I considered grabbing it by the jaws and making a wish.
Then I considered what Manuel would say, if this thing turned out to be human after all and I killed it, after promising to minimize casualties.
“They’re here!” Alpha trilled over the vox link. “The heroes are here! They just finished evacuating the patrons!”
One big advantage of my power, that I used and abused at every opportunity, was the ability to formulate a plan in less than a second. It would leap full-grown into my brain like a reverse Athena ducking back into Zeus’ forehead.
And this one I just got was a good plan.
I grabbed the creature around the neck, forced its head down into the spray from one of the coolant pipes. It thrashed and tried to free itself. But it slowed, and I grinned. I’d read somewhere that reptiles got torpid in the presence of extreme cold. I pulled it up when it was manageable, hoisted it across my shoulders, and charged back down the hallway, uncaring as I slammed and cracked it against the walls. Had to turn a bit as I got through the doorframe, took some real shoving, but with the monster slowed an impossible task became a merely irritating one.
“Quiet, I hear something!” An unfamiliar voice called. I stomped up the stairwell, got to the halfway point, amped up the power to my arm motivators, and threw the damned creature up into the middle of the empty nightclub.
Then I walked back, shut the door behind me, and made my leisurely way back into the chopshop.
“Oh holy shit!” Alpha crowed in my ear. “Oh, it’s not happy. Oh man, Lady Thrush is pissed.”
“Don’t care. Dire’s conscience is clear now.”
“What?”
“If they kill it then it’s on the heroes. And it’ll keep them busy for a little while.” I returned to the server room, sighed at the mess. But there was enough hardware left intact that I could maybe get something, so I got to work.
“What if it kills the heroes?”
“Unlikely. Dire softened it up first. Used up most of its acid reservoirs or whatever.” I took a second to run a diagnostic. Yeah, I was a mess. The outer three layers were burnt through in about six spots, leaking blue impact gel that made up layer number four.
No serious structural damage, but the armor was pretty well degraded. I could maybe survive a round or two with Lady Thrush, but it would probably be a Pyrrhic victory. While I kept a close watch on the data transfer, an idle part of my mind ran estimates on the repair bills, and winced.
A chair broke over my head, the metal seat warping and flying off into the ceiling, sticking into the drop tiles.
I turned, to see a furry face scrutinizing me through a pince-nez. A pair of slitted eyes looked into my sensors, opened wide, and I saw looked all the world like an upright lion poured into a tailored green suit. He took a step back on crooked legs.
I looked down at the chair legs he held in his hand, with twisted bits of scrap metal creaking softly. Then back up at his face.
He cleared his throat. “Well, that was dashed embarrassing.”
“AND YOU ARE?”
“Leo. Mister Leo, at your disservice.” He had a voice made for radio, the most stereotypical British accent I’d heard in the months I’d been living here. I really wasn’t looking forward to knocking his teeth down his throat.
So I weighed my options, and went with disdainful scorn.
“NEVER HEARD OF YOU.” I turned my gaze back to my manipulators, and sifted through the data. Looked like I’d gotten most of it, what was left, anyway. Sadly, there was nothing that seemed like an obvious link to Neo Variants.
So I added one. All it took was a simple hacked root account, a quick alteration of timestamps, and a file dropped into a fairly obvious part of the file structure. Then I ripped the disk free with a triumphant cry. Mister Leo backed up, as my voice bellowed through the ruined chamber. “TOO LATE, LADY THRUSH! THE SOURCE OF THE ABOMINATIONS IS WITHIN DIRE’S GRASP!”
“No!” Leo gasped, and dove to the side. He was fast, and he was nimble, and I was already planning to let go the second he disarmed it from me. Then I’d fake-chase him until Lady Thrush showed up, deliver a villainous monologue, and get the hell out of Dodge.
All those plans vanished, like tears in acid rain, as the bastard came up with an electrical cable and jammed it into the disk.
Big sparks, big blowback, and Leo flipped over, hit the wall, and landed in a crouch. His mane poofed out in every direction.
Me, I was fine. Grounded power armor is best power armor.
The disk, however, was a charred mass of filaments.
“WHAT DID— YOU— YOU BLITHERING DOLT!”
“Score one for the good guys, hm?” He purred, and came up with another power cable. “Fancy another hit?”
Another plan formulated in seconds, while I seethed, and my eyebrow twitched like a spastic caterpillar.
“FOOL. THAT WAS A MERE COPY! EASY ENOUGH TO RETRIEVE IT ONCE MORE FROM THE PRIMARY SERVER.”
“Ah, thanks for the tip!” And damned if the cheeky bastard didn’t start whipping the cable around, smacking it into the servers, and sending puffs of smoke and sparks everywhere.
Mother. Fucker. Contrary, impossible, fucking lion in a pince-nez was thwarting my plans. Without even knowing my plans!
Enough was enough. I lifted a gauntlet—
—and in the split second before I triggered the particle beam he dove for cover, dodging the blast.
I blinked, surprised. That was pretty impressive. “CAN YOU KEEP THAT UP FOREVER?” I asked, bringing up the other hand, and letting golden energy glow and crackle between my palms.
“He doesn’t have to,” Lady Thrush said from behind me.
Well, shit. I closed my eyes.
Didn’t help. Three walls, a mess of medical equipment, and a spray of burst, bloody sample bags later I fetched up in the concrete wall by the stairs, according to my GPS. Damage readouts chattered angrily, and I sighed into my mouthpiece.
Heroes. Heroes happen. No matter your plan, no matter how fool-proof, they’ll find a way to mess it up. I pulled myself out of the hole she’d punched me into, turned around, and dove to the side as she flew at me, full-speed.
Her costume was torn, half-melted. She had a bandanna over her face, was holding it on with one hand as she bounced off the wall, turned, and tried to cave in my mask.
I locked my gravitics, blocked her punch with a forearm, and my actuators creaked as she hit it straight-on, rebounded.
“FUTILE,” I rumbled, blasting her with a fifty-percent particle charge, knocking her back several more rooms, and through some sparking wires. At this rate we’d hit the generator sooner or later, then we’d be fighting in the dark...
...actually, now that I thought of that, it was a pretty good idea. I had night sight, and I doubted they had that particular benefit.
“FOOLS! YOU STAND AGAINST DIRE!” I roared, and sent a micromissile barrage screaming out of my shoulderpad ports, down the hallway and straight toward the server room. Nothing serious, just concussion bursts. Mister Leo was around here somewhere and I didn’t want to kill the guy.
The generator, contrary to most Hollywood blockbusters, didn’t blow up. It did, however, sputter to a stop as the blast waves knocked it off-kilter enough that it broke. The tunnels went dark, and I flipped over to night sight, hovering into the air and backing away. Lady Thrush froze, peered through the hole in the wall I’d knocked her through, and waved her hand in front of her face.
“SIGHT IS A PRIVILEGE FOR THE INTELLIGENT, CHILD.” She really was young, and I thought I could maybe get her goat that way. Judging by her scowl, I was right.
“I read about you, you know. That mask was a big tip-off. That voice, too.” She straightened up, shooting glances over her shoulder as I drifted through the rooms as silently as a ghost. My cape brushed against a piece of jagged metal, dragged it for a bit and she whirled. I stood still as she stomped past me, arms wide and feeling out into the darkness.
“The th
ings you did on that little island... the atrocities you committed... it makes me right sick. What are you even doing here? Run out of people to shoot with pain lasers?”
By now I was two rooms over. “YOU HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT YET? THE CREATURE YOU KILLED DIDN’T TIP YOU OFF TO DIRE’S SINISTER MASTER PLAN?”
“It’s jolly well alive, thank you very much. I’m not like you. I don’t kill.”
Good. I’d judged her correctly.
“YOU MAY HAVE TO. IT WASN’T THE ONLY ONE.” Speculation, but fairly safe speculation, I thought. The thing was probably here as a fail-safe, I saw no other reason for it to be present in this facility. Something to handle any itinerant costumes that stumbled onto the operation, and cause a lot of chaos and destruction to delicate evidence. Easier than a bomb, more distracting, too.
You don’t waste a critter like that when you only have one of them.
“That wasn’t yours, then? You sure? It was about as ugly as you. Had better breath, though.” She turned, slowly, trying to listen. I picked up my cape and ghosted over three rooms before replying.
“PLEASE. DIRE DOES NOT DEAL IN MONSTERS OF THE FLESH. NO, THIS THING CAME FROM MANCHESTER.” Another bit of conjecture. But since my goal was to get them to Neo Variants one way or the other, and they’d scuppered my elegant plan to let them steal a disk with falsified evidence, this would have to do.
She snorted. “As if I have any reason to believe you.” Abruptly she charged, lowering her hand across her face to keep rubble out of her eyes as she slammed through walls. I sidestepped, but she was far off. Got to admit I had to stifle a chuckle as she hit the far concrete wall and rebounded.
And then furry arms wrapped around me. “Here! She’s here!”
Oh for the love of gods! I grabbed Leo, twisted and threw him, but not before Lady Thrush got her hands around me.
I listened to metal squeal, sighed as new damage indicators flared, and decided that enough was enough. “YOU THINK YOU’VE WON THIS ROUND? FAREWELL, HAPLESS HEROES!”
I triggered the teleporter, confirmed I wanted a single trip with no passengers, and the world sparked as light returned to it. Cursing, I flipped off my night sight before it blinded me, and hit the escape hatch. My armor knelt and I crawled out into the artificial light of my workshop, cursing again as I barked my shin on a twisted bit of plate.
Could have gone worse, I suppose. I’d pretty much had to beat them across their heads with a clue-by-four, but if they didn’t follow up on the Manchester lead it wasn’t my fault. So long as they were in Manchester and responded to the explosions when the real fun started, then I could count my plan a success, and the sacrifices worth it.
I walked around my armor, wincing at the damage. Some sacrifices there, no doubt on that count. I sighed, ordered the suit into its cradle, and set up an autorepair subroutine.
I stopped it halfway through. “Suru? Pull up the chemistry workstation. Prepare to analyze a sample.”
“Yes Doctor,” My digital assistant confirmed. A workbench whirred into place. I looked for a discolored patch of armor, had the waldo arms cut it off, and drop it into a sample dish.
The acid had been a nasty trick. The ballistic gel had saved me from catastrophic damage, but I thought there was room for improvement there. “Analyze acidic compounds, and prepare a counteragent suitable for layer insulation. Insert in appropriate locations.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Really, I could have asked Alpha to do the job. Suru was an artifact I’d kept out of fondness, more than anything else.
Speaking of fondness... “Alpha?” I spoke into my vox.
“Yeah Boss?”
“Is Manuel in position yet?”
“We just got to town. It was a long drive. He’s setting up in a low-budget hotel on the outskirts.”
“You’re still in the trunk, aren’t you?”
“Technically it’s called a boot.”
I shook my head. Then I glanced back at the repairbots, as they hissed and whirred around my armor, getting rid of the dents from Lady Thrush, and the scorch marks from whatever-the-hell that had been.
“You know, that whole scuffle would have gone better if you’d had, oh, minions.”
I scowled. “Don’t start.”
“Seriously. You’ve stowed what, like thirty exoskeletons around the London area? Not counting the four you have in the workshop?”
I glanced over at the sealed cylinders. They would have fallen like wheat to a scythe against Lady Thrush. But they would have kept that Mister Leo fellow busy, I had to admit.
I walked over to Alpha’s box, and gave his hardware a pat.
“All right. Tell you what, if we can find the parts to cobble up some adequate servers, we’ll see about making some spawn.”
“Geeze, you make it sound so dirty.”
“Mind out of the gutter, minion. Her spawning parts are only for Manuel right now.”
“No need to get so... organic about it.”
“Next she’ll be busting out fart jokes.” I stretched, gave myself a sniff. “Ripe enough already.” That was the downside to playing domestic for a few months. I’d gotten unused to exertion. “Shower’s beckoning, she thinks.”
“Bed afterwards?”
I gnawed my lip. “Not sure if we have time. Depends on how froggy the heroes are feeling. Anyway, warm water now, discussion later.”
One hot shower, a return to something resembling a human state, and much consideration later, I made two choices.
“Firstly, no, we can’t wait,” I called out to Alpha as I dried off. My hair was long now, it took a lot of toweling to fix. “Going to have to go up to Manchester tonight. Need to be onsite if the heroes jump the gun. Safe enough to leave the armor here, have the teleporter send it through once it’s finished.”
“Firstly implies a secondly.”
“Yep. Secondly, she is going to bed afterward. But not alone, and not to sleep. Not at first, anyway.” I grinned. A good fight got the blood going, and that had been a fairly decent one.
“Getting organic again. Sure, no problem. Just leave me in the trunk. Like a spare tire.”
“Technically it’s a boot,” I reminded him, and laughed when he groaned. Then I grabbed the bug-out bag, went over to the teleportation pad, and checked for the remote beacon. Active, and good.
“Energize,” I commanded it, and sparks flew around me as the room changed. I looked around the crappy hotel room. Two beds, a broken heat register, and a very surprised Manuel with a half-drawn-blade in his hand.
I opened my mouth to say something, and froze. The most delightful odor teased my nostrils. “Is that pizza?”
He nodded, slid the rapier back under the bed. “Yes. I have some left, if you want a slice.”
“Maybe afterward,” I said, smiling.
“Afterward?” He raised his eyebrows. Then he smiled, as I unbuttoned my shirt.
“You don’t really need two beds in here, now do you?” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him and finding his lips with my own.
The sex was better than the pizza, as it turned out.
CHAPTER 6: MANCHESTER MANEUVERING
“Neo Variants Unlimited is Manchester's premiere biomedical corporation, and an A-rated employer of many of Britain's finest scientists, working together for the betterment of mankind and the enrichment of our shareholders. There's not a facility in Europe that isn't using one of our genetically-modified probacterial cultures, or a specialized piece of equipment. The future is bright, and we look forward to getting mankind there. With your help and support, we'll soon spread to the rest of the world!”
--From an unused speech to shareholders, at Neo Variants stockholders meeting, 2004.
Laying there in the crook of powerful arms, I felt at peace. Although my stomach was churning something fierce. I don’t know how the fuck the British could ruin pizza, but at least with this one, they had. But it was meaningless in the afterglow and sweet exhaustion.
“What
do we have here?” Manuel muttered.
I glanced down at where his hand cupped my breast. “If you don’t know that by now, you might just be hopeless.”
He snorted. “No, not that.”
“Then what?”
“This... thing we have.”
“Ah. That.” I shrugged, feeling my skin slide against his. Savored it. “Does it matter?”
“I’d like to think so.” He pulled his hand back from my chest.
I sighed, and tugged the covers a bit closer. “Intimacy. Mutual respect. Some really good orgasms. Maybe stomach trouble from that damned pizza, but Dire’s not sure how well it’s settling in your gut.”
He rumbled laughter behind me. “I only had a slice. You shouldn’t have eaten so much.” He slapped my belly, lightly.
“Not all of us jump around in leather pants. Some of us make do with titanium alloy.”
Manuel rolled away, onto his back. “Seriously, though. What do we have here?”
I knew that tone. He wouldn’t let it go. And thinking about it, maybe he shouldn’t. I rolled over to face him, his form barely visible in the darkness, with only a little light from the streetlights seeping in through the cracked blinds. Manuel’s eyes glittered as they found mine.
“Dire has no idea what we have here. It’s...” I took a breath, took the plunge. “It’s not love. If you’re looking for that, sorry. She has no experience with this, really. You’re her second relationship, and her first was, well, complicated. And short.”
“I’m not.”
“Well of course you’re not short—”
“I’m not looking for love.” Manuel confirmed.
“Okay, good.”
“I didn’t think I’d live this long, to be honest.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So I listened, instead.
“You weren’t around, back in the day. Back when nobody could stand against Corazon. Not even my father.”
DIRE:SINS (The Dire Saga Book 5) Page 6
