DIRE:SINS (The Dire Saga Book 5)

by Andrew Seiple

  Well at least he’d had some self-preservation. “Okay. Dire can map those with sonar.”

  “You might not need to. The only other building with people in it at this time of night was over here.” Manuel gestured, and Alpha snapped through the slides to a three-story laboratory across the way from the office building. Generators next to it, and the exotic mix of outflow pipes from the far end were a dead giveaway.

  The lower two floors didn’t have windows, I noticed.

  “Security was tighter here. More electronics. I did manage a few shots.”

  They flickered by, all window shots from the exterior. “Figure the real Envy is in here. One of the scientists in here, or maybe even the janitor. This guy likes his misdirection.”

  I didn’t answer. I’d just seen a photo that explained everything.

  “Dire?”

  “Oh holy shit. Oh wow. Oh gods.” I stopped, ran my hands through my hair. “This, this is probably the best and worst news we could have gotten. Alpha, stop and rewind, ah, sixty-two frames.”

  He did. Back to one of the window shots, where a man in a lab coat was peering out into the night. Just a guy, a bit short and scrawny as they went. Short brown hair, spectacles. A badge dangling from a lanyard. A cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, and wasn’t that an oddity indoors in today’s Britain.

  I knew that face.

  “Vector. Holy shit, that’s Professor Vector.”

  CHAPTER 7: GREEN-EYED ENVY

  “You stick around in this business long enough, you'll start seeing the same faces, over and over again. Even when they should be dead six times over... darned if I know what ties heroes and villains together, but the more you fight against or with someone, the better the odds you see them again.”

  --The Human Harrier, during a BBC live interview in 2002

  “Who?” Manuel asked.

  “Professor Vector. Real name, Raymond Mapplethorn. He’s another supergenius. He’s to biology as Dire is to engineering. Very dangerous, very similar in a lot of ways. We both started as idealists, tried to improve our little corners of the world. Didn’t work out for either of us.”

  “Did you work together?”

  I laughed. “Oh mercy, no. We actually ended up at cross purposes during a heist gone horribly wrong. His creations were a serious bother. The man had basically grown plant-kaiju with only a bathtub, some random household cleaners, and a few sets of high school chemistry equipment.”

  “And now he has his own private laboratory and all the resources Maestro M can grant him.” Manuel’s face paled.

  “Yeah. It was probably a good thing you couldn’t get into the lab. He probably has biological agents on hand against intruders. No way to defend against microbes.”

  “Perhaps a rebreather, and gloves?”

  “No good,” Alpha piped up. “I’m no expert, but trust me, whatever that guy could whip up would be proof against anything except maybe full-body hazmat suits.”

  “Hard to sneak in those, even for you,” I murmured. Then I frowned. “No, it doesn’t fit.”

  “I’m pretty sure we could tailor a hazmat suit to his size,” Alpha said.

  “No, Dire means Vector. Vector’s an idealist. It’s the reason he lived through Dire. Had a chance to kill him, but didn’t. Too many similarities. His sinister plans were actually going to be good for the world in the long run. Make up for some of the bad he’d done.”

  “And now here he is working for the devil himself,” Manuel said. “Perhaps your forgiveness was misplaced. Not that you should have killed him, but perhaps prison would have been better?”

  Both Alpha and I stared at him.

  “Right. Villains, sorry.” He shook his head.

  “I’m as innocent as a new-born lamb!” Alpha insisted.

  “And about as good at lying.” I kicked him in the shin, winced as my toes rebounded from metal. Right, shoes, I should probably put those on at some point. “In any case, Maestro’s the last person Vector should be working for. Human trafficking, drugs, blackmail, and especially a powers farm. Hardly the tools that a progressive idealist would consider acceptable.” A horrible thought struck me. “Wait. When did Maestro first start making the Blanks, again?”

  “I found out about it five years ago.”

  I relaxed. “Okay. So Vector wasn’t involved with that. Good, good. Well, not with that part. But maybe some of the follow-up? That would be the sort of thing that would attract him to Maestro’s employ, damn the consequences.”

  To all appearances, Maestro had cracked the code to giving people superpowers. It involved a certain strain of radiation, a regimen of physical and mental torture, and a thoroughly amoral disregard for human life.

  This was disturbing as hell. Governments the world over had been working on similar projects to no avail, off and on, because they understood the grim facts that whoever cracked the method first would probably end up ruling the world. It was kind of like the cold war’s nuclear arms race, except in human-shaped packages.

  But Maestro wasn’t ruling the world. He was lurking in the shadows of Britain, so heavily hidden that even we had to approach with care. Instead of raising a metahuman army, he shipped them out to parts unknown, loaned a few to his pet dictator, and from the records we’d recovered, had sold a few here and there to very bad people.

  Why?

  He wasn’t the ‘Pride’ of the group for no reason. By all our analysis, he should be doing his damnedest to conquer the world. He was that kind of mastermind, an old-school villain who wanted power and would do anything to get it.

  There was something we were missing. Some data we didn’t have yet. I chewed my lip. “Taking him down isn’t good enough. We have to turn him.”

  “You want to turn one of the Maestro’s Sins.”

  “We have to.”

  “One of the Maestro’s Sins. Who will have gotten repeated doses of his mind control. Who has a head stuffed full of mental triggers.”

  “Yes, the man who is also the most likely Sin to be involved with the Blanks program.” I lifted a hand, let it fall into my lap. “We are going to need him. Odds are good he’s the linchpin on that.”

  “Except he wasn’t around when the program started. He might not be involved at all, especially if he’s as altruistic as you say.”

  “He was altruistic. If he still is, there’s a chance.” I flopped back on the bed. Manuel swept his legs out of my way with a quick acrobatic twist. “Don’t get her wrong, Dire isn’t liking these odds either. But the gain, if we succeed...”

  Manuel scrutinized me for a long moment. “It’s more than that, yes?”

  No lies. We’d agreed to that. “Yes.” I sighed. “Sacrificed a bit, by letting him go. Hoped he would find a better path for himself. The world needs good people working for a better future. Dire wants to ensure that sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

  “I understand that. But if his will is weak, he might not be able to break free. You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that he cannot be saved.”

  “Ya know,” Alpha said, tapping metal fingers on a metal knee. “It’s possible that mind control could be used to undo mind control.”

  “That would help us if we had a way to control his mind,” I snorted. “We don’t.”

  “I do.”

  The room fell silent. Manuel and I turned in unison, stared at Alpha. His metal frame glinted as he shifted, drew his knees up to his torso. “Uh, you know I wouldn’t, right?”

  “Alpha?” I asked.

  “I mean I don’t have the ability, just the schematics. They’re some of the stuff your, uh, friend upstream sent along in case things didn’t fall out right—”

  “Alpha.”

  “To be honest unless you got brainzapped I wasn’t going to bring them up or break them out, but y’know, it’s good to have the option just in case—”

  “Alpha. Hush. It’s all right.” I stood, patted him on the shoulder. “We trust you.”

 
; “Ah.” His shoulders sagged.

  “I’m not quite sure I share your trust in him,” Manuel said. “To be blunt about it. Why not mention this before now?”

  “Because you guys just spent the last five months going after some guy for throwing his mind control around? Didn’t want to hit a nerve, there. And because, well, the blueprint’s originator doesn’t have the problem with biology that you do, boss.”

  True, that. If he had schematics we could build it, but I wouldn’t know what it did until we turned it on. I could understand half of the equation, but the effect on the subject would be beyond my control. We’d essentially be twisting the dials and seeing what happened to whatever poor sod it zapped. Kind of hard on the target.

  “We’ll save this as a last resort,” I decided. “We have to capture Vector anyway, might as well try to get him to come willingly. Once captured, it’s either imprisonment or reprogramming depending on how deep the hooks go.” I’d promised Manuel that I wouldn’t kill any of the Sins. Holding them until they could be turned over to somebody that the Maestro hadn’t reprogrammed was the compromise we’d arrived at.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could keep that promise when it came to Maestro himself. We’d have to see where we were at that point, I reckoned.

  “If you want I can get the workshop building the device and holding it in standby. It’s a simple wave emitter—”

  “No!” Manuel interjected. “No. Look, how long does it take to make?”

  “Not long. A bit less than an hour, some of the components are kind of intricate.”

  “Then don’t. Only if we need it.”

  I glared. “Dire’s not too happy about you giving Alpha orders.”

  Manuel looked at me, surprised. “You do not agree that he should not build it without cause?”

  “Oh no, she’s fine with that idea, but you’re giving orders to her minion. And someone who’s been a friend to us both, frankly. You should remember that, and treat him with the respect he’s earned.”

  He leaned back, and I watched emotions flicker across his face. Anger, comprehension, remorse, amusement, all in the course of seconds. I’d gotten better at reading people, in the time I’d spent with him. Side effect of romance, or something like it, I supposed.

  “There’s the El Presidente I knew. Easy to forget, that there is steel in you even outside of the armor. My apologies, Doctor.” He slipped off the bed, offered a bow. “And to you as well, Alpha.”

  “It’s cool, bro. It’s cool.”

  “Sufficient, for now.” I smiled, pushing irritation aside. We had much to do, and little time to do it in. “Anyway, the heroes are in position, which means we’ll need to move now.”

  “We’re not going to wait for nightfall?” Manuel quirked an eyebrow.

  “No. Vector’s in the mix, so whatever he’s got as a backup biological ace won’t care about darkness. Hell, he was probably behind the monster in the nightclub. That thing didn’t have eyes and gave no fucks about lacking them.” I smirked. “Besides, these heroes aren’t exactly as professional as you. They might do something like oh, going to bed at night, instead of patrolling.”

  Manuel rolled his eyes. “These English heroes. Soft. Probably sleep more than four hours a night, even.”

  “You’re nuts. Anyway, we need to suit up and get going. Here’s the plan...”

  After the brief, it took very little time for Manuel to change into Señor Acertijo. It took even less time to teleport my repaired and upgraded armor to the hotel room, and seal myself in. The readouts flickered to life on the HUD again, and I took deep breaths. We were up against Vector, so I’d be on the internal suit air supply for most of this run.

  I clicked my tongue until the subvocal vox channel opened. “Everyone on?”

  “I never left. I can’t,” Alpha griped.

  “Wah wah wah. Acertijo?”

  “I am here.” I shivered, to hear that voice. He spoke differently when he was properly masked. More assured. Quiet, calm. I turned to look at him.

  Leather pants, leather boots with steel toes. A purple jacket, with gold trim and don’t ask me how he managed to be so stealthy with shiny gold accentuating his physique. A purple cloth mask, loose around his face, broken by a pair of goggles at the top. Each goggle lens was cupped by a gold question-mark, one of them turned backwards to manage the trick. A rapier sheathed at his side completed the look. His hair was a different color; I’d gotten him some temporary spray-on stuff for that. Haircuts were a great deal more individualized in Britain than they were in Mariposa.

  I looked at him now, because if all went to plan I wouldn’t see him again until we were done. I drank in the sight of him because nothing was certain, and if any number of things went wrong, this was my last look.

  The notion upset me. But after a time, I felt I couldn’t stall any longer. “Teleport in six,” I whispered into the vox.

  The world swirled with light, and shifted. I checked positions on the tracker, found we’d come in on-target. Acertijo was already moving. He’d come down in a ditch near the road, as planned. I was behind the wall to the north. Alpha crouched among the cars in the facility’s parking lot, to the south. He and I had the first part of this dance.

  “Showtime!” I shouted, and took to the sky.

  No reaction, at first. I stared down upon the compound, scanning it with my sensors, finding the laboratory entirely shielded from my infrared sight. The big CEO’s office showed up as shielded, too. Probably just there to reinforce the red herring and draw heroes in to fight the creature that we’d dubbed ‘Mr. Big’.

  To the south, Alpha took a running start and leaped over the wall, catching tiny handholds and propelling his thin metal body up and to the roof of the laboratory. He’d have the job of breaking in there, and taking the brunt of the early traps. Depending on how lethal Vector’s defenses in that area were, he was the best candidate to deal with them. He didn’t have biology. He was pretty much immune to the most horrible parts of Vector’s specialty.

  I didn’t see Acertijo’s approach, but I had no doubt it was smooth. His job was simpler: get in to the rest of the buildings in the compound and evacuate the innocents. Most of the employees here were probably innocent of any wrongdoing, and we didn’t want to see them come to harm. Better to get them out of the way of any potential trouble.

  Then Alpha was in, hanging by his hands and kicking through an upper-story window of the lab. A siren started to wail, and I saw a few people in the courtyard look around. One had the presence of mind to look up, and soon enough people were pointing my way.

  Good.

  “FLEE BEFORE DIRE, WAGE-SLAVES!” I commanded. “THIS IS THE DAY OF NEO VARIANTS’ DESTRUCTION!”

  A few people hauled out phones and started recording me. Fuck that noise! We didn’t have time for looky-loos with no sense of self-preservation. I dug an EMP grenade out of my storage compartment, dropped it in the courtyard.

  That got’em moving. Unfortunately, they were running toward the buildings of the compound. Fine, fine, maybe they had a drill to follow, or had been trained to duck and cover. Whatever, I’d let Acertijo sort it out.

  Then I clicked the vox on again. “Alpha, status?”

  “Three rooms in, a lot of panicked scientists. Now tased and flopping on the floor. No sign of Vector. The place is slowly filling with gas of some sort. My spectrolyzer doesn’t recognize it.”

  Unless Vector had changed, I doubt he’d be cold-hearted enough to expose his own people to something lethal. Probably designed to incapacitate, rather than kill. Still...

  “Send her a map of the incapacitated scientists.”

  “Sure thing.”

  A rough grid appeared on my HUD. I glanced at it, measured the roof of the lab from on high, and did some quick math.

  Then I blew off about a third of the roof. Forty-percent charged particle-beams at wide spread did the job nicely, without sending rubble into the areas that would put the downed bystanders
at risk.

  “Whoa! That’s what you wanted that for?” Alpha shrieked. “Give a guy some warning next time!”

  “No promises.” I smirked.

  “Cleared the hallways and the accessible rooms on this level. You want me to start breaching sealed rooms or should I work my way down?”

  I considered. As I did, Acertijo’s voice came on the channel. “Mr. Big is on the move.”

  That decided me. “Go to plan B.”

  “Got it!” Through the billows of dust from the mangled roof, I caught a glimpse of shiny metal as Alpha dashed for the nearest stairwell. I took the opportunity to amp up my scanner, see what I could see. Then I hissed between my teeth. “Watch it. Thermal readings on the ground floor. Big ones.” Familiar ones, too. “Oh shit, those are acid spitters.” Well, that confirmed that theory.

  Alpha chuckled. “Just found’em!” Yep, they were moving. “Disengaging!”

  I gnawed my lips. This now, this was a situation where more minions would have come in handy. As it was, there looked to be four or six of those things, and that was enough to rip Alpha to metal shreds. And I needed him on site to help with the aftermath.

  Gods, going toe-to-toe with just one of these things had been a nightmare. Still, I did have those upgrades, and this time around I knew what I was getting into. “Get clear. She’ll handle them. Dire is altering the plan,” I voxed.

  “What! No, I’ve got this! Don’t risk yourself,” Alpha pleaded.

  “Pray that she does not alter it further.” I said, and dove before I could reconsider, blurring past dropped scientists, blasting through floors as I went, white sterile corridors now shattered and broken with falling tiles, dust, and sparking wires spitting as the gravitics interacted with them in weird ways.

  When the dust cleared, I floated a foot above a grated floor, stained steel over darkened insulation. Metal and glass tanks and tubes filled the vast room, a parody of my own workshop.

  In the corner, five eyeless faces turned my way, and five toothy maws hissed a predator’s challenge.

  “Audio off,” I warned Alpha, and then I roared.