DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) (5 page)

“Think we can use those to fix the pipes?” I asked. I had a notion of how to do it, but he was a plumber. No sense in turning away an expert.

He shrugged. “Si, but... no pipes. Need new ones, eh?”

I nodded. “Dire knows where to find some.”

He looked dubious, and I pointed. He followed my finger's arc, over into the city, to the rubble-filled area where my “Cradle” had been. Then his eyes widened, and I watched comprehension fill them.

We set out into the city. The streets were quiet today, with no traffic to speak of. Lines of silent cars choked the highway overhead. A few empty cars were scattered around the streets during our approach, abandoned in the darkness of last night, it seemed. And in the light of the morning, I could see the street signs. We went over Melville, and down Madison to Vinyard, followed it past the crumbling brownstones to Jefferson Street. No people were on the street, besides us. In the sky, a few small civilian airships floated. There were a couple of police blimps to the south, among the higher buildings of some truly impressive skyscrapers. The only building around that showed signs of life was an old church down a short side-street. It had flickering light against the stained glass, probably candles or fires of some sort. Shadows moved against the windows, so I assumed that something was going on. As long as it didn't interfere with our mission, that suited me just fine.

The rubbled building at the corner of Jefferson and Reno was cordoned off with police tape, but no one was around to prevent us from heading into the wreckage and scrounging. Julio and I eventually turned up pipes of the proper sizes, and my toolkit's hacksaw proved equal to the task. Though our respective linguistics were a challenge, we managed. At one point I excused myself to find a restroom, and left him working on a stubborn section.

Once out of sight I masked up, contacted my drone, and had it roll to me. It hopped through a storm drain with a minor surge of an onboard gravitic repulsor, and I breathed a sigh of relief to see it undamaged. Stowing both mask and drone away, I returned just in time to help Julio haul the pipes back to the showerhouse.

Before we left the place, I salvaged a few fun looking bits of electronics. Raw materials would come in handy at some point.

As we walked I noticed that Julio was moving a lot slower, and his face was wet with sweat. Though he looked like a big man, closer observation showed that his arms shifted within the jacket as he moved, the bits of newspaper protruding from his sleeves indicating that there were many more scraps within. He probably used them as layers to conserve heat, and what I'd mistaken for body mass was actually stuffing. Well, he'd been a sport for keeping up with me, so I slowed my pace to compensate.

It turned out to be a good move, for reasons I couldn't have foreseen. As we headed back down Madison Street, I noticed a new addition on the beach. A van-sized black airship, emblazoned with golden letters proclaiming 'MRB'. The envelope of the airship was sleek and flush with the cabin, and it hovered a scant few feet off the ground... signs that I identified as belonging to a combat-capable craft. Probably armored and using Levitonium, rather than the less-expensive hydrogen option. I would have moved in for a closer look, but Julio caught my shoulder. “Federales,” he whispered.

I gnawed the inside of my cheek, considered the airship. “Think they'd give us grief about the pipes?”

“Maybe. Is hard to say.”

I moved over to a nearby dumpster and popped it open, putting my armload of copper inside. “Drop them here, and we'll go see what's going on.”

He didn't look too happy about that last part, but he complied.

After we descended the steps down, I saw what had to be the bulk of the camp in a loose group around the biggest clearing between the tents. About forty people clad in varying amounts of crappy clothes were listening to a man in a suit. I recognized Roy, Sparky, and Joan in the crowd, along with a few other people I'd seen last night. The speaker was built like an athlete, big without being bulky, with short-cropped red hair. A pair of sunglasses covered his eyes, and he glanced our way as we approached, before looking back to the crowd in front of him. Off to his side and behind him, a blonde-haired woman with a long ponytail had her hands shoved in the pockets of a similar suit. A cigarette burned in her mouth, and her sunglasses were pushed up, as her eyes roved back and forth across the beach. She scrutinized us as we came in, the ember of her cigarette flaring as she took a long puff.

The built redhead resumed speaking. “So we'll try to shift you what I can, but this problem isn't going away anytime soon. GC&E's working the power outage, but they're saying it'll be days at a minimum to get the southern quadrant working.”

“It's getting colder these last few nights,” Roy's voice rose above the murmur of the crowd. “Without power for the space heaters, we're gonna have casualties. The fires are only gonna go so far.”

“I hear you, but if you want working space heaters you'll need a generator. The city's store of those is being distributed to crucial areas right now. You may need to take shelter in someplace more suited to the weather.”

“Where?” Roy said. “Anyplace like that is gonna be full up. If we don't have any heat, the Brownstones sure won't. And if we move from this spot anyways, the Bloods will tear down everything we built here for shits and giggles.”

The man raised his hands, placating. “I don't have answers for you. Look, if you're staying here, we can at least shift you some supplies. Get you some food, to make up for the interruption to your donation drops. More blankets, some chemical water purification kits. Stuff like that.”

That met with some mutters of approval from the crowd. Roy gave him a grudging nod. I used the opportunity to start moving towards the women's tent. Whatever 'Federales' were, it looked like they had power and authority... a bad combination for a woman who might or might not actually be a villain.

As I did, footsteps crunched on the sand behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the blonde woman approaching. Her sunglasses were down, now. She was as slim as I, and was wearing a faint smile on her face, but her approach suggested a predator smelling weakness. I turned and put my own hands in the belly pockets of my hoodie, and raised an eyebrow. “Something you wanted?” I inquired.

“Don't think I've seen you around here before. You new?”

I nodded, staring at her sunglasses, trying to make eye contact. No luck, the lenses were too dark.

Her smile grew. “Got a name?”

“Dire.”

“That your first or your last?”

I shrugged. “Do you have a name?”

“Agent Kingsley. My partner's Agent Coleman.”

“Pleased to meet you. If that's all, you'll have to excuse...” I reached toward the tent, and she put her hand on the doorway flap. I stopped, and raised an eyebrow at her. “Is there a reason for this rudeness?”

“When did you show up here?”

“Last night.”

“Where did you come from?”

“A bad situation. Listen, is there a point to this?”

“Know anything about that building that got knocked down?”

“Why are you asking...” I tapped my chest.

She tilted her head, puffed out a bit of smoke past her cigarette. I wrinkled my nose as the odor hit it. “You missed our arrival. We asked the group here if anyone had seen anything before we got on the current topic.”

“D—” I closed my mouth. “Was out with Julio, that's all. Taking a walk.”

Her pencil-thin eyebrows rose a bit. “That so? Lucky guy.”

“Ah, well, there's luck and there's luck...” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Especially since I'm pretty sure Julio is into guys,” Kingsley said.

I blinked, and let my puzzlement show on my face. She frowned. I had the impression she was looking for a different reaction, there.

“Everything okay, hon?” Joan asked.

I glanced over, as the round woman approached. “Yes. Thank you Joan. Miss Kingsley here was just filling in the things...” Crap. I couldn't continue the conversation easily without pronouns, or a name. And I could only call myself one name. I rallied as best I could. “The things that you heard earlier.”

Joan nodded. Her face was cold as she turned to face Agent Kingsley. “I'm sure you aren't stopping one of my girls from heading into a designated women's shelter.”

Kingsley pulled her arm from the tarp, smiled her thin smile around her cigarette. “Just making sure she heard the news, before she went in.”

“Well she did. And we'll fill her in on everything, so unless someone's being detained...”

The agent bent her elbows, raised her hands and spread them in an exaggerated gesture indicating innocence.

I shook my head, and went into the tent. Joan followed, after shooting Kingsley one last glare. Once we were both in, and I heard the agent's footsteps crunching away on the sand, Joan leaned in and squinted at me.

“What did you do?” She whispered.

I repeated the agent's spread-armed gesture, and lowered my voice. “Nothing. Went out and salvaged some pipes from the fallen building. Julio helped.”

“Not that, I meant to attract her attention. Usually Kingsley doesn't say jack to anyone, just follows Coleman around and watches Sparky like a hawk.”

I shook my head. “Can't say why Dire attracted her attention. What are they agents of, anyway?”

“MRB. It stands for Metahuman Resource Bureau. They're like the FBI for superpowered people. Costumes, y'know? The police call them in when villains kick up a fuss and there's no heroes around. They also check up on heroes and stuff, to make sure they're okay and not turning villain or anything like that.”

Then why was she so interested in me? I shook my head. No, I'd done nothing wrong. If anything, I was a victim, here.

Then why don't you go outside and tell them about last night?
A voice whispered in the back of my head.

After a moment, I dismissed the question. The legality of the technological items I'd received was probably dubious at best. They'd be confiscated from me at the very least. And for that matter I'd be putting myself into their hands, without knowing anything real about their modus operandi or sense of compassion. Also, that would be admitting weakness to possible enemies. Roy had advised me against that, last night, and it was good advice. Besides, the thought of Kingsley's vaguely smug smile being twisted into pity, or some attempt at sympathy... no, it didn't appeal.

“Hey. Dire. You still there?” Joan looked concerned.

“Hm? Ah, yes. So are they here to check up on Sparky, then?”

She nodded. “Pretty much. He was pretty powerful back in the day. Made a big name for himself in the civil rights stuff back in the sixties, defending protesters from villains... or sometimes even some of the heroes of the day. It was different times, y'know?”

I nodded, knowing nothing of the sort. “Well. It sounds like they're offering some help, anyway. So that's good.”

She shrugged. “Yeah. They wouldn't bother if Sparky weren't here, but the fact that they're bothering at all... we can't afford to be choosers, y'know? Not with a freeze coming in. December was light, but this is gonna be a New England winter when it gets going.”

“Well, on the plus side, Dire's pretty sure she can fix the showerhouse.”

“Really? Actual hot water again? Or just water, period? Either's good.”

“Should be both, but that's up to Julio, Dire supposes. Got some idea how to go about it, but he's the real expert.”

She grinned, and patted me on the shoulder. “Knew you'd repay kindness with kindness. Anything I can do to help?”

“Well, if you're up to carrying some pipes...” A shuddering outside, a loud hum, and a shadow fell across the light from above. Then it was gone as quickly as it had shown up.

Joan nodded in satisfaction. “That'll be the agents heading out.”

I smiled, feeling a subtle tension leave my shoulders. I hadn't liked Kingsley, not one bit. “Time to grab those pipes, then.”

It took Julio and I several hours to fix the shower. He'd dug up some tape and putty from somewhere— which was good, because as soon as we'd joined together one section of pipe, a leak would come up somewhere else. It took more than just swapping in pipes, we had to pretty much cannibalize a section to half of the stalls just to get full functionality in the rest.

I was in there with a wrench, tightening up one of the smaller pipes in its socket when Julio started yelling. Heading out, I took in the scene at a glance... two of the men from the camp had come up. The bigger of them had half a foot on me, and was standing over Julio. Julio was sitting down on the ground, bleeding from his nose. The smaller one, a scraggly black-haired man, was going through my backpack. I'd left it outside to avoid getting it wet, and as he drew out my mask, I shouted.

“Put that down!”

He jumped to his feet, shuffled back, and the big one shook his head, and moved in front of me as I marched up. His head was shaved, though he had a small brown beard and mustache that twitched as he snarled at me. “You don't belong here. Go back wherever you—”

I was inside of his reach before he could react. Teeth sprayed as my wrench met his jaw, and he toppled. The little one took off running, my mask still in his hands. He was fast, but I was angry beyond reason, and I chased after him until he threw the mask back at me. I almost cried out as it skittered across the rocky shore, and slowed to scoop it up. When I looked back up, he was far down the beach, fear aiding his velocity.