DIRE : BORN

by Andrew Seiple

  “Nah, see... they get you out of the way, they can come in as heroes. Then they claim this turf themselves, be heroes of the people and shit.”

  “And die against the Black Bloods,” I pointed out.

  He shrugged. “Just a theory. So. Hate to ask, but... uh... you got that thing I gave you?”

  “If you're talking about the nuevacoke, no.” At his frown I elaborated.

  Khalid stepped closer. “Wait, wait, wait. You had some of that psychic drug? Where did you get that?”

  Martin glanced over at him. “Bought it cheap from someone offloading it in a hurry, before I knew how much of a pain in the ass it was to move. Been sitting on it ever since. Ain't crazy enough to try to give it to my regulars, and too much heat to offload it out of state.”

  So it had been a disposable asset to Martin. Hm. That indicated possible bad faith, the fact that he'd sent it with me. Was he playing his own game here? Now? With so much on the line?

  Khalid was talking again. “That substance is an abomination. You should have destroyed it.”

  Martin tilted his head, considered Khalid through narrow slits of eyes. “I'm curious as to how a bone doctor knows about that shit. Way I heard it, government hushed it up as soon as they found out what it did.”

  Khalid folded his arms, and glared back. “I have colleagues who dealt with the fallout from that substance. I wonder if you knew people on the other end of it.”

  “Listen, Doctor, I ain't got time for shit from people who never missed a damn meal in their life. Now if you ain't got—”

  “Enough,” I said. They shut up, and looked to me.

  “So we're making more bullets, good. Are any other preparations underway?”

  Khalid nodded. “As a matter of fact, I think Captain Guzman wanted to talk to you about something, there.”

  “Good. Please go send him in.” I grinned, as the short man headed out of the shack.

  The grin faded, as I looked to Martin, and he looked back. “Something funny about the good doctor,” I muttered. “Dire's leg doesn't hurt a bit.”

  Martin nodded. “He's either in the trade or in the costume game if he knows about nuevacoke. Don't know any costume healer types, though. And if he was in the trade I'd know, so he ain't.”

  “So an unknown costume then? Encouraging,” I mused out loud as I lined up my logic. “The Black Bloods have no known superpowered individuals. He's unlikely to be a plant.”

  “I don't like him,” Martin said, raising a hand and dropping it in a dismissive motion. “But shit, I don't like plenty of people 'round here and that don't matter.”

  “Best not to look at the gift too carefully, then,” I concluded. “Not here, not now. He's more likely to help us than hurt us—”

  The cloth at the door was pushed aside. I shut up as Khalid returned, followed by the stooped form of Guzman. He split a grin when he saw me, but even the shifting wrinkles that squirmed over his face couldn't hide his worry. “Lying down on the job, Doc?”

  “Not by choice, and not for long.” I said. “What's on your mind, Captain?”

  “Ships. Well, boats, I guess. More specifically, the boats out on those piers over there.”

  “Ah, those. To be honest they're pretty much just scenery to Dire, they've been there so long.”

  “Yeah. They're like that to everyone, ever since Nolan's marina shut down, and he left'em to rot. Hell of a waste...”

  “You think there's a way to use them?” I quirked an eyebrow. “For what, precisely?”

  “Well...” He folded his hands into his pockets, and adjusted his greatcoat. “We got twenty-seven folks who know how to shoot a gun without hitting themselves. Maybe a few more who have the inclination and build to wail on someone with a baseball bat or crowbar if they have to. That leaves more than a hundred folks that'll mostly be in the way.”

  “No way around it,” I groused. “Can't turn people away, can't risk the Bloods taking hostages from loved ones left behind.”

  “Right. So what if we get the boats seaworthy again, and move the ones who can't fight out when the trouble starts? Get them out on the bay so they're out of it one way or another?” I blinked at the idea.

  “On the surface, it sounds good. Unless the Bloods come in with a couple of speedboats...”

  “They won't,” Martin said. “Mob's got the Waterfront locked down, and the Bloods got no turf in the south, so the wharves are out for them.”

  “Mm. Do we have a way to deal with the ice and the weather?”

  “The ice is thin and mostly near the shore,” said Guzman. “Besides, busting it up will keep the youngsters out of trouble. We could start that right away, start dragging the better boats up on the beach.”

  “Better,” I mused. “Most of them aren't what Dire would call good to begin with. How long have they been there with no maintenance or repairs?”

  “A few years. But I got a plan for that.” He grinned, showing metal dentures. “There's this stuff called 'CL Tight', that Helios put out a few years back. It's industrial-grade, fast-drying caulk. Won't solve all the damage, but it'll make'em good enough to float for a few days. Some of them, anyways. Enough for our purposes.”

  “Mm. Do we have enough of this Sealtight?”

  “The proper name's 'CL Tight.' and no, we don't even have a drop of it. Local hardware stores don't carry more'n a can or two either, and we need more than that.”

  Guzman's grin never changed throughout, even if he did meander around from tangent to tangent. I got the feeling he rather enjoyed being the knowledgeable party in a conversation.

  Suppressing my frustration at having to wait, I put on as polite a tone as I could manage. “If we don't have access to enough of it, how is CL Tight's existence of use to us?”

  “Because I know where to get a lot of it.” Guzman tapped the side of his nose with one finger, and his grin grew.

  I made a 'go on' motion with one hand. “The best place for boat repair in the city is the Dry Dock. It's over near where I-3 meets Route 120. I took my bass fisher there back when I was a boat owner, before the second happiest day of my life.”

  I stared at him, and his grin drooped a bit. “You know, the day when I sold my boat?”

  I kept staring, and he coughed. “Nevermind. Old joke. Anyway, they've got barrels of CL Tight. A few of those should be more'n enough fer what we need.”

  I pursed my lips. “Someone's going to have to sail those boats.”

  “Not really,” he said. “Most have oars, and rowing's easy. Long as the weather ain't bad most people should do fine.”

  I considered his directions. “Route 120's the highway on the overpass, yes?”

  “Yep. Follow it north, it'll curve west, and you'll hit I-3 in about ten mile.” His grin grew wider. “Reckon since you could handle them crates, you can bring back a few barrels of the stuff we need.”

  A rustle at the door, and Joan made her way in. “Hun? Sorry to disturb you, but the Militia are back again. They brought more people.”

  Perfect. “Help Dire up,” I directed Martin. But as he reached out Khalid rushed next to me, and put his hands on my shoulders.

  “What are you doing? You need to rest.”

  “Can't look weak in front of potential allies, Doctor.”

  “You won't look strong if you fall down and break something in front of them,” he chided. But even as Khalid did so his eyes checked mine, and he nodded as he saw something in them. “You're determined, yes?”

  “Don't have time to lie down on the job right now.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Relax. Help her get into the armor. It held her leg together before, it'll do it again, yes?”

  He shook his head in exasperation, but complied. With the assistance of Joan, Martin, and Guzman, they managed to wrestle me into the armor without mangling either the brace or any of my limbs.

  They were waiting for me down the beach a little ways, keeping a respectful distance from the camp. Four figures, two of which I recogniz
ed. A third one was fat and bulky, and the fourth one looked to have a longarm of some sort on his back. I approached, and Sparky fell in with me as I did, rolling along and taking sidelong glances my way.

  “You all right Dire girl?”

  “OH YES.”

  The one with the gun jumped a bit as my voice boomed out over the icy bay. The others held firm, though they shuffled around a bit. They were wearing jeans and the blue jackets with the white eyes dyed onto them, along with black balaclavas. Nash waved as we approached, Skye just watched us come. The fat one was a red-haired man with an easy smile. The shooter was a hard-eyed woman with no hair visible on her head. It was the fat one who stepped forward to meet me.

  “Afternoon, miss Dire.”

  “DOCTOR DIRE, ACTUALLY.” I halted, and Sparky rolled to a stop next to me. “WELCOME. DO YOU WISH REFRESHMENTS?” I gestured toward the kitchen, and the line set up outside of it. Looked like it was lunchtime.

  “That's all right. I'm Carson, by the way. I speak for Munin.”

  “DON'T KNOW HIM, HER, OR IT.”

  He shrugged, took it in stride. “He's more or less in charge of our little club.”

  “THE GANG, YOU MEAN.”

  “We prefer to think of ourselves as a vigilante association,” he waved a gloved hand, gestured toward the camp. “Protecting good people by stopping the bad ones.”

  “WELL, IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY THEN. HOW CAN YOU HELP?”

  “Straight to the point, huh? I like her, Bunny.”

  The woman with the rifle smiled. It didn't touch her eyes, and it was gone in a second. Carson continued.

  “You want the good news or the bad? You'll get both.”

  “BAD FIRST.”

  “Well. They're coming for you tonight. Rictus wasn't expecting you to run off the cops, so he delayed and called for help. Stig himself is coming up with his elites to hit you from the south while Rictus and his boys come in from the west. That's the plan, anyways.”

  “YOU ARE ASSURED OF THIS?”

  “We're the MM, it's what we do!”

  Sparky rapped on my gauntlet. “It kind of is. They know things first, have a lot of ears and eyes.”

  “SPIES, IN OTHER WORDS.”

  “More like community-minded individuals who know the proper value of good intel.” Carson put his hands on his hips. “The good news though, is that Stig is coming out of his crib.”

  “CRIB?”

  “Well, it's more like a fortress. He's got an old pawn shop downtown and the building above it. It's the heart of their territory in the district, even if it's only a foothold. Too well-defended even for the Kriegers to dig'em out, much less us. But he's taking the field for the first time in ages. Coming here. And we know the route he'll take.”

  “YOU'RE CERTAIN?”

  “Well... We might have rigged the game a little. Wrecked a few stolen cars in strategic locations to block the other routes. He'll have to come up Broadoak Street to get here in time. We're thinking ambush. But he's going to have his boys along, and they're no joke. I wouldn't waste lives against them, even with intel and time to prepare. But you? You're bulletproof, aintcha?”

  “MORE OR LESS,” I confirmed. “YOU CAN PROVIDE SUPPORT?”

  “A bit. Or we can provide some extra guards at the camp.”

  Sparky rubbed his jaw. “How many?” He asked.

  “Maybe about fifteen volunteers. Every one of them armed.”

  “That few?” Sparky frowned.

  Carson spread his hands. “Hey... no offense soldier, but there's a hell of a lot going on around here. If we pull too many people out to help you, the Kriegers will try to roll us up. Or the Graveyard Gang will come north, and no one wants that. But listen, if you take out Stig, you'll just be up against Rictus, here. He doesn't have good troops, or a lot of numbers. More than you? Yes. But you'll have a shot.”

  He inhaled, and glanced at me. Chubby fingers tugged on one sleeve, as he considered. “Or... instead of having our folks guard the camp, you could double down.”

  “DOUBLE DOWN? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”

  “Take our people with you when you go hit Stig. Take him out fast and hard, then swing north and hit Rictus immediately after. Do it fast enough, you can maybe do it before he starts his attack on the camp.”

  Hm. Tough call. And he seemed to be waiting for an answer. I decided to buy time to think.

  “A QUESTION ON ANOTHER SUBJECT. DO YOU KNOW OF THE COSTUME WHO CALLS HIMSELF BALLISTA?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Carson coughed, glanced over to Nash and asked him the question. “You had a word with him earlier, yeah?”

  “Uhhh. Yes. You ah, might want to keep an eye out for him,” said Nash. “He was in a bad temper when we told him about Scrapper. Said he was going to find you and ask some hard questions. He's not exactly a subtle guy.”

  “SHE ALREADY SPOKE WITH HIM. VIOLENTLY.”

  Skye whistled. “And you're still standing? He must've gotten into a better headspace.”

  “WELL, DIRE DID HAVE TO CHOKE HIM OUT. BUT TOMORROW FORCE GOT HIM TO A HOSPITAL FAIRLY QUICKLY, SO THAT WORKED OUT.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa...” Carson coughed. “You mean to tell me you beat Ballista?”

  “LIKE A DRUM. HE'S GOT A GOOD THROW, BUT HE TELEGRAPHS TOO MUCH.” It was the truth, and it had been the only thing that let me dodge some of his spears.

  That got them looking at one another with varying degrees of surprise. All save for the hard-eyed woman with the gun. Her eyes never left me.

  I looked back at her. “WILL YOU BE FIGHTING IN THIS AS WELL?”

  “I'll be in charge. Of our people, at least.”

  “WHICH DO YOU PREFER? STRIKING AT STIG OR DEFENDING THE CAMP?”

  Her eyes flicked to the camp, back to me. “Your fortifications are nonexistent, and the terrain makes you hard to sneak up on at the cost of forfeiting all cover. Most of the Bloods can't shoot for shit so that will help, but you're still going to lose people. If I'm attacking Stig I get to use better cover, spring an ambush, and choose where to fight. Offense is generally easier than defense, and this is no different.”

  I nodded, looked down at Sparky. “THINK YOU CAN HOLD HERE UNTIL DIRE GETS BACK?”

  “I think we'll have to.” He smiled. “They might be bad shots, but I'm not. I'll light'em up as they come. It'll be like old times.”

  “HM. DO YOU HAVE ANY DEFENSE AGAINST BULLETS?”

  “Eh... Not so much.”

  “WE'LL WORK ON THAT.” I looked back to Carson. “HOW LONG UNTIL YOUR PEOPLE ARE READY TO ASSIST WITH STIG?”

  “An hour to get people ready. Another hour to get them out in position. You can't come flying in until just before nightfall, though, or you'll give the game away.”

  “HOW ABOUT WALKING?”

  “Eh, doable. You're still pretty distinctive, and we'd have to work to hide you.”

  Bunny raised a finger. “If you let me pick the ambush site, I can send up a flare when we're ready to call you in.”

  “THUS LETTING HER BE THE DISTRACTION, AND TAKE THE BRUNT OF IT.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, without a trace of shame.

  “NOT A BAD PLAN. LET'S DO THAT. GIVE DIRE A ROUGH LOCATION.” We talked it over with Carson until I was certain of the plan, and what they'd do. Finally, he shook my hand and we turned to leave.

  “By the by...” said Carson. “Before he went off after you, Ballista insisted on taking Scrapper's body for a proper autopsy and burial. Said he wanted to make sure of how he died.”

  I simply nodded, and kept on walking. I had nothing to gain by admitting my guilt or protesting my innocence, here. Ballista had already judged me. If they cared to do so as well, they could do it after our business was done.

  Once back at camp, I tracked down Abernathy. “CAN WE BUILD A MOVEABLE MANTLE FOR SPARKY? SOMETHING OUT OF THICK WOOD, TO SLOW OR STOP BULLETS?”

  She rubbed her hands together, considered the task. “Yeah, I guess so. Though if you want something that thick, moveable's
kind of the wrong term for it.”

  “WHAT IF YOU GET A FEW PEOPLE TO HELP HIM LUG IT AROUND AND MAKE IT BIG ENOUGH FOR THEM TO HIDE BEHIND IT?”

  “That we can probably do. Do we have enough wood?”

  Sparky pointed up the coast. “Same place we get the firewood from. Funland's full of it.”

  “THAT WORKS. TAKE A FEW PEOPLE AND GO GET WHAT YOU NEED.”

  Abernathy raced off, leaving Sparky shaking his head. “She's a good kid,” he said, his voice the softest I'd ever heard it. “I hope she lives.”

  And that hammered it home. That made it more real. Up until now I'd been running on adrenaline, and meeting every threat with defiance because I literally had nothing to lose. But now? Now it wasn't just my life on the line. Now I had a whole camp full of people, kids included, to worry about.

  And I couldn't save them all. We just didn't have the time, didn't have the resources, didn't have the training. Not all of them were going to make it out of here, and the best I could do was keep fighting and hope that enough of them survived to make it worth something.

  I blinked back tears, glad for my mask. Glad for my armor. I'd stopped, there, at the edge of the camp, without even noticing.

  I looked to Minna, hoisting a giggling Anya in her arms. I looked at Joan, wrapping up the chow line and carefully packing the leftover food away so that our people had enough to eat tonight. I looked at Sparky, who was talking with a few of the stronger-looking men, and pointing at the running speck of Abernathy in the distance. At Martin and Tooms, who were pressing bullets, and stacking them carefully into boxes.

  I swallowed, as the tears streamed down my face now, and I barely had the presence of mind to kill my mask's speakers, before I sobbed. Surrounded by people happily preparing for a fight that would be brutal at best, horrendous at worst, I sobbed and shook.

  And all I could think of was dear god, is this what heroes feel like all the time? How the hell do they handle it?

  No wonder Ballista had gone after me. If he'd cared about Scrapper even a bit as much as I'd unexpectedly come to care about these people... well. I'd try to take me out, too.

  I came back to myself, gained control. I blinked away tears, hurried over to the showerhouse, and decanted from the armor. I got a drink and scrubbed my face... Wouldn't do for people to see. Bad for morale.