Dire : Wars (The Dire Saga Book 4)

by Andrew Seiple

  Between one fuzz and the next, Señor Acertijo’s mask appeared over mine, upside-down. “Hey.” He reached down, tapped my helmet. “Are you dead, señora?”

  “NO, BUT THE NIGHT IS YOUNG. STAND CLEAR.” He pulled away, and I rolled over, popped the exit hatch and decanted.

  “Boss?” Alpha asked, worry evident in his voice. Weird to hear him without the sprite present. I’d see about extending his network down here, later.

  “She’s fine. Acertijo had the chance to kill her before. Didn’t.” I reached back into the armor, and pulled out a portable mask. “One second.”

  “Of course,” The vigilante replied, watching as I sealed it around my face. I shuddered as everything went black and the air got tight... and then the optics activated, and it faded away from my field of view.

  “NOW THEN...” I tapped the pocket of my null suit, found the force field generator, and turned it on. “YOU PUT SPETTA AND ADRIAN IN A SAFE PLACE, YES?”

  “Follow me.” The vigilante bolted up the stairs, and I struggled to follow. I was tired. And my side still ached from the bruises I’d gotten days ago. The muscle spasms the Maestro’s mind control attempts put me through had woken the old pain there. It had been a long fucking day and there was a lot more of it to go.

  He slowed down when he noticed I was falling behind. Considerate. Didn’t mind having a good view of his legs. Some people can do leather pants, some can’t. He was in the first category.

  Abruptly, he stopped in the middle of the dungeon cell block. “Here.” He pushed on a stone, and with a grinding of rock and stone, and a shower of rust, the wall opened. Adrian glared out from his position on the dusty stone floor. He still cradled Spetta in his arms. She tossed and turned now, muttered with eyes shut, caught in the throes of a waking nightmare.

  “The guards?”

  “ALPHA?” I asked the air.

  Alpha’s sprite phased in. “All down. Some are dead. I’ve called in ambulances and constables to save the wounded. Not all of them are going to make it.”

  “This will be the talk of the city, shortly,” Señor Acertijo observed. “And perhaps that too is one of the Maestro’s layered plans, to make you look weak and hinder morale. Quite the riddle, no?”

  “Señor Acertijo. You are Señor Acertijo!” Adrian gasped, his face blank with amazement. “I have... we have heard so many stories of you! I had hoped to meet you in the rebellion.”

  Acertijo shook his head. “That one, I could not help. It was Corazon’s doing from beginning to end. With some help from the Syn-dicate.”

  “SYN-DICATE?” Had I heard that right?

  “S-I-N-dicate,” Acertijo clarified. “The Maestro’s cabal of villains. Seven of them... six now. Wrath came for me a few months ago. He is no more.”

  “DIRE WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU DIDN’T KILL.”

  “I don’t. But it was a very high cliff, and I am not obligated to catch people trying to kill me.”

  “FAIR ENOUGH.”

  “Wait,” Adrian said, slowly easing Spetta to the ground and rising. “You are saying that Corazon had a hand in our revolution? How? Why?”

  “Do you not think it strange, that the rebellion got as far as it did, with so few found out by the secret police? Do you not find it odd, that the ringleaders were never once taken in for questioning before all of this started? Corazon was no fool. He knew his rule was tenuous, and that he himself was unpopular. So like the last rebellion, and the one before it, he cultivated the seeds of revolution, and ensured that the right people got the right funding.”

  “AND THAT NO ONE AT ALL GOT ANY USEFUL TRAINING. DIRE IMAGINES THAT THE MORE COMPETENT REVOLUTIONARIES WERE QUIETLY CULLED BY THE SECRET POLICE.”

  Acertijo nodded. Adrian rocked back on his heels, grabbing his head with grimy hands. “A lie. It was all a lie.”

  “Not so,” Acertjio said. “The spirit was willing, but the minds were weak. Many were exposed to the Murder Maestro’s subtle suggestions, given subliminal orders to follow, to ensure that the rebellion lost. Your comrades very much believed in what they were doing.”

  “AND HE CULLED THE MOST LIKELY TO REBEL, WHILE HE MANIPULATED THE POPULACE TO SCORN THEM. IN DOING SO HE GAINED IN POPULARITY AND ALSO HEADED OFF THE POSSIBILITY OF A REAL REVOLUTION. CLEVER.”

  Adrian stared at me. Ah, right. Given how many friends he’d lost, I probably shouldn’t have praised their butcher.

  “I am sorry,” Acertijo said. “There was nothing I could do to aid or warn your people. The secret police were, and some still are, entirely wrapped up in the movement. Had I tried, my own riddle would be undone. But as it happens, things got out of joint, so to speak. Someone triggered the signal to revolt a few weeks early.”

  Damn. So it was my fault then. “DIRE BROUGHT DOWN THE GRIDNET.”

  “Ah, you did that, then?”

  “DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS A SIGNAL. SHE WAS TAKING CARE OF SOME OTHER BUSINESS.”

  “That’s another riddle answered. Good, good.”

  “IS THAT WHY YOU’RE HERE? ANSWERING RIDDLES?”

  “Yes. Many have been answered tonight. I was curious to know if you would join the Sin-dicate. But given the bomb, I suspect the answer is fairly obvious, no?”

  “NO. WELL, YES. WELL NO, SHE’S NOT JOINING THE... LOOK, IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY, ALL RIGHT? LONG STORY SHORT SHE’LL NOT WORK WITH A JACKANAPE WITH ‘MURDER’ IN HIS NAME. ESPECIALLY A MINDRAPER.”

  “Smart.”

  “Wait,” Adrian said. “Maria. Will she... recover?”

  Acertijo turned to him, goggles glinting blue in Alpha’s reflected light as he considered the man. “It will take some time. She was not meant to survive her murder attempt, so her mind is most likely free of further suggestions. The good news is that she will be much more resistant to his power in the future.”

  His tone. “YOU KNOW THIS FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE?”

  “Yes.” I gave him a moment to explain. He didn’t, and the silence spoke volumes.

  Adrian finally broke it. “This Maestro of Murder. Why does he care? What have we ever done to him, that he helped Corazon so?”

  “It was a marriage of mutual benefit. Corazon called upon his powers, and in return, allowed the Sin-dicate to conduct their trade unmolested.”

  “DRUGS?”

  “No, worse. Humans.”

  Of course that smarmy asshole was a human trafficker. Disgust rolled low in my gut. I’d seen the evils of that firsthand, seen what it had done to Minna. I tugged a lock of hair, as old familiar guilt flared.

  I was tired. My emotions were all over the place. “HE DIES, THEN. DIRE SHALL END HIM.”

  “He is very far away. But we may, if we are lucky and smart, be able to cause him no end of mischief. End his operations in Mariposa.” The hero’s goggles turned to me. “Are you willing to do this? Or does the throne of a tyrant still beckon?”

  “THE UNITED STATES IS ON THE HORIZON. THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL. IF DIRE CAN BRING DOWN THE MAESTRO BEFORE MARIPOSA FALLS, THEN SHE CAN DEPART IN SATISFACTION.”

  Acertijo nodded. “Very well.” He turned to Adrian. “And you, hombre?”

  Adrian fell back a step, surprised. “Me?”

  “Yes. Your path changed, days ago. You gained a great power, a great weakness, and a great responsibility, all at once.”

  Adrian considered. “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “I am given to understand that most do not. I wouldn’t know.”

  “WHAT?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “YOU HAVE NO POWERS?”

  “None at all.”

  Jesus. A natural? These sorts of heroes were as rare as hen’s teeth. And this one had lasted for over a decade, given what I’d read in his files. That was impressive. Particularly given what I’d seen of his stealth skills.

  He’d turned his attention back to Adrian. “You have a choice, mi amigo. If you wish, I can return you to the rebellion, or get you on a boat out of this country. Bu
t know that wherever you go, the blessing that is the curse of El Hombre Último shall follow you. Secret’s out, my friend. I know.”

  Adrian considered again. “Or?”

  “Or... I could train you. You could fight the good fight. It has been long since I have worked with a sidekick.”

  “I could be a hero?” Adrian whispered, and his eyes practically glowed with hope.

  I remembered Spetta’s story about his Crusader underwear. This was his lifelong dream, and it was coming true. Not the way he’d expected, or wanted, but still, this had to be like his birthday and Christmas and his first blowjob all at once.

  Probably a little less messy. Yeah, I was definitely tired.

  “Come, my friend. Retrieve your girlfriend, and let us be gone from this place. Leave the villain to her sinister plans—”

  “HEY!”

  “—and let us make our own. There is much to do, and she has much work to do as well.”

  “SHE’S RIGHT HERE YOU KNOW.”

  “Of course.” Acertijo bowed, clicking his heels together. Quite a trick in those tight, tight pants.

  “WELL IF YOU’RE GOING TO DO THE DISAPPEARING THING... ALPHA?”

  “Boss?”

  “GET THEM A BURNER PHONE.”

  “On it!”

  “GIVE DIRE A CALL WHEN YOU GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, AND IT’S MAESTRO MASHING TIME.”

  Acertijo chuckled. “Of course. Good luck holding off the gringos.”

  “THAT’LL BE TOMORROW.” I headed back toward my armor.

  “You have something more pressing?” He called after me.

  “GOING TO SOLVE THE RIDDLE OF A NUCLEAR WARHEAD.”

  He didn’t have a rejoinder for that one.

  CHAPTER 14: DESPERATE DEFENSE

  “Tesla’s vendetta against nuclear power was quite understandable, but it cost us in the end. By suppressing it, we merely drove that branch of technology deep into the realm of the criminal endeavor. How many supervillains and rogue talents are out there, running around with unstable reactors and prototype nuclear piles? Few, comparatively, but when they turn up the governments of the world overreact, and use this as justification to avoid further nuclear development. So we have bombs, but no nuclear power plants. We truly have the worst of both worlds.”

  --Aegon Morgenstern, noted Icon City Industrialist and Financier

  Multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is definitely one of my favorite perks. Super-genius is all well and good, but when the going gets tough, I rarely have the luxury of focusing on a single task at a time. Fortunately, with the amount of brainpower that I could bring to bear, I could afford to split my attention six or seven different ways without making a dent in the overall results.

  Right now I was watching US propaganda on a television I’d pulled down to my makeshift workshop, overseeing the expansion of the constructor bots through the walls of the palace, directing the repair spiders for a full strip-down and overhaul of my Brute Suit, brooding over how things had gone so wrong, and tinkering with a nuclear warhead.

  Also occasionally grunting at Alpha, and trying to answer him in as few words as possible. I was on pretty much no sleep, aching all over from the last day’s exertions, and feeling a little sorry for myself. Just a little. Whining supervillains are a pathetic thing, so I tried to keep the self-pity to a low rumble. Mixed results there, sadly.

  “All I’m saying is that you can’t be responsible for everyone.”

  Bastard sprite wasn’t letting me do a pity party. I grunted in his general direction.

  “Look. They were probably mostly bad people anyway. They worked for Corazon, they stuck around for you because of money, and there were teeth in some of these prison cells. Pretty sure they didn’t fall out because of old age, you know?”

  I grunted again, while I eased calipers into the casing of the warhead. My fingers were a little clumsy, in the lead-lined suit I’d whipped up with the constructor bots’ help. Fortunately, as warheads went, it was fairly clean. I’d be at little risk for permanent injury from the radiation.

  “I could pull up their files, if you wanted. Now that there’s enough guardbots constructed that I can possess a few of them, and get into the paper records. I’m pretty sure Corazon had blackmail on most of them. He was that kind of guy.”

  “The sort to work with a blithering, cackling evil git,” I muttered, as my calipers found the wire I was seeking. I’d done a number on the bomb’s innards for the sake of expedient disarmament. Unfortunately, this made forensics after the fact a little tricky. But I was Dire, and all that ‘tricky’ translated to in this case was a little more time invested in digging up answers.

  “Come on, you’re not that bad,” Alpha chuckled.

  I glared at him. “She was talking about the Murder Maestro. He screwed up here, and she doesn’t know why.”

  “He screwed up? I don’t know, he came pretty close to killing you with Spetta. If Señor Acertijo hadn’t swapped the bullets, you’d be dead.”

  Oh, that galled me. I’d never owed my life to a hero before, even if he hadn’t known the outcome when he rigged the rounds. Still, there were worse heroes to be indebted to. I definitely liked the culture they had going down here. It bred very pragmatic heroes.

  “Yes, Acertijo...” I grimaced “...saved her. From that part of it. But then there’s the bomb, and that’s where the big question comes in.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why three minutes? Why a timer at all?”

  “Um. Maybe he didn’t want to risk broadcasting a signal? You’re no slouch at electronic warfare.”

  I shook my head. “The guy subverted the palace guard, and had ample time to check out her countermeasures on that front. Even if he was a total technological schlub, which Dire doubts, he’s got someone working with him who isn’t. That holo-emitter he had his minion drop off is proof of that.”

  “That’s not that advanced.” Alpha snorted.

  “No, it isn’t, but Dire doesn’t recognize the style. Not off the shelf. It’s a made thing, so even if it’s barely cutting edge, someone did it for him. So either him or another minion. Probably one of his Sins.” I tapped the boxy timer. “So why three minutes?”

  “I don’t know.” Alpha hovered closer, winced as his image blurred a bit. “Whoo. What’s that?”

  “Eastman-Laird radiation. Which is strange as hell.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The uranium isotope variants that produce this stuff haven’t been used in fission bombs since the early nineteen-sixties. Heck, they stopped using that isotope altogether after a spill of the stuff got into the New York sewers system. EPA had a shit fit.” I examined the wire I’d pulled out, ran my thumb along it. Dry rubber peeled away in flakes. “Thing is, the design, the materials, and the weathering are consistent with that era. This warhead was made in the late fifties. And it was made to go on a short range missile.”

  “How short?”

  “Couple of hundred miles, typically. Depends, there were three main frames this size could fit to. None of which ever saw use... which isn’t that unusual for nuclear weapons.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh yeah. The US made a lot of prototypes and smaller nuclear weapons back in the cold war. Even recoilless rifle shells. The original plan was to fold them into conventional warfare. The generals in charge of the Vietnam War kept pushing to use some of the smaller ones, but by that time the long-term effects of radiation were starting to be known. The presidents running the show knew they couldn’t risk the PR if they fielded small-scale nuclear weapons.” I rapped the warhead with my lead-clad knuckles. “Like this one.”

  “How small? Like city small, or palace small, or you could have survived it small?”

  I shook my head. “The stone of the cave and the structure of the palace would have contained most of the blast, but it still would have brought the cliff down. Between that and the heat and the damaged state of the Brute Suit, it might have done for Dire. Even if it hadn’t, thoug
h, the radiation sickness would have taken her in a few days. The Suit doesn’t have enough shielding against radiation to save her from something like this.”

  “And the city?”

  “The Eastern end would need to be evacuated. The Bay would be tainted for a good long while. But it’d be mostly unharmed.” I checked the math again. “No, the nearest buildings would probably see some heat. Cook the people inside, bake the shadows of anyone in the streets into the walls. That sort of thing.”

  “That’s pretty horrific.”

  “Welcome to nukes. There’s a reason sane supervillains don’t touch them.” I put the tools down, and leaned on the table. “No hidden mechanisms, no surprises, everything you’d expect to see from a warhead rigged into a bomb. So why did he give it a three-minute timer?”

  “Beats me. He could just be that sort of supervillain. Big into deathtraps, you know?”

  “Maybe.” Deathtraps, I’d learned, were useful as hell for keeping heroes busy. In conventional hero/villain matchups, the unwritten rules generally discouraged actually killing or crippling people. So experienced villains, when they wanted heroes out of the way, generally fought them to incapacitation, then plopped them into a deathtrap that was only lethal if they tried to escape too early or got very, very stupid. That way you could blame the death of the hero on the trap, and maybe you wouldn’t end up reduced to kibble and buried in an unmarked grave when the vengeful heroes came after you. Didn’t always work, which was why they were unwritten rules. More like guidelines, really.

  “Well,” I put down the tools, “there are no answers to be had from this device, and more questions raised. Nothing to do with it but stash it somewhere safe and move on to the next problem.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Can’t destroy it, or it’ll taint the area with radioactive material. Can’t throw it out or somebody will grab it. No, like the throne of this damned country, the best thing for everyone right now is for Dire to hang onto it.” I glanced up at the television. “Regardless of what the northern hemisphere thinks.”