“Then why are they wearing your symbol? Nice try, now call them off!” Quantum barked, swapping out his ionic nullifier for a kinetic charge blaster.
I laughed, long and hard, as the jet shuddered, and jerked downward. “Let her guess. We’re near the Morgenstern building, yes?”
Quantum paused for a minute. “Damnation.” He jogged to a diagnostic panel, started hammering the buttons. I watched the lights reflect against his goggles, and his face grow grim.
“Doc Quantum, are you there?” A modulated voice growled through the panel.
“I’m here.”
“Release our leader, and we’ll return your wife and friend unharmed. We have control of your bridge. We have your friends with us. Defy Dire and they die.”
“Not your minions, hm?” He glared at me.
“Good luck connecting them to Morgenstern.” I told him, as sweetly as I could. “After Dire's dead, she means.”
He shook his head. “Not on my watch. Not even you.”
“You know,” I said. “The saddest part about this is that you’re supposed to be a genius.”
“Well, Quantum? What’s it to be?” The voice snarled out of the panel again.
He looked toward Schrodinger. Schrodinger didn’t move.
“No, Dire takes that back. The saddest part of this is that you’ve grown so dependent on your cheat-button that the second he goes out of action, you’re useless.”
Quantum was breathing hard now, hand shaking as he stabbed the buttons... but nothing happened.
“Time’s up, Doc. Say goodbye to your wife—”
“Wait!” He yelled, pounding one last button. “Wait. You can have her. Here, I’m letting Dire go.”
“You’re assuming that Dire wants to go.” I told him.
He crossed over, gun still in his hand, and shut down the bars. Before I could say anything, he grabbed me under the arm, and I hissed as he hauled me up over his shoulder. “I don't see a choice in the matter.” He muttered.
I cursed my luck as he carried me toward the hatch, pushing aside the box before opening it up. I was looking straight at the back of his utility belt, and the only arm I had within reach to take things out of it had a hand full of broken fingers.
I clenched my teeth against the burst of pain as he handed me off to cold, metal-shod arms. I twisted my head around, and surveyed the bridge of the jet. Countless panels, all of them unlabeled. Two obvious seats, pilot’s and co-pilot’s. And a shattered window, with what looked like an emergency forcefield enclosing the gap. Nothing major, just enough to keep air from escaping, and prevent depressurization.
Kinetica lay in a corner, senseless. Siegebreaker was still against the wall, with what looked to be an EMP mine slapped onto his front chestplate. And four jetpacked, power-armored forms stood around the cockpit. One of them cradled Vorpal’s unconscious form. A second had my wrecked armor strapped to his back. Another third one took me, held me in his oversized arms like a parent would a child. And the fourth had an assault rifle pointed at Kinetica.
The painted, imperfect copy of my own mask stared down at me, without mercy or condemnation. The paint was still a little wet, I noted, and I snorted laughter. Then I coughed blood. Ah, right, broken nose. No snorting for a while. Though I had the feeling that I’d have bigger problems than my injuries, soon.
“Thank you,” the one holding me said. “Do it.”
Quantum shuddered in surprise, leaped toward Kinetica. “No! Don’t—”
And the one holding Vorpal drew a pistol as fast as a striking snake, and put a bullet in his leg. Quantum collapsed, clutching one knee, and gasping in pain.
“Go go go!” My captor ordered, and one by one, they jumped through the semi-permeable membrane of the forcefield, firing their jetpacks on as they went. We were the third ones through, and I gasped as the windstream hit my face. Icon City was below, and for a dizzying second I was reminded of my orbital drop, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things—
—and then we were jetting out and away. I clutched my captor tightly, as he curled around a skyscraper, and descended into the city proper.
“Stealth up!” He commanded, and I blinked as we faded from view. Everything went dim around us. They hadn’t shown this capability during our last fight. Then again, I hadn’t gone up against the jetpack models directly... come to think of it, it would explain how they approached so close to the Quantum Jet, and go the drop on Tomorrow Force.
Ironic, that my ambushers had also been ambushed.
And as the looming silhouette of Morgenstern Tower filled the distance, I closed my eyes.
I’d tried. Really I had.
I wondered if Morgenstern would put that on my tombstone.
CHAPTER 18: A SINISTER MASTER PLAN
“Got to admit, I had her figured for something special the moment she burst through the doors. So I shut up and watched her as best I could. If she keeps on going, sooner or later someone's gonna hire us to go up against her. And that'll be an interesting day...”
--Overheard conversation between Grim and Epitaph members of the Graveyard Gang supervillain team.
They ran us through scanners upon arrival, of course. Divested Vorpal of a few knives. They looked concerned when my scans set off alarms the first time through, but a few follow-up scans didn’t seem to show anything. Our questions were ignored, and no one spoke a word directly to us. At every step, the four powered armor troopers were in the room with us, or within sight, and the painted images of my mask seemed to promise that I would regret any trouble. For my part, I focused most of my energy on staying conscious. I was exhausted, wounded, and depressed, and found it hard to care about my ultimate fate.
Finally, with our hands cuffed together, shackled into wheelchairs, they rolled us out from the landing bay they’d arrived in, and took us back to that dark-paneled office. The shutters were still down, and several heavy tarps covered the hole I’d blown through the wall to escape. The room had been somewhat cleaned, though shrapnel still dotted the ceiling and the desk from my last desperate gambit.
I noted that the screamers had destroyed a few of the crystalline art pieces. I felt a smile crawl across my lips. Good.
They left us alone there, shackled to the chairs. Even the armored troopers left. Vorpal looked to me, once the last orderly had filed out. “What do you think—”
I shook my head, though it hurt to do so. “They’re still listening.”
She fell silent. We waited to die.
And after a minute and a half, the safe room door opened, and Morgenstern emerged. He was wearing a fat-suit again, cut as nicely as the one I’d helped destroy. He carried a small silver case with him, that he put on the desk with exaggerated grace before he turned to us. His bearded face was unreadable. I noted he had no traces of injury upon it. I’d expected burst blood vessels from close-range exposure to the screamer, or a few scars from the shrapnel cuts. But he looked untouched. Unruffled.
“You have questions, I’m sure.” He said, popping open the case. Two slender syringes full of amber liquid were revealed, glistening evilly in the dim light.
“Get it over with,” I muttered.
He picked up the syringe, flicked the side of it with one finger. Studied it, flicked it again. “Very well.”
As wounded as I was, the needle barely registered when he stuck it in my neck. Morgenstern depressed the plunger, pulled it back empty, then replaced it inside the case. He repeated the process with Vorpal, before moving around to sit in his chair.
I glared at him the whole way.
He glared back, pulled a pair of spectacles from his pocket, perched them on his nose, then looked down to his keyboard and started tapping away.
Minutes passed. Weirdly enough, I started to feel better. My back spasmed, but... every time I twitched, the pain lessened. My face tightened as my skin literally crawled, but I felt the burning pain of the cut on my forehead cool, and disappear. I glanced over to the shiny surface of a metal
suit of armor tucked into one corner, and watched as the bruises on my face faded away, and my broken nose twisted, and regained the fullness of its shape.
“You healed us?” Vorpal asked. “Why?”
“The fruit of the Gamanu tree blossoms every decade. From it can be distilled an extract that extends the lifespan, heals every injury inflicted upon the imbiber within the last week, clears the vision, purges any toxin, ameliorates most diseases, and leaves the breath minty fresh.” Morgenstern said, still distracted.
“That did not answer Vorpal’s question,” I observed.
“Ask me if I care.” He finished up tapping on the keyboard, and stood, cracking his knuckles. “That’s three doses of the stuff you’ve cost me today. That little device of yours hurt. I suppose congratulations are in order, that’s the worst I’ve been injured in years.”
“The screamer grenade? Yes. It does that.”
“I’m rather surprised you didn’t utilize it sooner, or during your assault on my property.”
“Too much potential for collateral. Too lethal if things go wrong.”
Morgenstern hmphed, at that, and looked happier. He stood up from behind the desk, walked around, and tapped my chair with his cane. The shackles fell away, and my restraints unlocked. He moved over, did the same for Vorpal.
I saw it in her eyes the second she was free. “Vorpal! Don’t!”
She flinched, shot me a look. Naked fear in her eyes, and Morgenstern laughed as he moved back behind the desk. “I suggest you listen to your friend. She’s the only reason you’re still alive, girl.”
Vorpal spat an incomprehensible curse at him, and seemed startled when he fired a barrage of similar-sounding words back at her. They chatted for a moment, in her native tongue. He broke off when he noticed the look of perplexity adorning my face. “You don’t speak German?”
I shook my head.
“I suggest you learn it.” His eyes wandered up to my forehead, then back to mine. “Soon. Russian too.”
“What?” He’d lost me.
“Trust me, it’ll come in handy.”
I studied him, and he studied me back, with a smug light dancing around his eyes. Incomprehensible, but I had other worries. “This Gamanu extract of yours—“
“Not mine. The Lost King Prester John developed the thing, before the Atlanteans caught up with him.”
“Whatever, look... this extract, it cleanses any toxin. Does it also undo the effects of the Algernon pollen?”
“As it happens, no.”
Hope died within me. “Then why did you bother injecting Dire?” I snapped. “Killing her would have been kinder!”
“Algernon pollen?” Vorpal looked confused.
“Do you want to tell her or shall I?” I asked Morgenstern.
“I don’t care. She’s your henchwoman, you tell her whatever you like.”
“The flowers are from one of Morgenstern’s projects, code-named ‘Algernon’. They’re a fate worse than death for those they infect. They slowly change the brains of those who inhale them, inhibiting the neural pathways and development that occurs when the subject gains superpowers that involve intelligence, or enhanced cognition. It also causes significant and chronic degradation to those with the structures already in place.”
“You will have to slow down. I do not understand many of those words.”
“They cause brain damage, strokes, and medical problems for super-geniuses.” I said. “Like Dire. Or Doc Quantum. Best case is survival with extreme retardation. Worst case is death.”
Her eyes were wide. “You breathed the pollen...”
“Which is why Dire is doomed regardless of Morgenstern’s inexplicable kindness.” I stood, stretched as I considered him. He looked back, silent. “Why did you hold back, at the end? Why did seeing Dire’s face change your mind?”
He stood as well, looked up a bit to meet my gaze. Shorter than me, but not by much. Steel in those eyes. He pulled the spectacles off, folded them, tucked them in his breast pocket. “That question I will not answer.” He said simply. “But I can alleviate your other fear. The pollen you inhaled was not Algernon’s intended strain.”
“No?” I breathed easier, as a vast weight lifted from my shoulders, to be replaced by a different worry. “What was it then? Those flowers did something. You wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to secure them if they didn’t.”
“We’re still determining that.” He frowned. “My chief researcher in the project went rogue. He never intended Algernon to come to fruition, so to speak.”
“Vector.”
Morgenstern scowled. “Yes. Professor Vector. Insufferable prick.” He paced, tapped his cane against the carpet as he went, venting his anger through motion. “He was running a game on me, the idiot. Thought I wouldn’t see until it was too late. He corrupted the work, built the pollen to do something else; just what that is, we’re still figuring out. But we stopped him from making off with the samples he wanted. Burned everything, save for our own samples. Those we were going to send upstate, to an uncompromised laboratory. Then you happened.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to run a game on Dire.” I snarled. “All this could have been averted if your man had negotiated in good faith!”
“No it bloody well wouldn’t have,” he shot back. “You had one of Vector’s damnable mutants with you! He would have reported the truth straight back to his master, and then I’d have been worse off.”
“Chaingang?” Vorpal whispered. “A mutant?”
“Not human now, if he ever was to begin with,” Morgenstern said. “One of Vector’s more disturbing projects. Dragontooth, or something like that.”
“Likes his grandiose names, he does,” I mused. “What did he call the plant-kaiju?”
“Damned if I know. Those were a surprise. They were the only reason he got away from us in the first place after his treachery came to light.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And now it’s coming to light that the research he used to pitch Algernon to me was flawed in the first place. Metahuman brains, even the mentalists, aren’t significantly different enough for a single disease to suppress them. I tell you, one simply can’t trust mad scientists these days. What’s the world coming to, hm?”
I snorted. “Her bleeding heart goes out to you. Got a small violin anywhere? She’ll play a sympathy jig.”
He laughed, and for a second I caught something like fondness in his eyes. But it was gone, and I wondered.
“In any case, I’ve made a right mess of things.” He leaned against the wall, and sighed. “Whatever the stuff does, he needed my resources to produce it, and now he has the sample batch he wanted. That makes it my responsibility to clean up.”
“You could just leave it to the heroes.” I said, a wry grin teasing at my lips.
He looked at me. I looked back, lips quivering, until I couldn’t hold it anymore and howled laughter. He roared back, pounding his cane against the desk. Finally I collapsed back into my wheelchair. He tossed me a handkerchief and I used it to mop tears from my face. Vorpal just looked back and forth between us like we had both gone insane.
“Ha— Mf. Hmf. Ahem.” Morgenstern got ahold of himself. “Now that we’ve had our levity, it really is a problem. Vector’s half-baked, but he doesn’t share our resource limitations. The man can make his weapons with a bathtub, a handful of Gerber seeds, and some cleaning solutions. Worse, he’s off the grid. I was hoping to track the pollen through its radioactivity, but that’s going to take time to get the drones up in the air. I don’t have enough fitted with Geiger counters to cover the city in less than two days. And by then he’ll have relocated. The man’s nothing if not canny. I’d have him dead by now if he wasn’t.”
“Mm. Good thing Dire slipped tracking devices inside the crates.”
He stared at me. “You did that?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Glorious! Ah, wait, he’ll check for that.”
“They’re microdots, hidden in the growlights.
He’d have to check well.”
“Regular frequency?”
“Burst. They fire every half-hour.”
He grinned. “Beautiful. What frequency?”
“Ain’t saying.”
He lost the grin. “Doctor, the world is literally at stake, here.”
“Could be. But it seems to Dire, that you already stiffed her once on a deal. So Dire’s got to recoup the losses you’ve given her already.” I shrugged.
“I healed you, woman!” He stood, pounding his hands on the desk.
I rose as well. “From the injuries that you inflicted, mostly! After wrecking her armor so that Tomorrow Force scooped her up like ice cream out of a tub.”
“After you invaded MY building, and hurt MY people— gah. You know what? Forget it. This is counterproductive. You’re pursuing this insane vendetta for money, yes?”
“Well...” When he put it that way? “Yes.”
He sighed, swiveled the monitor toward me. A much simpler display shown on it than the last time I’d been here. New computer of course. “Tell me an account, and I’ll drop five million into it.”
Five... million? I tried to hide my shock.
“Ten.” Vorpal spoke up.
Morgenstern shot her a dirty look. “Five, and I’ll call off the bounty I was going to put on your head.”
“Eight and we keep this whole thing a secret after we are done.” Vorpal smiled.
Morgenstern was having none of it. “It’s in your best interests to keep it a secret anyway. Five.”
I spoke. “Eight and Dire’s going to need access to your power armor labs to repair her suit before we go kick his ass.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming along personally? Both of you? Six, and all other conditions you’ve set here are acceptable.”
“One more,” Vorpal said, and Morgenstern rolled his eyes, made little ‘go on’ motions with one hand. “No vendetta after this. No grudge. You don’t come after us, and we don’t come after you.”
Morgenstern pursed his lips, and looked to me. His voice grew low and soft. “What you said earlier... did you mean it?”
DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) Page 28