DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) (20 page)

I sighed, and rubbed the back of my neck. Thinking logically, the fact that he hadn’t tried to attack us already was a good sign. By now he surely knew that we were in this van, but he hadn’t tried anything. At least, anything I could see.

“Drive in,” I told Martin. “We’ll see what the man wants.”

“What?” Oh, right. He had removed his subvocal rig a while ago.

“Long story. Just be prepared to run.”

“Shit. That’s my life now, ain’t it?” He muttered.

We drove through the fence, parked next to the building. Weary as I was, I hauled myself into my armor, powered it up, and emerged from the van to face Vorpal. Though we were alone out here I dialed my volume down, just in case.

“IF THIS IS A TRAP...”

Vorpal opened her mouth—

“It’s not,” the man in the doorway said.

A stooped, ancient figure stood in the doorway. Stark-white hair gleamed in the dim electric emergency lights shining through from the inside. A tie-dyed t-shirt hung baggy and worn over a scrawny frame, and a pair of round-lensed glasses covered glittering eyes. He wore a pair of Bermuda shorts over his non-existent hips, and his legs were flabby. He leaned hard on a simple cane, and his other hand was holding the door open, arm shaking with even that minor effort.

“TIMETRIPPER.”

“In the flesh, what’s left of it. You gonna come in and be civilized?”

“WHY SHOULD SHE?”

“It’s time for me to die. I need your help.”

“YOU WANT DIRE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE?”

“Hell no. I need you to kill me.”

CHAPTER 12: CHRONOLOGICAL SHENANIGANS

“STATEMENT? YES, DIRE HAS A STATEMENT. AND THAT STATMENT IS FUCK TIME TRAVEL.”

--Doctor Dire, recorded after her fifteenth public confrontation with Timetripper.

I stared at him for a long moment. “YOU’RE JOKING.” Had Timetripper just asked me to kill him?

“I’m serious.”

“DO IT YOURSELF. DIRE’S BEEN BLAMED FOR ENOUGH DEATHS ALREADY.”

“Look, just come in and hear me out. Please?”

I really, really wanted to turn around and stomp away. But I had nowhere else to go, that wasn’t a bigger risk. I shot a look at Vorpal, who was quietly talking with Martin. He looked up at me, caught my gaze, and nodded.

Well. What did I have to lose, at this point?

I moved inside, scanning with regular and thermal vision. No kaijus burst out at me, no mobsters tried to shoot me, and no laser-toting mercenaries tried to burn me down so already it was a cut above my last few days. The room was bare, just a few walls full of old fuse boxes and monitoring equipment, half-stripped copper wires and coils from non-functional Van Der Graaf Mk IV generators, and a few pieces of smashed furniture. Yellow emergency lighting illuminated the place, and high windows inset with bars provided ventilation through their glassless frames. A sewer lid in the center of the floor was bent in its socket, warped by incredible force.

And in the back of the room, next to a grungy stairwell, sat a dull, black metal frame. It looked like a series of wires, twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape. It was tall, eight feet all told, and studded with twinkling lights.

As I studied it, I felt my back stiffen. I knew that design, I knew those aesthetics.

Whatever that thing might do, I had built it.

“Groovy, huh?” Timetripper’s cane tapped the floor, as he moved up next to me. “Your own personal time machine.”

I sagged back, going limp inside the armor. Had he just— had I just handed myself the power to...

“WAIT. SERIOUSLY?”

“Don’t get too excited. Future you gimped it. It’s got like three trips in it. After that it shorts out or something.”

“AH.” But my mind was racing ahead. I’d built it after all, I could deconstruct it, reverse-engineer it. All I’d need was time and my factory. The factory that had just been stormed by gangers, located by police, and mostly-destroyed by a kaiju.

Well crap.

“WELL-PLAYED, FUTURE DIRE. WELL-PLAYED.”

“Huh? You high or something, Dire?”

“HARDLY.”

“You wanna be? It’s gonna be a rough night. Sorry about this. I know you’re busy.”

Vorpal wandered in, shut the door behind her. “Martin’s hiding the van. Did you tell her?”

“TELL HER WHAT?”

“Shit, man, don’t rush me.”

Vorpal scowled. “I’m no man, Timetripper.”

“Just like, a figure of speech. Okay, sure.” He eased himself onto the stairs, dug out a joint, and lit it up. I watched him puff, sunken cheeks drawing the smoke back into his throat like a child sucking on a bottle.

After two minutes, I put my hands on my hips. “WELL?”

“Huh?”

“OUT WITH IT.”

“Gimme a few.” He finished the joint, ground it out, and let blue smoke escape his lungs with a long sigh. “Aw yeah. This century’s got the best green. Uh. So...you know you conquer the world, right? What’s left of it, anyway.”

“NO. NO SHE DIDN’T KNOW THAT.” Conquer the world? How would that fix anything? The last thing this world needed was a dictator.

“Well. I mean nothing’s certain. Future’s what you make of it. But every time I go far enough forward, you’re at the end of it.”

“THE END?” That didn’t sound good.

“Yeah. You figured out time machines and stuff. You put up some chrono jammers or something and I can’t go past you. So you’re like the end. Which really makes young me worried the first couple times I go to your era, and see what you’re doing.”

“WHICH IS?”

“Bad,” he said. “Just... bad.”

“YOU’RE AFRAID TO ELABORATE FOR FEAR THAT IT WILL CAUSE THE FUTURE YOU DO NOT WANT.”

He nodded.

“I’ve seen it,” Vorpal said. “From the part I saw, it looked pretty grim. Whether or not it is your fault, or that of others, I could not say.”

“So young me, dumb me, drunk with his new powers and full of piss and vinegar decides to go after you. Stop you before you get started. Only things go weird. See, back then I didn’t know shit.” He snorted. “I still don’t know a lot of shit. But him? He’s just trying to grok it as he goes.”

“ROCK IT AS HE GOES?” I asked, confused.

“No. Grok. Like... get. You ever read Heinlein?”

“NO.”

“You’d like it.”

“SO YOUNGER YOU IS THE ONE WHO CAME BACK HERE AND SHOWED UP IN THE COURTHOUSE, AND THE CHURCH. SO WHY GRAB VORPAL?”

“Future you’s blonde.”

“WHAT?”

“And kind of a hottie.”

“BLONDE’S YOUR THING, HM?” I asked him, shooting a glance at Vorpal.

“Heh, well.” Timetripper leered at her.

Vorpal glared at him. “I told you already, I am not into men. Nor do I owe you a fuck for rescuing me from a problem
you
caused.
”

He lifted his hands. “Hey, I had to ask. No harm done, lady.”

“No, you did not have to ask. You really, really did not.”

“BLONDE...” A thought struck me. “JUST HOW FAR IN THE FUTURE IS DIRE’S CONQUEST?”

He coughed. “Uh. I better not say.”

“She looked young,” Vorpal said, studying me out of the corner of her eye. “Her face was different. Her build was more muscular. But she was you. The way she moved, the way she talked, the things she knew— It could have been a trick, I suppose. Damned good one if so.”

I gnawed my lip. “STARTING TO DISLIKE THIS WHOLE TIME-TRAVEL THING.”

“You and me alike.” Timetripper said. “Which is why it’s time to end it.”

“YOU REALLY WANT TO DIE?” I asked. “WHY?”

He sighed, and stared at the wall. His once glittering eyes were bleary and glazed now. The weed was kicking in. “Man. I didn’t know shit about my powers when I got them. No instruction manual, you know?” His voice trailed off, but he managed to regain focus and continue. “I made mistake after mistake. See... the amount of shit I can do? It’s finite. That multiple dudes thing he’s doing right now? Drains power like a motherfucker. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of stuff back in the day, but... well, it runs out. I can’t even spare the stuff to stop me from aging anymore. Which is why I’m geriatric and fucked up. But... more importantly... it’s a paradox if I don’t.”

“A PARADOX.”

“Yeah. See, the very first thing I do, is hop randomly and end up in some weird ass place. And guess who’s there?”

A picture was starting to form. “DIRE. KILLING YOU.”

“Yep. Brains blown out with that colt of yours. Execution style.”

I shook my head. “NO.”

“Dire... listen. This has to happen. If it doesn’t, then it’s gonna be a big paradox, and random shit I’ve done will start coming undone. My powers will go out of control.”

“DIRE THOUGHT THEY WERE FINITE AND NEARLY EXPENDED.”

“No! Yes! Sort of. The amount I can
control
is finite. But if the timestream gets too warped, it’s like a breaking dam. Things get weird. Like, extinction event weird. Game over. Don’t put a quarter in, ’cause there ain’t no extra lives.”

He was throwing this at me now, when I was tired and aching and dealing with so much other crap. I glowered at him, and saw no reason to hide my displeasure. “YOU HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT TROUBLE TO DIRE.”

He grinned, showing cracked, gray teeth. “So hey, you get to kill me at least. Work off some angst, huh?”

“DON’T TEMPT HER.”

He laughed, in that high-pitched, monotone way that long-term marijuana smokers had. “Dude, what do you think I’ve
been
doing?”

He had me there.

I pointed at the wireframe. “SO LET DIRE GUESS. FUTURE HER PROVIDED THAT SO DIRE WOULDN’T BE STRANDED AFTER YOU’RE DEAD?”

“Got it in one. Don’t know why she put extra trips on there.” His face smoothed into a solemn frown. “Take it from me, it’s not a blessing. It’s really fucking dangerous.”

To a moron like him, perhaps. To me, it was possibilities opening up. A world of possibilities, more so if I could hang onto the thing until I could get it to a sufficiently-equipped lab I could use to reverse-engineer its secrets.

I opened my mouth to accept... and thought it over. Really thought it over.

“NOT ENOUGH.”

“What?”

“YOU HEARD HER.”

“Dude, I just saved your friend.”

“FROM A SITUATION YOU CREATED.”

“A free time machine isn’t enough?”

“NO. TELL HER HOW TO BEAT YOU.”

He laughed. “Man, you can’t be serious.”

“OH, SHE IS.” I leaned down until my mask was level with his face. “DEADLY SERIOUS. YOU WANT AN EXECUTION? TELL HER HOW TO KEEP YOUR YOUNGER SELF OFF HER BACK.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Man. Uh. Shit. Look, if I say the wrong thing it changes things. Paradoxes them. We are like literally a few steps away from the dam bursting and time shit going all over the place. You really wanna risk it all because you got greedy?”

Sense in that. Still...

“A HINT, THEN? PRESUMABLY SHE DOES BEAT YOU. THINK ON THAT.”

His eyes got even more unfocused for a bit, then he grinned. “Alright. Yeah, sure. Fuck that young asshole anyway. He’s got this coming. Paradoxes. You need to paradox him.”

“YOU JUST SAID PARADOXES WERE BAD.”

“For me, yeah! For him, nah. He’s full of power. But he doesn’t know how to ride them out yet, so forcing him into a paradox is like giving him a nine-alarm tequila hangover. You do that, you’ll force him out, hit him so hard he’ll lose focus. He won’t be able to come back for a while.”

I mulled on it.

“STILL NOT CLEAR ON HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS, OR WHAT LAWS GOVERN IT.”

“That makes two of us, man.”

“Three,” Vorpal added.

The door opened and shut. “Four,” Martin said. “I miss something? Why we counting?”

Vorpal filled him in on the deal. He whistled. “A time machine for plugging this dork? Not bad.”

“Easy man. She’s the one who’s got to do it.”

“I wonder what else future you’s installed on this time machine?” Martin looked concerned.

I frowned. “DON’T KNOW. THAT’S A WORRY.”

“You don’t trust yourself?” Vorpal asked.

“PAST DIRE MESSED UP DIRE’S LIFE PRETTY WELL WITH DO-IT-YOURSELF BRAIN SURGERY. NO TELLING HOW CRAZY FUTURE DIRE’S GOTTEN. ESPECIALLY IF SHE THINKS RULING THE WORLD IS A GOOD IDEA.”

Martin stared. “What?”

“LONG STORY. VORPAL CAN FILL YOU IN LATER.”

Vorpal shrugged. “The parts I know, anyway.”

“ALL RIGHT. WELL, THE POTENTIAL GAINS OF THIS BARGAIN ARE TOO MUCH TO TURN DOWN. GIVE DIRE A BIT TO EXAMINE THE TIME MACHINE.”

I decanted from the armor, taking my mask with me. Timetripper didn’t seem surprised, just sat on the stairs and lit up another joint as I scrutinized the frame. I regretted not having my toolkit with me. I hadn’t managed to get it packed up before the Kaiju interrupted my departure. I needed to build tools into the armor. Maybe in the gauntlets. Hm, shift the particle cannons back toward the wrists, pack them into the fingers, enlarge the hands themselves a bit... yes, then make the—

“Dire?” Martin asked.

“RIGHT, RIGHT.” I looked over the framework, cautiously ran a finger down along a contact port. If I were to build in a diagnostic port, I’d put it right there.

With a rustle and the sound of steel on steel, the framework blossomed open, and flickering holo-images blurred by, almost too fast to read even for my enhanced comprehension. Keyword there being ‘almost’.

“Woah,” Timetripper drawled. “Colors, man. Nice.” Again he cackled that stoner’s laugh.

“Jesus. Epilepsy warning, maybe?” Martin muttered, shielding his eyes.

“SHE THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING,” I muttered. “ALL RIGHT. INITIATE THE BOND.”

The framework rattled, reformed into a humanoid shape, walked across the floor to my armor, and flowed through the open hatch in the back. I heard it rattling around inside, then a faint crackling noise, as fumes wafted from the hole where my mask went.

“YEAH, DON’T BREATHE THOSE. NANITE DUST.”

“I had not planned to,” Vorpal said, glancing uneasily from me to the suit. “You are certain you can trust yourself?”

“NO,” I said, donning the armor again, and initiating an operating system reboot. “BUT THE GAIN IS WORTH THE RISK RIGHT NOW.” I watched my HUD boot up, and saw new icons on it. Simple interface, shouldn’t be hard to initiate. It did look like I had to remain still for thirty seconds in order to time travel. So it wasn’t something meant to be used in a fight, good to know that beforehand.