rest of them.
In the end, they had no option but to retreat into the warehouse. The warehouse that they’d just filled with tear gas.
I howled with laughter, watching them go, switching to my thermal sight to watch them choke and stay low, trying to avoid the worst of it. If they’d brought masks, they hadn’t thought to wear them. Or they were back in the cars.
And now for the final step in this little orchestra of absurdity.
I positioned the cars to block the exits, jetted into the air, and brought myself crashing through the warehouse roof. Yells and shouts of alarm filled the tac-net... before I silenced it.
“TREMBLE BEFORE DIRE!” I roared, and descended into the clouds of choking gas.
It wasn’t a contest. It was more of a mercy. Two minutes later I was the only thing capable of moving in that factory without puking, whimpering, or screaming.
I didn’t want to kill them, true, but I was under no obligation to be gentle with them. It took only a few moments to retrieve the flower crates, close them, and wrap them with cable for easy transportation. With a grunt of satisfaction, I flew up to the living space, removed the super-computer from its hiding spot, and threw it in a loose crate. I’d had the thing ruggedized for just such an occasion.
As I was throwing scoops of packing material in with it, the warehouse shuddered. I paused, and eyed the gaping hole where the western wall used to be. Had they hit a support beam?
Another shudder.
SQUELCH.
That came from the factory floor. What the hell?
BURBLE. SQUELCH.
Squishing noise echoed throughout the warehouse, drowning out the cries and sobs of the wounded. But not the screams, as those who could cry out through the coughing raised their voices and howled their lungs out in fear. Pure, primal fear.
I turned on my mask’s thermal vision, and looked towards the main room.
Something was there. Oozing out of the grate in the floor that I’d sealed over when I moved in, shuffling an impossible bulk through the tiny space, more and more of it spreading out and expanding like an airbag from a crashing car. It couldn’t have bones, it shouldn’t have bones, with a structure like that.
Appendages that I dearly, dearly hoped were tentacles whipped around from the top, groping around the warehouse, and I watched the thermal images of the gangers I’d beaten up try to drag themselves away, or fend off the thing’s boneless grasp, to no avail. I watched in horrified fascination as the thing sorted through them meticulously, picking them up and ignoring their frantic, wheezing attempts to escape, bringing them in close and... licking them? It was hard to tell through the thermal vision. But after licking them, it placed them back on the ground.
Perhaps twenty feet of it was out of the grate now. I measured it, nodded. This had been the thing in the power station. This was the kaiju we’d avoided yesterday.
Suddenly, it tensed and the tentacles shot out. One of the gangers screamed, as the creature brought it up to an orifice, and devoured him in a single convulsive motion.
A suspicion tickled my mind, and I checked his number on the tac-net. My fear was confirmed. He was one of the gangers who had reported finding the flowers. The thing was here for the cargo, and had a way of tracking the pollen. Probably a sensitivity to the radiation.
My gaze fell upon the cargo containers at my feet. And the glittering specks of pollen that now adorned them.
The thing snorted and glass shattered as I snapped my view up to see it drive tentacles through the windows of the living quarters. Panting, eager moans reverberated through the structure, as the thing shuffled and flowed over the factory floor, seeking the scent that had drawn it hither.
I pointed an arm skyward, and set the gauntlet’s particle beam to a wide spread. The roof above me disintegrated with one shot, and I hiked the bundle of crates onto my back as I pushed upward.
But not fast enough.
Tentacles whipped and ripped through the drywall toward me, seeking the noise, seeking the pollen.
Very well, then.
Leaving the particle beam at a wide spread, I amped up the force, and opened up on the thing. At this setting, the intervening walls disintegrated, parting like paper to a broadsword, before striking the creature full on.
It didn’t seem to like that one bit. The answering roar shook the air around me, and windows burst in the nearby buildings.
As I jetted upward, I peered over my shoulder, switching from thermal sight to nightvision. The thing was still moving! Not only that, but it was pouring through the hole I’d made, hurtling itself like some sort of mass of... vines?
It seemed to be a knotted mass of vines, with fruit-like eyes hanging around the central mass of it. A large charred hole in the center of it marked where my beam had cored it, but the hole was already closing, black, charred plant-like fibers and oozing sap squeezing out by the bucketload, as it sealed the wound. Tentacles— no, the appendages I’d thought of as tentacles were twisted vines, studded with leaves and thorns.
I recognized those vines. They were the same sort of vines that had come out of the water, back when I’d had my little standoff with the Torchbearers.
I didn’t like the implications of that. Not one bit. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I needed to lose the thing, and fast.
I sped away over the rooftops, over the cordon of police cars set up at the end of the street, calling a warning as I went. Say this for the police in Icon, they were well trained for this sort of weirdness. They wasted no time in scattering as the plant kaiju squelched upward in a mighty bound, hit the street, and scrabbled through their cordon throwing cars into the buildings on either side as it pounded after me, vines moving like hundreds of little legs. It was faster than it had any right to be, big as two city buses put together, and slimy.
Aquatic? Yes. Couldn’t count on escaping into the ocean. Couldn’t outrun it, not at my speed. Couldn’t lose it, it had some sort of radiation sense that let it smell the pollen... the pollen. If I could get the p
ollen off the crates, then I could possibly lose it.
How? Burn it? I had the phlogiston projector, but at this range, that would melt the crates and destroy the flowers. The thing was a little too powerful.
But I didn’t need to shoot the crates directly now, did I? Not when there were so many other flammable things nearby.
I hurtled through the streets, and the thing crunched after me. Impossibly, it was gaining, no matter the obstacles I threw in its path. I glanced back, and saw that several of its vines had twisted together, to form leglike appendages the size of tree trunks. It moved with less scuttling and more bounding now, crushing cars and sending people screaming off the sidewalks, trying to escape the botanical abomination.
I’d have one shot at this. I turned my attention back to my escape, and set my sensors looking for just the right sort of car...
And a few seconds later I found what I needed.
An old hydrogen-celled truck, parked in front of a movie theater. I darted low, and opened up with the phlogiston projector, bathing the car with a crimson, pulsing ray as as I slowed, hovering over it.
BOOM!
The hydrogen explosion flared against my forcefield and I rolled with it, let it drive me up and higher as I held the crates out, bathing them in the worst of the inferno as I went. Behind me the beast screamed as the flames caught the edge of it, and I glanced back to see it hesitate, whipping flaming vines about. Didn’t like fire, huh?
The flames withdrew and I looked the crates over. Charred, but not cracked. And as planned, I didn’t see a single speck of glittering pollen. Pollen’s highly flammable after all. No way the creature could track me now.
Heat sensors on my back flared, and I realized my cape was on fire. Crap. I made a mental note to get something that didn’t burn so easily, next time. With regrets I hit the quick-release, sending it fluttering to the ground below. I’d liked that cape.
A scraping of metal from below, and I glanced around just in time to duck the car as it flew past me, hurtling into the night before impacting a Slappy Pizza billboard and crashing to the street below.
DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) Page 17
