It was almost the end of me. A shot rang out as my head broke above the surface of the hole, and I ducked as a bullet ricocheted away. Of course they’d put guards on the hole.
I flipped to thermal vision, peered through the thin tiles between the floor and the layer of armor I’d just crawled under, until I found human-shaped signatures stationed around the room.
Well. Time to try out my new laser rifle.
After the fourth shot through their cover without exposing myself to fire, they broke and ran. I hauled myself over the edge, muscles straining. A whining, mechanical sound caught the edge of my hearing... approaching jetpack armor. I ran for a stairwell, pushed the door open, and backed the hell off as bullets rained upward from below, machine guns barking as the ones in the stairs opened up on me. They’d come too far, the guards on this floor had done their job and slowed me down.
I whipped around, ran back out of the stairwell, searching for a janitor’s closet, opened it with my janitorial pass. I grabbed a climbing belt and gloves, struggled into them as I ran back out, and made my way to the main elevator, breath burning in my lungs as I heaved, and cinched up the last few buckles.
From three halls away, I heard the stairwell door blow open. I was about out of time.
I jerked out the universal remote, flipped through it until I had the elevator’s commands on my HUD, and opened it. It was the work of thirty hurried seconds to clip my harness on to the cable, and slide down toward the ruins of the fallen car below. A click of the remote, and the door shut behind me. Wouldn’t hold them long, but it didn’t have to. I tucked the remote safely away, and slid down floor by floor, thanking the boorish supervisor who had assigned me an elevator maintenance task and briefed me on the equipment involved. Without his malice, I wouldn’t have had this escape route handy.
You escape Dire’s vengeance for now, Curtis. This makes us even.
I almost giggled, and knew I was riding an adrenaline rush. Once it was over, I’d be hurting.
An elevator door dinged open six floors below me, and I immediately used my heels to jerk myself to a stop, losing boot leather in the process. A power-armored head leaned in, looked up at me, and caught a laser beam in the faceplate as I fired one-handed. Pretty sure I didn’t penetrate the armor, but he pulled his head back in a hurry. I fumbled for the remote, ended up dropping the rifle down the shaft, but there was no time to curse it. I found the remote, clicked open the door next to me, and swung over as the armored trooper swung back in and sprayed bullets up the shaft. I felt wind against my back as a round missed by millimeters, but I couldn’t spare time to think about it, so I dove through the doors, jerked the pistol I’d liberated from the guard out of my coverall pocket, and shot the lines holding me to the cable. Then I crawled, bit by bit, pulling my legs out of the shaft and the wild spray of bullets—
—and looked up to find four guards staring down at me, shotguns leveled at my face.
For a long moment, there was silence.
“Hands up!” One of them yelled.
I put my hands up.
One of them tapped his comm. “Floor seven, we’ve got her. Security to—”
WHAM!
“HAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA!” I had to laugh. I knew what was coming.
“Down on the ground!” A second one howled, putting his boot on my back and pushing down. My mask hit the ground, saving my head from one hell of a knock.
WHAM!
The building shook.
“HUH, MUST HAVE HIT A SUPPORT THERE. IF SHE WERE YOU, SHE’D BE RUNNING BY NOW.”
“Shut up!” The guard on me yelled, chambering a shell. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it or—”
CRASH!
Dust sprayed from the walls, as my armor burst through, assessed the situation in microseconds, and reacted according to its programming for such a situation.
In this case, the proper response was particle beams.
After the barrage was done and my assailants were sprawled groaning on the floor of the hallway, I picked myself up. “OPEN SESAME!” I commanded, and it knelt down, the vapor hissing free as the back opened, ready to receive me.
And not a moment too soon. I heard doors to the west, north, and south slam open one by one, and the crunching of heavy metal on tile. But then I was inside my shell of steel, and the mask was sealing into its proper place, as the HUD flickered and reset to its full functionality.
The armor had knelt, hollow. It rose full, and at last, I felt complete again.
“ROUND TWO.” I boomed. “FIGHT!”
Damned if they didn’t take me up on it. Bullets raked through the northern wall, and I dodged, spurring to the side and kicking on the gravitics to hover a foot above the ground. But it was a feint, as two dull green figures took the far corner of the west hall, and opened fire with M2 Browning machine guns, the kind you normally see mounted on jeeps or tanks. My forcefield flared and lost charge, and I jetted toward the visible attacker, particle beams blasting. I took bullets, didn’t care, and blew him head over heels. But he recovered quickly, rolling to his feet, and reorienting his gun as his partner backed up.
My foot caught his helmet in a flying kick, and I ran him through the concrete western stairwell wall at fifty miles per hour. He stopped struggling. His partner went full auto and started hosing me down with fifty-caliber shells. I hit him point blank with both particle beams, knocked him back and down. He wasn’t as nimble as his friend, and as he struggled to rise I amped up the particle beams by twenty percent, and hit him with both at point blank range. He flew back, rolling, armor smoking and sparking, the chestplate cracked and ruined.
I spared a glance for my forcefield’s charge. Fifty-two percent.
Crunching noise from my left, and I whirled to see the power armor trooper I’d slammed into the wall, rising from the concrete. He tossed aside his gun and charged me, catching me in the midsection and ramming me through the opposite wall, the next section of office cubicles, and a glass divider. I felt the back plates of my suit take the worst of it, grinding on the ceramic layer below.
I wasn’t idle as he rushed me through the walls. He wasn’t doing that much damage, and I took the opportunity to feel his back, looking for the components that I knew had to be there. I’d noticed that they didn’t have any core vents, no way to shed excess heat from a contained power source, which meant that they most likely didn’t have one. They were probably running off of the power grid, which meant a collector antenna or a Bryson cage. More likely a cage, something built into the armor, flat, and not obvious.
All these thoughts passed in microseconds. Finding the grid itself, under what felt like a slightly-elevated plate, took seconds.
WHAM!
My world shook, as we finally fetched up against the concrete wall on the other side of the floor, and rebounded. He didn’t expect the rebound, and it threw him backward, tumbling. “Get the bitch!” He barked.
I snapped a shot into his back after he came to rest, frying the bryson cage. A storm of electricity boiled upward, scorching papers, blowing computer monitors, and sending chunks of cubicle everywhere. Had I killed him? Hard to tell. Forty-four percent left on the force field. He’d done some damage before he went down. They’d get me through sheer weight of numbers if I wasn’t careful.
From my left and right, two armored figures rushed me. I flew up and away, hovering up by the drop ceiling, taking a lazy circle while I examined them. One of the troopers raised what appeared to be a drum-fed RPG, and I pulled to an instant stop, reversed direction as it spat fire, blasting holes in the drywall to the west and throwing papers into the air with the shockwave. I dove down out of his line of fire and into the cubicles, and the other trooper charged after me, pulled a clunky looking sword from his back. A sword? Really? Then he twisted it, and the blade whined to life, vibrating and blurring as I watched it go. Ah, a vibroblade. Under normal circumstances, in the hands of an average human, it could damage my armor. With hydraulic strength behind it, it cou
ld cut my armor to shreds.
But it was a weapon that depended on high-speed motion, and I had a motion activated forcefield.
“YOU DON’T WANT TO DO THAT.” I advised him, raising a hand, palm outstretched.
He gripped the hilt two handed, charged at me, and cut at my hand, and my forcefield flared as the blade exploded in a shower of metal shrapnel, going every way. He staggered back, shrapnel embedded in his helmet, one of his gauntlets a smoking ruin where the mechanism had been housed.
I darted forward, grabbed his shoulder with one hand, and pounded his helmet once, twice, thrice. On the third one the visor buckled, and he went limp. Faking? Hard to say. I hoisted him two handed, threw him over the cubicles.
Foomp!
I looked down to see a grenade bank off a printer, break through a water cooler tank, and roll, cooler and all, over to my feet.
Well, shit.
After the explosion, I lay still for a second where it had blown me, and checked my charge. Twenty-seven percent. Yeah, they were going to get me through numbers if I kept this up. I’d taken down three and they had nine more. They were on their home turf, and I was the intruder. I’d have to find another way to win.
I flat-palmed my gauntlets to either side of me, and blew a hole in the floor below, dropping into a new floor.
From above, the chattering of machine-gun fire, blasting through the ceiling, seeking me. They had thermal vision, or some sort of tracking? Well, that was fine. I took a few hits on the forcefield, ignored them, and used the Phlogiston projector to set a few cubicles on fire. Then I dove into it, let it heat my shell as the bullets sprayed wildly around me, resisted the urge to react when a few found me. Then when I was well and truly camouflaged, my temperature close to the fire, I darted for the nearest stairwell. But instinct told me to hesitate, and I’m glad I did.
I took a second to scan it... and saw the thin wires criss-crossing the space just beyond the doors. They’d taken the time to trap it.
Rounds spattered off my force field as the bullet fire walked past me, then started walking back. Chips blew out of the concrete wall, and I watched the last of my charge dwindle and drain. Combined with the beating I’d taken, I wouldn’t last long if I had to survive by the armor alone. I knew that staying here was a fool’s game. But tripping those wires was a worse game. Any other exit involved more conflict.
So I made a new one. Particle beams at full, angled diagonally outward and upward to miss the surrounding skyscrapers, I blew another hole in the building and flew through it, bursting out into the daylight, speeding up the Morgenstern tower.
This was one of the reasons I hadn’t focused on engineering speed into my armor. I’d made it to operate in urban environments, and when you can fly, fifty miles per hour is plenty. My goal was in sight, Penthouse level one. I arced around to get a little distance, then rammed straight through the twenty-foot tall glass window, spraying shards all over a very nice plush carpet, as I hovered there, surveying the room around me. Opulent, but tasteful. Dark wood paneling along the walls, wide, tall windows that showed the glorious skyline of tall buildings around the tower, and classical statues and paintings adorned the edges of the room. A pair of sabers hung over a battered triangular shield on one wall. A wooden mask studded with nails adorned another as it glared out at the room. A liquor cabinet the size of a small storefront took up most of the right-hand wall.
And in the center of this space, a sturdy oaken desk sat atop the deep shag carpet, with a computer terminal open and displaying flickering text messages. Progress reports, from the part I saw. Mostly about me, and the destruction I’d wrought in the last few minutes.
“Well well well...” Said a rich, deep voice to my side, and I whipped around to see a part of the paneled wall slide open. It revealed the side of a two-foot thick armored vault door, and a portly figure standing just inside it what had to be a safe room. Various weapons hung on racks within, and monitors along the back flickered and flared.
The figure was six feet tall, give or take an inch. An older man, with hair of white and gray, and a well-cut green business suit that had to cost more than it had taken to build my armor. He had a gut on him, looked to be about three-hundred pounds or so. His face was unsmiling, and his eyes were blue and hard. He leaned upon a black-and-silver cane with a ball for a head, and held a glass of liquor in his other hand. And I knew him, from pictures and footage I’d reviewed long before I’d ever planned malice against his corporation.
“AEGON MORGENSTERN.”
“Doctor Dire, I presume.”
I floated over to the desk, moved around it. He raised an eyebrow, and finished his glass with two quick swallows.
I triggered the universal remote built into the armor. Nothing happened, save for a few angry popups on the computer terminal. Serious countermeasures on that thing. Hardware-based? Possibly.
“You’ve caused me much grief. May I ask why?”
“ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES CAUSED DIRE MUCH GRIEF. SHE RETURNS THE FAVOR.”
“Mm. So you assault my business, put my employees into hospitals or graves, and cause property damage? For shame, Doctor.”
I ignored him, searched under the desk, found the computer. I hoisted it onto the desk, popped the casing. Impressive; near a match to my own. Better parts, but the design wasn’t as efficient.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” He asked.
“YOU’RE STALLING. WAITING FOR YOUR ARMORED TROOPS TO SHOW UP.”
“That would be incorrect. I’m honestly interested in what you have to say about this.”
Something in his voice caught me. I paused, turned to look at him. He’d shut the vault door behind him, leaned on his cane with a faint smile half-hidden by his beard. He looked every inch a jolly old rich uncle on the sitcom of your choice, and I trusted it not a bit.
Danger, my instincts told me. I abandoned my dismantlement of his hard drive, and straightened up. “ARE YOU, THEN?”
“Here,” he said, moving over to a wall panel, and sliding it aside. “A gesture of good faith.” Buttons gleamed in the revealed cavity, red and green and yellow.
I leveled a gauntlet at him. “NO TRICKS.”
“No more than usual.” He hit one of the green buttons, and the room shook. I should have shot him then, but I hesitated, and as I did, layer after layer of metal panels interspersed with black panels slammed down over the windows, into sockets on either side of the glass.
“A mix of carbon fiber nanotube sheets, titanium, chobham, and a few things of my own personal mix. No one enters, no one leaves. Not until we’re done here.”
He closed the panel again, turned to face me fully. “And now we have privacy. I trust you’re recording all of this?”
“YES.” I had planned to blackmail his company, after all. In the event that I saw something incriminating around here but failed to secure it, a sight-based record was better than nothing.
“Well. If you were streaming it through the grid, now you’re not.”
I checked my signal. Yep, cut off from the broadcast grid.
“IF YOUR PLAN WAS TO INTERRUPT DIRE’S POWER SOURCE, YOU FAILED.”
He stepped forward, cane ticking silently on the rug as he moved his ponderous bulk. “Hm? No, no. I can see your design incorporates a generator core and a backup battery. Not often done these days, but I suppose given your origin, it’s understandable.”
I started to take a step back, caught myself. My origin? What did he know about me? Was it something I didn’t?
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” I kept my palm pointed at him, particle cannon ready. He circled the room, and I loomed still as a statue, his eyes locked to my mask’s eyesockets, and vice-versa.
“Why, the Blackout, of course. You rose to your power in the darkest of times, saw the true underbelly of the world, once the veneer of civilization slips away. Saw what we’re really capable of. And though the day was saved—” he sneered, before settling his face back into its pleasant and bl
and expression and continuing “—in your heart you know it could happen again. It drives you. It’s your fear, Miss Dire.”
“A FEAR YOU SHARE, MISTER MORGENSTERN. DIRE RECALLS SEEING YOUR BUILDING AND AIRSHIPS OPERATIONAL DURING THE CRISIS. YOU HAD GENERATORS OF YOUR OWN, AND FAILSAFES READY TO GO.”
He spread his hands. “Some of us remember the time before we put our faith in computers.”
“GOOD. THEN YOU WON’T MIND IF DIRE BORROWS THIS.” I reached over, popped the hard drive free of the casing.
Morgenstern laughed. “Ah. How rich. All this because Billings cheated you. How ridiculous this whole situation is.”
“THAT WAS HIS NAME? SURPRISED YOU HAVEN’T TAKEN THE COST OF THAT OUT OF HIS HIDE.”
He stopped laughing, and his face was like stone, eyes glaring out from under a heavy brow. “Who says I haven’t? Though I don’t give a damn if supervillains lose their payday, I have a reputation to think of. Mister Billings was greedy. He is no longer in my employ, and will trouble you no further.” His face slid back into the kindly uncle’s guise. “I, on the other hand, intend you an end of trouble.”
I tucked the hard drive into my utility compartment. “ODD CHOICE OF WORDS. SHOULDN’T IT BE NO END OF TROUBLE?”
“Oh no, it ends here for you. Thus, it is an end of trouble.”
“IDLE THREATS. GOODBYE, MISTER MORGENSTERN.” I swiveled my gauntlet toward the wall, set the particle beam to maximum penetration, and fired.
Yellow sparks. Nothing but yellow sparks.
He laughed as I tried again, and got nothing but more sparks.
“Golden tinge to the beams, and a distinctive whining sound on the charge. You’re using Clarke reactions to activate the particle streams. Useless if I flood the area with mischarged ions, as I did before I left the safe room.”
Ouch. That would do it. I lowered my gauntlet, and stared at him. “YOU KNOW THIS ONLY SLOWS HER, YES?”
“Oh, well, I’m quite sure you’ve got the strength in that suit to tear through the walls panel by panel. But it will take you time you don’t have.” He jabbed the cane toward me. “Because I’m going to beat you like a drum, doctor.”
DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) Page 23