DIRE : BORN

by Andrew Seiple

  “What the hell you want that for?”

  “It's bullet proof, Dire's not.”

  “Look, we could just cut our losses—”

  I stood, got in Martin's face. “No. No we can't. Black Bloods got away. They know what happened, they know what we did. You remember kayfabe? We just called out the heel in public. What do you think's going to happen?”

  He paled, looked away. “Shit. Shit, shit, motherfucking...”

  A yell from Roy startled both of us, and we looked over to see Minna trying to drag him. I looked back to Martin. “You help her get his shoulders, Dire gets his feet?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  It took a few minutes to get him into the backseat of the Fjord Grand Sioux outside. It took a few minutes more to load Scrapper's body into the back. The rest of the space we filled with canned goods and the few shipment boxes the Bloods hadn't unpacked, along with every pistol and shotgun we could find. The girl Minna had saved huddled next to Roy. Her legs were drawn up and her arms curled around them, almost in a fetal position. We let her be. Finally, after twenty minutes, I deemed that we'd gotten all we could. Martin agreed. We drove off into the night, and I sagged back in the passenger seat, covering my eyes with one hand. My left arm throbbed where Scrapper had tried to crush it. If I didn't have an enormous bruise all around it now, I'd be surprised.

  Sweet heavens, this had gone bad quickly. Now we had to ride out the consequences as best we could. And yet...

  I looked around the car full of food. At the crude armor in the back. And finally at Roy.

  And yet, we'd come out ahead. Maybe. If Roy recovered, I'd count this one a win.

  CHAPTER 8: Hail the Triumphant

  “The Midtown Militia... they meant well. Grew out of a guardian angel group that started up in the sixties. Civilians wanting to stop crime, protect their neighborhoods. But fast forward a few decades, and you can pretty much see how they became just another gang. Backalley justice, connections with a lot of less-moral heroes, and sometimes worse violence than the criminals they were formed to oppose. But to be honest, you can't deny that they did some good, in among all the bad...”

  --Excerpt from “Memoirs in the Fastlane” by Freeway, noted hero and Icon City metahuman activist.

  “Lights on the beach.” Martin's voice brought me back to the present, and I glanced down along the tide line. Sure enough, what looked like a car or small airship was parked out there, headlights shining on the camp. Had the MRB come back? That would make for an awkward scene, if so. On the other hand, they might be willing to airlift Roy, provide some medical care. A bureau like theirs probably had facilities or personnel who handled things like that.

  Martin turned off the road, onto the dunes, driving down towards the camp. Our own headlights flashed across the interloping vehicle. It was a pickup truck. “Anyone you recognize?” I asked Martin and Minna. Both shook their heads.

  We parked a little distance back, and eased Roy out. He'd passed out at some point during the trip, and I had to admit some guilty relief at it. His screams had been hard on all of us during the short but stressful ride. The three of us carried him, his old form light with the load distributed as it was. The unnamed girl followed, tugging her oversized t-shirt down over bare legs and shivering in the cold. She had brown hair, I noted, as we crossed the beams of the headlights. No older than fifteen or sixteen or somewhere in that range, I thought. Six, perhaps seven years younger than Martin.

  “Roy? Oh no. Oh no no no no...” Joan's voice rose, and she hurried forward, accompanying us as we moved toward the sickbay.

  A stranger stepped in my path as we did so, a man wearing a rolled-up balaclava and a blue jacket with a rough white eye painted on it. More gang colors, but not Blood colors, at least. As we got closer he opened his mouth, and I caught his eye. He froze, staring at me like a man who was confronting a rattlesnake, and realizing that what he'd just stepped on wasn't a stick at all. I flicked my eyes to the side, and he stepped that way.

  We continued on into the scrap-metal shack, and Joan went ahead, pulling out a cot and setting it up. We waited, holding him off the ground until she was done, then draped him on it as carefully as we could. It was another partitioned space in here, one large room that had been separated off into little separate rooms along the sides. Space heaters hummed and glowed in some of them. It was quite warm in here, compared to the cold and spacious church we'd been haunting for the last hour or so.

  “The hell the Militia doing here, Joan?” asked Martin.

  “Never mind that, what happened?” She dug around, found a lantern, turned it on and shrieked. I looked at her, to find her staring at me in abject horror.

  “What?”

  “Y-you're... there's b-b-blood every-”

  “Oh.” I remembered the corpses, the shootout in the worship hall, the mess we'd made on the landing where we'd caught the gangers in a crossfire. “Don't worry, none of it is hers.”

  Her gaze fell on Roy. “Oh god. Not his...”

  “What? No. Pretty sure most of that is other people's, too. He might have some broken bones.” Other injuries too, probably. He'd hit the wall pretty hard... “Look, do we have a doctor in camp?”

  “No,” Joan whispered. “Oh god. I... Sparky's gonna flip.”

  “Worry about that when it happens Momma Joan,” said Martin. “Right now we need to know why the hell the Midtown Militia are here.”

  “They showed up not long after you left. Wanted to talk about the Black Bloods harassing us.”

  Martin closed his eyes, sighed. “Jesus. They never fucking leave well enough alone.”

  “What's the story there?” I asked.

  “They hate the Bloods something fierce. Been wanting to give us 'protection' ever since Sparky and Roy fought the Bloods off a year or so back. They just want warm bodies they can use that ain't them. Cannon fodder.”

  I considered. “Enemies of our enemies. Can we afford to be choosy, particularly now?”

  Martin glared at me. “That what you were thinking when you set Scrapper loose? After how that ended up, you want to roll the dice again? Jesus fucking Christ.”

  I chewed my lip. Something about the tone of his voice... “You've got a history with the Militia, don't you?”

  “No.” He glared at me, looked away. “Not quite. They know who I am — who I was anyway. They wouldn't shed no tears if I caught a case of dead, but that don't matter either way. Look, they might not be 'roid raging like Scrapper was, but I guarantee they won't have our back in any way we need it right now.”

  I held my gaze upon him until he glanced back. “Have you considered that you may have a bias towards them? Because you rather give that impression.”

  He shook his head. “Fuuuuck. Look, it don't matter. You as stubborn as Roy, I can tell. You want to go hear them out I can't stop you. I'll stay in here and try to help Joan.”

  I nodded. “Mm. Where's Sparky?”

  “Out talking with them, last I saw,” said Joan. “They were kinda surprised to find him so lucid.”

  I looked to Minna. She put her hand on the unnamed girl's shoulder, held it there even when she flinched. “Come. We get you food. We get you clothes.” Minna's voice was the softest I'd ever heard it, and the girl started to cry. I looked away, squared my shoulders, and walked out the door.

  I found Sparky at the central firepit, with the blue-clad man and a similarly clothed young woman squatting next to him. Sparky glanced up as I approached, his face full of worry. “Is Roy...”

  “He'll live,” I said. I hoped that was true. “He needs medical care, though. He's in the sickbay right now—”

  I stopped as Sparky rolled away as fast as his arms could take him, towards the shack. Couldn't fault him for that.

  The young woman stared at me as I sat down on one of the benches, and rubbed dried blood from my hands. The guy spoke first. “So, uh, I'm Nash. This is Skye.”

  “Hello Nash, hello Skye. What do you want of us?”r />
  “To the point, huh? Okay, I can respect that. So we heard that the Black Bloods are stealing your supplies.”

  “They were.” I frowned, looked at Martin's tent-mate,Tooms. “Do you think you could get some people, start unloading the food? And probably the guns, too. Don't worry about the armor, Dire will have to take it apart anyway. No sense in lugging Scrapper's dead weight around too.”

  “Wait,” Skye burst out. “The fuck is that about Scrapper?”

  “Black Bloods had him. Made him crazy. We had to—” I was going to say that we'd had to use him to escape, but a thought made me hesitate. Martin didn't trust the Midtown Militia, I had no reason to do so either beyond a possible common cause. “-we had to fight our way out, and he didn't make it.”

  “Fuck. Yeah, we figured the worst when he went off alone, but... well, shit.” Nash had a ring in his lip, that caught the firelight as he tugged on it.

  “Can we see him?” Skye asked. I shrugged, and rose, beckoned them toward the SUV we'd appropriated.

  Nash nodded as I opened the back door, revealing Scrapper's form under the harsh glare of the dome-lights.

  “Yeah, that's him. So what the fuck happened?” His voice died as Minna and her crew arrived, and started hauling out the boxes of food, revealing the dozens of guns we'd stuck in among the rest of the spaces.

  I remembered Roy's advice. Never look weak in front of your enemies. These people weren't friends yet. “We went to negotiate to get our food back. They didn't want to negotiate. We fought and we won.”

  “You and Roy.” Nash said.

  “And Minna and Martin,” I said.

  “Martin. Heh. Believe that when I see it.” Skye's tone was charged with contempt, and I caught the sneer on her face. After the night I'd had, and the help we'd had from Martin, it rubbed me the wrong way.

  “Yes. Him too,” I said, stepping forward, invading her personal space. She backpedaled, and I followed. “Sangre didn't exactly leave us much choice.”

  “Wait. Whoa. Sangre was there?” Nash said.

  “Was being the operative turn.”

  “Shit, if he got away you'll need us. He's a crazy fucker, not gonna let this go. He'll be back, chop off your damn head with that fucking sword of his—”

  “Ah, thanks for reminding her.” I reached down between the seats, pulled the sword out. “He won't be back. He's quite dead.”

  That shut them up. Tooms's crew dropped off the first load of food, came back for the next bunch. While they did, I sorted among the weapons. Didn't know where my army pistol had gotten to, but I found a Sig-Sauer that was about the right size, and holstered it. Gun on my hip, sword on my shoulder, I turned to look at the two of them. “So. What exactly were you willing to offer as far as help goes? And what would you ask in return? Do you have a doctor, or some form of medical support?”

  “Uh,” said Nash. He seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts. “Not really— Not right now. But if you give us time, we could get a doctor in to—”

  “Roy needs help as soon as possible. Would a day suffice for time?”

  “Shit, I don't know.” He looked at Skye, she shook her head. “We could try to run him over to Sara's Mercy, but that's most of the way 'cross the city. On the far end of Pyre Hill.”

  “What is Sara's Mercy?”

  He looked at me, confused. “The biggest hospital in Icon? Are you not a local?”

  “Not as such,” I confirmed. “What's it look like, and in what direction does it lie?” I had an idea, but I didn't know if I could pull it off.

  He described a four-story structure with two wings, all glass and steel and marble. It sounded distinctive enough for my purposes. I nodded, and offered him the hilt of the sword. He took it, glanced from it to me. “What's this for?”

  “A sign of good will,” I said. “We may be open to future cooperation against the Black Bloods. On our terms, of course. You have a way we can contact you?”

  Bemused, he pulled out a snubby-looking pistol, offered it to me. I clucked my tongue at his trigger discipline, grabbed his hand, pointed it away from everyone. With my free hand I turned it around. “You offer a gun to someone butt-first. Understand?”

  He let the scolding slide, and just nodded. I took it from him, looked it over. “A flare gun?”

  “Yeah. One shot. Something big comes up, send up the flare. Otherwise we'll check in again after we tell Munin of what went down here. We didn't plan for... uh...” He gestured at the SUV. Minna had returned and taken over for Tooms. Her crew had unloaded the food by now, they were down to carting the guns away. Which just left Scrapper to deal with.

  I pulled off my backpack and unzipped it, extracted the toolkit. “Well. Good to discuss business with you. Now, if you'll excuse her...” I fired up the plasma welder, squinted at the brightness of it, and took out my mask. It still smelled a bit like Sangre's fried face, but the lenses did a good job of compensating for the flare of the welder.

  “Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing?” Skye burst out. I looked to her, used the eye and lip movements I'd configured as an interface to dial down my volume.

  “SHE IS REMOVING HIS ARMOR.”

  They stepped back a good four or five paces as my voice growled out at them, through the modulator. Even when dialed down to a conversational level it was still disturbing, at least if their reactions were anything to go by.

  “Whoa, you just don't take a hero's stuff,” said Nash. “That's— Shit, that's like skinning the guy and wearing his corpse.”

  “FEAR NOT. IT'S GOING TO BE REPURPOSED BY THE TIME SHE'S DONE WITH IT.”

  “That's not the point!” Hissed Skye. “That's a legacy.”

  I got the breastplate off, felt around the shattered remnants of his torso, ignoring the blood smearing my hands.

  “LEGACIES ARE ALL WELL AND GOOD, BUT THE SURVIVAL OF THE CAMP TAKES PRIORITY. SCRAPPER WOULD UNDERSTAND.”

  "Who the fuck are you, lady?” Nash asked. “You come out of nowhere, you kill Black Bloods like it's nothing, you take out fucking Sangre...”

  I shut the torch off, as my fingers found the lever I was looking for. This kind of suit, it made sense to have a manual release. With a tug, metal plating peeled back in segments, and Scrapper's burned and bloody corpse slid from the armor like lobster meat out of a shell. Once done, I straightened up to look Nash fully in the eye, mask-to-face.

  “DIRE. HER NAME IS DIRE.”

  They backed up another couple of steps. “Aw fuck me,” Skye complained. “You're a villain. I should have fucking known.”

  “INCORRECT,” I waved a finger at her, before turning back to my work. “DIRE IS DIRE. LABELS OF ANY OTHER KIND ARE PREMATURE.” I surveyed the material, sniffed in disgust. They hadn't let him out of the suit for bathroom breaks. This would take some scrubbing and showerhouse work, before I could do much with it. Fortunately, most of it didn't look water-sensitive. It was impressive in its crudity. Most of it seemed to function via hydraulics, with the exceptions being the power core and the broken sonic emitters.

  I glanced back, to find Skye and Nash off a ways, speaking in low voices. Skye had her jacket drawn back, and a hand on the butt of a gun. I wondered at that. Seemed a bit of a one-eighty, from their previously stated goals and wishes.

  My amusement grew as I saw Minna slip up behind them, her hand on the hilt of her bowie knife. Looks like she'd found it in the aftermath of the fight, good.

  Nash glanced up, caught me looking. He flushed, and said “Hey. Can we at least take his body? Give it a proper funeral? He was a hero.”

  I nodded. “OF COURSE. MINNA, CAN YOU HELP THEM?”

  “Huh?”

  He let out a yelp as Minna glided out from behind him, and Skye froze. She moved her hand away from her gun, and Minna slid the two inches of steel blade she'd half-drawn back into its sheathe. Without another word Minna stooped, and picked up Scrapper's corpse.

  “Lighter now,” She observed.

  “THANK YOU FOR YOUR OFF
ER,” I told the two Militants. Or was it Militiaman and Militiawomen?

  “Sure. Yeah, no problem.” Nash nodded, and left. Minna followed behind, and I watched them load Scrapper's remains into their pickup, and throw a tarp over him.

  Ah, what a night it had been.

  And it wasn't over yet. I looked at the armor, and waited until Minna approached. “GOOD. THANK YOU FOR HELPING SO FAR. ARE YOU WILLING TO HELP A BIT MORE?”

  “What you need?”

  “A SHOWER, SOME COFFEE IF WE HAVE ANY, AND HELP SCRUBBING THIS SUIT. IN THAT ORDER.”

  She grunted, and we got to work hauling the armor over to the showerhouse. She set to work scrubbing while I peeled down and washed, trying to ignore the chill of the air.

  What was I doing here?

  What was I really doing?

  I'd come out of the tunnel barely a few days ago with only a few devices, some fake ID cards, and a lot of questions. I had been too busy surviving to do much about finding answers.

  Now I'd made enemies of the most vicious gang around, gotten invested in the fate of a bunch of people who'd been pleasant enough company, but had no answers for me either. I'd lost some money, lost the fake IDs, and lost time. On top of it I was sticking around here, putting myself at risk, all for some vague notion of it being the right thing to do.

  I rinsed my hair, getting the blood out. I'd been running off of my instincts, and after the slaughterfest tonight, I wondered if I was still on the right track. I'd killed or been responsible for killing a fair amount of people, either via shotgun or by setting Scrapper loose.

  And upon reflection, I felt little guilt for it. For Scrapper? A bit, but I couldn't have saved him. The rest? Nothing. They would have done the same to me in a heartbeat, or worse.

  Sangre... he'd stated that I had been worth money to some group he hadn't bothered to identify. WEB? Possibly. Couldn't ask him now.

  I breathed in warm steam, and let the water course down my chest.

  That bit of information seemed to indicate a reason for me to stick around. If Sangre hadn't been mistaken, then the Black Bloods were in contact with people who did have answers. If I kept whomping them, then sooner or later the true threat would reveal itself.