They’d left the hard job to me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Demons fled, screaming, seeking shelter against the massive stones and chunks of iron that still pelted from the sky as the towers groaned and collapsed inward like the fingers of Satan’s hand.
Particle beams did for the first two, carving chunks out of their bases and diverting them to fall on either side of the tower. I flew to the side as they fell, letting rubble batter my forcefield while I moved to the third pillar. My shoulder pauldron snapped open—
—and nothing happened. I checked the diagnostics, and swore. One of the arrows had nicked the circuitry. I couldn’t cycle away from concussion missiles and what I needed were high-explosive. My subroutines were rerouting missile functions to an undamaged sector, but it’d be thirty-eight seconds before they were available again. I didn’t have that kind of time.
I checked the architecture of the tower again, and ground my teeth. No way to do this flawlessly, or without more damage.
Unless...
I snapped my shields to my front, flipped myself horizontal with arms outstretched, Crusader-style, and flew fists-first through the third tower. Key supports gave way before me, buckled, and crumpled inward and away, falling back towards the foundry. Damned shame that, but hey, at least they’d have the iron of the tower on-site to keep them busy smelting. If enough of them survived, anyway.
My forcefield flared and snapped off as I burst out the other side, venting heat in shimmering waves. I’d taken enough damage that I couldn’t risk overloading it. Hopefully I could get by without it for the next half a minute. But I had no time to spare, the last two buildings were bowed at a forty-five degree angle, mere seconds away from striking the Royal Tower.
I’d spent two fucking weeks building up my workshops, both in the upper levels and below the dungeons. Be damned if I’d lose them now to a bunch of demon terrorist wannabes!
I put rapid particle beams through the farthest building, shearing it off with its own weight. It struck the Royal Tower but shattered, ringing it like a gong. The crumpled remains of the lesser spire fell about my conquered edifice, but I was too busy to care...
...as I flew up, put my back under the last tower, and reworked my gravitics so I could pull this stunt off without crushing myself.
It wasn’t a factor of locking myself in place; if I did that with the tiny surface area I presented, I’d shove myself through the tower, and it would keep falling, unhindered. It wasn’t a matter of using my armor’s strength to hold it up; doing that would result in the same thing, with a slightly-larger area destroyed on the tower. It wasn’t of one piece, just welded together from big plates, and all I’d do was tear one or two of them off.
Fortunately, this tower was made out of iron. I had other options.
The gravitic field utilized magnetism, allowing me to more or less cancel out gravity. But when I spread it out, aligned it to key parts of the tower’s structure...
...well, I couldn’t stop its fall. But I could and did cause the building to twist and ‘unzip’ itself, collapsing in a heap, plates flying free.
One of them struck my armor on the way down, gouged a long tear into my suit, pushing me forward, sending damage indicators straight to red. I grunted as I felt pressure on my back, felt impact gel hardening, then loosening, heard the scream of metal buckling—
—and then it was past and falling away, and I judged it safe to disengage. Core warnings flashed, as one of my nuclear failsafes engaged; that plate had almost, almost clipped the fusion cell. I’d be running at two-thirds power until I could get into a workshop. Preferably the one with the lead-lined room.
“Bad news, boss,” Alpha voxed. “The hospice is empty. There’s signs of a struggle.”
I nodded. I’d figured as much when Khalid hadn’t responded. “They’ve taken him, the bastards. Man, what a pity we didn’t slip a tracker into his gear when we had the chance.”
I felt my teeth peel back in a wild grin. “Except oh wait, we did that.” I touched down on the ground, turned my back to the remnants of falling rubble, and walked away from the ruins. My tower still stood, like a middle finger thrust up against all of Hell, and I still functioned. Walking gave my suit time to auto-repair what it could, reroute critical functions around the damaged parts. I’d lost a lot of impact gel, taken some serious knocks, but the iron wafer composite was holding up, and my adrenaline was still pumping. “Beta, get a fix on him, would you?”
Three minutes later, he replied. “Got it. Sending coordinates.”
“Hey...” Alpha said. “You know how you asked me to check the cameras for arriving imps?”
“Yeah? Let Dire guess. One of them showed up earlier at the same site where Khalid is now?”
“Oh yeah. Looks like we’ve found our spies. Oh shit!”
“What?”
“Remember how a couple hundred thousand of the army deserted?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, some of them are here. And they’re kind of stabby.”
I gnawed my lips, examined the coordinates. “Can you endure?”
“Probably. It’s a moot point, since you finished our backup servers. They’re still functional, right?”
I glanced back at my Royal Tower. “Yep. You’re good. Dire’s going to go retrieve Khalid and kill some idiots. Catch up as you can.”
I rounded the corner, to find about fifty black-armored demons hurrying toward me, rushing out of empty market stalls, drawing weapons as they came. I flipped my cape back, leveled my hands—
—and gunfire cracked out behind me.
The first two demons fell. My honor guard, I realized. Not the best shots, but they were firing from the elevation of the tower and well within range. Now I didn’t regret the rifled breech-loaders I’d given them. I counted about twenty shots, give or take, in the volley.
It was enough to make the charging wave hesitate, and I laughed as I strode forward. “LEAVE HER STREETS OR DIE IN THEM, IT IS ALL THE SAME TO DIRE.”
Say this for Caym’s hellions, they had no lack of bravery. Nor did the wave behind them. Or the wave behind the reinforcements. Finally, knee-deep in the dead, I growled low in my throat and took to the air again. Enough of them were getting through to me before they dropped that they were actually doing some damage. Not a lot but given the pain I’d already taken, every bit lost now was structural integrity I wouldn’t have against someone who mattered.
Arrows flew up at me, and I put on a burst of speed, hearing the reactor conduits whine and groan. I couldn’t afford to assume I was invulnerable to arrows, anymore. The enemy had already shown that they had access to magic that didn’t give much of a shit about physics.
Four minutes later, after my particle blasters were starting to groan from the slaughter I’d been conducting and my circuitry’s functions were as rerouted and reconstructed as they were going to get, I arrived at my destination, a large, sprawling complex of brick and marble, blackened with soot and adorned with statue after statue of fat demons enjoying their repast: basically, feasting upon people.
I knew this place. The most influential of Caym’s merchant clans dwelled here. Well, the most influential of the surviving clans, anyway. I’d thought they’d learned their lesson after the last assassination attempt.
I supposed they had. Their lesson had been “throw everything you have at Dire and don’t hold back.”
It was a good lesson, really.
I surveyed the windows and arrow slits full of archers, the courtyard full of foot troops...
...and swore, as my voltaic vision picked up flickers of familiar looking wires and charged cells, there in the central part of the complex. I opened a vox channel. “Alpha?”
“Yeah boss?”
“Did you and the others get your asses captured?”
“Ah, yeah, boss.”
“Dire seems to recall you reporting that there were only fifty back at the hospital.”
“There were.
Then there were fifty more, and fifty more behind them, and somewhere around the fifth fifty I kinda lost count.”
“We tried, Doctor,” Gamma spoke. “The scenario didn’t allow for victory.”
“Alright. Well, let’s see what kind of mastermind we’re dealing with, here.”
I landed outside the gate, pushed them open with either hand. “WHO ABIDES HERE?”
The hellions in the courtyard flinched. Some of them held glowing spears, perhaps one in every hundred or so. Magical, and an unknown quantity. Probably quite deadly, given time. So I took the opportunity to register them as priority targets for my FoF system.
I was well within arrow shot, but easily within cover of the stone gate if it came to hostilities. But as the silence stretched into seconds and no arrows came, I knew what I was dealing with, now. My smile grew under my mask.
I took the opportunity to check on a few of the systems I’d installed for this eventuality, found their vox-link solid. I activated their channels and waited for the show to begin.
The doors to the largest building in the complex groaned open, immense slabs of brass peeling out to reveal a great hall, lined by demons of every shape and size, though most of them trended toward the obese. A feast table had been lined up, I saw, the length of it vanishing back into the depths of the hall.
“Welcome to House Garlam, Doctor Dire!” Boomed a jovial voice from within. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got almost everyone you call a friend down here captive, so enter with that in mind, mmmm?”
I strolled across the courtyard without hesitation. The waves of hellions parted to either side of me, weapons shaking in tensed hands. Sensible, really. I’d left the streets strewn with the corpses of their brethren.
Inside, demons pattered out of the way, peeling away like waves of bloated flesh. Above me, spiked iron hooks stretched taut, swinging slowly, tangled with Damned. Their blood dripped down onto the dishes. Quite in defiance of my decrees, since my conquest.
Eight of the Damned up there were children, and I felt my teeth grind together.
The thing at the head of the table spoke. “You do me honor with your presence, good Doctor.” It resembled nothing so much as a maggot the size of three elephants put together, with a spider-like array of hairy limbs stretched out around it, and a dainty, almost delicate baby-like face hanging on a polyp above an enormous tooth-lined mouth.
The voice was the worst part of it. I wasn’t sure which orifice it spoke from, since neither its main mouth nor the little baby’s mouth moved as it talked. It sounded like an aged grandmother, cheerfully reading to her grandkids at bedtime.
I turned my gaze from it, to my friends, each of which had been trussed up with chains next to the creature. Khalid, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Epsilon. Then my eyes widened... next to them, also trussed, were First Whisper and First Manifesto.
“Allow me to introduce myself, Doctor Dire. I am—”
“SHUT UP.” I pointed a finger at him and the guards’ swords whipped around to ring the captives. “YOUR NAME IS NOW MIDBOSS.”
I’d blatantly stolen that line, but I doubted they knew the source.
The baby’s face stared at me, goggle-eyed. Silence didn’t just fill the chamber, it spilled out the windows. “What?” The great demon finally squeaked.
“WHOEVER YOU WERE, WHATEVER YOU’VE DONE OVER YOUR LIFE, IT DOESN’T MATTER NOW. YOU HAVE PRESENTED YOURSELF TO DIRE AS AN OBSTACLE, AND NOW YOU’RE NOTHING MORE THAN A SPEEDBUMP IN HER GREATER PLAN. SO YOUR NAME IS MIDBOSS, BECAUSE IT’S NOT EVEN GOING TO TAKE A FULL STAGE TO TURN YOU INTO DUST.”
Now the baby’s face was screaming, lips peeled back to reveal rows of needle-like teeth. “You would do well to remember your situation right now! You’re wounded, your armor broken, and I have so, so many lovely hostages!”
“YEAH, AND YOU CAN’T DO SHIT TO ANY OF THE ONES DIRE CARES ABOUT.”
I saw First Whisper sag into her chains, for once not flashing boobs. She knew the score.
Midboss didn’t.
“You little mortal cur! Step out of your armor now and surrender, or I’ll rip them to shreds myself!” Spider limbs stretched out from his form, grasped Epsilon’s entangled shell. “Don’t think I won’t!”
I sighed. “DIRE’S GOING TO TELL YOU A LITTLE STORY, HERE.” I hopped up on the table and sat cross-legged, relishing the flinches the demons around me gave at the sudden movement. “JUST BEFORE SHE CAME DOWN HERE, DIRE THREW DOWN WITH A MORTAL MASTERMIND. A POWER BEHIND THE THRONE, AS IT WERE. A SHADOWY MANIPULATOR WHO SECRETLY RULED HIS KINGDOM DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF AN EXISTING GOVERNMENT, PUPPETED TO HIS WILL.”
He hesitated, curious despite himself, I could tell. “Mortal mastermind? Bah. The petty intrigues of those who can achieve a mere century of lifespan—”
“ARE ACTUALLY PRETTY EFFECTIVE. THE GUY SAW THAT DIRE WAS A LITTLE TOO STRONG TO TAKE ON DIRECTLY, SO HE HARRIED HER, STRUCK AT THOSE AROUND HER, TRIED TO WARD HER OFF BY HOLDING HOSTAGE A CITY FULL OF INNOCENTS. HE EVEN THREATENED TO LAUNCH NUCLEAR MISSILES. GOING TO GUESS YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THOSE ARE?”
“I must admit to no knowledge of—”
“TRUST DIRE WHEN SHE TELLS YOU DEMONIC EVIL IS AS NOTHING COMPARED TO THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN. ANYWAY, THE POINT IS, THE ONLY WAY HE COULD THINK TO FIGHT DIRE WAS TO LAYER FAILSAFE AFTER FAILSAFE SO THAT SHE’D SUFFER BY HAVING TO WATCH THOSE MORE VULNERABLE AROUND HER DIE. IT WAS A PAIN IN THE ARSE FIGHTING HIM, BECAUSE DIRE AND HER ALLIES HAD TO PLAN FOR AND COUNTER EVERY LAYER OF HIS PLAN. IT WAS LIKE PEELING A GODDAMNED ONION, ONLY IF YOU MISSED A LAYER THERE WENT BRIGHTON.”
Silence now. I could see his limbs twitching with irritation. This wasn’t going how he’d planned, not at all.
“The difference between he and I,” Midboss said, “Is that I am actually effective in carrying out my threats.” It snatched up Epsilon and crumpled him to scrap.
“NO, ACTUALLY. AND YOU DIDN’T KILL HIM, HE’LL BE FINE ONCE HE’S REBUILT AND HIS BACKUP IS RESTORED.” I stood, and the demons around the room pulled out weapons, bows, swords, spears, at least half of them glowing with mystical energy. “THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MORTAL MASTERMIND AND YOU IS THAT YOU WALKED INTO HER TRAP, INSTEAD OF HER HAVING TO SPEND ALL HER TIME UNDOING YOURS.”
Midboss dropped the scrap, looked to me for a reaction, and I saw the raw hide of the maggot start to ooze a black sweat.
He saw plainly that I didn’t care he’d crushed Epsilon.
“A trap?” he wheezed, in that kindly-old-lady voice. “Even if you don’t care for your so-called friends, I could kill you here, and—”
“ACTUALLY IT’S CHECKMATE IN ONE ON THAT, BUT LET HER EXPLAIN FIRST.” I walked forward, down that long, long table, closing the distance while I fired up a targeting system I’d spent three hours coding last week. “ILLWRACK. A MEATHEAD. ALL ABOUT BEING A STRONGMAN, THE BIG BOSS. WORE A FUCKING COLA CAN FOR A CROWN. NOW WHY DID HE DO THAT?’
“It was a gift, of course. An artifact from Creation. The power and rarity of that in this place is something I expect you take for granted.”
“NO. HE WORE IT BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD HIM IT WAS VALUABLE AND HE BELIEVED IT. NOW WHO GAVE HIM THAT? WHO TOLD HIM THAT? THOSE TWO DIDN’T KNOW.” I pointed at my demon courtiers. “AND INCIDENTALLY, YOU’RE DERANGED IF YOU THINK DIRE CONSIDERS THEM FRIENDS OR WOULD BE MOVED BY THEIR DEATHS.”
“Then I’ll kill them now!” Midboss shrieked and raised three spider legs.
I kept walking.
“Khh, fine. I’ll admit, this was more of a gamble on my part. Still, I’m out nothing from that,” he sulked.
“NA NA NA, LET HER FINISH HERE. SO ILLWRACK? HAD NO RECORDS ON TRADE. NO BOOKS ON HOW HIS OWN CITY WORKED. NO MAPS. NO MAPS!” I shook my head. “WHAT THE... HEAVEN... KIND OF RULER DOESN’T HAVE MAPS OF HIS LANDS AND HIS NEIGHBORS? HE WAS AN IDIOT. WHICH MEANT THAT WE WERE DEALING WITH A POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. SO DIRE’S CONQUEST? PROBABLY MEANINGLESS, SO LONG AS THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE REMAINED.”
Comprehension dawned.
“You’re saying that you let this happen to draw me out?”
“SMART BOY. DIDN’T YOU THINK IT ODD THAT SHE SENT HER FLYING MILITARY STRIKE PLATFORM AWAY THE SAME TIME SHE SENT THE CITY’S STANDING ARMY TO THE FRONTIERS? THAT SHE DIDN’T SET UP A POLICE FORCE OR ANY KIND OF PEACEKEEPERS TO OPPRESS THIS NEWLY CONQUERED CITY-STATE PROPERLY?”
The baby’s eyes narrowed.
“AND YOU DIDN’T THINK IT ODD THAT SHE LET ONE OF HER BEST FRIENDS IN THIS WORLD, OR THE NEXT, RUN AROUND WITHOUT EVEN AN HONOR GUARD?” I pointed to the Janissary. Immediately Midboss raised a spider leg high above him, and the guards pressed their blades to his throat.
“I must admit some displeasure with this part of the plan, Doctor,” Khalid deadpanned.
“OH SHUT UP AND KEEP WATCHING HIS FACE. FACES. OH LOOK, HE’S SHAKING WITH RAGE AND FEAR! THIS IS HILARIOUS!”
The maggot body was indeed roiling. “I... I can still kill him!”
“ACTUALLY, NO YOU CAN’T. THAT’S THE LAST JANISSARY, AND HE’S A FUCKING IMMORTAL.”
“Fuck you!” The creature shrieked, all vestiges of civility gone. “I’ll try and keep trying until he’s dead! And the rest of them too! But I’ll start with you, first, you little mortal shit! You’re in my hall, surrounded by weapons that will break your armor, and I can kill you with a word!”
“AS CAN SHE. CHECKMATE IN ONE, YOU FAT FUCK.”
I broadcast that across the vox channels I’d opened.
And the cannons of Caym thundered.
Rubble sprayed from the walls; Midboss’ upper body exploded into goo; the rubble sprayed into the crowd surrounding me, accompanying my rising laughter, roaring into the dust as I threw my arms wide and howled.
When the dust cleared I hovered above the table, arms crossed. “COMPUTER-CONTROLLED CANNONS. ALL THOSE GUNS IN ALL THOSE HIGH TOWERS, ALL SCREAMING OUT FOR AUTOMATION.” I surveyed the four holes high in the walls and the pile of yellowish-blackish slime that poured from Midboss’ convulsing corpse. “SHE DIDN’T NEED AN ARMY. SHE COULD KILL ANYONE IN THIS CITY AT ANY TIME WITH A SINGLE WORD. STILL CAN.” I turned, looking at the silent, shocked crowd. “SO WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?”
DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6) Page 12