DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2)

by Andrew Seiple

  “She is dangerous. I have seen eyes like hers before. A killer. A fighter.”

  “Like you?” I asked.

  She grinned. “I am cuter than she is.”

  I snorted. “Point.”

  That made her happier for some reason, she straightened up a bit, and her smile grew.

  Well, whatever. “In any case, Bunny will probably be leaving here soon. We’re going to go run her to the doctor.”

  “I see. You trust me to stay here while you are gone? With the cargo, and your secret lair full of goods and inventions?”

  “Well, yes.” I blinked. “Any reason Dire shouldn’t?”

  She chuckled. “I would not trust me. You have only known me a few days.”

  “Oh. That. Well, Dire’s pretty sure the security system could take you if it came down to it. Maybe not stop you from leaving, but any attempt to abscond with the cargo would end badly for you.”

  Her smile died a bit. “Ah.” But she rallied, and put a hand on my shoulder. “I could come with you on this trip. Just in case.”

  “Are you sure?” I looked at her hand, decided it wasn’t doing any harm there. “It will probably be boring. Just a run out to drop her off, and maybe some takeout on the way back, or something.”

  “It would be less boring than staying here alone. Besides, I would like to talk with you more.” She squeezed my shoulder, and stared up into my eyes.

  “Okay. Well, let’s collect Martin and get going then.”

  Her smile cooled a bit, and she let go of my shoulder. I gave her a nod, went back to the lounge, knocked on the door.

  “Safe to come out yet?” He asked.

  “Er... as it always is, yes.”

  “She wearing clothes, I mean?”

  “Oh. Yes, come on out.”

  Bunny offered the phone back to me when we returned to the front room, but I put up a hand and shook my head. “No need. Keep it for now. Here, take Dire’s number if you need something after this.” I gridmailed it to her phone. “So, what’s the word?”

  “He’ll see me in half an hour, over in the Cove. Can I beg a ride?”

  I moved to the window, looked over the pickup’s progress. The robots were finishing up its new paint job. “Might be a bit tight, but we can probably do it. We’ll have to wait for the paint to dry a bit.”

  And twenty minutes later, we were driving north. The three of us in the pickup, and Vorpal on her motorcycle.

  Cobbles Cove was the oldest part of Icon City. Back before Nikola Tesla had bought the land to the west of it, the Cove was a small New England fishing village. Now it was a sleepy residential area, that had last seen major infrastructure rework back in the seventies. Blocks of weathered apartments and prefab houses shared space with strip malls and small parks. The subway station here conveyed many of the residents to their jobs in the surrounding districts... the only real fishing and cargo business left in Icon had moved south to Whalers Wharf long ago. According to Martin, most of it was Die Kriegers turf. He pointed out men in green jackets as we drove by, and I was surprised to find their colors identical to the gangers down the street.

  “They’re in Whaler’s Wharf, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  I decided not to mention I’d stolen a van from them. He’d only worry.

  We finally found the place, with two minutes left before Bunny’s appointment. It was a small orange brick building, perhaps two stories with a belltower. The sign proclaimed it to be the Greenwater Methodist church. The lot was bare of other cars, and I wondered if the doctor was running late. But the side door was unlocked, and I held it open as Martin helped Bunny through, giving her a shoulder to lean on. Vorpal brought up the rear, glancing around. She’d left her sword behind, hidden in a compartment on her motorcycle, but I was sure that she was armed in some manner.

  Inside, white-painted concrete hallways stretched into closed wooden doors. The floor was tile and a bit dusty, and noteboards were stacked with fliers proclaiming bake sales, campouts, and other community events.

  “Is this the right place?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Bunny said. “You know what a sacristy looks like?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. Don’t know what the word means.”

  “I got it,” said Martin. “It’s where you keep vestments and censers and stuff. Different place in every church, though.”

  “So a store room. I’ll go looking,” Vorpal said, and headed off.

  I kept my guard up. The last time I’d been in a church it had been bad. At least this one had power, this time around.

  Vorpal returned after a minute. “Found it.”

  “Anyone in there?” I asked.

  “No, but there are instruments laid out, and medical supplies around.”

  “He’ll be along,” Bunny said through gritted teeth. She was braced on Martin, with sweat pouring down her face. Just the walk from the parking lot to this point had done a number on her.

  “Think Hollowhusk has branched out?” I arched an eyebrow at Martin.

  “Shush.” He shot a look toward Bunny. Ah, right, vigilante. Probably didn’t need to know about that contact. But she paid no attention, so I let it drop.

  The sacristy was a ten by fifteen room, with shades over its windows, and a few hanging fluorescent tubes. Racks of vestments hung on the wall, along with children’s costumes and puppets. Bits of odds and ends had been cleared away, with a cot set up in the center of it, and a lamp shining down from a stand. Stainless steel medical tools were set on a towel, resting on a card table that had been pushed against the wall.

  “Well,” I said, “we’ve got everything but the doctor.”

  “You called, I came.”

  The voice was rich, deep, and coming from behind us. I don’t think any of them could have faulted me for spinning around and grabbing for a weapon, not when they were doing the same themselves.

  The man behind us didn’t look concerned. He had a deep, walnut-brown skin, and black hair that was running to gray. Stocky, with a bit of a gut. He was in his forties or early fifties, perhaps, wearing a lab coat, slacks and a shirt, glasses, and a patient smile.

  “Easy,” said Bunny. “That’s him.”

  “Guess there’s no point in asking who my patient is,” he said. And something about his voice tugged at my memory.

  I knew where I’d heard it before. And that body shape, that skin tone...

  Freeway! This was Freeway!

  “Trap!” I yelled, diving into the doorway and wrestling a screamer grenade out of my purse.

  “Whoa, hold on,” he protested. “I don’t know what—”

  In the hall, Vorpal paused in the middle of drawing a knife, and from the room I saw her eyes go wide...

  And another familiar voice echoed through the hall. “Gotcha, Doc!”

  Timetripper.

  Vorpal went still, as a shimmer appeared around her. She looked almost frozen. “Martin!” I yelled. “Earplugs!”

  I took a few steps back and popped my own earplugs in, but before I could throw the grenade the air in front of me flickered, and I could hear normally again. Freeway had taken my earplugs.

  He reappeared, standing next to Vorpal, arms outstretched and looking down the hall. “Nobody move! That means you too— hey!”

  Everything slowed, as the air blurred, and I saw Freeway’s face shift into a mask of confusion—

  —As Timetripper, now wearing a tattered tie-dye shirt and a pair of bell-bottoms, sauntered past Martin. He ducked Martin's easy swing in slow motion, and tried to go around Freeway. Tried being the operative word, as Freeway sped up, and clocked him one in the jaw.

  “Ow! Fuck man, what the hell!” Timetripper’s words were distant, like noise through water.

  I reached for my taser in slow motion.

  Freeway pointed at him.“I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re violating a truce. Stand down and leave.” His voice was clear.

  He didn’t see another Timetripper comi
ng in from the side. I tried to yell a warning, but my lips were moving slowly, slowly...

  And then the other Timetripper grabbed Vorpal.

  BIP!

  Just like that they were gone, Vorpal with them, and time returned to normal.

  “Freeway look behind— oh.” I finished.

  “The hell?” Freeway asked.

  “It was a trap, but not from you.” I said, returning the screamer grenade to my purse.

  “Wait. Freeway? Fuck, I knew I recognized that voice!” Martin said.

  “No way...” Bunny muttered.

  Freeway sighed, pulled his spectacles from his face, and mopped them sourly as he glared at me. “Well, congratulations. It was a good secret identity while it lasted. Now get that young lady up on the table, will you?”

  I shook my head. “We have no intention of disclosing your true identity, whoever you are.”

  “Good. Safer that way. Now please leave the room and let me take a look at my patient.”

  I followed his orders, and Martin tagged along behind. Once the door was shut, he looked at me. “Okay, so what are we gonna do about Vorpal?”

  I gave him a blank look. “Do?”

  “Yeah. How we gonna rescue her?”

  “Well, Dire’s pretty sure he pulled her somewhere else in time. So we’re going to need a time machine, then a way to track Timetripper through time. Dire’s going to put that on her list of long-term goals.”

  “We’re not—” He closed his mouth. “No. Guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “No, not really. No way to get to them without time travel capabilities. He might bring her back once he realizes his mistake. She’s probably educating him on it very vigorously.” A thought crossed my mind. “Well, assuming he didn’t send her back in time to a point where the Earth’s atmosphere was unbreatheable. Or forward to a time like that, given how we’re going with greenhouse emissions. Might be able to save her depending on what he did. But he doesn’t strike Dire as a lethal-force type of hero. Odds are he just stranded her somewhere.”

  “Doesn’t feel right,” Martin said, crossing his arms. “I mean, I got no real love for Vorpal, but she’s part of the team until we’re done with—”

  I held up a hand. “Let’s not discuss this while there’s only a thin wooden door between us and a hero, hm?”

  A muffled “Thank you,” from Freeway through the door. Martin jumped a bit, looked chagrined.

  We waited in silence, and after a few minutes, the door opened. Freeway stood there, glowering.

  “A speedster with surgical skills,” I remarked. “Handy, that.”

  “So you’re Dire.” He looked me up and done. “Figured you’d be meaner looking.”

  I shrugged. “She’ll try to snarl more next time.”

  “You’re awfully calm right now.”

  “If you wanted her beaten to a pulp and captured you’d have tried it by now. But you mentioned a truce, so she’s going to assume this is neutral ground..”

  He shot a glance over at Martin. “You weren’t lying. She’s difficult to parse.”

  Martin shrugged, then chewed on his cheek for a second. “Hey. Man, I’m sorry.”

  Freeway shook his head. “You made the wrong choice and you know it. I don’t think I want to talk to you again until you’re back in jail. And you will end up there, if you don’t die first. Being a minion’s no way to live, son.”

  Martin’s face fell. Shame warred with guilt, and he took a shuddering breath. All the while, Freeway just looked at him.

  “He’s no minion,” I said.

  “No? Hmph. Make sure it stays that way.” He turned his back on Martin, and pointed down the hall. “I want to talk with you. You mind?”

  “Actually, no.” I was curious. This wasn’t the sort of hero I was used to. “Lead the way.”

  He walked down the hall, to a door that had a ‘community room’ sign on it, and even held it for me as I strolled through. I debated taking one of the loose folding chairs that were scattered around the bare room, and when he settled into one with a grunt of weariness, I decided to stay on equal footing. I took one, spun it around, and surveyed him as I sat.

  “Martin’s told me about you.” He began.

  “Dire imagines you had plenty of time to speak with him in the jail. Thank you for paying for his lawyer, by the way.”

  He waved a hand. “Money’s no problem for me now. Least I could do for the kid.”

  “Curious about that.”

  “Why?”

  I crossed my wrists on the back of the chair, took a second before responding. “Why were you concerned with Martin’s welfare?”

  “I wasn’t. I was concerned he wouldn’t get a fair trial.”

  “He had no chance of that. The system was rigged against him.”

  “Did he kill those cops?”

  “No!” I was surprised. Surely Martin had told him that?

  “You didn’t either?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the whole world thinks you and he did.”

  “That was the Black Bloods. The cops were corrupt, and didn’t do the job the Bloods paid them to do—”

  “Which won’t matter, because now people think this crime’s on you. Because you couldn’t wait for that charge to be disproved.”

  “You’re assuming Dire cares what stupid people believe.” I felt my face draw into a scowl. “The ones that matter to her know the truth.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I cocked my head at an angle. “What?”

  “You talked about ’The ones that matter to you’. What about the ones that don’t?”

  “Well, they’re free to live their lives, unless they’re part of a problem. Then some adjustments will be necessary.”

  “Like the ones driving home on I-3 an hour ago?”

  I studied him. “You knew about that?”

  He grunted. “So that was you. Wasn’t sure until you said that.”

  I winced. Walked right into that. Twice I’d fallen for that trick, now. Had to get better at banter. Work on a poker face.

  “Partly her,” I said. “The opposition was... less careful of their surroundings and the bystanders than Dire.”

  “Then that’s on them,” he said. “But it’s also on you. So I ask again; what about the people you don’t care about? How many of them are you going to hurt? How many are going to die?”

  I stood, sending the chair clattering to the ground as heat coursed through me. I felt my face flush, and breathed hard, trying to control my temper.

  “How dare you. How dare you! She went to war to save people from the Black Bloods! All of them, not just her friends!”

  He took the spectacles off, rose to face me. “Yes. And that was a bad situation. You hit your power surge in a bad time, and you did the best you could. But now the war’s over.”

  A throbbing in my temples, as I shook in rage. Why couldn’t he see? “That war? Yes!” I hissed. “But the system itself is broken! Your society is flawed. Too many crises, too many near-misses, and all it takes is one patch of bad luck, or one semi-competent powerful villain, and the world is fucked. The system is broken. It needs to be fixed! And if you and the rest of the heroes won’t do it, then Dire will.”

  He sighed. In the faint light from the windows, he looked older. Tired. He reminded me of Roy all of a sudden, and I felt some of the rage ebb out of me. This man wasn’t my enemy. He wasn’t broken. He didn’t need fixing.

  “That’s the problem,” he said. “You can’t fix the system from the outside. You want real change? You have to work with the system. Change it from the inside. That’s the only way to make it last.”

  “Really?” I asked, moving around the chairs, to stop a few feet from him. “Then why are you here?”

  “To fix your friend.”

  “And why couldn’t she go to the hospital for that?”

  He replaced his glasses, and frowned. “I see where you’re going wi
th this. You’re going to use my own pro bono work as an excuse for your villainy. Not buying it.”

  “Oh? What’s the difference? You’re doing this because the system doesn’t work for her.” I shrugged. “Let’s be honest, the state of the modern medical complex in this nation is a joke. They broke and twisted the laws to put the doctors under their thumbs, and extort the sick and the elderly, and collaborated with the insurance companies that were supposed to keep them in check. And that’s not even getting into the price-fixing plaguing big pharmaceutical companies—”

  He held up a hand. “Enough. You’re reminding me of why I retired. The reason I offer this service because without it, people die or get hurt needlessly. Gangsters and villains need doctors too, and this way gets bad people their medical care so they don’t go getting desperate and stupid.”

  I nodded. “Don’t you see? This is as it should be. Doctors should be free to heal people, without the bureaucracy or the sanction of the rich and uncaring.”

  “And people should be able to drive on the roads without getting injured when a supervillain hijacks a truck.”

  I shook my head. “We’re not going to see eye to eye on this.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I appreciate the good you’ve done, but I hate the bad you’ve done. When you’re ready to admit your approach is bad, find me. I’ll help you make things right.”

  I looked at him for a long moment.

  “You’re a hell of a lot more reasonable than Quantum. For the record, she appreciates that.”

  “Eh. Twenty years a surgeon, and I still can’t tell you the proper procedure for removing the stick from Doc Quantum’s ass.”

  I stared at him for a long minute, surprised. Then he winked, and I burst into laughter.

  He was smiling by the time I finished. “Good. Had me worried for a minute there.”

  “You know the funny part?” I asked. “You’re the second superhero she’s met who’s doing the doctor thing as a secret identity. Is that a custom in this city?”

  Freeway shrugged. “Usually how it works is you find your powers in the most stressful moment of your life. Doesn’t surprise me if another medical professional ended up with a power surge.”

  That wasn’t precisely the case with the Last Janissary, I thought, but I shelved the notion. Another, more pressing question, was crossing my mind.