DIRE : BORN

by Andrew Seiple

  “Like a broke ass fucking bum has that kind of money.”

  “Normally you'd be right. But how much is Sangre getting paid for turning her in?”

  He was quiet for a minute, chewing on it. I dug out the phone. “Here. You can even make the call yourself. This will work even throughout the outage.”

  “Throw it over.”

  “Hell no, we're on a concrete floor.” I stomped on it, to emphasize a point. “Just don't shoot her, all right? She'll come over and leave it on that box, and you can pick it up after she moves back.”

  “Don't try anything stupid. You live, but Sangre said to shoot the others if you got dumb.”

  I nodded, and moved in, slowly.

  Twenty feet from him, I leveled the phone and hit 'call'

  A flash, a sizzle, a bright arcing light as a miniature bolt jumped from the phone and I felt a bit of the current go through me as well. No way to properly shield it, and I could feel my hair stand on end as the volts grounded through me into the floor.

  But the impact on Jamie was much more impressive. He fell, the gun hitting the ground with a clatter. He spasmed, arcs of miniature lightning darting and snapping around him as he drummed his heels on the ground and jerked back and forth until he finally slowed and stopped.

  I walked over, scooped up the gun, and returned to the others. They were staring at me in shock. “All right,” I whispered. “Let's discuss getting out of here.” I offered the gun to Roy, buttfirst, and he took it with a grin.

  “Like the Black Forest all over again. It's devil dog time.”

  “What?” That made no sense to me.

  “Nevermind. Anyway, first thing is to get up the stairs, but I dunno how many they got up there.”

  I chewed my lip, and as I did so a howl echoed out from the east. I glanced at Jamie. He'd be out for maybe an hour, given his size and the voltage absorbed. “Wait here, guard the room,” I whispered to the others. Minna nodded. She moved up to stand next to the stairs, picking up a folding chair as she did so. Roy moved behind some boxes, rested the gun on them and waited, as still as death. Martin, for his part, jumped up as I started moving to the eastern door. “Whoa, hey, what are you doing. Whatever the fuck is going on with whoever the fuck that is, that is some shit we don't... want...” I ignored him.

  The door opened into darkness. I moved back, unhooked a lantern from the ceiling, and shone it in. Pipes, machinery, a distributor hub for the church's non-functioning power. This was a utility room. And in the back of it, chained to the remnants of a water heater, was a hulking figure wearing bulky armor. It was made from car panels, from old appliances, and I saw cooling coils mixed in with capacitors. In some cases components were held in place with bailing wire.

  The figure shifted as I shone the light on it, and heavy chains jangled. There was a padlock nearby, out of reach of the figure. It looked like it was securing the restraints around him. He jerked and twisted, and tried to point a gauntleted hand at me, and as he did it lit up with a series of colored lights. A rising whine started at the edge of my hearing. He had a sonic emitter of some sort built into the gauntlets of his armor, I realized. It seemed to be broken, which is why I still had intact eardrums right now.

  I shut the door, beckoned Martin over with a nod of my head. “Hey. You mentioned someone last night. A hero called Scrapper?”

  “Yeah.” I opened the door, and shone the light in. Eyes wide, he studied the figure. “Shiiiit. Yeah, that's him. The fuck they do to him?”

  “Don't know,” I answered. I knelt down to study him, staying out of reach. He snarled, and that whine kept up. “Scrapper. Your enemies are our enemies. Can we make common cause?”

  The whine disappeared. I flicked an eye toward the padlock. “She could push that in to you. Those look like augmented gauntlets, hydraulics. You could crush it, and pull the chains free.”

  A coughing sob was his only reply.

  I continued. “Will you take the fight to them, when you are freed? Will you kill the Black Bloods?”

  A few throaty breaths, amplified by the voice modulator in his helmet. I couldn't read his face, as I shone the light on it. The cracked lexan panel of his faceplate was almost completely opaque with blood and other fluids. A gap of perhaps an inch revealed gore, a beard... Maybe a flicker of something that could have been an eye. Finally he opened his hands and put them on the ground, almost in supplication.

  “This is a horrible idea,” Martin whispered. “Don't look like much of him's left in there.”

  I shook my head. “Go tell the others to hide. Her idea, so she'll take the risk. Everyone else needs to get out of sight.”

  “Your life, Dire girl.”

  “She's probably got years on you, kid, so don't call her girl. Go.” He withdrew, leaving me and Scrapper in the utility room, with the cat's cradle of chains between us.

  I sat down and started work, tracing them. I kept one hand on my phone taser, though I didn't know if the two shots I had left were enough to drop him. Whatever had been done to him, plus the unknown factor of his armor... this was a gamble.

  But he didn't fight or fuss as I tested chains, looked for the slack, and found the correct strands to tug to pull the padlock closer to him. He stretched out a gauntlet as it approached, and I stopped it two inches from his grasp. He snarled, and I snarled back.

  “Listen!” I put a commanding tone in my voice, and he quieted. “Head to the stairs, and good luck.” I thrust the lock into his hand, before retreating from the room and setting the lantern on the ground. I backed into the corner farthest from the stairs, and waited. I didn't have long to wait. I heard a screech of metal bending, the rattling clink of chains sliding loose, and a hissing, clanging series of thuds. The sounds of his armored bulk as it shifted and stood on the concrete floor.

  It was loud, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, when I heard feet on the stairs and shouts from above. Two Bloods came tearing down the stairs, shotguns and flashlights out. I barely had the presence of mind to turn on my forcefield generator before their weapons were leveled at me. I raised hands, smiled.

  “The fuck you do, bitch?” One of them spat.

  “Made friends and influenced people,” I replied.

  One of them cocked his shotgun, putting his flashlight under his chin to free up both hands to do it. “Make some fucking sense.”

  I smiled as blandly as I could manage. “You should probably be running.”

  Scrapper exploded out of the utility room at a faster speed than I'd guessed was possible, given the bulk of his suit. He screamed as he went, and they screamed back. Didn't see much else, as I was already diving for the ground. A shotgun barked, and then there were noises of metal impacting flesh at high speeds. Crunching noises followed, and screaming. More screaming. I didn't look up again until heavy, metal-clad footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  When I rose up from my cover, I saw what he'd left of the two gangers. Worse, I smelled what he had left of them. I could hear Martin retching from another corner, and Minna was looking down from her spot behind the puppet stage, her hand over her face. Only Roy was unaffected, as he moved over and started sorting through the crushed mess that had been two teenagers a minute ago.

  Overhead, heavy stomping feet pounded on the floor, and yelling mixed with gunshots. Scrapper's howling rose above it all, and I shook my head. I hadn't quite expected this level of savagery from him. But there was no point in angsting over it, we couldn't afford the luxury of reflection at the moment. I moved up to Roy, and he offered me a shotgun and a handful of shells. I took it, started loading it. Minna made her way around the stage, picked up the other one from the ground. She moved slowly, her eyes glinting with unknowable thoughts in the lantern's light. Roy offered her a handful of shells as well, and she took them without comment. I used the time to pick up a bloody flashlight that one of them had dropped.

  “Shit. How can you just—” Martin swallowed, made his way over. “Nevermind. We need to leave.
”

  “Not without the food,” Roy insisted.

  “Also need to retrieve Dire's tools and mask,” I affirmed.

  Someone screamed overhead, a rising wail cut off by a crunch. Martin shook his head. “You're all crazy.”

  Minna cocked her shotgun, started up the stairs. I followed, grabbing her shoulder. “Let Dire lead.” She acquiesced, and Roy crept up behind us. Martin took the rear spot, and we got to the first floor. Above us rose the flight of stairs to Sangre's chamber, but the bulk of the noise came from the area back at the worship hall. As I stood there in indecision, Minna moved first. She headed to the darkened side-rooms, and shone a lantern into a doorway. “You! Come.” A girl moved out of the room, clad only in a large tee shirt, hands up and shaking.

  “Calm yourself, you're among friends,” I said. “Martin, you think you can find an exit, get her out of here?”

  “Uh. Yeah. Let me look around.” He took the girl's hand, and started poking around the hallway.

  For my part, I ran upstairs to Sangre's room and used the barrel of the shotgun to move aside the curtain. The smoke hit my face, sweet and heady, but I ignored it and shone the flashlight around. Sure enough, my backpack was on the ground a little ways inside, and I put the flashlight down and retrieved it. A quick check showed the ball drone and toolkit inside, but no mask.

  Gunfire from below, and the rising whine of a broken sonic emitter. If he was trying those, he was feeling hard-pressed. We might not have our distraction for much longer.

  “Dire!” I whirled around, and saw dark shapes moving outside the curtain. The door down on the next landing had opened, and Black Blood gangers were trying to creep down the stairs. Light glinted off of gunmetal, and I cocked the shotgun and burst through the doorway. They had no time to react as the twelve-gauge thundered in my arms. One was blown against the wall, sliding down it and leaving smears behind.

  Another one ran back through the doorway, but the third and fourth opened fire on me. I backed up as my forcefield whined... then a pistol barked a few times from below as Roy joined in, and another one groaned and sagged to the ground. The last one turned his back and tried to run back through the doorway after the second one. I unloaded the last barrel into him. He fell, sobbing in pain.

  As I watched Roy shuffled upstairs, looked down at the sobbing one, and shot him. He stopped sobbing. “Cover me while I check them,” Roy said, and I moved down to the landing, peered through the door into a hallway that curved out of sight. There were more doors along it. No sign of the runner. I kept watch until Roy grunted, and pulled back. “Found some car keys. Look like they go to a Fjord.” More gunfire from below, and I glanced down the stairs. Couldn't tell for certain, but it looked like it was coming from the worship hall. A voice rose, it might have been Sangre's... I didn't have the chance to positively identify it before Scrapper howled again.

  I glanced to Roy, and we moved downstairs. Martin and the pantsless woman rejoined us from a side corridor. Minna crouched in a side doorway, covering the door to the worship hall.

  “Found an exit to the back,” Martin said.

  “You see a Fjord out there?”

  “Uh. There's an SUV, it might be a Fjord...”

  Roy handed him the keys. “Get her started. We'll be out after we settle things in there.” He jerked his head toward the gunfire.

  “We are pushing our luck, man,” Martin protested. “But okay, all right, you wanna be crazy-ass motherfuckers it's your dicks hanging out there, not mine.” He glanced at me. “Metaphorically speaking.”

  I ignored him. “Let Dire lead. Her forcefield can handle a few more bullets.”

  Roy and Minna nodded, Martin shook his head and dragged the girl back down the way they'd come.

  I burst through the doorway with the shotgun out, moved to the side as bullets whistled by. I put lead into the air toward the muzzle flashes, not really caring if I hit anyone. I was just trying to rattle them enough so that Minna and Roy could clear the door without getting shot. A pew loomed ahead of me and I crouched down, started moving along it, ignored the squelching noises of something sticky and warm.

  More muzzle flashes and gunshots from my end of things. The boom of a shotgun, and the noise I'd come to associate with Roy's pistol. I reloaded, popped my head up, and actually looked at the scene. Enough lanterns were intact that I got a pretty good picture. Scrapper had come through here, and run straight into the Black Bloods who were sorting the loot. They'd been heavily armed, and events had taken their natural course. But their guns hadn't been much good against the combination of heavy armor and whatever rage drugs they'd put him on.

  Which isn't to say that they hadn't done damage. I could see him in the back, staggering, armor stained with red streaks in the light. I couldn't tell how much was his. He was hunting among the back pews and support pillars, deep in the shadows. And then I saw why, as my own mask faded out from the darkness. Sangre's sword swiped around, sending sparks flying as it cut into the back of Scrapper's armor. With a snarl, Scrapper fell over, and Sangre darted back. I fired the shotgun at him, but he was moving too quickly and I missed. He faded back into the shadows.

  A few more bullets came my way, from the sides of the room, and one glanced off my forcefield. Not all of the gangers were down, then. I relocated, reloading as I went. “You're wearing her mask, Sangre.”

  A giggle, almost girlish. “Oh, I had to try it on. All sorts of nifty tricks with this thing. Seriously, though, you were a fool to set my pet here loose.”

  Gunfire from my side, and a yell from one of the gangers. I popped up again, saw Scrapper climbing to his feet. I tracked a muzzle flash to the side of him, and let go with both barrels. Someone fell with a meaty thud, and stray pellets rattled off Scrapper's armor to no real effect. No sign of Sangre. I ducked down again, rolled under the pew to reload.

  “So irritating before they're properly trained,” Sangre's voice sang out. Nearer now, somewhere in the darkness. “A hell of a lot of boys dead. That switches things. Before, turning you over was business. Nothing personal. Now though? Now you're mine, until the handoff comes.”

  I thought I tracked movement from underneath. Bare, pale feet moving three pews down. I wrestled the shotgun over and tried to get a bead on them, but they were gone before I could.

  And then his voice was close behind me, and I froze as a steel blade caressed the back of my neck. “There are so, so many things I can do to you without killing you. We'll have time to review each and every last one of them. In slow, fun, detail.”

  I let the shotgun slide from my fingers. Smiled, as I turned to face him. “You like the mask?”

  “I may keep it,” he confessed. “Now get up, slowly, and tell your friends to stand down.”

  “You're right,” I said, as I stood. “It does have a lot of nifty apps. Here, she'll show you one. Frogs in winter burn azure pyres!”

  “What are you going on abOOOOOOWWWWW—”

  The mask lit him up with thousands of volts, as he screamed and twitched, sword clattering to the ground. The energy coursed through him, arcing off the pews, blowing a few stray lanterns, and shocking me slightly when a few flickers of electricity got close. I sagged into the pew, grinning.

  I was very, very glad I'd taken the time to poke through the mask's settings, and set the password to the anti-theft system.

  Around me I was aware of the gunfire falling silent. I caught flashes of the last few gangers fleeing out side doors, faces twisted in fear. I sat as the lightning flashed around me, and glared down at Sangre. I had the ability to cancel the anti-theft system at any time, but I let it go on until I was quite certain he was dead. The man had proven himself vile in every sense of the word. Finally there was no doubt in my mind, and I spoke. “A goodbye for the ages, my final friend.” The mask chimed, and the lightning ceased. I reclaimed the mask, releasing an odor like cooked pork into the air, as I brushed ash from the back of it. A quick check satisfied me that it had taken no damage,
and I slid it into my backpack.

  Roy's voice broke through my reverie. “Dire! Look out!”

  I whirled. I'd gotten too absorbed in watching Sangre die, I'd forgotten that we weren't alone here. Scrapper was behind me with an arm stretched out, the gauntlet reaching for my head.

  I tried to back up, tripped over the pew behind me and went head over heels. Scrapper shoved it aside to get to me, picked me up by an arm, and started to squeeze. Pain flared, and I yelled. Then Roy was there, hammering at him with a candlebra, trying to get through the weak spots in his armor, but Scrapper backhanded him with a snarl. Roy hit the wall with a sickening crack, and fell. I used the time to think over my options, and dismissed the shotgun. It was below me and out of reach. The universal remote might or might not work on his armor, but it was useless without the mask. That left one thing, and if it didn't work I'd be in trouble.

  With my free hand, I pulled the phone taser out. As his metal fingers ground into the meat and bones of my arm, I punched a series of numbers on the phone, and jammed it through the crack of his faceplate. He stopped, dropped me, and fumbled at his helmet as a rising whine sounded from within. I scrambled away. Behind me the energy of my taser-phone discharged all at once, shattering the casing and causing an explosion next to his face. He crashed to the ground, but I didn't spare him a glance as I scurried over to Roy. Minna joined me, and we turned him over. He screamed as we did. I didn't see much in the way of blood, but I didn't know what was wrong, either. “Roy?”

  He sobbed. I snarled in frustration. “Minna, go get Martin.”

  She left, and I sat with Roy, let him sob as I held his shoulders. Footsteps behind me and I turned, but it was just Martin and Minna.

  “Shit man... how bad is it?”

  “Don't know,” I said. “We load him first, then come back for the food and the guns. Every one we can find.”

  My eyes traced the area where Sangre had jumped me, the tangle of pews, and the bulk of Scrapper's armored corpse. “And not just that. Going to need every hand free to haul Scrapper's armor out.”