DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (3 page)

CHAPTER 2: Heroes and Harassment

“We have enemies, and we'll make more as we go, I have no doubt of it. This isn't an ideal solution, but it keeps our loved ones out of the line of fire. There's nothing worse than having friends die because of the fights you picked, the actions you chose.”

--Excerpt #2 from the Dire Monologues.

Whatever killed the city's power had taken down the traffic lights. I crossed under a highway, and the roars of engines echoed down as the headlights shot by overhead. But motion in the city below was minimal. A flicker of light from slow-passing headlights, red taillights as a van stalled and stuck, unable to pass dark cars in the road ahead. A slow-moving traffic jam had wedged itself in between the dark buildings. The headlights provided the only illumination as I picked my way through, looking for the best angle on the crumbled building that I'd awakened within. 

On the upside, the traffic thinned out as I got closer to my destination. Though I wasn't the only one out on the streets tonight, most gave me a wide berth when they looked at my face. Well, more specifically, the mask over it. Some didn't pay attention to me at all, watching the building burn, and muttering about something called White You Kay.

I couldn't help but notice signs of urban decay as I went... broken windows, bars over doors, crumbling stone on buildings that I instinctively knew were quite old. This was not a good neighborhood. It was evident in the clothes of those outdoors in the cold, barely a step up from my fellow refugees on the beach. Not that I was one to talk, or especially care. I blended in here, more so than I might in a more monitored place. Here, I might have more time to find my feet.

As I turned the final corner to get an unobstructed view of the ruins, I stopped cold. Something, some vehicle hovered above it. Shaped like a plane with no visible engines, it was about as long as a city bus, and three times as wide. A rough triangle with wings, wide at the back and tapered toward the front. A long strip of shining glass ran around the front of it, extending halfway down the body on either side. Lights flared from the undercarriage, illuminating the wreckage below... and the figures moving over it.

When I looked at the wreckage, a series of gray words floated into view.

LAIR DESIGNATION: CRADLE

DESTROYED, COMPROMISED. RECOMMEND RELOCATION.

The figures examining the remains wore costumes and masks. One man with a blue jacket, white pants, and a white mask with goggles built into it. The back of his head was visible from my angle, showing black, short-cropped hair. He had a decent build, not too muscular but definitely in shape. He seemed to be waving something over various parts of the rubble, walking along it at odd angles that indicated that gravity was no major issue to him. At one point the rubble shifted and he hopped to another chunk, as the original crumbled.

My mask chimed as I studied him, and green letters floated to the surface in my vision, letters that I knew only existed within my sight.

“DOC” QUANTUM

LEADER OF TOMORROW FORCE

POWERS: GENIUS SCIENTIST, KNOWN GADGETEER

I shifted to study the woman hovering in midair, watched as she gestured, and the falling rubble slowed and shifted directions. Instead of falling into the street, it piled itself neatly along the curb. She was blonde, long-haired, and wore a silver visor with a blue glow. Her blue bodysuit was skintight, but she had a white jacket over it, perhaps in deference to the cold. I noted that her figure was far more generous than mine and shrugged. Those things had to be murder on her back. Again, letters floated into my sight.

KINETICA

MEMBER OF TOMORROW FORCE

POWERS: KINETIC CONTROL, ABSORPTION, ASSORTED GADGETS

Tomorrow Force. Heroes, then? Seemed to fit the picture. Probably looking for answers, much as I was. I kept a safe distance. It helped that the light was bad here, and the other people on the street were focused on watching the costumed pair sift and poke through the rubble. Something bulged up from below, shifting the debris. Enormous fists, each as big as my head, pushed up through the wreckage. They were attached to equally massive metal arms that gleamed in the light, as a silver-and-blue armored form heaved itself up and raised a face to the sky. The mask over the face shone white with glowing blue eyes, and a grille for a mouth. It looked over to Doc Quantum, and from half a block away I heard his voice rumble.

“No good, Doc. There was a tunnel below but it's caved in now. Damn little left behind.”

And words floated up for him, too.

SIEGEBREAKER

MEMBER OF TOMORROW FORCE

POWERS: CYBORG, STRENGTH, ARMOR, SELF-REPAIR ROUTINES

Doc Quantum's head moved, he seemed to be responding. Siegebreaker nodded back.

“Right sorry, I'll dial it down.”

More discussion, and I frowned.  No way to listen in without getting closer, and to do that I'd either have to lose the mask or become the center of attention. I didn't like either option. On the other hand, I wasn't too fond of the idea of going back to bed without answers.

After a few seconds, it occurred to me that I had something useful for this. I removed my backpack, and crouched down behind an abandoned car. Old me had left myself four useful devices: The mask, an electronic controller that was basically a universal remote, the forcefield generator, and a small scouting drone. That last one seemed the most useful for the situation, so I rummaged around inside the pack, found the ball drone, and looked for a good angle. After some searching, I found one. Now let's see, how did it activate... ah. There.

I tapped the drone against the street, and a prompt popped up in the mask.

ACTIVATE Y/N

I twisted the ball until Y was highlighted, and tapped it again. A glowing outline appeared around my hand, and I put the ball on the ground. A circular shutter opened on the thing, and a screen appeared on my heads up display, showing what the drone 'saw'. I twisted my hand, and the drone tilted as the screen shifted to examine the underside of the car. A little bit of experimentation with hand gestures gave me arrows, which set it in motion. I straightened up as I rolled the thing down the street, past piles of rubble, and along the curb. It was silent and small, and as I got it within about fifty feet of Tomorrow Force a new prompt appeared

AUDIO AVAILABLE: LISTEN Y/N

Yes. Yes I did want to hear. That's the point of this little exercise. I swiveled my hand, knocked against the hood of the car to select “Y”.  And voices faded in...

“No bodies, beyond the WEB remains?” That was Doc Quantum. His voice was rich, calm, relaxed. The sort of voice one would want their most respected leaders to have. Then his words sunk in. I wondered if they'd found the tunnels full of WEB corpses, or just the ones that had died in the building.

“Nada. This whole building must have been empty. Strange, you think that'd get noticed in this part of town.” Siegebreaker's was mechanical, and deep. Still recognizable as human, though.

Kinetica tossed her head, and blonde hair flew as she folded her arms. “The right bribes to the right cops and dealers and no one would notice. This part of the Brownstones is all gangs and goodfellas. At least its emptiness means less dead, and if they're all WEB then I can't say I'll mourn too much.”

“But why this building?” Quantum pondered, one gloved hand rubbing the short beard that protruded through the chin slot of his mask. “That was definitely thermite in the mix that destroyed an entire floor. There was something here that WEB wanted badly enough to draw attention and squander at least two squads of troopers.”

Siegebreaker sighed, a rolling rumble of sound. “But no clues as to why the power grid's down, here or anywhere else. I was hoping the timing wasn't a coincidence. That maybe we could find some answers.”

Quantum shook his head. “We can't rule it out or verify it one way or the other. Not here, not now. At any rate, there's not much good to be done here, and the him arby needs us patrolling, keeping the peace. Everyone good to go?”

Him arby? I must have misheard that.

I started the ball rolling back to me, and a voice crackled down from the aircraft. “Hang on. Movement at eight o clock.” I froze, stopped the drone with a gesture. There was someone up there, monitoring from above.

A tense minute, as the rubble shifted. I could hear them moving around, looking, but the lens was at a bad angle to see anything. Quantum's voice was loud and clear, at least. “Schrodinger, can we get some lights down here?”

Well, shit. I rolled the lens around, looking for cover, and found little. This was the gutter, and... and wait.  If I went down far enough, I'd find a storm drain.  To hell with stealth! I bolted the ball down the street, and popped it down the first drain I found, ignoring Kinetica's shout.

With all the casual motions I could muster, I turned and slipped into the night, past the scattered onlookers. As I walked I simultaneously controlled the drone, and tried to find a way back to the surface. Behind me I heard the jet lift off, the heroes evidently done wasting time. Good! I'd dodged a bullet there; I had the feeling that they would have asked questions I couldn't answer.

I was so engrossed with maneuvering the drone, that I didn't notice the group forming ahead of me until they were thirty feet away.

“Hey.” The guy in the lead grinned, white teeth in the darkness. He wore a heavy leather jacket, and an armband with a skull on it. Just like the five men behind him, and the two spreading out to flank me.

“Nice mask, babe. You look lost. Why don't you come with us?”

I killed the screen on the drone, and put my hands in my pockets, finding the forcefield generator. It would guard me against bullets, I knew. But slow-moving attacks like fists or knives wouldn't be stopped— they wouldn't trigger the field. My free hand crawled up to my belly, finding the butt of the pistol at my waist.

“SHE DECLINES.”

The group backed the hell up, surprised by my roar. It had bought me a second. I knew that if I capitalized on their surprise I could get a head start, flee the scene and possibly lose them among the rubble and backstreets.

And yet... and yet I felt disinclined to do so. Something in me balked at running any further, since I'd done plenty of that this night. And something else within me knew that these punks were no real threat to me, unless I got very stupid.

That said, I was outnumbered, and my force field couldn't handle it if they closed.

Next step: Intimidation.

I jerked my pistol free, popped the safety off, and held it pointing down. “DEPART. SHE WILL LEAVE NOW, AND HAS NO TIME FOR YOU.”

Half of them stepped back. The other half started drawing their own guns I stood my ground. I had hoped they would switch to something the force field could stop, and they'd obliged.

“You come on our street!” yelled the leader, waving some sort of large-caliber pistol around. “You come on our street and tell us what to do? You fucking know who we are?” He moved a step toward me, moved a few more when I kept my gun lowered.

“NO. NOR DOES SHE CARE. SHE'S LEAVING, FEEL FREE TO DO THE SAME.”

“Bitch, we're the Black Bloods! And you're
meat!”

By this point he was up to me, screaming in my face from a few feet away.  I glared at him from under my mask, started to raise my hand, and he shot me.

A flare of light as the force field did its job, a whine as the bullet ricocheted off into the distance, a crack as it hit a wall, and a dull thud from his head as I slammed the gun's butt into his cheekbone. He staggered back a few steps, and my foot met his groin so hard that it hurt my toes. He folded to the ground, a shriek escaping his throat as he went.

“RIGHT. ANYONE ELSE WANT TO FORFEIT FUTURE REPRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL? COME ON. SHE HASN'T GOT ALL NIGHT.”

Low muttering among the remaining punks, and another one shot at me.  The force field flared again, and I rolled my eyes. Real geniuses, here. Still, they'd deplete the field's charge if they kept it up.  Looked like there was no help for it... I raised the gun, and they started to move toward cover.

“Hey,” came a voice from a side-alley.  It was followed by the “click” of a safety, and the remaining punks froze. I knew that voice.

“HELLO ROY.”

The old man nodded to me, never taking his squinting eyes or the point of his gun away from the black-jacketed youths. “So. You boys are in what we used to call a crossfire ambush right now. She's got the east, and I've got her flank.”

One of them, a Hispanic kid with a ton of rings on his hands, shook his head. “This ain't your business, Roy.”

“She's one of mine, Caso.”

“She's on our turf, old man.”

“Just out seeing the fireworks. We're only a street or two away. You know we got nothin' worth taking. Nothing worth the bullets that'd come your way.”

They shifted. 

“SHE DOESN'T REALLY NEED YOUR HELP, ROY. SHE CAN TAKE CARE OF HERSELF.” I lowered the gun, started walking toward the end of the street. The two punks in my way backed to either side, step by step.