DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3)

by Andrew Seiple

  “His file predates the Metahuman Resource Bureau.” Coleman said, straightening his collar. “There’s an entire room devoted to that moron.”

  “Loser. He’s more of a loser than a moron.” Kingsley added.

  “What’s the difference?” Martin was curious.

  Kingsley grinned. “He occasionally shows flashes of cunning, but usually fucks himself over.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s kind of what happened this time. He showed up when she was toe-to-toe with Crusader and dragged Dire off into the past or somewhere. We’ve been stuck with the trapped people in the gizmo, no supergenius to tell us how to get them back safe, and WEB busting down our doors while we’re trying to do the thing to get Dire back.”

  “How are you going to bring her back?” Freeway frowned. “Don’t tell me you have a time machine.”

  Martin sighed. “It gets complicated. Future Dire sent a program back from the future with the help of old Timetripper to help young Dire against young Timetripper.”

  The group in the van digested that for a minute. “That’s pretty fucked up.” Kingsley said.

  “Yeah. The program told us how to make a beacon thing to help them get back to now. Which is why we had to stick Min— one of Dire’s friends in the Dire suit to bust up Innsmouth Boulevard. Needed to do that to get the last piece of the beacon. But there’s a problem.”

  “Go on.” Freeway sounded thoroughly disgusted.

  “You know Arachne?”

  Coleman rubbed his chin. “A rising star in WEB. She's been trouble on the West Coast.”

  “Yeah, well, she came East to settle this shit. Arachne picked right now to go after Dire. She’s been driving us out of each lair. And when we went after the last piece she took over the old lair. Got one of my friends. Got a kid. Got the piece we already grabbed, and got the gizmo with the thirty thousand people in it.”

  Silence for a few moments.

  “Well, shit,” Kingsley summed up.

  “Three people in the morgue from your assault on Innsmouth,” Coleman said. “There was no teleporter this time.”

  “Yeah. Min... my friend said they weren’t running. Not all of them. Staying and taking phone pictures.”

  “You get that sometimes.” Freeway sighed. “It’s a problem. You learn to deal with it as a hero, prioritize getting people out of the way of the fight, keeping situational awareness, making sure they’re the first priority even if it means the villain wins.” He turned his glare on Martin, and Martin shrank back. “Your team is responsible for those deaths. How are you going to make it right?”

  “Wait.” Coleman leaned forward, glanced between them. “There’s still something that bugs me. Why were you doing this whole thing in the first place?”

  “I just told you, man.” Martin waved his hands. “We gotta get the pieces to put together the beacon to do the thing to get Dire back— ”

  “No, not that. I got that part. I’m talking about the bit where your boss leveled most of Westmarket.”

  “Not all of it. The water treatment plant was the main target.” Martin chuckled. “Would you believe we were trying to do something good for the city?”

  “Frankly, no,” Freeway said.

  “Yeah, that’s ’zactly the problem,” Martin said, glaring back at him. “Villain tries to do something good, nobody trusts it. Which is why we couldn’t just go to the authorities with what we found.”

  “And what was it you found?” Kingsley raised her sunglasses, and studied him with blue eyes that seemed almost to glow in the dim light.

  Martin ignored it, glancing around to make sure the three of them were giving him full attention. “You ever drink the water in Westmarket? Out the tap, I mean?”

  They looked at each other, shook their heads.

  “What if I told you it had twenty times the safe limit of lead in it? That there are birth defects and retarded kids being born ’cause of it? That people are dying early, getting the Alzheimer’s or worse ’cause of it? That this has been going on for the last eight years?”

  “Impossible.” Coleman shook his head. “There are regulations against this sort of thing.”

  “And each and every person who takes care of those regulations or checks that shit has been bribed by Mayor Tressler’s office. Why you think he’s stalling FEMA? They’re trying to get in there, start cleaning up the mess, get that part of the city working again, and the treatment plant’s a priority. But he’s stalling. He’s stalling ’cause he knows the second they start excavating the rubble, they’ll find all the corroded lead pipes he left down there from the day he found out ’bout them and decided to do nothing about it.”

  “Why? Where’s the motive in that?” Freeway frowned. “Makes no sense at all.”

  “Money.” Martin punched the dashboard. “Why else? He ain’t no big time villain, or even one of them nihilist punks does it for the shits and giggles. It’d take money to fix it, and he don’t want to spend it. He been trying to get Westmarket rezoned for years, puttin’ money into it would slow down his plans for the rest of the city. But he needs it empty to get it rezoned into a commercial district, and there’s too many people living there. So instead he quietly starts manipulating the real estate around there, makin’ it hard for people to move in legally, upping the property taxes and pressure on the ones who are already there, and letting the water take care of the die-hard residents that stay. And if it’s discovered? He can say ‘Whoops, we didn’t know about it! Well, can’t fix it without raising taxes.’ Martin grinned. “At least he could say that, up until a day ago. Now he can’t.”

  Kingsley kept on staring at him. “I’m guessing this is the part where you say how you exposed his paper trail online or something.”

  “Every email, every document, it’s all out there and set up so if anyone starts digging they’ll find everything and it’ll look so natural that no one knows it was villains put it out there.” Martin smiled. “Truth, man. That shit’s deadlier than particle beams.”

  Freeway shook his head. “I don’t even know where to start. This was a horrible way of handling the problem.”

  “Oh yeah?” Martin shifted gears, headed up the on-ramp. “Destruction caused by a fight between a Class Three superhero and a supervillain falls under FEMA’s charter. Federal grants to fix the problem, and the taxpayers cover the bill they should have covered years ago. Tressler can’t touch the land or kick people out because it’s in the Federal court. And kids stop growing up with seizures and cancer ’cause their water’s not full of lead no more. Seems like a win to me.”

  “At the cost of their homes, and maybe their lives if they don’t get re-materialized all right!” Freeway glared back. “You have any idea how many lives you disrupted, how many people you screwed over with this little trick?”

  Kingsley reached over, put a hand on his arm. “Let’s rewind a bit. The priority here's the missing civilians. So you said Arachne’s got them now? Anything else you can tell us about her?”

  “Yeah. It’s... Dire said she's an AI.”

  The agents shared a long look.

  “Dire surfaced during Y2K,” Coleman muttered.

  “I told you I saw something when I looked at her,” Kingsley replied.

  “Possible one of them escaped?”

  “Maybe. Human to machine uploads have been a thing before, so...”

  Martin glanced to Freeway, who looked as confused as he felt. “You mind sharing?”

  “Classified!” both agents snapped simultaneously, before turning back to the front of the van.

  “By rights we should take you in.” Kingsley said, pulling a badge out of her jacket and flipping it up and down. “By rights. But... well, the priority is all those civilians. That wouldn’t help them. It would in fact possibly hurt them.”

  Freeway nodded. “Then there’s my patient to consider.”

  “Who we should really get moving towards.” Martin said, checking his phone. “The cauterization didn’t take, an’ s
he’s losing blood.”

  “What?” Shock registered on Freeway’s face. “Why the devil didn’t you say so? Drive faster! Or tell me where it is, I’ll go on ahead.”

  Martin looked back at the two agents. Coleman folded his arms. Kingsley grinned and waved, but relented as the seconds dragged on. “Ah, fine. We’re not going to arrest you or your buddies. Yet.”

  Martin shifted up, passed a line of trucks. “It ain’t far.”

  “Good. Tell me as much as you can about the injury.”

  When Martin finished, Freeway asked a few questions that Martin couldn’t answer, but seemed relieved. “Okay. That’s nothing I can’t handle. I brought a few packs full of synthblood. Not perfect, but it’ll do.”

  “That’s some pretty expensive shit.” Martin frowned.

  “Before you ask, he gets his supplies from the MRB.” Kingsley said, grinning. “It’s all very aboveboard. And in return, we get to hear who he’s healing. It’s a sound investment.”

  “So this truce thing you offered was a sham.” Martin felt oddly disappointed.

  Kingsley shook her head. “Sham? Pft. It was the Bureau’s idea. The Doctor’s truce is one of our most-successful initiatives. Wounded and maimed villains are desperate villains who do stupid things. Villains with health care, so long as they don’t break the rules? Those are villains who are less likely to go merrily-a-slaughtering.”

  Freeway nodded. “You would have walked out of here a free man any way you answered. This way let the good guys figure out what was going on without going half-cocked into a situation with a hell of a lot of lives at stake. Mind you, if I hadn’t liked your answers, the second the truce was done, I would have been back at your door with reinforcements.” He frowned. “I still don’t like your answers. But I agree with the agents, we need to sort this business with Arachne out first. And get your boss back out of the timestream.”

  “You’re down with that?”

  “I can’t think of any scenario where it wouldn’t make matters worse. If she’s stranded in the past, she’ll try to shape the future. If she’s in the future, she’ll have advanced technology to play with, probably figure out and make a time machine on her own, and be able to send minions back to mess with the current day to prune the timeline to her satisfaction.”

  “Um.” Martin licked his lips. “So, uh, I did mention she sent something back to help us through this. Keep us alive, and get her displaced self back to this timeline.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t trust that thing she sent back.” Kingsley said. “Kinda terminator-ey.”

  “Shush,” Coleman poked her.

  “We kind of need it to defend our networks against Arachne. And tell us how to put the beacon together.”

  “All right.” Coleman scratched his chin. “Well, tell you what. Pull over and let us out here. Don’t tell her about us. Freeway, keep us informed. We’ll be your backup plan if the minion screws you over.”

  Freeway nodded. “That works for me.”

  After the agents were gone, Freeway leaned back into the seat and sighed, massaging his temples with both hands. “Son, you screwed this one up. But I think it’s salvageable with a lot of luck and a little pluck.”

  “Yeah?” Martin didn’t bother trying to keep the hope out of his voice.

  “Yes. But there’s a price.”

  Here it comes. Martin swallowed through a dry throat. “I’m listening.”

  “You’re done. After this you’re done. You and that little girl and anyone else who’s been doing the minion thing. You give it up and come in out of the cold.”

  “Okay,” Martin said, before he could think about it. Before he could talk himself out of it. “You got a deal.”

  “Now don’t give me grief about this, I— wait, what?”

  “You got a deal. I’m done.” Martin blinked, as the road in front of him got fuzzy. “I’m tired as hell; I’m fighting guys and shit that can kill me as easy as breathing, and I just... I can’t do this no more.” The words spilled out like powder from a slit baggie. “I never wanted this in the first place. I got enough of this back in the day with the gangs. I only been doing this because Dire needed me, and shit, I owed her, but she needs more than I got. I need to get Minna and get Anya and get out. You help me with that, I don’t care, I’ll go to jail for a few life sentences or whatever. I’m done.”

  With a careful hand, Freeway reached over and steadied the wheel. Martin looked down at his shaking hands, blinked back the tears that threatened to come pouring out. He wouldn’t cry. Not in front of Freeway or anyone else.

  “This is the exit,” he said, shifting the wheel, clearing his throat a few times. Down the ramp, over a few blocks, then it was into the parking lot of the crappy hotel.

  “I ain’t betraying her,” Martin said, staring at the hotel room’s door.

  “Wouldn’t ask you to.”

  “We need to get her back.”

  “I agree.”

  “Any deal you got with me you have to make your own with Dire, ’cause I don’t speak for her.”

  “I’m hoping she’ll listen to reason. Brains like that are wasted on the villain side of things.”

  “You talk like that she won’t listen to shit. She’s stubborn.”

  “Believe me, I know. I have it out with her every time I patch one of your sorry asses up.”

  “Speaking of that, you ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Aight.”

  No one answered the knock on the door.

  The front room stood empty. Martin’s heart sank. No, no, what the fuck, I was only gone for like half an hour. Not even that. “Hey?” he called, got no answer. “Shit. Shit shit shit this ain’t good, WEB got them or something—”

  “Correct,” the smartframe’s voice chimed in from the next room. Martin burst through it, vaguely aware of Freeway following in his wake. The smartframe’s mask peered serenely out at him from its dwelling place within Martin’s spare laptop.

  “How?” There weren’t any signs of entry. Nothing that indicated a struggle. Just no Minna and no Vorpal.

  “Arachne called after you left. Offered to trade Anya and Bunny for the last beacon component.”

  “That fucking bitch! They went for it? Shit, no way, she’ll kill them both!”

  “Arachne told them that she would kill Bunny first, then Anya, for every fifteen minutes they delayed.”

  “How the hell they get there? They got no car.”

  “I rerouted an automated Leet cab.”

  Something nudged at the back of Martin’s mind, but he was too busy losing his shit. “You’re okay with this? You seriously think Arachne’s on the level? Thought you were smarter than that! And hell, Vorpal ain’t even fit to travel!”

  “She insisted. Said that she couldn’t bear to leave Bunny to die.”

  “Fuck. Just... fuck. Fuck!”

  “Easy, Martin. We don’t have time to panic.” Freeway was glancing around the room, checking the bedding and the bloodstains.

  “I know. Shit... uh. Okay. So they’re back at the lair. The one with the teleporter hub.”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay. She doesn’t have us. Can you distract Arachne somehow? Like mess up her servers or download the gridnet on her ram or something?”

  The smartframe looked at him. “You don’t know much about computers, do you Martin?”

  “Shit, you can see my browser history, you tell me.”

  “Well, you know porn, I’ll give you that.”

  She said I. Second time.

  Martin blinked. This was new.

  Kingsley and Coleman’s words came back to him. Don’t trust it. Something was off, here.

  “So how would you recommend we proceed?” he asked.

  “Arachne didn’t factor for you being away. I believe that she believed you would try a flanking maneuver while they distracted her, try to rescue your friends that way. She’ll be waiting for that now.
But if you go in knowing an ambush is coming, then she might be too busy setting up the beacon to stop you.”

  “You won’t go in alone.” Freeway said, putting his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “WEB is bad news. I won’t have any problem convincing my team to fight them.”

  How do I tell him something’s off? She’s in every electronic device I own that has gridnet connections.

  “Aight, sure.”

  “If you can transfer me to your hardsuit, I can assist you with combat,” the smartframe offered.

  “Don’t think I can. The ports got damaged during the last fight.” Martin lied.

  “Hm. Well, that’s disappointing. I shall maintain my overwatch and attempt a distraction during your assault, then.”

  “Yeah, you do that. Hold down the fort here, aight?”

  “Indeed.”

  Ten minutes later, on the road north, Freeway put down his phone. “They’re in. They’ll meet us in twenty.”

  Martin nodded, and chucked his own phone out the window. Freeway raised an eyebrow. “Is there a reason you’re littering?”

  “Yeah. I think we maybe got a problem...”

  CHAPTER 16: DIRE – CASTLE WALLENSTEIN

  “Burg Wallenstein was erected two decades after the end of the thirty years war, on the banks of the Rhine. Made with countless bricks, as Berlin had no quarries or sources of stone, it stood sentinel for centuries. The outer walls came after the prevalence of cannon as a siege weapon, and were instrumental in later conflicts. The Nazi science division claimed it as a headquarters in the late thirties, and sadly, this historical structure was bombed to bits by Russian forces during the siege of Berlin. Only the foundations remain. There are rumors that the Russians took something, from the cellars under the castle. Something inhuman...”

  Professor Xavier Pyre, Historian at Isler University during a 2007 lecture.

  Berlin rolled by in the pre-dawn light. Neat, orderly buildings with big craters marring the city blocks

  Our trucks passed checkpoint after checkpoint, and were waved through with cursory glances. Mitternacht’s plates bore marks of the highest authority, and it was worth any of these rear-echelon trooper’s lives to delay or hinder him in any way.