DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) (14 page)

One of the larger windows around back was broken. By itself not a big deal, could have been attributed to vandals, would have if we hadn’t been suspicious. But there was something just inside of the window. Something large. I couldn’t make out details, but something that could have been slimy flesh rippled and fell.

It was breathing.

I muttered a curse. “Martin, take over please. Drive us to where we can get a vantage on the back of it. Don’t go slow, just average speed.”

“Drive casual, got it.”

I slipped my mask on as we went, and clicked over to infrared vision. And as he pulled around past chain-link fences and empty street corners, we finally got a good look at the back of the building. I gasped, as an enormous red splotch filled my vision. The power station was two stories high, and that thing looked to be filling both floors.

“KEEP DRI—” I paused, pulled my mask off. “Keep driving,” I said through clenched teeth. “Whatever that thing is, we want no part of it.”

“Thing?” Vorpal asked.

“Not sure, but it looks like there’s a small kaiju in there. Or something equivalent.”

Martin’s hands shook on the wheel, but he got us turned and gone without trouble. I clicked through the camera networks, and erased the brief views of the van as we pulled away.

“Kaiju. Gott im Himmel.” Vorpal swore.

I nodded, realized she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”

Kaiju is a term used to refer to giant monsters, usually created by the maddest of mad scientists. They were usually mutants, although some were new species in their own right. Rumors said that the Atlanteans had a number of them below the ocean, just in case humanity got surly. More rumors said that some kaiju were of alien origin. I doubted that one. Every alien or alien-related incident on record had either been a hoax or later been proven to be quite terrestrial.

They were fairly rare, going by the bits I’d read. I hadn’t spent a lot of time studying them.

As I mused, Martin drove, looking more and more pissed as we went.

“We would have walked in there,” Martin said. “Walked right into the yard, waiting for Chaingang.”

“And been within its reach before we knew it was there,” I said. “Then it could rip through a door or window or even the concrete wall if it had the strength, and, well, squish.”

Martin pulled the van to a stop.

“What?” I asked.

“The fuck you so calm?” He snapped. He raised his hand. “Look!”

It was shaking.

“Well, that just shows you’re sane,” I said.

“Uh-huh. The fuck does that say about you?” He snarled.

I stared at him, as evenly as I could, until he realized what he said. “Shit, sorry.” He looked away. “Didn’t mean it like that.”

I muted Vorpal’s channel. “You’re forgiven. Odds are good she isn’t sane, or wasn’t. You know, that whole operating on her own brain thing.”

“Sorry.” He raised his left hand, slapped the door in frustration. “Just... this whole thing. We caused like twenty traffic accidents, you had a shootout with a bunch of dudes with frikkin’ lasers, and now we got kaiju in this shit? Hidin’ in that building like ‘ho ho ho, this house disguise gives me plus eight in urban environments?’ Yeah. I think... I think maybe it’s good I’m not getting used to this shit.”

I took his free hand, gave it a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For losing my shit?”

“For providing a baseline. She’s still not good at being human. This helps.”

He looked out the window, laughed. When he looked back, he was smiling a bit. “You ain’t getting on my case like you did when I gave you a hard time about Bunny, back in that drive with the Caddy.”

I shrugged. “Time isn’t critical, here. Well, that we know of. We need to contact Vorpal, make plans.”

I reached up, but just as my fingertip was about to tap the subvocal rig and de-mute her channel, my phone rang.

I picked it up, stared at it. Vorpal’s number.

Waitaminute...

“Dire? Are you there? You went quiet.”

“You didn’t destroy your phone?” I hissed.

“No. I didn’t use it to read the datastick.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a relief. Then my eyes narrowed. “Wait. What
did
you use to read the datastick?”

“My desktop computer.”

“Did you destroy it?”

“No.”

“What!” The trojan was due to go off in minutes!

“Do not worry. I ensured that it was powered down before we came out here.”

I closed my eyes. “Not good enough.” Mostly-eidetic memory, meant that I could recall every line of the code, every function that trojan called. “It’ll turn your computer back on.”

“Bullshit!”

“Nope. Decidedly feces-free. Your computer has a Grid link, yes?”

“Yes. But I haven’t used that since I put the datastick in there.”

“Won’t matter. It found the link, put a subroutine out there. Even if your computer is off, your profile is still on the grid. Including the drop point.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“In about three minutes, our employer, who by now knows we burned him, will know the location of your desktop computer. Which is where?”

Silence for a bit. Then a ton of swearing, in that language I didn’t recognize. Russian? German? Something European. I made a note to brush up on European languages in my free time.

“Vorpal?” Martin’s voice was calm, soothing. “Where’s the computer?”

“In my apartment. Along with everything else I own. Including my papers, my false ID, and my bank information.”

I frowned. “You leave your bank information lying around?”

“Well fucking excuse me for not being a supergenius and remembering sixteen character passwords! I wrote them down. Sue me.”

I rubbed my face. Looked to Martin. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

I kept looking, and understanding dawned in his eyes as he cursed. “Aw no. Fuck no. Fuck no... we’ve already got one stray.”

“She’s got nowhere else to go, has information on us, and now she needs her share of the ransom more than ever.”

“We could burn her,” Martin suggested. Then flinched, as I glared at him. “What? Just saying, we could ditch her, keep her share, and life would be a lot simpler.”

“Not going to betray her,” I said. “Not going to betray anyone. That’s not how Dire does business. Unless she’s betrayed first, mind. But Vorpal’s played fair. Deserves help.”

“Dire... look, I’m pretty sure she was killing some of those laser dudes down there. That’s not cool.”

“They were the ones using lethal force.
And
firing into crowds of civilians.”

He sighed. “Yeah, guess so. Well fuck, it’s your call.”

I nodded, and opened the subvocal comm back up. “Okay Vorpal, here’s the plan...”

CHAPTER 9: DOCTOR? DOCTOR!

“Supervillains usually don't have health insurance.”

--Quote attributed to Agent Coleman, MRB

“I’m still not comfortable with this,” Vorpal groused.

She was younger than I’d thought, now that her mask was off. Had a smattering of freckles across her snub nose, and a small face to match her thin frame. I supposed other people considered her pretty; she seemed to match the parameters of social acceptance.

“It’s temporary,” I said, closing the chain-link gate behind us, and locking it. She tugged her borrowed jacket around her torso, and scowled. We didn’t have any spare pants, but the jacket hid her costume well enough, I thought. The pants could be mistaken for slacks at a distance.

“Come on. Longer you’re out here more risk we’re running.” Martin held the door for her, with an exaggerated bow.

“You good to move the crates by yourself?” I asked him.

“Should be. They’re more bulky than heavy.” Martin was stronger than he looked. I was glad to see that prison hadn’t dulled that. I followed Vorpal through the door.

She seemed impressed by the inside of the warehouse. “This is what I was expecting.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Most of your types need workshops.”

I blinked, and she scowled. “Mad science types.”

“Supergeniuses.”

She shook her head. “Not necessarily. Some are merely smart without the need to invent or build. Like Mentat.”

“Well. Mentat’s got his mental powers. Dire doesn’t know that he’d really need inventions.” Although the ‘mad’ part certainly seemed to apply to him. The man had been active since the eighties, and his crimes got weirder and weirder as time went on. The archives I’d searched through had quite a lot to say about him.

“If he could he would. He has certainly tried everything else. No, inventors are a class in of themselves.”

She really couldn’t be more than twenty, at best, but she spoke with a veteran’s voice.

“You’ve had a lot of experience with costumed people?”

“Costumes,” she corrected. Right, right, that was the proper slang. “And more than most, yes.” Her eyes shifted as she said that, looking faraway. There was a good amount of regret in those eyes.

No point in pushing her for more. I shut up and lead the way to the living quarters, ascended the stairs.

Bunny looked up from the desk as I opened the door, fumbled next to her, got her hand around the scattergun before I raised mine. “Easy, Bunny. Good to see you awake.”

She didn’t let go of the scattergun. “Dire.” Her face was pale, and her bald scalp was streaked with sweat. One arm was wrapped around her side, clutching the bandage.

“And company,” I confirmed. Vorpal padded in after me, face cold and neutral, not blinking as she looked Bunny up and down. “You don’t need that right now.” I pointed at the gun.

“I didn’t think I needed it back in the garage. Look where that got me.” But she took her hand away from it, rested it on the desk. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me the password for the computer?”

I walked over, glanced at it. Still locked. “That would depend on what you wanted it for.”

“Need to talk to some people. Warn them.”

“About what?”

Her eyes flicked to Vorpal, who was still staring at her. “Don’t know if I should say.”

“Your call,” I said. “Come, Vorpal. Dire will see about getting you set up with a room, and show you the facilities.”

Vorpal let out a chuckle when she saw the hot tub. I left her to steam up the bathroom, went down to help Martin with the crates. We got the last one inside, then I drove the pickup in and had my robots start up the chop shop treatment. Martin seemed impressed by the results.

“This is some Grand Theft Pinto shit right here. I know guys would’ve traded their left nuts for this kind of thing.”

“Fortunately, Dire has none to barter, so she went with cash instead.” We headed back upstairs, and Bunny nodded at us as we came in. She’d moved over to the couch instead, and was curled up on it.

Martin nodded. “I think it’s ’bout time to change that bandage again. You up for it?”

“It’s been hurting more,” Bunny replied.

Martin grunted.

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Don’t know. I ain’t a doctor. Can’t see many ways it’d be good.” Martin went, got the first aid kit, and rolled up Bunny’s shirt.

“Shit.”

“What?” I asked.

“Those red lines around the hole? They’re spreading.”

Bunny groaned. “Infection. Got to be. My immune system’s been shot since the big C.”

“Whoa,” Martin said, looking her up and down. “Cancer?”

“Smokeless Fire Syndrome.”

“That Gulf War shit? You’re a vet?”

“Yep.”

Martin looked impressed, but I had little idea what she was talking about. I resolved to read up on it later. In the meantime, Martin finished up his diagnosis. He didn’t look happy. “Yeah. I can change the bandage, but there ain’t much I can do ’bout that. If the stuff I already dumped on there didn’t fix this, then it’s above my paygrade.”

“Do what you can, please,” I said. “Dire doesn’t want to lose any more friends.”

“We’re friends now?” Bunny asked.

“You alone stayed behind, out of all of your gang. You helped assault the Black Bloods, risked your life for Dire and her people.”

“It was the right thing to do. Whether or not I liked you didn’t enter into it. Not that I don’t appreciate the help, here, mind.”

I nodded. “Then this is the right thing for Dire to do. And she’ll consider you a friend, in gratitude for the lives you saved.”

Her eyes shifted to the wall of televisions, volume turned off, chattering in close captioned subtitles. “After you left, there was something up north. Trouble on the highway, some kind of attack. Some wounded, some dead. Was that you?”

I nodded. “Yes. Though the dead were the fault of her foes.”

“Then I don’t know if I can call you a friend, sorry. You’re one of the people we should be trying to stop.”

It hurt. She was one of the few I’d respected, back in the day. But I nodded, and forced my face to smile. “Your honesty is appreciated, and Dire is willing to help you regardless.”

“If you’re willing to accept our help,” Martin said. “I mean, if you’re too good for it, we could drop your ass off at a hospital like we shoulda done in the first place.”

“No hospitals. I’d be dead in hours.”

“Why?” I asked. “What is this all about?”

She grimaced. “Not sure I should tell you.”

Martin shook his head, as he finished up with her bandage. “You are one stubborn bitch— GAAH!”

I started forward, as she reached out, grabbed his ear, and twisted it.

“You do not fucking get to call me a bitch. Got it?”

“Bunny—” I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Martin grabbed her wrist, twisted it back until her hand opened.

“Fine. You’re a stubborn fucking asshole. Better?”

Of all things, Bunny smiled. It looked weird on her normally-glowering face. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

He backed up, stood, let go of her wrist. She offered no further fuss, and he wandered off, rubbing his ear. “Gonna get some lunch going. You want anything Dire?”

“Some of those pizza pastry things,” I decided. “Those are enjoyable.”

“On it.”

I dragged a chair over to the couch, sat in it. Bunny looked up at me, raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“What would it take for you to be sure that you should tell Dire of your troubles?”

“I don’t want my friends getting hurt. And you, you’re pretty destructive.”

“When Dire needs to be, yes. But she also doesn’t want her friends getting hurt.”

“I already told you I’m not your friend.”

I grinned. “Yeah, you don’t get to decide that. Sorry.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” She took a deep breath, grimaced, and clutched at her side. “Okay. Look. Promise me a few things and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

“Maybe.” I was wary. “What did you have in mind?”

“You don’t hurt my friends, you don’t get involved in this without running your plans by me first and getting my approval, and you help me get to the Doctor.”

I frowned. “Didn’t you want to avoid hospitals?”

“
The
Doctor, not
a
doctor. I know a street doc. He’s discrete, and works on short notice. But you locked your flippin’ computer and every phone around here, so I can’t contact him.”

“Ah. Okay, Dire promises to abide by your conditions.”

“Me too,” Martin said from the doorway. We both jumped a bit, and Bunny shot him a glare. He met it head on, smiled, and offered her a bottle of water.

“Fine.” She took the water. “So. You know what happened when you took out the Black Bloods?”

“Property values went up,” Martin said. “North Side got a whole lot safer to live in. Lots of stuff like that.”

“Yeah. But what
else?
”

Martin leaned against the wall, frowned. “Shiiiiiit. Power vacuum, yeah?”

“Big time.”

I tilted my head. “What?”

“Okay, see, the Black Bloods had their hands in a lot of crime. A lot of profitable crime.” Martin explained. “So when they went out, there was a lot of profit out there still going on—”

“—but no one there to tend to it.” I finished.

“The whole of North side was open for the taking,” Bunny said. “The gangs gave it a few months for the aftermath of the Black Bloods and the publicity from that and Dire to die down, then they started moving in. Your old Crew was first, Martin.”

“Fuck. Yeah, Coate would, wouldn’t he?” Martin rubbed his chin. “And of course Die Kriegers couldn’t let that stand.”

“Right,” Bunny said. “And we’re caught in the middle.”

Martin frowned. “Unless you been doing a lot of expanding, the Midtown Militia’s turf should be way east of there. You guys got the Waterfront, right?”

“Yeah, but we couldn’t sit by and let innocent people be victimized again. This was a chance to stop crime before it started.”

“So you stuck your dick in the meatgrinder,” he said, then glanced down at her. “Uh, so to speak, anyway. You being the gang in general. If the gang was a dude. I mean— shit, I’ll quit now.”

“Thank you.” But she was smiling, just slightly, again. “It actually hasn’t been much of a meatgrinder. More of a cold war. Everyone knows that the first group to escalate is going to take the worst pain.”

“When it does break—” I stopped, collected my thoughts. “When it does break, how bad is the fallout going to be?”

“Bad.” Martin said. “Die Kriegers do most of the gunrunning round the ’Con. And SCK’s got numbers. It’ll be blood on the streets.”

“Lots of civilians in the crossfire. Only reason we’re trying to head it off, really. Otherwise we wouldn’t care if your bunch and their bunch took each other to hell a few bullets at a time.”

“Sure. That’s the only reason you’re involved. Riiiiiight.”

Bunny glared at him, but I held up a hand and interjected. “So how did this get you shot? Was it one of the other gangs?”

Her glare faded. “I wish. No. I noticed some weird stuff going on. Money getting shifted around, patrols getting cut back around the casinos. Strange meetings that didn’t get briefed up the chain to Munin like they’re supposed to. It looked like my boss, Carson, was trying to cut a deal with somebody else.”

“Somebody else?” Martin rubbed his cheek. “Who else— aw fuck. The mob.”

“Yep,” Bunny said. “The Caviliogne family.”

“They ain’t been players for years.”

Bunny shook her head. “When I did some digging, I found that the New York mob decided to back one of the local bosses after Y2K. Most of the heroes who brought them down are dead or moved on. I don’t know what kind of deal Carson cut with them. I decided to give him a chance to come clean, arranged for a private meeting... and, well, he wasn’t there. Those guys you ran into were there, with guns.” She nodded my way. “So thanks.”

“You are welcome. Dire too has felt the sting of betrayal, you have her sympathies.” I said, as I folded my hands together. “This begs the question; what will you do now?”

She shook her head. “Got a few people to get in touch with. Huginn’s branch of the Militia, and some emergency numbers. A few heroes I’ve worked with before.” Then she grimaced, and rubbed her side. “But before any of that, I need to see the Doctor. Doesn’t do me much good if I die before I warn people.”

I nodded. “Phone or computer?”

“Phone’s better.”

I went back into my main storage room, came out with one of the burners. A quick check of the serial number refreshed my memory on the passcode, and I unlocked it, tossed it to her as I came back to the main room. “There you go.”

“Thanks.”