DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (4 page)

One of them sneered. “That mask looks kinda nice, Roy. Maybe we'll come take it tomorrow. In the night, when no one can see. When no one will come when you scream.”

Roy shook his head and came out of the alley, keeping pace with me as I walked, covering the nearest ones that were packing heat. “You do that, you might wake Sparky up. He has flashbacks somethin' fierce, might think you're all Krauts. Horrible death, electrocution.”

One of them glanced between me and Roy, reached into his jacket and took a step toward Roy... and flinched back, screaming as I suddenly ran at him and roared.

“GET LOST!”

I moved back, and we were out of the group, walking back under the highway. I noted absently that traffic up above had slowed, shaping up into a massive jam for as far as I could see. All that from a quick glance, as I moved my gaze back to the youths, watching them over my shoulder as we departed.

Another of them grinned toward me, made a gesture that I doubted was a salute. “This ain't over. Times change, old man. City's dark, it's the end times, and the Black Bloods rule the night.”

“You started this shit with one of mine,” Roy said, facing them fully and backing up a tad slower than I was moving. “Sangre tells me we got troubles, I'll buy it. But you forced this, Caso, you and the new eunuch over there. So I don't think he'll be too sympathetic about your fuckup.”

They were silent then, as they watched us go. I didn't relax until we had descended the steps down to the beach, and were out of a direct line of sight. Somewhere along the way my screen-inside-a-screen view of the ball drone gave me the option to shut it down to conserve power, and I took it. I could always retrieve it tomorrow.

Flicking the safety of the army pistol back on, I tucked it away as I glanced over to Roy. He shook his head, and put his pistol back into its own holster. 

“Don't take this the wrong way, but you might have just brought some shit down on us.”

I opened my mouth, shut it as I remembered that I hadn't found the volume control for the mask yet. I pulled it off my head, and glared at him. He glared back, then looked away.

“Scavengers, yes? They saw what they thought was weakness and went after it. Their choice, not Dire's.” A beeping from my pocket reminded me that the forcefield was still on. That sound indicated a diminishing charge. I reached in and turned it off.

“Yeah, you're right, but that don't matter much to them.” Roy sighed, ran his hand over the back of his head. “This'll cause us trouble, so we have to figure out what to do.”

“You could have left her. Dire could have taken care of herself.”

“No I couldn't. If I had you would've had to shoot someone. Then it'd be blood on the streets, and it'd be worse for everyone. The Black Bloods take that shit serious. This at least was pretty private, and no permanent harm was done. Little bit of a loss of face, and they might take it out on us, but we probably won't have to hand you over to make'em happy.”

“You'd do that?” I asked.

“Hell no. I know what they'd do to you.” He kicked an empty bottle across the beach, watched it shatter on a rock. “Fuck it all. Wasn't a good neighborhood before those gangers showed up, now it's worse. They're evil, plain and simple, and no one gives a shit.”

I frowned. “Police?”

“Underfunded, overworked. Call them and wait half an hour and maybe they'll show.”

“There were heroes at that collapsed building. Tomorrow Force.”

“They don't come round here unless there's other costumes involved. And they don't stick around. Heroes show up, the Bloods run'em out or hide until they're gone. Heroes leave sooner or later, Bloods come out again and anyone who ratted them out or talked bad about'em disappears in the night.”

We moved past the old showerhouse, back toward the tents.

I frowned.  “What purpose do the Bloods serve?”

“Themselves.”

“They have no function within your societal structure?”

“You got a weird-ass way of talking.”

“She is asking whether or not they do anything beneficial for your group, this area, or the other cultures within.”

“Oh. Well, no. They sell drugs, but I wouldn't call that good. They keep other gangs out, but most of the other ones are better than they are. Still assholes in their own unique ways, but not as bad overall. No, they're pretty much bad for the Brownstones.” Roy looked at me again, shook his head as we approached the women's tent. “Look. Get some sleep. They won't come tonight, not after I dropped Sangre's name. We'll talk it over tomorrow, if it needs talking.”

I nodded, moved to the doorway, and paused.

“Why did you follow Dire in the first place?”

“I heard a gunshot up the beach, then saw you walkin' away from there. I was suspicious so I followed.”

What? I'd used a silencer—

No. No I hadn't. I'd used a makeshift noise baffle, and evidently it hadn't worked as well as I'd hoped. Probably would have worked better with a smaller caliber gun. I'd remember that for the future. Roy continued, as I mused.

“And you got the look of someone who doesn't belong out here. You look soft. I kept an eye on you, figgerin' something was up, that maybe you were a criminal trying to lie low, or a spy of some sort for some reason or the other. When you snuck away I followed. Then you put that weird mask on. Didn't know what to think.”

I chuckled. “For the record, neither does she. Well, for what it's worth, thank you for the assistance.”

“Hey. Woulda been wrong if I didn't help out. Besides, if I let them take one of mine, I look weak, and you never want to look weak to enemies. But you're welcome. We'll talk in the morning.” Then he was gone, back to the campfire, and his friends.

I found my little enclosure and secured my belongings under the sheets, then I curled around them and let myself relax. Sleep found me in short order, and I didn't dream.

CHAPTER 3: Fixing Facilities and Fighting Fools

“The advantage of this approach, is that you're going in as a virtual unknown. Keep your intellect hidden and downplay the fact that you're a supergenius, and you'll have ample time to set up shop and figure out who the players are.”

--Excerpt #47 from the Dire Monologues

I woke in the pre-dawn light, night's darkness replaced by gray nothing. For a minute I lay there, taking stock before I tried my treacherous memory again. Nothing. At least I felt a little better. Though I was quite thirsty, and my bladder ached something fierce. I remembered Joan's words, and padded outside, looking for the port-a-john. After doing my business I hastily returned to the warmth of the tent, shivering under my clothes.

A few people nodded to me as I passed, and more scrutinized me with no particular emotion. Most seemed to still be asleep.

I could use this quiet time.

Returning to my partitioned section, I pulled open my backpack, and started pulling out the tools and toys I'd taken from my lair.

The force field generator was down to half-charge. The universal remote was still at full. The mask... didn't seem to have a charge indicator. I tried feeling around on it for buttons, switches, anything. Nothing.

How the devil was I supposed to figure out the interface for this thing? I could wear it and try random actions and commands, but if it was going to make my voice shout every time I said something, that would draw a hell of a lot of attention.

I puzzled over it for a minute, then slapped my forehead as the solution occurred to me. I had a universal remote!

I pointed the remote at the mask, and hit the most-likely seeming button, a green key. The inside of the mask lit up like a black screen, as green words appeared. Lots of green words. Pointing the remote at various words highlighted them with a lighter shade of green, and hitting the button on the remote turned options on and off.

After some fiddling, I found that I could turn the mask into the equivalent of a tablet computer. The inside layer of it was touch-sensitive. I also found out that it was down about an eighth of its charge. I'd have to find a way to recharge it as well.

I had a lot of fun little toys, but they all took power to run. It looked like all of them were set up to pull power from the direct broadcast grid of the city, but the “no connection” icons on each of them told me that the grid was still down. So what did that leave? Generators? Batteries? I didn't have any of those. Were those things available in the camp? I didn't know. Thanks to my memory loss, I had no knowledge of the area, the local economies, or how affordable those items might be.

Given the fact that the tents weren't lit up at night, I rather doubted that these items were available. It was a basic human urge, to dispel darkness, to illuminate the unseen. That we weren't doing it meant that it was unfeasible.

I knew that. How did I know that? I rubbed my forehead, wondering at the limitations of my amnesia, wondering what had been done to my poor, abused brain. When it came to technological matters I almost seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of things. I knew what police were and I understood that homelessness on this scale was an indicator of serious social problems. I got concepts in general. Broad strokes were easy. I knew what tablet computers were. I knew that the city ran on a broadcast-energy network, a basic Tesla model that had been around for decades. But what I didn't know could fill volumes.

I hadn't known which city I was in. I didn't know which war Roy was talking about, or who Tomorrow Force might be. I knew what books were, but I couldn't remember ever having read one. I couldn't identify the major scientists or leaders of the past century, or the one before that, but I could call to mind scientific theories and laws with names attached to them. It was all very frustrating.

I heard footsteps approaching, so I put everything back into my backpack, forcing the zipper shut again as I looked over my shoulder. 

“You. New one.” An unfamiliar female voice.

“Yes?” I returned. The woman took it as an invitation, and moved the partition's entry cloth aside with one arm. A blonde woman somewhere around my age, vaguely pretty, but sturdy and taller than me. That seemed rare. I was taller than most other women I'd seen around here, and she had several inches on me. One of her eyelids was slashed with an old scar, and the eye didn't quite follow the gaze of its twin. That scar and a few others on her face seemed to bear testimony to some past trauma. She wore a purple coat that was too tight on her, and a big, striped scarf.

“Joan is want to speak with you.” Her voice had an accent to it.

I remembered what I had been told. “You are Minna?”

“Yes.”

I rose and followed her. She stopped to check on a couple of other partitioned areas as we went, at one point querying a small blonde girl with some rapid-fire torrent of words I didn't understand. The girl answered back, and Minna tousled her hair with one hand. In another room, she grabbed a bottle of water out of a styrofoam cooler, looked at me, and handed me another when I nodded and stretched out a hand. It was cold and sweet and good. Minna just grunted when I thanked her for it.

She led me outside. In the light of the rising sun, the camp was a lot smaller than it had looked last night. Perhaps about twenty tents, the smallest set up for a single person, the largest half-again the size of the one I was rooming in. As far as permanent structures went, there were three or four scrap-metal shacks, and that showerhouse over at the edge of things. A black spray-painted skull was drawn across the wall of it, with red paint weeping from the eyes.

“Hey! Miss Dire!” Ah, there she was. Joan waved from her spot near the smoldering burn barrel in the center of things. Sparky was sleeping next to her, smiling absently toward the sky, eyes shut as he reclined in his chair.

I noted that he had his grounding mechanism up. Probably wouldn't do to touch him right now. I found a seat next to Joan instead, crossing my legs and settling on the cold ground.

She looked over at me, chewed on her lower lip for a bit before she spoke. “Roy told me what happened.”

I nodded. “For what it's worth, Dire has no wish to bring trouble down upon you and yours. Thought it over this morning, decided she can leave if you wish.”

“No. They wouldn't believe us if we told them you'd run. And you're probably pretty safe here. I don't think they'd mess with Roy and Sparky over hurt feelings. Not without something on the line.”

“How about hurt testicles?”

Joan barked a laugh, and Minna joined in. It was harsh and raspy, as if the younger woman's throat had been damaged. Their breath puffed out in the cold like smoke, and I pulled my sweater a bit tighter around myself.

“Eh, it's okay,” Joan said, sniffing. “They'll take it out on someone else. Probably. So... Roy said you had a mask? Can I see it?”

I flicked my gaze over her, glanced at Minna, who stared back with no real expression on her cut face. Joan smiled, and the expression seemed honest enough. I unzipped the pack and showed it to her.

She blinked. “Wow. Okay, that's ominous. You're not some horror movie slasher in disguise, right?” That was confusing. Slasher? What?

“Pretty sure no,” I answered after some thought.

“Maybe a villain?” She shook her head, laughed. “No. Villains don't wear fuzzy Christmas sweaters, I'm sure there's union rules about that.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “There's a union for that?”

Her lip twitched, and she snorted, laughed again. Minna didn't, this time. I rolled my eyes. “Fine, fine. Laugh all you want.” I zipped the backpack up again.

“Haaa... sorry. Trust me, you're not a villain. I know bad people. They're... There are too many of them around, in these parts.” Her face fell. She reached out and took Minna's hand, and Minna folded her fingers over Joan's, clasping their hands tight. The plump woman rallied. “But no, you're not a bad person. I can tell.”

“Just like that?” I frowned at her.

She grinned, showing crooked teeth. “Just like that.”

I thought back to last night. The feel of the gun in my hands, as I brought the butt of it down onto the thug's cheek. How I'd dropped him in two quick moves, and not particularly cared about it. “Dire hopes you're right, Joan.” I told her. These people had been kind to me, and asked very little in return so far. I didn't want to hurt them.

“Anyway, just in case they come looking for trouble, we need to get you new clothes. You had a mask on so your face won't ring any bells, but that sweater's distinctive. Fortunately, it also looks warm as hell, so we can reuse it. Want to trade up for something else?”

“What've you got?” She led me to the central shack. It was a single room inside, crisscrossed by clotheslines, with the clashing colors of multiple garments hanging from them. More were stacked neatly around the room, a few of the larger ones on hangers, piled on hooks along the walls.

With Joan's help and about twenty minutes of trying on various garments, I settled on a decent long shirt, a threadbare red hoodie sweatshirt, a sports bra, and some undergarments. I kept my jeans, they were in pretty good shape. The sweater went on a rack for cleaning later. After deliberating a bit, I dug into my store of cash and handed her a twenty.

“Here. She took a few choice items,” I explained.

She shrugged. “Hey, most of what we get is donations anyway, but okay. We can put that to good use.”

Minna grunted, and a shadow of a smile passed over her face. I figured I'd passed some sort of test.

I put the new clothes on, behind a partition made for such things. It didn't feel right to change without doing anything about my accumulated sweat, grime, and body odor. No way around it, I felt grungy.

“Joan, does that showerhouse have warm water?”

“Hun, it hasn't had water of any sort for a few months now. We've been cleansing saltwater for baths for a while now, it's a real pain in the ass.”

I chewed my lip, and thought. I had a perfectly functional toolkit in my pack, and top-notch electrical skills. Did they extend to plumbing as well? “You mind if Dire takes a look at the showerhouse?”

“You mean, like, to see what's busted? Sure, but Julio said it was beyond repair. He used to be a plumber, so I think he'd know. But if you wanna, it's your time. Me, I need to get breakfast rationing going, so I'll leave you to it.”

“All right. Thank you again, Joan.”

“De nada, hun.”

I left the shack feeling a bit better. The hoodie sheltered me from the cold wind a bit more than the sweater had, even if it was in worse shape than my original garment. I teased my hair back into a short ponytail as I went, tied it with a new scrunchie. I wouldn't need it down to shield my neck quite as much, now that the hood was in place.

The inside of the showerhouse was, quite frankly, gross. Discolored walls, a floor coated with mud, and assorted litter. Piles of needles glittered in the corners, and I felt my chances of getting some sort of annoying or terminal disease rising with every minute in the place. I backed out again. Didn't seem like there were any exposed mechanisms in there to begin with.

But there was mud. Mud meant water, and it was far enough up the beach that it wasn't seawater, most likely. So there were functional pipes around here somewhere... I walked around the place, until I saw a faded gray metal door, the same color as the weathered cinderblocks that made up the walls. It opened with a groan, and the dark room inside had the gleam of pipes within. Pipes and water, as it spilled from clear gaps overhead. Shattered, rusted remnants were below, in the soggy swamp of the floor.

Movement from down the beach, and I glanced over. An older man, Hispanic. He had a gray beard, a bandanna, and a bomber jacket, with what looked like newspaper poking out of the neck and wrists. “Hey, senorita.”

“Hello,” I said, looking him over. He was missing teeth, and had serious lines on his face.

He looked back at me, his face guarded. “Me llamo Julio.”

I frowned at him, tried to figure out what he'd just said. “Julio. The one Joan said was the plumber?”

“Yes.” He smacked his lips, pointed with a jittery hand. “Ain't no good. Need new pipes.”

“And you have none to hand?”

He shook his head. “No good. Need new pipes. They freeze, they break. Poooosh.” He made explosion motions with his hands.

I rubbed my chin. Reached into my knapsack, pulled out the toolbox, popped it open. He came in for a look, and whistled, reached out to grab a few of the tools. I pushed back my instinct to snatch them away. Joan had trusted this man, I'd do the same.

“Hold this, please.” I put the box in his hands, plucked a measuring tape from it, and left him to peruse the contents as I moved into the dark room. I tried to ignore the cold, cold water seeping around my feet and into my shoes, as I took measurements of the pipes. Most were about five inches around, with a few smaller ones here and there. Some of the water was warm, and that was encouraging.

When I came back outside, Julio had the tools spread out on a little rubber mat that had come with the box, and was looking them over one by one.

“Serious good. Es bueno, eh?” He pointed at several of them and said several things, most of which went over my head. I nodded back, and started collecting the tools. He helped me replace them and pack them away, and gave them one last longing look as I put the toolbox back into the pack.