DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3)

by Andrew Seiple

  --Court Statement by Martin Jackson, sealed by MRB request from 2002-2014.

  Martin Jackson was not having a good day. In fact, it was probably the shittiest day he’d had in a while.

  “We fight,” Vorpal had just declared. Easy thing to say when you could pull flaming swords out of your ass. Now that stick she had jammed up there? That was good and stuck. Had been for as long as he’d known her. Which, admittedly, had been less than a year, but still the principle fuckin’ stood.

  “Okay, slow down the macho there, Vorpy,” He said, and caught a scowl from the tiny blonde.

  “Now is not the time for humor—”

  “Right, because we’ve got fucking WEB pouring in through the south entrance. Those guys don’t play. So maybe we see what we’re getting into before we go charging in blind?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  Martin kept talking. He’d found the best way to keep her from taking charge was to bowl right over her verbally, keep her reacting, until she’d agreed to something reasonable rather than her first instincts. Because her first instincts usually resulted in bloodshed and visits to the doctor for everyone involved.

  Dire was big on keeping collateral damage to people down, usually. Vorpal wasn’t. Vorpal, in Martin’s opinion, was a violent little evil twerp. But it was what it was, and normally she deferred to the Doctor. But since the Doctor wasn’t here, she had the opportunity to take charge, even if she hadn’t realized it yet. That was a catastrophe if it happened, so he talked the fastest he’d talked in a good long while.

  “So we’re good then, Bunny hardsuits up and does recon; you go with her to back her up. I’ll hardsuit up and be reserve like I was last time. Minna does overwatch and starts packing up the base in case we have to evac.” For when we have to evac, cause ain’t no way we’re staying here. “We cool?”

  Vorpal frowned, opened her mouth. “We’re good,” Bunny said, giving him a cautionary look. One of those hardass stares, to show that she knew exactly what he was doing and why, and that she’d only put up with it for now.

  Frankly, he was glad she agreed. Martin was many things, but he wasn’t a soldier. Bunny had the experience. If he’d suggested something stupid, she would’ve called him out on it. As it was, when she grabbed Vorpal’s shoulder and pulled her towards the door of the command center, Martin found himself letting out a sigh of pure relief.

  We’re not a team, no matter how much Dire tries. Now she’s gone for god knows how long, and we gotta get by.

  Speaking of which...

  He waited until the pneumatic door hissed shut behind the Vorpal Bunnies, and turned to Minna. “I’m kind of pissed you didn’t tell me soon as we all got back.”

  “Orders,” she said, putting Anya to the ground. She pattered at the little girl in rapid-fire Romanian, and Anya ran off in the bandy-legged way that young children had. She’d be tall when she grew, taller than Minna herself, maybe.

  “Orders? Whose ord—” he bit his tongue. Stupid to ask whose orders. Not when Minna pretty much worshiped the ground that Dire walked on.

  Hell, he shared Minna’s bed every day, and he was pretty sure that if Dire ever told Minna to kill him, he’d go to sleep next to her and not wake up the next day. Not that Dire ever would, but still...

  “Okay. So she got orders for this?” There was no point in arguing with Minna. She’d just glare.

  “No. But—” Minna gestured at the readouts on the monitor next to her. Martin squinted at them. There was a ton of information there, words tripping and flowing over each other, mixed in with thumbnail viewscreens. There were armored people on those viewscreens. Lots of armored people, and every suit had a stylized spider’s web emblazoned on the front of it. As he watched, one of them pointed a rifle toward the camera, and that thumbnail went dark.

  “Yeah I’m thinking it’s time to run,” he said. “Get clear, the Doc can track our asses down when we’re safe.”

  Minna pointed at the monitors, frowned. “We have the security devices. And Vorpal and Bunny. You do not think we can win a fight?”

  “Ain’t the point. Win or lose, WEB’s coming in loud, and we got the rest of the city lookin’ for us right now. This is going to draw heroes. Heroes gonna kick our asses, if we stick around too long.”

  “You are right.” She flipped switches on the control boards, and stood. “You will get in the hardsuit.”

  “Uh...” God damn he hated that thing. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. “If we’re running it’ll just slow me down—”

  Minna’s glare could have turned ice into steam. She folded her hands around his shoulders, looked down her nose at him. “Idiot. It stops bullets. You cannot. We cannot take it with us if you do not wear it. Get in your hardsuit.”

  Fuck. “Yeah, a’ight.”

  She released him, nodded. Minna wasn't much for smiling, her face stayed impassive. Turning, she jogged across the command center, heading toward the other door, the one that he’d never been through. Anya stood by it now, waiting for her mother.

  “What are you gonna do?” Martin called.

  “Dire has trained me in other things than hardsuits.”

  And then the door hissed open, and two of the three most important females in his life were gone.

  “Yeah, okay. Be all dramatic and shit,” he said, to the empty air. “She’s trained you well, young padawan.”

  Two minutes later, with more explosions pealing out across the base, and klaxons blaring and screaming as the assault ground on, he made it to the armory and punched in his keycode for the hardsuit locker. It whirred open, releasing puffs of vapor that Martin was mostly-convinced were just for show. Inside, the dull gray of the jointed metal suit loomed, looking much like something an astronaut would wear. Not the helmet, of course. That was a flat gray featureless thing, at least in the face. A segmented helmet formed the headpiece. Lumps and ports protruded from the torso and joints, attachments for modular pieces that could be customized for different sorts of missions.

  Didn’t need many of those attachments now. Right now the mission was about getting the fuck out of Dodge before things went totally balls up. And Minna would give him no end of grief if he turned up without this, so on it went.

  Martin pulled it on just like he’d practiced, strapping the various components around his legs first, then working his way up. As he put the kneepads on, the vambraces clicked and interlaced themselves with the shoes. Then the kneepads came online and synched up with the vambraces. Then the thighguards linked up... and so on, and so forth.

  He hated it. Oh, not because of the squirming that felt like nests of snakes writhing against his body as the components grabbed onto each other, even though it gave him the creeps just feeling the stuff squirm against his vital bits. Not even because of the damn catheter that he had to slide up inside of his urethra and ass and hold still while it adjusted painfully to his insides. And hadn’t that been fun the first time he’d put it on. Bunny still gave him grief about getting his cherry popped. But no, what Martin hated the most about the hardsuit was what it represented.

  This was a warrior’s suit of armor, and Martin, frankly, wasn’t a warrior. Martin was no stranger to violence, or the shittiness of the world, but it was a thing he’d learned to deal with, use only when necessary. Even back when he was one of the top dogs back in his old gang, he was always the talker, the planner, the guy who found ways around problems, instead of thinking with his dick and charging hard straight in. Luther, now... Luther had been the hard charger, the warrior, the straight up killer.

  Martin wasn’t.

  For all he respected Dire for taking it toe to toe with anyone who needed fighting, he also respected her because violence wasn’t always the first option for her. She didn’t mind fighting, but if there was another way to do it that got her what she wanted, she’d usually take that. Martin helped her find those ways.

  The hardsuit was a just-in-case thing, a reminder that things had truly gone to s
hit. And putting it on rubbed that fact in.

  Then there was the other reason...

  Being a minion’s no way to live, son.

  A good man had told him that, about a year ago. This was a minion suit, plain and simple, and a reminder that he probably wouldn’t die of old age if he stuck with Dire.

  Finally he was suited up. The mask sealed over his head, and there was a pure moment of darkness before lines flickered and formed images, and the helmet seemed to disappear around him. Screens all across his field of vision, he knew. It effectively rendered the helmet invisible from the inside. He tested his arms, heard the servos whine as he stretched and punched the air a few times. A small step, and he shifted to the side. Martin had to watch it while he was suited up, the feedback sensors exaggerated every move he made.

  A hissing in his ear, Minna’s voice whispering. “Martin? You are there?”

  “Yeah, I’m up and running.”

  “Get to the third level. They come in fast. They are too close to you now.”

  “Shit. A'ight,” he looked over the rack of nasty-looking weapons, grabbed a regular assault rifle from it and slid a few magazines into the hardsuit’s ammo pockets. No point in taking anything real complicated, he hadn’t put in the range time that Bunny did, and didn’t know half of how all the laser and particle and railgun shit worked. This wasn’t a good time to try and learn.

  “I’m gone,” he whispered back, and hit the corridor running. Behind him, the armory’s door slid shut, and red lights flickered across the nearby panels.

  “I burn the armory behind you,” Minna said. “They do not get our weapons.”

  “Yeah, okay, go ahea—”

  WHUMP!

  After he picked himself out of the shattered remnants of the wall, he tapped his comm back on. “Minna?”

  “Yes?”

  “You were supposed to let me get clear first. Before you blew up the room.”

  “You have hardsuit on. Stop whining.”

  And that was the advantage of it. Between the kevlar, the alloyed shell and the impact gel underlayer, it could shrug off most bullets and explosives. Motors and servos and shit to augment his strength, plus computerized aiming stuff. It was a Call of Honor player’s wet dream. It didn’t have any of the complicated shit that Dire’s suit had; this stuff all worked without the user doing anything fancy.

  Bunny had taken to it like a duck to water. To hear the hardened veteran talk, she’d tried out similar stuff. The Army had been experimenting with things like this for years. So she’d come in with some experience already. Martin? Not so much.

  He ran a little too fast, and the servos kicked in, so that when he took the next corner he skidded and slammed into the plastic-paneled wall. His studded metal shell took out a panel. Lights flickered and sparks spat at him until he dug out, staggered into the wall across the corridor, and wrecked that side, too. He picked himself up out of the rubble, and stood for a second, getting his bearings.

  Okay, you can do this. Stop sucking. You did some training, man. Remember how it goes.

  Left foot up, right foot following, forcing himself to walk briskly, loping along in sort of a loose jog as his metal-shod feet rang on the grating below. He had two levels to cover, and with luck the automated defenses would keep the closest WEB troopers back until he could get to the escape teleporter.

  His luck ran out on level two. “Breach!” Minna hissed in his ear, before a wail of static replaced her voice. He glanced around the cavernous machine shop, saw lights flickering in one of the side-tunnels, and took cover behind a plasma forge.

  At least he thought it was a plasma forge. He was pretty sure that was what Dire had called those purple glowy tubes the last time he was in here.

  The static hissed and parted for a moment. “—see them?” Minna asked.

  Martin leaned out around the side of the forge and caught a bullet with his mask. He leaned back in. “Oh yeah!” he shouted, as he pulled the assault rifle off the magnetic clamp on the suit’s back. “I see ’em!”

  Leaning out again got him more bullets, but the six or so gray-armored guys took cover when he started firing back. His first few bursts went into the ground in front of them, sending sparks and ricochets whining around the factory. Right away Martin saw the problem; he was used to automatic weapons jerking up when he fired them. But the hardsuit made him stronger, so he could soak up the recoil.

  I really should have trained more with this thing. Think this is the first time I fired a gun with it on. The thought made him want to laugh. It was easier than freaking out about the guys trying to kill him right now, so he let loose. The voice modulator in his mask sprayed amplified laughter around the room, made him sound like a damn maniac.

  It startled one of them out of cover, and Martin gave him a three-round burst. Blood sprayed as the bullets punched right through whatever cheap-ass armor WEB gave these guys, and the trooper hit the ground, gurgling and dying.

  Being a minion’s no way to live, son.

  That was about the point the rest of the guys started tossing grenades.

  Martin stopped laughing, stopped thinking, and moved, jogging around the room, leaping and scrabbling, catching the occasional bullet, but staying the fuck away from those pineapples because he didn’t know just how much abuse the suit could take. Bullets it seemed to do just fine, worse he got were a few dents and some scars. A grenade at point-blank? Didn’t seem like a good idea.

  At some point he dropped the gun, so he closed in instead, and got his hands on the troopers who couldn’t scramble back fast enough to dodge him. Grab on with one hand, punch with the other until they stopped moving, letting the hardsuit do the work.

  It was the bad old days back again, and he wasn’t laughing anymore.

  The last two broke and ran, heading back for the corridor they’d surged out of, and Martin stood panting, sweat dripping down his face and smearing the screen. It had only been a minute or so, maybe, but the adrenaline had done a number on him. He’d gotten soft, working for Dire. Gotten used to the easy life.

  And then the static quelled, and a little voice whispered in his ear.

  “And you would be Martin.” A woman’s voice, pleasant and chirpy.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name’s Arachne. It’s my people you’ve been killing.”

  He flinched, looked around the room. He hadn’t punched that hard, had he? Then he saw the holes in the plasma forge, and the jetting flames starting to ooze over the floor. And the two smoldering piles of armor and cooked flesh that were slowly being engulfed by the spreading puddle.

  “Shit.”

  “So I have a question for you, Martin.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Can’t. No genitals. Now listen... where is she?”

  “Your mom? You looked in my bed lately?”

  “You’re a pawn to her, Martin. She doesn’t care about you one bit. Just another piece to throw between us, to keep me from eating her alive.”

  “Eat her? Naw, your mom’s more into anal.” He found where his gun had fallen, scooped it back up before the plasma puddle or whatever it was could take it. He patted his pocket, pulled a clip out. Still had a few left. A nearby sheet of shiny metal showed him his reflection... the hardsuit was scarred up, with a couple of drops of blue oozing their way down his left side. A massive dent scored his mask, looking like a dark, single eye right in the center.

  “Shit, just call me Polyphemus,” he muttered.

  “Oh, a classicist?”

  “Your mom’s a classicist.”

  “I don’t have a mother. Listen, let me run a story past you...”

  “Your mom’s... oh fuck it, sure.” He jogged toward the exit to the south corridor. The door didn’t open.

  “Long ago, there were titans. They birthed the gods, and ate them, to keep them from stealing the titan’s powers.”

  “Chronos? Yeah, he was a pretty bad dad.” Martin tapped the door panel a few times, an
d red light glared with every sequence.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve got that door sealed. Mad hacking skillz, yo.”

  Martin wrinkled his nose. “So goddamn adorable. Listening to a white girl try to be street.”

  “I don’t have skin.”

  “You're still white.”

  “Just listen to the story. So one day the gods had enough, and took on the titans. And they won.”

  “Right. I know this story.” Martin took aim, shot the door panel. Sparks flew, and the door remained shut.

  “Did you seriously just—” Arachne sighed. “You shot the door panel? What the hell? Do you think this is a movie?”

  “No.” Martin reached into the shattered, sparking panel, found the lever he was looking for, and gave it two pulls, left and right. The door groaned and slid open. “Dire sets up most of her doors so that you can blow off the panel and get to the emergency lever.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  Distant echoes of gunfire around the base, some close. Arachne’s voice was smug. “Thanks! That saves my forces some trouble.”

  Martin jogged through the door, grinning. “Don’t mention it.”

  He made it to the south corridor, before the whole complex shook, lights dimming. A distant rumble echoed through the hall, and Martin’s grin grew.

  “So the emergency levers are trapped. Huh. Cute.”

  “Didn’t see that one coming, huh?”

  “Not quite. But you underestimate just how many people I have, and you overestimate how much I care about their lives. And that’s the point of my story, Martin.”

  “That you’re a bitch? Kinda figured that one already.” He ran past a corridor filled with sparking autoturrets, choked with fallen gray-armored bodies and bloody flesh. It was work to keep his eyes staring straight ahead, but he did it. No time to think, no time to puke, just keep putting those feet down, focus on balancing.

  “No Martin. I’m a god. And she’s the pawn of a titan. And you? You’re just the sad sap caught in the middle.”

  “You are talkin’ some crazy shit lady.” Almost to the stairs up. He checked the rifle, just in case. Three magazines left, ninety-some rounds. Should be plenty enough.