Sure enough he was out in a matter of minutes, but I was busy. The last time I’d done something like this, I’d been remotely piloting a drop pod from low Earth orbit. Now I was directly in my armor, a mere few inches of metal and hardened ceramic protecting me from the screaming wind, jetting at full speed and letting gravity throw me down. Forget Apollo in his chariot, I was Daedalus with his wings, laughing and howling my joy as I screamed through the sky!
The keys to the plan were the kaiju, really. They were simple things, based on my experience with them. They were a huge obstacle— fast, strong, and tough, but they weren’t smart. So we used long-range fire to draw them away from our goal. By the time they got to the hill, Vasquez and his squad would have fired all the rest of the missiles at them, packed back up, and driven to the west to block off any potential retreats in that direction, or the north.
A sonic boom ripped out around me as I crested the halfway point, and I saw Chaingang look up. Vector burst out of the cabin with some sort of meaty-looking organic gun thing in his arms, with tubes running to a pack on his back. Was he really going to fight? Didn’t match what I’d known of him.
I watched through the tac-net as one of the kaiju turned from pursuit, alerted by Grim’s group. I fretted for a moment, but I shouldn’t have. Grim flew straight into the clutching vines, scythe slashing, cutting them to bits. The thing lunged at him, missing, and tried again. But every time it lunged it seemed to sink a bit. Gravedigger? Yes! I watched trees near the thing topple, as the ground around it softened, drawing it downward.
A massive club of vines twisted together managed to crash into Grim, sending him splattering against a tree... but he pulled himself back upright, muscles and bones snapping together instantly as he flew forward and cleaved back into the thing, relentless. He was unstoppable!
While he drew all the attention, a flash of blue on the far side of it caught my attention, as Vorpal leaped through the trees. Her blade flamed as it caught the thing in the largest clump of vines and it howled and thrashed. It sent vines her way, but she danced back, and Epitaph stepped up next to her. The white stone woman let the vines wrap around her, then grabbed them right back and pulled. I watched her drag the thing away, winding it around a tree, while Vorpal beat it to flaming bits and Grim chopped it apart faster than it could regenerate. The whole fight took less than a minute, and I had to focus my attention back to my landing zone, as I pulled up, dispersing momentum and straining my gravitics.
I saw Chaingang flinch as a BOOM shattered the windows of the remaining cabins when physics caught up with me. He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear him, not with my sound baffles on. He was up to about fifty with his mob. Half of them he sent down toward the dock, running with the boxes, and I took down as many as I could with particle beams. He was tough. I was up against clones, so I’d set them to lethal. They crisped and fell, and occasionally I’d cut off the progenitor of a major branch, so multiples would fall and collapse to goo. It was pretty effective, and for a moment I thought we wouldn’t need the rest of the plan. If I could whittle him down fast and stun his main body, then we could destroy the flowers at our leisure.
That was the hope, up until the point that Vector pointed his organic gun at me, and shot a long stream of liquid my way. I aborted my fire to dodge, and I was glad I did. Where the liquid fell, the ground smoked and sizzled. Acid of some sort. I watched it melt gravel, and swore in amazement. Nasty, nasty stuff.
Chaingang used the opportunity to grab up several fallen, spilled boxes, and huck them toward the dock. Vines rose up out of the water to grab them.
“Alpha team, go!” I yelled through the tacnet. In the east, four contrails rose as they burst from their van and jetted into the air, using the afterburners on their crude but effective jetpacks. They’d be over here in seconds.
Vector fired at me again, and I rose to try and get out of range of his sprayer. And then I cheered, as the first wave of zombies ran into the clearing.
Turns out that corpses don’t have to worry about pain or exhaustion. As long as their leg muscles are relatively intact, they can go at speeds that most living folks can’t match for long. They dogpiled the professor, taking him down. With that done, I resumed my assault on Chaingang. A few boxes had made it to the water, but they were still there, held by the kaiju under the dock. Without commands, it wasn’t doing anything, not smart enough to run.
I started mixing in Phlogiston beams with particle beams, setting the boxes alight, burning the flowers. Chaingang fought like hell, literally throwing his own bodies in front of my shots, but he couldn’t stop my inexorable progress. However, I couldn’t get a shot off at his main body. He’d hidden it in one of his clusters, and there were too many of him in the way. As many as I was taking out, it wasn’t enough to thin him down in a timely fashion. I’d win eventually, but it would take a while.
Fortunately, we’d planned for that. It was the reason that the battle had been silent for me.
I grinned, as Chaingang stopped, and shook his head. I laughed as I watched every copy of him fall over, weeping. Slowly the outermost duplicates of him started deflating, one by one, until only a few remained.
Whippoorwill stepped out of the woods, followed by Deadweight, who had his own set of earplugs. She was gesturing, her hands languidly tracing out a sad song. I watched her for a bit, then glanced back to Chaingang, found him down to a few copies. I flew down to hover above his original body, switched to the tasers, and blasted him until he dropped.
“Trouble!” Hicks called through the tacnet.
I switched over to their view, and gasped.
Vines were rising from the lake, flinging rocks and tree trunks at the jetpack troopers. I watched one get clocked, and groaned as his link went out. The kaiju hit hard.
“Evasive!” I said. But as I did, I took a look at the vines, and my eyes went wide. That was more than one kaiju down there. That was a either a lot of them, or one really, really big kaiju.
Well. We had a way to fix that, didn’t we? We had their master at our mercy. I turned toward Professor Vector, who was still struggling under the bulk of the zombies. I watched as he threw a dead man off, only for the corpse to jump back to its feet and run back, newly-broken ribs protruding through its putrid flesh.
Wait. Wait a minute.
Why wasn’t he saddened by Whippoorwill’s song?
I turned to her, made ‘cut’ motions, and she froze.
“She’s off.” Deadweight confirmed.
I moved closer to the pile, reached in to pull the gun away from Vector. I couldn’t. I tried harder, got nothing. It was like it was stuck to his hand.
I reached in, grabbed both his arms, and hauled him up... and stared into a frothing, lunatic’s face devoid of intelligence or anything but malice. No glasses, and his eyes were huge pupils. His lab coat was dirty, and the body below was misshapen. The gun wasn’t stuck to his hand, it was his hand. The pack on his back was a part of his back.
I tased him and dropped him. That seemed to work at least. “Body double!” I shouted through the tacnet. “No eyes on Vector! Spread out and look!”
The rest of the Graveyard Gang burst into the clearing. I removed my sound baffles. Whippoorwill wouldn’t sing with so many friendlies close. “RIGHT,” I boomed. I glanced over at the crates, still entangled with the Kaiju under the docks. “GET THOSE BOXES AND DESTROY THEM. DIRE’S GOING TO HAVE TO—“
“Dire what the hell is this mess?”
A familiar voice, but an unexpected one. I turned, and Freeway stood fifty feet away, tapping his feet, glaring at me.
The Graveyard Gang hesitated, and I waved them toward the kaiju. “GO! KILL THAT THING! DESTROY THE FLOWERS!”
“Uh-uh.” Freeway vanished, reappeared between them and the docks. “Not ’till you start telling me what the hell this is about.”
God damn it! What was wrong with the heroes in this city!
Simple. That was the key, keep it simple.
“Got proof?”
“LOOK AT THE KAIJU, MAN! LOOK AT THE KAIJU!”
He disappeared again, then blinked back. “Okay, good enough. I’ll help.”
“AND IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH— WAIT, WHAT?”
“MRB’s on their way. If you’re lying they’ll sort it out. Either way once that’s done I’ll kick your ass. You got until then to stop this plague, doctor.”
“Hey!” Whippoorwill yelled.
“My statement stands, kid.”
“UH. OKAY!”
I watched him step aside, and the Graveyard Gang charged into action. They used the same tactic, for the most part, but with Deadweight’s zombies reinforcing them, they literally had a few extra bodies to help manage the creature’s aggression.
Well, that was good. While they were doing that, I could look for Vector. I turned, rose up a bit to survey the area—
—and caught a man in a fringed leather vest and a coonskin cap sneaking up on me. He had camo paint smeared across his face, but the dull stare and unshaven messy hair identified him in a heartbeat.
“TIMETRIPPER?” I shrieked. “GO THE HELL AWAY AND STOP BOTHERING DIRE!”
I blasted him, still on lethal settings, and didn’t care. This was the absolute worst time for the bastard to show up!
He fell, his body in bits, and Freeway was there, grabbing my arm and trying to force it back. “Damn it Dire! There was no call for that!”
“WE’RE NOT THAT LUCKY!”
“What?”
We both watched as his remains rippled, and disappeared in a puff of light.
Freeway stopped, then his gaze whipped over my shoulder, and his eyes narrowed. “Behind you!” But too late, as the world slowed, and it was like moving in molasses...
But Freeway wasn’t slowed. He jogged around me at regular speed, and I heard the meaty smack of a fist hitting flesh. Everything sped up again, and I turned... as six more Timetrippers, all in different outfits, jumped out of the bushes.
“No escape, Dire!” he called, in eerie unison. All save the last one, who was a beat after the rest. They turned to glare at him.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Said one.
“Sorry man. I blew it.”
“We practiced for like fucking hours,” said another. “I think, anyway. It was a baller party.”
“Dude, you can’t blame me, that blonde was totally wanting the dong. I couldn’t concentrate with all that business up in my face.”
Another waved his hand. “Wasn’t worth it man, she was a lousy lay.”
The first one glared at him. “You asshole! I was trying to hook up with her all fucking night! Not cool man, not cool!”
The insults flew like bullets, as they quarreled. I slapped my gauntlet over my face.
“THIS. THIS IS WHY DIRE HATES HEROES. WORLD’S GOING TO END IN PLAGUE BECAUSE OF THE WORST TIME TRAVELLER EVER.”
Next to me, Freeway shook his head, watched four of them tackle the other two, who were trying to start a fistfight. “This is one for the memoirs, all right.”
Wait. Wait a minute...
Timetripper only showed up when Freeway did.
A paradox. Older Timetripper told me I could beat him with a paradox.
A wild idea occurred to me.
Could it really be that simple?
“HE’S GOT YOUR MEMOIRS. FREEWAY, HE’S BEEN TRACKING DIRE BY THE DATES IN YOUR BOOK!”
The quarrel stopped. They looked back to us, looked to each other, and nodded.
“FREEWAY! DON’T PUT DATES IN YOUR BOOK!”
They charged, and time slowed.
“Okay,” said Freeway. “But there's no way it's that simple—“
BIP!
They were gone. Time was back to normal. We waited a few seconds, looked around. Nothing.
“GUESS IT IS THAT SIMPLE.”
The air shook with raw fury, trees toppled from the force of a primal roar.
We both glanced toward the lake, which was a writhing mass of tentacles. “OH. RIGHT. PLANT MONSTER.”
“On it,” Freeway said, and disappeared.
For a second I started to follow him... then stopped. That wasn’t my job. Vector and the flowers were my job.
But how could I find Vector?
Maybe I didn’t have to. All I had to do was take the flowers out of play. Vector would live, and Grim would be happy.
I activated the Geiger counter, started scouting around. I tagged the remaining patches of pollen around the clearing with the phlogiston beam, scooped up remnants of the boxes and tossed them into the merrily burning fire that was the van. Finally, the only part that was left was in the cabin that Vector had originally emerged from. I entered...
And swore, as I looked down into an open trapdoor, and a long, wide tunnel that vanished into the Earth. Vector had booked it early on, and the Geiger counter confirmed traces of pollen down there. With shrinking hope I jumped down and followed.
CHAPTER 20: WELL-EARNED REWARDS
“If you're in the game for long enough, you start realizing that it's not how you win the fight, it's how many people walk away afterward. Because at the end of the day, you're doing it for the people. You're doing this to save lives, you're doing this to make the world a better place. And you need good people for that, because they sure as heck can't make the world better if they're dead.”
--Freeway, in his smash-hit autobiography “Memoirs of a Life in the Fast-Lane”
The tunnel was close, twisting and curving. Thankfully I had nightvision built into my mask. It was also too close for me to stand upright. Fortunately, I didn’t have to stand. Instead, I tucked into a ball and used the gravitics to propel myself along, like a bullet in the barrel of a gun.
I almost ran into him before I realized he was there, hunched over and gasping in the dark of the tunnel. He had a glowlight with him, protruding from the pocket of his lab coat. I hauled myself to a stop, watched him for a second. He was shaking, and he had a thin cardboard box tucked under one arm, and it was sending the Geiger counter crazy.
I unfolded, scraping the tunnel walls and he turned, fear evident on his face. “Who’s there! Stay away!” He fumbled in one pocket, brought out a test tube. “I’ll use this, I will!”
“Scare,” I whispered into my mask, and I watched red light flood the tunnel as my eyesockets illuminated with hellish red glow, overpowering the green of his glowstick.
“Oh,” he whispered, shaking. “Oh no.”
“OH YES.”
He slumped against the wall, heedless of the mud streaking his already grungy lab coat. “Oh god. I knew the escape tunnel was too long.”
I laughed, and he shrank in on himself as the echoes boomed around the corridor. Privately though, I thought it a good cautionary tale. A shorter escape tunnel, or even something like a maze to slow me down, and he would have escaped.
“IT WAS A GOOD TRY. NOW, SURRENDER THAT BOX.”
He looked down at it. Started to lift it, stopped. “This— this is the culmination of a lot of work. A year of work. A year stuck working with the devil himself. You can understand my reluctance.”
I powered up my particle beams with a whine, adding a golden glow to the tunnel as the emitters flare. “YOU SPEAK LIKE YOU HAVE A CHOICE.”
He stood, put the test tube away, and straightened his glasses as he met my eyes. “You... you always have a choice. Every day, you always have a choice. Whether it’s to see the world as it is and try to fix it, or to turn away and hide your face! I... I’m not sure I’d prefer to live, with this gone.”
Passion in those words.
“DIRE IS SURE THE PEOPLE YOU KILLED IN AFRICA WOULD DISAGREE.”
“It should have worked!” He screamed, tears falling from his eyes. “It should have worked... I never... but that’s why I have to keep trying, you see?” He said, pulling his glasses free, and running his muddy sleeve on his face,
smearing the dirt in with tears. “If I don’t, then they died for nothing. If I don’t, then I’m a murderer, worse than a murderer.” Sobs racked him, his entire body shook as he cried.
I remembered Doc Quantum, earlier today. How he’d condemned me for my choices. For choosing to fight back and save my people, instead of trying to find a gentler path that just hadn’t been an option.
I remembered how Quantum hadn’t listened. Didn’t understand.
So I decided that I would listen.
“WHAT DOES THE POLLEN DO?” I asked.
He held up a finger while he regained control, and the sobs slowed. “I... ah.. I... what?”
“THE POLLEN. IT DOESN’T DO WHAT MORGENSTERN WANTED. WHAT DOES IT DO?”
“It, ah, it suppresses the immune system. Stops lethal or crippling allergic reactions. Only to a limited set of artificial agents, mind you. A specific variety of prions. The immune system was the problem, you see.” I didn’t, but he seemed to gain strength and confidence as he spoke. “I didn’t account for all the variances in individual physiologies. Amateur mistake. I used too small an initial sample, and as a result people died. But if you take the variable out of the equation, then there shouldn’t be... the problems I had with the first batch.”
“PEOPLE SHOULDN’T DIE.”
He took a deep breath, let it out. “Not if I do it right. But I was too ambitious with the first batch. Tried to do too much. I need to be a lot more cautious. This isn’t a be-all-and-end-all solution, but it’s a crucial step. I need... well, a lot more research.” He scowled, and jammed his glasses back on his face. “I’ll be damned if I kill anyone else because I screwed up.”
He meant it. Unless he was one hell of a liar, he was honest in his desire to improve humanity. Save the world.
How was this different from my own goal?
He wanted to fix the world. I wanted to fix the world. Morgenstern did too, we just had vastly different ways of going about it. What gave me the right to stop him?
Was it because he used plagues, and genetic manipulation? Horrifying in some ways, yes, but then so were many of my own inventions. I was carrying weapons that could level city blocks in seconds if I turned loose their full force. But I trusted myself with them, trusted that I wouldn't use them improperly.
DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) Page 31