DIRE: SEED

Written by Andrew Seiple

Cover art by Andrew Halbrooks

Edited by Beth Lyons

Text copyright © Andrew Seiple 2016

All Rights Reserved

With thanks to Wildbow, whose epic supervillain story will one day wow the world.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: ICARUS DESCENDS

CHAPTER 2: THE LAIR

CHAPTER 3: MISTER FIXER

CHAPTER 4: BULLETS AND BASTARDS

CHAPTER 5: SOMETHING FISHY

CHAPTER 6: MEETING THE TEAM

CHAPTER 7: RED LIGHT, STOP

CHAPTER 8: PYRRHIC VICTORIES

CHAPTER 9: DOCTOR? DOCTOR!

CHAPTER 10: AN OLD FRIEND

CHAPTER 11: MOVING ON DOWN

CHAPTER 12: CHRONOLOGICAL SHENANIGANS

CHAPTER 13: A SCOURGE TO THE MIGHTY AND WICKED

CHAPTER 14: INFILTRATION

CHAPTER 15: THE MAN IN CHARGE

CHAPTER 16: CLICK BOOM SPLAT

CHAPTER 17: TOMORROW FORCED

CHAPTER 18: A SINISTER MASTER PLAN

CHAPTER 19: VERSUS VECTOR

CHAPTER 20: WELL-EARNED REWARDS

AUTHOR’S NOTE

CHAPTER 1: ICARUS DESCENDS

“It used to be that you could get a cargo payload up into orbit without a ton of regulations, checks, and military supervision. Private industry used to keep a number of public launch sites and windows open and rentable, with a minimum of hassle. Then Mentat the Mindbender snuck one of his mind-control satellites into a launch, and security got nuts for a while. Damn near destroyed the industry in the nineties. But things were quiet after that... up until Doctor Dire managed to smuggle a cargo up around two-oh-oh. Thanks Doc. You're the reason we can't have nice things.”

--Lauren Jane Kolder, in her book “Fly Me To the Moon: My life as a launch technician.”

Icon City shone brilliant from sixty miles up, a glittering bauble of curves and angles where the ocean met the land. From my perspective just below the point where atmosphere hit space, nothing blocked my view. With glee I peered through my cradle’s telescopic sights at my home metropolis.

It had taken a fair amount of work to arrange this. Though I was on a tight timetable, I took a minute to appreciate a view that was normally only available to satellites and high-flying heroes. Icon was a great and sprawling city, glorious but flawed. I would fix it, I would bring out the best in this imperfect metropolis. That was the point of this little excursion, the first step to righting an injustice. Time and effort had gone into this, months of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and now the point of this entire operation lay beneath me.

But not for long.

I flexed my fingers, and the lenses snapped shut. The computers calculated telemetry, and found it good. I spared a glance at the heads-up display, and checked the tracking subroutines. All green. No more excuses to linger.

“Showtime,” I whispered, and hit the rockets.

When discussing it on a particulate level, scientists sometimes call gravity the weakest force. I consider that a bald-faced lie, and the proof of the matter was currently adding to an already impressive acceleration. As the pod shuddered and shook, and I with it, I felt my lips peel back from sheer joy. I knew that the ablative shielding of the pod was burning away as the compression of the atmosphere ground against it. Air has mass, even when it’s doing nothing more than being in your way.

Forces that would turn unprotected flesh into fine red mist howled and gnawed at my chariot, and I laughed with exhilaration. For a few splendid seconds, I knew what Icarus must have felt before the sun melted his wings...

It was over all too soon, and as I got through the outer layers I deployed the chutes. They emerged one after another in a rapid-fire sequence. The first dozen were shredded as fast as they came, providing minimal drag. But physics would not be denied, and as enough tiny pebbles can change the course of a mighty river, the pod slowed enough to forestall a catastrophic impact.

I was coming in hot, but I didn’t want to hit too hard. The point of this exercise was shock and awe, not death and destruction.

Well, okay. Maybe a little destruction.

Thirty seconds to impact, and I switched my view to the cameras I’d hacked a week ago. The FBI had a perimeter up, standard protocol for cases like this one. Cameras watched both inward and outward, but it was the inward ones I cared about.

I was rather relieved that they’d won the turf scuffle with the Metahuman Response Bureau over the handling of this case. The MRB would have been a hell of a lot harder to hack.

The view from outside the building was clear. Icon City’s courthouse stood as stern and foreboding as it had fifty years ago, when it had been rebuilt after Graygaunt’s trial. It had been wrecked then, and rebuilt stronger and more defensible. Ever since that incident, no one had ever managed a successful assault on a trial in progress. After today, they’d have to reset their calendar.

Twenty seconds to go, as the sky screamed around my pod. The JANUS warhead tracking system would be noticing me any second now, and NORAD would be going on alert. Not that it would do any good, this would be over before they could shoot me down.

I switched to the cameras I’d smuggled into the courthouse. Hadn’t been easy. The scanners on the doors, even on the vents, had been updated as the decades rolled past and the Cold War drove espionage and counter-espionage technology into a maddening spiral. Fear of the Red Menace increased federal funding, and old-but-strong technology secured the building.

I’d had to use pseudoplastic microdot cameras sprayed onto the jurors as they left their hotel, masked by an errant splash from a malfunctioning sprinkler system. Not a bit of metal in those cameras, and taken by themselves they lacked the power to be detected by the e-mag scanners. But once I’d gotten enough of them inside, they’d networked and activated. They were burning out at a phenomenal rate, but I only needed them for the next few seconds. And as the blurry picture inside the courtroom resolved, I scowled and fed the micro-corrections into my pod’s maneuvering rockets. That damned prosecutor was pacing again, and he was occupying floorspace I’d planned to be bare. I’d have to come down near the bailiff instead, and he’d probably be injured by my landing. Definitely wouldn’t kill him, probably wouldn’t be fun. With ten seconds to go, I had to accept the cost.

Five seconds, and daylight started to seep in through cracks in the pod. It was coming apart now, just as I’d designed it to. The largest chunks were breaking off, hurtling in different directions to their pre-planned destinations. I was left with a plug of shielding below, and the payload riding it down.

The dome of the courthouse rose to meet me, and as the sonic boom of my descent echoed above the city I rode my chariot of fire down to the mortals below.

It made a horrific crash when it hit the roof, and I was glad for my audio filters. I felt everything vibrate above me as the shielding plug flew to pieces, breaking through the layer of armor in the dome’s infrastructure.

It cleared the way for the payload that was my power armor to plummet through the ceiling of the courtroom and slam into the floor, the sheer force of the impact knocking the bailiff head over ass into the wall. And as I crouched in a perfect three-point stance, the fragments of my pod found their destinations; key points of Icon City’s power grid.

The lights died, as the broadcast energy towers for the district went out one by one. The only one spared supplied power to Sara’s Mercy, the main hospital for the district. While they had generators, I didn’t want to interrupt any operations in progress. I’d set myself a goal of no fatalities for this operation. Death was counterproductive to my goal.

Unfortunately, the surviving tower meant that the blackout wouldn’t last long as the grid rerouted. I had to make the most of the chaos.

And chaos it was! Screams echoed through my audio sensors, and in the darkness my night vision saw the spectators and officials yelling and scrabbling at each other, coughing at the dust brought down from the ceiling, or frozen in shock.

I stood.

Cloth whispered against steel as my armor unfolded, all eight feet of it rising up to look down on the people around me. “Scare,” I breathed into my mask.

The scene took on a red tint as my mask’s eye sockets lit up with bloody red light. Screams intensified, as my burning red eyes stared at the jury, seeming to materialize out of the darkness.

The lights flickered on, and the screams turned to confused babbling as they got their first look at me. Horrified gazes traced the bulky lines of dark gray metal armor, the blood-red cape that ended in a cowl around my white ceramic mask.

“SILENCE,” I demanded, and my voice echoed throughout the courtroom. It was grinding metal, it was discord, it was the dying shriek of something horrible and unknown to modern man. It was a voice designed to go straight to the hindbrain and remind the listener that our species had started out as prey.

It was pretty damned good, and I was proud of it. I’d spent weeks getting it right.

The crowd shut up, save for some random whimpering and one poor old woman sobbing into her hands.

The bailiff groaned, and flopped an arm over to cover his ears. I breathed a sigh of relief to see it. He’d be fine. Movement at the front drew my eye, and I saw the two FBI guards grabbing the accused, hauling him toward the nearest exit. They pushed through the crowd, and I shook my head.

“NO. YOU’RE NOT LEAVING JUST YET.”

I aimed a gauntlet at the exit sign glowing above the door.

Particle beams are lovely things. Pure kinetic force, capable of penetrating heavy armor or stunning an unarmored target, depending on the charge and spread you put behind them. Or in this case—

Light flashed, tracing a crackling line between my hand and the sign, and it exploded into sparking fragments.

The crowd shrieked, the FBI agents halted, and their captive shook his shoulders free from their grasp.

Young, thin, dark-skinned, with tattoos visible on his lower arms where the orange jumpsuit didn’t cover, Martin Jackson looked much as I remembered him. He turned to face me with a wide grin, and a look of smugness that made me snort to see it. He raised his handcuffed wrists, and waved at me.

“Hey Lady.”

Shocked murmurs rose, at the realization that the armored hulk among them was female. I rolled my eyes. We’d just hit a new millennium, this really shouldn’t be an issue anymore. But I’d worry about educating people later, right now I had momentum going for me and I needed to milk it.

“YOU CAME HERE FOR JUDGEMENT,” I rumbled, letting my arms fall behind my cape as I paced from side to side, a restless armored tiger in among prey.

“YOU SHALL RECIEVE JUDGEMENT. BUT NOT ON HIM. NOT ON MARTIN JACKSON.”

“Order! There will be order!” The judge had found his voice, and I turned to him, the metal of my suit creaking in the sudden silence as he fell still.

“YES. YES, THERE WILL BE ORDER. DIRE SHALL BRING THIS CITY TO ORDER, DRAGGING IT KICKING AND SCREAMING IF SHE HAS TO.”

I pointed at him, and he shook, fighting to keep his fear off of his face. The right honorable Judge Meyer Blonstein. Old. Rich. Known for being a hardass. To the public eye, not a bad judge. But I’d done my homework on him, and I hadn’t liked what I’d found behind his public face.

“MARTIN JACKSON DESERVES A TRIAL BY HIS PEERS, AND THERE ARE NONE OF THOSE TO BE FOUND HERE.”

“Unrepentant criminals, you mean?” The judge shot back. “I see at least one other here.”

Ah, he still had a little courage left in him. Time to crush that.

With a bound and a sweeping backhand, I shattered the podium out from under him. He fell, and I caught him by the tie with my free hand, hoisting him into the air. Slowly, slowly, as he choked and clawed at his neck. I didn’t want to snap his spine by going too fast or being too forceful.

“SHE KNOWS, MEYER. SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE KICKBACK THE COLD HARBOR SUPERMAX GIVES YOU FOR EACH CONVICT YOU SENTENCE TO LIFE THERE.”

His eyes widened as he stared down at me, and his fingernails rasped down my mask, sought for some vulnerability. I had none for his fingers to find, and I continued without mercy.

“AND THANKS TO THE TIME-DELAYED MAILS SHE PREPPED THROUGHOUT THE GRIDNET, EVERY NEWS STATION IN THE COUNTRY IS CURRENTLY LEARNING ALL THE DIRTY... LITTLE... DETAILS.”

Up to and including him fucking a lobbyist in his office. The Supermax had tucked that footage away as blackmail. I’d found it on their files, after a good solid hack.

“YOU ARE CORRECT IN ONE ASSESSMENT.” I dropped him, as he sobbed for air, tearing his tie free from his fat neck. “THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO UNREPENTANT CRIMINALS IN THE ROOM. BUT MARTIN JACKSON IS NOT ONE OF THEM.”

I turned to the jury. Most of them shrunk back, and a couple of them shrieked. The FBI agents had spread out during my tirade, I noticed. Getting good firing angles, places they could take shots without risking too many civilians. Just like their handbooks and training instructed.

I was counting on that.

The jury wasn’t as cool-headed as the agents, not by any measure. Two of the older women and one of the middle-aged men were crying in fear. Half of the rest were frozen, gazelles watching a lion in their midst. Only a few were watching me with anything like calm. One younger-looking man even had his phone out, recording. I smirked to see it, the checkpoints had been lax or he’d been determined to smuggle it in, or both. Good. I wanted people to see this. I wanted footage of what I did here.

“AND YOU LOT.” I pointed at them, and one of the crying women fainted. “HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE EVER MISSED A MEAL? HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE EVER LIVED WITHOUT A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD? HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE GONE INTO THE HEART OF ENEMY TERRITORY ALONE, RISKING EVERYTHING TO SAVE YOUR LOVED ONES?”

No reply. Didn’t expect any. Rhetorical questions, really. I continued with a disdainful sweep of my arm. “A JURY OF HIS PEERS. BAH! NONE OF YOU ARE HIS PEERS. HE’S WORTH TWENTY OF YOU.”

Where my arm passed, the crowd flinched back. And I squinted, a little surprised. I’d expected to be interrupted by now. I hadn’t prepared any more material.

Time to ad-lib? Looked like.

“AS SUCH, DIRE DECLARES THIS TRIAL A FARCE. SHE WILL NOW ESCORT MISTER JACKSON FROM THESE PREMISES—”

“You’re going nowhere, Dire!”

Finally!

I spun, as the doors that led to the judge’s chambers burst open, and a green-and-black blur rushed through them.

Ballista, the first hero I’d ever fought. Ballista the hothead, Ballista who blamed me for his mentor’s death. Ballista, who’d saved my life once.

Ballista, who chucked a spear straight at my mask, so fast that I had no time to blink. It punched into my mask, and the forcefield just underneath the first layer of ceramic-steel composite flared, stopping the spear before it could pierce the last layer.

My temper flared up. What the hell? There were people behind me! If he’d missed...

“YOU’VE LEARNED NOTHING, HERO.” I raised a hand as the shattered bits of spear pattered to the ground around me. At least he hadn’t thrown at his full strength. That would have touched off a sonic boom. Not good in an enclosed space like this.

He rolled to the side, evading my particle beam as I blew a bench to splinters. “Oh, I’ve learned something alright, Doctor!” He yelled back. He’d cut his hair short since last I saw him, I noted in one of those absent flashes you get when the adrenaline’s pumping. He stopped rolling, flipped to his feet in an acrobatic display. His costume was pure green, with a black stripe diagonally across it, ending in an arrowhead emblem. He wore a domino mask over an olive-skinned face, and he’d added black gloves since our last confrontation. Now that I had more experience recognizing ethnicity, I thought him Latino.

“YOU’VE LEARNED HOW TO POSE DRAMATICALLY?” I snarked, starting a jog around, and snapping off bolts of golden energy as I went, taking care to avoid firing lines that brought me anywhere near the crowd. “IF SO, IT NEEDS WORK.”

Much of the surrounding crowd took the opportunity to escape, and I let them go. The more out of the line of fire, the merrier. The FBI agents collared Martin again and started dragging him back. I whipped my free gauntlet around, and drilled one in the chest with a low-power beam. He went down like a sack of bricks. The others got the message and stopped, watching for the next opportunity.

Ballista went full-defensive, ducking and weaving. Okay, so not totally blasé about risking the crowd, good. I felt better about that. He’d probably only taken the shot at my head because he had surprise on his side and I’d been standing still.

“Pose dramatically? No.” he called, executing a forward flip over the remnants of the judge’s bench as I blasted it into bits. “I learned the value of a good distraction.”

Huh?

My proximity alert shrilled, and I cursed as my optical sensors went dark. OBSTRUCTION BLOCKING VIEW my HUD cheerfully informed me. I swept a gauntlet across my mask, and light flared up, showing the courtroom and a falling piece of... cloth? I was sweeping cloth away from my head?

A flicker, and it was dark again, and I heard a voice, rich and deep, shout “Just keep throwing, son! You’re not gonna hit me with those slow-ass shots.”

I sighed, as another spear thunked into my side, and the forcefield reduced it to fragments before it could do any real damage. It had been a gamble, coming here when I did. Icon City was full of heroes, and starting a fuss was guaranteed to draw some of them. Ballista I’d expected, he’d been on site and waiting for me. Others, like Tomorrow Force or Crusader were far too dangerous to risk fighting over this, so I’d waited until Crusader was busy in South America, and leaked the location of a West Coast WEB base to Tomorrow Force, to draw them off. But I couldn’t lock down every hero in the city. And the one that was attacking me now, was one of the more troublesome of the lot.

“FREEWAY,” I said, tearing what I now recognized to be a tablecloth from my mask once more. I got a flicker of the courtroom around me again, a view of Ballista drawing back another spear, and the three remaining FBI agents dragging Martin once more towards the exit.

Then a blur and a snap, and the tablecloth was over my eyes again. Another spear fragmented off my back, and the forcefield blocked it. Again.

“THIS ISN’T YOUR BATTLE,” I said, and instead of tearing the tablecloth loose, I hit it with a wide-diffusion particle beam. It went up with a WHOOMF, and my systems chattered angrily at me for putting stress on my force field. The second I could see again, I blew one of the FBI agents into the wall. He hit the ground and quivered, stunned.

“Actually it kind of is,” Freeway said, his voice coming from the blur that circled the edges of the courtroom. My targeting systems were going nuts, trying to get a lock on him. “I want that young man to have a fair trial.”

Then my sensors were blocked again, this time by a bright, blood-hued red. I rolled my eyes. He’d flipped my own cape over my head.

Freeway was a speedster. He could bypass physics, move at high speeds without touching off sonic booms or causing collateral damage to those around him, which was a great help to his hero work. Worse, he was an experienced hero. He’d gone up against all sorts of foes in his career, and not all of them were public record. I doubted I was the first power-armored villain he’d had to fight. In this case, he’d probably assessed the situation, figured he didn’t want to break his knuckles on my steel plate. So he was settling for throwing the equivalent of blankets over me so that Ballista could administer a beatdown.

Two more spears hit me, and I checked my power readings. Seventy-four percent charge. I could keep taking these for a while, but not forever. I needed to change things up. I thought about triggering the screamers, decided against it. Still too early. Timing would be crucial, here.

Well. Can’t cover what you can’t reach, hm?

I activated my armor’s gravitic system, and hovered into the air, casting my cape aside as I did so. It was a further drain on power, but it did the trick, as my vision was uninterrupted for a few precious seconds.

“A FAIR TRIAL? YOU THINK HE’D GET ONE HERE?” I put my sneer into my armor’s voice, as best I could.

Ballista scurried behind cover, and across from him, a black-and-yellow blur stopped, materialized into a stocky man. He had a mask with goggles on it, that left his mouth and nose exposed but covered the rest of his face and head. The rest of his costume was more or less a jumpsuit, black with yellow dotted lines, not unlike a street’s pattern. The skin revealed by his mask was a deep, walnut brown. “Listen,” he said, spreading his arms wide. I resisted the urge to take a shot at him, he’d be out of the way before I could bring my arm up. “I know what you went through. I talked with Martin, got his side of the story.”

I glanced to Martin. “IS THAT SO?”

He nodded, pulled his arms loose from the two agents left holding him. “Dude’s paying for my lawyer.”

That gave me pause... which lasted up until I recalled the judge’s crimes. Still, if Martin wanted to go through with it, could I deny him that?

“MARTIN. CAN YOU LOOK DIRE IN THE EYE, AND TELL HER YOU HONESTLY HAVE A SHOT AT JUSTICE, HERE?”

He looked up at my mask’s eyesockets, then down at the ground. “I wish I could,” he said. “You got no idea how much I wish I could.”

Freeway shook his head. “Then what? This?” He swept his arm around to the mostly-emptied courtroom, particle burns on the walls and furniture in bits from my attempts to blast Ballista. Rubble still pattered down from above, from where I’d made my entry. “This is anarchy. The sort of thing that you fought to stop, Doctor.”

“THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN,” I said. “BETTER TO DERAIL IT HERE, THAN LET ANOTHER BE SACRIFICED TO NO PURPOSE.” I checked the clock, and frowned. Still too early. Monologuing? Headgames? Might tie them up for a bit. It was worth a shot. “AND SO IT FALLS TO DIRE TO FIX WHAT YOU CANNOT. WHAT WAS HAMLET’S LINE? THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT, O CURSED SPITE. THAT EVER I WAS BORN TO SET IT RIGHT.”

Martin looked to me in shock. “Whoa. You said “I”? You can do that now?”

Actually I couldn’t. Due to brain damage, I couldn’t refer to myself using most pronouns, or anything but my proper name. It was a long story.

“AH, NO, ACTUALLY. IT WAS A QUOTE, MARTIN. SINCE SHE WAS QUOTING, RATHER THAN REFERRING TO HERSELF—”

The spear took me in the back, and actually rocked me forward a bit, despite the forcefield blocking it.

“Damn it Ballista!” Freeway yelled, and blurred into motion again. At a speed that beggared thought a pillar of collected chairs and furniture bits started to rise into the air as he tried to build a ladder to me. I simply flew away from it, re-calibrating my targeting systems back to Ballista. We traded a few shots, and I found myself at a disadvantage. With Freeway running interference, and Ballista’s acrobatic skill, I couldn’t land a hit on him. Whereas he was under no such hindrances; my limited room to maneuver in the airspace of the dome meant I had no cover. And there was no one to run interference for me.

I was losing. My energy reserves were depleting more and more with each hit scored, with the fusion cell at the heart of my suit unable to keep up with the drain. Sooner or later I’d be out, and then I’d have to land, and face them without a forcefield. It was taking time, but they were wearing me down.

Just as planned. I felt a grin spread across my face.

And finally my HUD’s alarm chimed, telling me that everything was in readiness. I killed the forcefield, and let the next spear slide full on into my armored chest, knocking me from the sky, crashing down into the witness stand and spreading chunks of it across the jury box. The FBI agents left grabbed Martin and hustled him out of the room, and I smiled to see it.

“Jesus!” Freeway shouted. “What did you do, Ballista, stop!”

I chuckled. “ONLY HURTS WHEN SHE LAUGHS.”

Ballista didn’t break cover. “It’s a trick.”

Freeway didn’t think so. “Hold still Doctor, we’ll get you help.”

“YOU’RE A GOOD MAN,” I told him. “SHE’S SORRY FOR THIS.”

I activated the screamers.

Short-range sonic resonators, built into my armor’s abdomen. They hissed to life with a horrible, rising whine, that I heard even through the baffles I’d set into my mask. They pulsed and howled through the courthouse dome, working with the acoustics as I’d designed them to. They wouldn’t affect anyone outside the room.

Inside the room?

It was like two punches, straight to the inner ears. Nausea, vertigo, crippling migraines, and extreme pain. I saw the heroes double over, as I flipped myself up, ignoring the damage readouts from my armor’s chest plate. I’d lied, earlier. Didn’t hurt at all, even when I laughed. And I was laughing now, not that the heroes heard it. Mocking, deep laughter, echoing throughout the courthouse.

“AND SO YOU FALL BEFORE DIRE.” I let them have it with the gauntlet tasers, paused, looked them over. Out cold. I killed the screamers. Too much exposure would cause permanent trauma, and I saw no reason to be cruel.

“NOW THEN. YOU’LL HAVE TO EXCUSE HER, SHE’S GOT A—”

BIP!

Huh? That was a strange noise. Feedback from the screamers, maybe?

“Holy shit!”

I turned at the outburst, and blinked at the sight before me. A weedy-looking brown-haired man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of torn jeans? He wasn’t dressed for the weather or the austerity of court. He had a scraggly, untrimmed beard, and a worried look on his face, as he raised a trembling finger at me. “Um. Yeah. Sorry Doc, but I can’t let you go or the future’s gonna suck major—”

I tased him. He jerked and twitched, and fell to the ground, kicking his heels. I turned off the taser, studied him for a second as he writhed. No hero I recognized. No costume, and the face was unfamiliar. Why had he confronted me? Had I just taken down a civilian?

He shimmered and faded, body collapsing into blinding light, with an echoing ‘BIP!’

Nope, definitely a metahuman then. So that’s where the noise had come from. Weird. I checked my chronometer, found I still had about half a minute before the next phase.

“Not cool, man.” The stranger’s voice echoed around the dome, and I turned, looking for him.

“WHO ARE YOU? WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS HERE?”

“Name’s Timetripper,” he said, and I caught a flash of motion in the jury box. I blew a hole in the low wall around it, heard him curse.

“AH. A TIME TRAVELER, THEN?” I felt my lips curl back. People like him were the reason I’d erased my old memory, hidden my past from myself.

“Uh. Yeah. Wow, usually I have to explain this.”

“THE NAME AND THE EARLIER REFERENCE TO THE FUTURE SUFFICE.”

“Sharp as always, Doc.”

He stood up, grinning through his beard. I raised a gauntlet, and hesitated. No, this was a trick.

I whirled, found a duplicate of him creeping up on me. I tased it instead, then turned back to the jury box... only to find the original gone.

BIP!

The acoustics, which had worked in my favor before, now hindered me. I couldn’t track where that was coming from. Well, no reason the same trick that worked against Freeway couldn’t work here. I flew up, surveying the ground below. Could he fly? I doubted it.

“Gotcha!” A proximity alarm from above, and my visual feed went dark. The armor stopped responding altogether, and I swore to myself, as I checked the logs. He’d been in the hole, of course, the space above that I’d cored out when I entered the building. Just waiting for me to stray near to it... and then what? Had he frozen my armor in a stasis bubble? Transported it through time? Unleashed the uncaring entropy of a thousand years at once, and disintegrated it?

Well.

Whatever he’d done, it made me glad that I wasn’t in the armor at the time.

“Evac,” I whispered, and the gyroscopic harness released around me, letting me slide to the ground unhindered. I slipped the VR goggles from my eyes, and tossed them aside, to fall on the cluttered floor of the basement.

“Burn,” I whispered once more, and the self-destruct devices in my gadgets beeped, started their countdown. I didn’t stick around to see it, time was nearly up, and I wasn’t in position yet.

I hit the stairway door at a run, catching it with my shoulder. A dusty hall stretched before me. It was the older section of the courthouse, under renovations for the last few month. It had been child’s play, and the work of a few careful weeks, to infiltrate the contractors and smuggle my tech in bit by bit. Interfacing it with the armor in the orbital drop pod above had been the tricky part. Doing that without anyone catching my signal had been a trial of patience. Once the synch had been established, my harness and goggles let me pilot the suit remotely, act as though I was in it from the start.

But that part of this deception was over. Now I was depending on the FBI to follow their procedures. While I thought about it, I snagged a blue jacket off its hook, and pulled it on. Simplicity itself to swipe one from last night’s laundry crew, replace it with a cheap knockoff. The name on the back was ‘Wilson’. I knew she wouldn’t be in the team on duty today, and my hair was roughly the same shade. Thanks to a little prepwork, I now matched her style.

I slid through the emergency exit, ignored the fleeing crowd, and looked around for my targets. If they followed the plans that their chief had detailed in the gridmails I’d hacked, the van would be pulling up right about...

There. The two FBI agents I’d let escape the courtroom stood at the curb, with Martin between them. I ran to join them. “What’s the situation?” I barked, as the older one turned to look at me.

“Villain attack! We need to—”

The stungun concealed in my grip took him in the solar plexus, and he collapsed in a whisper of cloth.

“SNIPER!” I bellowed, seizing Martin’s arm with my free hand, and hustling him toward the van as it screeched to a halt. The younger one jumped, let go of Martin, and grabbed his partner.

“Matty? Matty? Oh god!”

“Call an ambulance!” I howled at him. “Gonna secure Jackson!”

I ripped the side door open, shoved Martin forward into the van, and climbed in behind him, surveying the interior. One driver, one agent in back, crouched low with an assault rifle. Metal mesh between the driver and the back compartment.

“Go go go!” I yelled, and the gunner pulled the door shut, as we braced ourselves and the van peeled out.

“What’s the situation?” The guard asked.

I stungunned him in the face. He jerked, started to fall, and I grabbed him, pulled him in close as if I was talking into his ear.

“Oh shit,” Martin said. He started laughing hysterically.

“Hey! Shut up back there!” The driver yelled.

I kept nodding my head next to the unconscious agent’s, like I was whispering to him. We made it about five blocks before the driver got suspicious.

“Hey, Wilson, what happened back there?”

I turned, face etched into a frown. “Villain attack.” But he was looking past me, and his eyes widened, as he took in the gunner’s slack face and closed eyes.

I sighed, then let my mouth open into a wide, clenched grin. “And you’re next. Stop the van.”

“You killed Higgins? Bad mistake.” He reached for the dashboard, and hit the button that would fill the back compartment with teargas.

My smile got wider. “You guys really should have used more than one van to transport the prisoner.”

He pushed the button a few more times, swore. But he wasn’t stopping. I shook my head, and pulled out my universal remote, clicked through until I got the right menu. “After all, it was easy to disable your security.”

He grabbed for the CB radio, and that I couldn’t allow. “Brace yourself,” I told Martin, and followed my own advice as I hit the button on the universal remote.

The van screeched to a halt, the airbag fired up in the driver’s face, and all the doors clicked open at once. I was moving the second it stopped, whipping around the side of the van, jerking the passenger door open, and jamming my stungun into the visible thigh of the driver as he thrashed and tried to get free. People on the street stared as I punctured the airbag, jerked the driver free, and rolled his unconscious body out of the vehicle. I slid into the now vacated seat, and resumed driving. But not along the planned evacuation route.

A knock from the back compartment, and I slid it open, keeping eyes forward.

“Holy shit,” Martin said.

“Hello to you too, Martin.”

“Nearly didn’t recognize you, Dire.”

“That was the point of the disguise.”

“So, uh, thanks. What now?”

“Ditch the van at the planned location, switch to a different vehicle, and drive to the safehouse.”

“And then?”

I stopped at a red light, turned to grin at him. “Then the real work begins.”

CHAPTER 2: THE LAIR

“It's easier than you'd think to move around in public, even after your secret identity's been outed. Most people are bad at matching faces to photos. If you act normal and maybe wear some sunglasses or a hat or something to draw attention away from your face, you've got good odds of grabbing a pizza or whatever without people calling nine one one. Well, unless you're ten feet tall and green. Which is why my life sucks.”

--Crocagator, during an in-prison interview with Channel Five News.

Whaler’s Wharf was an older part of the city, back when shipping and fishing had been its major industries. Both ended up falling by the wayside after World War Two, and the infrastructure had suffered as a result. They had never completely gone away, however, and the open air stalls of Fishmarket were still the best place for fresh seafood in the city. A few long-established factories in Cannery Row still worked night and day to compress tuna and cod into transportable packages, and the great cranes of Dockside unloaded the big ships that found their way past Baltimore and Boston Harbor. On a darker note, though the Tongs of Dragon Street were long gone, eradicated by the Phantasm in the thirties, drugs were still an epidemic. No longer was the district host to the opium dens and speakeasies of a bygone age. Now the junkies chased cheap and dangerous thrills of betameth, and heroin.

The overall impression was one of surly, stoic decay. Though not as bad as the slums where I’d first achieved consciousness, it was definitely a neighborhood where the money had fled years ago. Many baroque, older buildings were left boarded up, crumbling as time and tide wore upon them, exposed to the sea on the peninsula that jutted out from the southeast of Icon like a sturdy chin. The newer structures were all stainless steel and treated concrete, stained by oil and heavy use. A few nice houses on the southern shore, old colonials with widow’s walks and turrets, and tightly maintained little gardens in their postage stamp yards.

The lair wasn’t in the residential sections, though. I’d rented a small warehouse through a false identity. It wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny for more than a few months, but I wouldn’t need it for more than a few weeks, if all went to plan. All I truly needed from it was a place to lie low and store my equipment, and it performed that job admirably. It was close enough to one of the wharves that the noise of the cranes muffled the industrial noises my welding and manufacturing gear produced, during the daytime, at least.

Martin wasn’t impressed. “Shee-it, what a dump. Roaches or rats?”

“Probably some vermin running around the lower level. Dire doesn’t particularly care, so long as they stay out of the living quarters above.” I slowed the Fjord Nina to a stop, ignoring the rattling from the suspension. It had been one of the cheapest cars I could find from a seller who asked no questions, and ugly enough that I didn’t fear potential theft when I left it out in the small lot behind the facility. Once parked, I hopped out, closed the rusty gate, and shut the padlock behind us. I measured the distance to the docks, nodded. Unlikely to be anyone watching who cared about us.

“Safe to come out, but get inside quick,” I instructed Martin. I’d left a change of clothes in roughly his size in the backseat before I launched this operation, and he tugged on his faded flannel shirt and too-large jeans as he got out of the car and stretched.

“Man, I feel like a damn lumberjack. You got a belt for these? I don’t do the pulldown pants thing.”

“They’re better than the prison jumpsuit. Come on.” I tapped the keycode into the number pad I’d installed on the door, and led the way inside. “Lights,” I said, stopping a few feet into the darkness, and with a soft hum the hanging tubes flickered to life.

He whistled. “Okay, this is more like what I expected.”

The inside was a mechanic’s wet dream. Bits of salvaged scrap and machinery coated every horizontal surface that wasn’t the ground. Tables and crates and shipping containers had been turned into workbenches for various projects. Mechanical arms crafted from smaller cranes whirred along tracks set in the rafters, spot-welding a project out of sight in the center of four shipping containers, while old computer monitors flickered and charted through the Computer Assisted Drafting programs I’d used to set the construction bots to task.

None of it looked particularly illegal. I’d made sure to hide the defenses from casual view. If someone snuck a look in through one of the high, open window slots on the walls, they’d see nothing worth calling the cops over.

Maybe a few things worth stealing. In which case, once they stepped foot inside, they’d have to deal with pop-up turrets, directional screamers, taser grids, and— depending on the timing— me.

The lair drew a bit more power than would be expected from the low-tier industrial shop it was registered as, but I was supplementing the draw with a couple of homemade generators hidden in the shipping containers. Generators are a lost art, I’d found. With broadcast power so reliable for so long, the technology hasn’t been significantly developed over the last few decades.

That was changing now, in the aftermath of the Y2K incident.

“The living quarters are upstairs,” I said, gesturing to a flight of metal stairs up, and a short catwalk that led to an enclosed area, with shuttered windows. He followed me, staying well clear of the moving armatures, and the tables full of junk.

I flipped a light switch on. Upstairs, it wasn’t much. A couple of offices, a few cots tucked in them, some stores of meals-ready-to-eat that I’d located at military surplus shop, a laptop computer running Portals ninety-five, and a few guns. Standard types that fired bullets and not particle beams. I had no real plans to use them unless things went very wrong, but in my short time that I could remember, well, things had gone very wrong.

Fake ID that withstood the background checks for the guns had been easier to acquire then the fake ID that allowed me to set up the computer’s Gridnet connection. That said a lot about this nation, right there.

One wall was filled with nothing but televisions, screens open to different channels. One screen was talking about the current troubles in the Middle East. Another screen detailed the rising cost of gang warfare in Icon City. Twelve others showed everything from soap operas to sports games to children’s shows. Martin cracked a smile when he saw it. “Okay, this is stereotypical evil genius shit, right here. You seriously watch TV this way?”

I nodded. “Turns out her powers are useful for paying attention to and comprehending multiple feeds at once. Which is good, because she’s got decades of popular culture to catch up on, in order to blend in well with this society.”

“Wait, is that Mister Roberts?”

I looked at the screen. A middle-aged, fatherly looking man played with puppets and told me how special I was.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re watching Mr. Roberts?” He snickered.

“Every morning,” I confirmed. “Dire enjoys the trips to the land of Made Belief.”

“Dude. I— I don’t even know what to say there that ain’t bad.”

“Mock not Mr. Roberts,” I waggled a finger at him. “He’s a common cornerstone for this entire culture. And he’s a positive role-model. If more of his lessons were taken to heart, the world would not need so much fixing.”

“Okay. It’s just... that shit’s for toddlers.”

“Well, looking at it in one way, Dire’s less than a year old. Memory wipe, remember?”

“Hm.” Martin studied me for a second, eyes unreadable.

“Hm what?”

“Had a lot of time to think in my cell. There were a few times over the last few months, where I thought maybe it was an act. That you’d been faking that amnesia, using us to hide from old enemies. But it wasn’t, was it?”

“No.” I’d awakened after the eve of Y2K, my memories carved out by surgery... which had been initiated by my own hand, as I’d come to find. I was still angry at old me for doing that. She’d left some common sense stuff, and a hell of a lot of technological data, but popular culture? That had gotten the axe. I sighed. “The worst part is that her old self might have had a point.”

“How so?”

“Well, on her tape, she said that this was the only way to protect her past self from time travelers. And guess who showed up to stop Dire?”

“Ballista and Freeway? What, they’re time travelers now?”

“No. Another hero claiming to be such showed up after you left. Actually managed to stop Dire. Well, Dire’s drone set of armor, anyway.”

“Drone? Ha!” He sat down in a swivel chair, grinned as he put his feet up on a desk. “That’s how you did it! One big distraction.”

I grinned back, and settled in the room’s lone easy chair. “Oh, there were other components. But yes, the suborbital drop, and the armor’s battle, that was all a distraction.”

“Wait. Sub-orbital drop?”

“Oh. Yes. The FBI had the courthouse locked up tight. Managed to infiltrate as a construction worker, and smuggle gear to a staging location near it bit by bit. Couldn’t do the armor, though. Had to sneak the drop pod aboard a private shuttle launch up. Near thing, too, almost got nabbed by Tomorrow Force.” I grimaced. The whole caper had been tricky. I’d tipped my hand, and the facility had gone on alert.

Martin stared at me. “Okay. Starting to see why it took you half a year to get to me.”

I shrugged. “Other things had to align. Securing revenue by hacking banks, acquiring materials by looting junkyards, building up false identities by more hacking, arranging this site, the vehicle, and the gear... it wasn’t easy, Martin. But she is Dire, after all.”

“Jesus. Okay. So, uh... why?”

I blinked. My voice was soft, as I answered him. “You have to ask? You’re her friend, Martin, one of the few she can trust. Of those left alive, anyway.” I looked away.

“Shit. Sorry. Poor Roy.”

We were silent for a while. Roy had been gutshot, bled out before anyone could do anything.

“He deserved better,” I finally said. “Now that she knows what World War Two was, he— not right he should survive that, only to fall to scum like he did.”

“Seen more people die than I care too, Dire. Here’s a hint, ain’t no one dies with dignity. Pretty much every death's horrible.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Well.” I shifted eyes back to him, offered a smile. “Besides the fact of friendship, there is something she needs.”

He didn’t look surprised, just spread his arms in a ‘go on’ motion.

“It shouldn’t be a hardship. Basically Dire’s trying to track down everyone who survived, make sure they’re accounted for. Got some of them. Sparky’s in the care of the Liberty Brigade right now. Once some of the facts came out, they got him in on a veteran’s program.”

“Mm. They run a retirement home and some veterans stuff, yeah?”

“And the Torchbearers fund. Spied on them a little, they’ve got Sparky working with the junior heroes. It’s a good spot for him, being a mentor to a bunch of precocious children. He looked happy.”

Martin tapped his chin. “Aight. Tryin’ to think what I can tell you you don’t already know... you seen Khalid? Or Last Janissary?”

The two names were one and the same person, a small Turkish man with a big heart and alchemically-induced immortality. Among other things, he was a hunter of vampires, and our last caper had brought him in as an ally.

“No,” I admitted. “Can you fill in the blanks there?”

“A bit. When I came to after the WEB attack, he was shaking me awake. Looked like hell, moving slow. Said that he’d broken enough bones from the fall that his skeleton was having trouble healing, and he’d have to slink off and rest for a bit, mix up some of his bone paste. Said that he’d see us safely back to camp before he bailed. The Locust was too dangerous, and he’d have to find him before he broke free of whatever Barbatos trapped him in. I didn’t see him after that.”

“Mm.” I chewed my lip. “Well. Hate to say it, but Dire’s got no way of contacting him, or he of her. If she runs across him again she’ll help of course, but unless that happens he’s on his own. Have to hope he succeeds.”

“Yeah.” Martin nodded. “Most people in camp made it out okay. Hid in the tunnels during the gunfight. Guzman was out on the boats, crazy bastard, but he was far enough out they didn’t shoot him. So yeah, everyone accounted for. ’Cept Abes and Minna, no one knows where they got to.” He turned his head a bit, an odd look in his eye as he spoke Minna's name.

“Dire knows where Abes got to,” I glowered. “She turned traitor.”

“What? Shit, you serious?”

“As death.”

“Shit. Huh. Thought she was a little off, but I figured that she was just weirded out by the gang stuff and the whole homeless thing.”

“Nope. Anyway, it’s little matter for now.”

“Aight. So, Minna?”

I rubbed my chin. “Hm. Dire had her set off the carbomb trap that slowed the attackers. Before Dire left, Minna said that once she did that, she’d come to help fight.”

Martin shook his head. “I never saw her. And the survivors in the street never saw her. I was afraid she'd...” His voice trailed off.

I stood, paced back and forth in front of the table. “Not good. Minna was running from some rough people.”

“Vory? Yeah. She told me about that.”

“You too?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We, uh, were close. Off and on sometimes, when she wanted loving.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Dire saw no signs of that.”

“It was mostly off when you were there. That night after Joan died, we were on again, though. It hit her hard. I’d have been worried, ’cept she had Anya, so I knew she wouldn’t do nothing stupid.”

“Anya. Was she in camp when you got back?”

“Lemme think...” He leaned back further, closed his eyes. Finally nodded. “Yeah. Yeah I saw her. That woman that Minna saved in the church was watching Anya.”

“Her! Yes. Her name was Susan. Are Anya or Susan still around?”

Martin spread his hands. “Dunno. Power came on shortly after, and when we woke up in the morning after, SWAT teams were surrounding us and telling us to lie down and cooperate. I got grabbed quick, and then, well... I don’t know what happened to nobody else.”

I slowed, but kept pacing. “Susan's name is more of a lead than she had. Thank you.”

“No, shit, thank you!” Martin said. “I got so many damn enemies, that if I pulled any kind of prison sentence with gen pop, I’d be dead in a week. Only reason I survived is ’cause Freeway’s lawyer got my ass in solitary till the trial was done.”

“Hm. You know the man from before?”

“Never saw him before. He busted up some of our ops while I was running the SCK. Regular pain in our ass. But since then... nah.”

“So he had no ulterior motive?”

Martin shook his head. “I was suspicious, but he kept saying he just didn’t want to see me get fucked over by the system. Well, more than I’d earned, anyway. He had a lot of questions to ask about what went on, and I told him what I thought was safe.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.” The press had blamed me for the deaths in our struggle. That one hero didn’t buy it was encouraging, but in the end I didn’t care. The truth would come out eventually. The winners write the history books, so all I had to do was win and keep winning. And so far, so good.

I chuckled, and Martin looked at me sharply. “Huh?”

“Just musing. Sinister long-term plans. Villain stuff.”

“Ah. Yeah, that. You, uh, gone full villain, then?”

“She thought that was pretty clear back in the courtroom. Not like many other options were available, after the way things shook out with the Black Bloods. And WEB. And Tomorrow Force.”

“Mm. Yeah. Guess I can see that. With WEB having as much of a hateboner for you, turnin’ yourself in wouldn’t have worked out.”

“It would also be tantamount to admitting that Dire had done wrong.” I scowled. “A falsehood. Did the best she could under bad circumstances. If they call her a villain for that, so be it. Besides, easier to acquire resources and complete goals through villainous methods.”

Martin sucked on his front teeth for a few seconds. “Yeah. About that. What are they?”

“What are what?”

“Your goals. What do you want outta life?”

“You’re philosophical all of a sudden.”

“It’s... ah... Freeway and I got to talking a lot when he visited. He kept askin’ me what I wanted out of life. Told him the usual. Wine, women, song, and good things for my friends and shit. He told me I was too smart for that. I got all of those, and no troubles, I’d get bored. I’d want more. He challenged me to find some goals. I think the dude thought he was like my dad and shit.” Martin snorted. “He didn’t know my old man. I woulda been fuckin’ jumping for joy to have a dad like Freeway when I was a kid.”

I listened in silence. It seemed the thing to do. Finally when he trailed off, I cleared my throat. “Well. You’re right in that she has chosen goals. Simple ones, really.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s going to fix the world.”

He chuckled, looked over my face, and stopped chuckling. “You’re serious.”

“As an Irish funeral without beer.”

“What?”

“Ah. A joke she heard on the Latedark show yesterday. She’s trying humor with mixed results. Not used to it. Actually one of the things you can help with.”

“Lady, if you broke me outta there to be the comic-relief black sidekick, we gonna have words. Words like ‘fuck’ and ‘no’.”

“No, no no... it’s...” I waved a hand to the bathroom, and the cluttered sink just visible through the open door. “Left Icon City for a time to recover and heal, after escaping WEB and Tomorrow Force. Lived homeless, had experience with that from the camp, at least. Got up the East Coast, disappeared. Worked on blending in. Learned disguises. Learned conversational means to work around the verbal tics. Learned to scavenge.”

I pulled up the blinds on the window, to reveal the factory floor below, and the amounts of material being manufactured. “Worked out well, all things considered, but...” I sighed. “Never had friends like she did back on the beach. Couldn’t risk it. Face known to the MRB and heroes. Losing self. Losing equilibrium.” I let the blinds fall. “Dire needs balance. Needs someone to trust. She needs help regaining... well, humanity. All the things old Dire carved out of herself.” I tapped my skull, then flapped my hand, in a helpless gesture.

Martin stood and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned into the embrace, and hugged him back. No one had done that, not for months, and it struck me harder than I thought. I shuddered a bit, and choked a sob, as tears crawled out of my eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey. I got you, ’kay?”

I cried for a little bit. It was safe to cry. No enemies were there to see me.

Finally I regained composure, and let him go. He eased back, left a hand on my shoulder. “We okay?”

“Yes. Think so.”

He nodded. “Truth be told, I been in solitary for months. No one to shoot the shit with, save Freeway and the guards, and the guards weren’t too friendly. It’s... I think I know how you feel. And it’s shitty.”

I smiled. “Then let us keep each other sane.”

“Promise.” Martin strolled back to the chair. “So. Fix the world, huh?”

“Yes.” I gestured at the bank of televisions, and the various scenes of violence, reports of crime, and disasters that flickered by. “Too much is wrong, and it’s getting worse. Need to change the paradigm. Need to set humanity on a path to a better future.”

“Shit. You ain’t thinking small.”

“No, not really,” I agreed. “Don’t have the full how of it yet. Still trying to find all the variables, and key points to influence. Working up a list of priorities to move humanity into a golden age, and make it sustainable. Won’t be able to fix everything, but won’t have to, if Dire sets the framework up to change prosperity from a zero-sum game to a cooperative effort.” I sighed. “No obvious shortcuts there. Just the labors of Sisyphus, only with multiple boulders.”

“There’s worse titans to be. Least you ain’t got no eagle goin’ for your guts cause you gave some dude a handful of coals.”

A lot of people assumed Martin was uneducated because of his manner of speech. A lot of people were foolish. True, he’d never completed high school, but he read voraciously. He’d loaned me a copy of Lord of the Flies, once. It had been enlightening.

“Well,” I said, “the first step before fixing any of the world’s woes is establishing a strong foundation.”

Martin stood, opened the blinds, and pointed to the machines below. “You got a lot of toys here. And I’ve known villains who would kill for this sort of secret lair.”

“Eh. It’s not as good as it seems.” I moved up next to him, gestured at the tables. “Dire’s on her last set of components. Building up the drone armor, the drop pod, the remote control harness, and a few other nifty gadgets took most of her resources. And the critical pieces gathered here are going to one last major project.” I dug the universal remote out of my pocket, and scrolled through the menus. Life had gotten much easier when I’d made myself contact lenses with Augmented Reality capability.

The shipping containers moved aside, groaning on hydraulics to reveal the central part of the workshop, and the cradle where the Dire Armor Mk. III awaited the final assembly. Eight solid feet of steel composite with hardened ceramic inlays, a hydraulic system capable of lifting a truck cab, an onboard gravitic flight array through the lower legs that allowed VTOL capability, good maneuverability, and redundancy in the event of trauma. All that plus onboard weapons systems that made the decoy armor’s particle beams look like peashooters. The helmet’s face gaped open. We watched the arms whir and flash around it, hellish light reflecting off of shining silver as the welding torches flared and hissed.

It wasn’t sleek. It wasn’t elegant. It loomed solid and heavy, and it promised pain to any who stood in its way.

Martin whistled. “You come a long way from Scrapper’s sloppy seconds.”

I made a face. “Don’t remind her. Still remember having to wash his shit and gore out of the power armor. Never did get rid of the smell.”

He chuckled, gaze not leaving the suit, light flickering over the whites of his eyes. “So. Okay. You get this bad baby up and running. Then what? Please don’t say bank robbery, that shit never goes well.”

“What? No. Those things seem to draw heroes like flies.” I gnawed my lip. “And actually the immediate steps are something with which she could use some help. Some... feedback, yes, that’s the term. Finding Minna and Anya and making sure they’re all right is the next goal. Dire plans to enlist Minna if she wishes to join, or rescue her if she’s in trouble.”

“She might just have gotten out while the getting’s good,” Martin said, and immediately corrected himself. “No fucking way she’d leave Anya. My bad, disregard.”

“Dire’s guess is that she’s either gone to ground to avoid drawing notice from her pursuers, or been seized by them. Your mention of Anya and Susan opens up a new avenue of investigation, but that will take time and resources to pan out. Which brings us to the next short-term goal. Resources.”

“Yeah? Need cash?”

“Yes. Springing you from the courthouse required taking risks. To avoid being tracked back here, Dire must forgo her former, easier methods of resource acquisition.” I moved over to the computer chair, and sat down. “Had to hack the FBI to get the information needed on their security, procedures, and setup in the courthouse. They know that she’s done that, now, no other way to get that data. So she left a false trail behind, including some decoy hacks that are timed to go off in several cities north of here.”

“You’re making it look like we’re running,” Martin said.

I showed teeth. “Precisely. However, this means that her former method of hacking banks for account transfers is too high of a risk. It’ll be months, at least, before they stop watching for her methods.”

“So you need a new way of getting money.”

“Yes. Only a bit. Worked out ways to multiply it with low-risk investments and chicanery. Just need a seed, as it were, to grow into self-sustaining capital. A few million should do it.”

Martin shook his head. “I hope you don’t want me to start dealing again. I had some talks with Freeway ’bout that in prison. It... wouldn’t sit right. Not anymore.”

“No, no. Wouldn’t ask you to compromise your conscience. That method puts you too much at risk, anyway.”

“Then what?”

“Open to suggestions. She’s got a battlesuit capable of fending off groups of heroes, obscene amounts of scientific skill with a focus in robotics and hardware, and an intuitive grasp of computers and hacking.” I spread my hands. “Surely we can do something with that?”

Martin studied me for a second, rubbed his cheek, and a slow smile spread across his face. “Now that you mention it, I think I might have just the thing.”

It took the loan of a burner phone and about a half-hour’s worth of calls, but Martin finally announced success. “Place we want is up in Barside, off the Waterfront. We’re gonna have to go out of costume. That a problem?”

I looked over the construction bots’ progress. “No. Still got about another day to go before the next layer of armor is baked in. Composites are a bitch to work with, at least without a proper industrial setup.”

“I was more worried ’bout that whole wanted felon shit.”

“Oh. No, it shouldn’t be. C’mere.” I headed back through the office space, cracked open a storeroom door. A dinky bathroom, with several small pots, hanging wigs, and clothes on racks scattered around the cracked sink. The mirror across from the toilet was dirty but functional, and I gestured at the jars full of brushes and applicators.

Martin looked it over. “Looks like backstage at a strip club.”

“You’d know.” I slapped his back, and he jumped. “What’s wrong? Was the humor off again?”

“No, no, my bad. Just been in solitary for a while. Touching feels weird when I ain’t expecting it.”

“Noted.” I tucked my hands in my pockets. “At any rate, most of this was easy to get. Plenty of costume shops and online theater suppliers sell Hollywood quality disguise materials and kits in bulk, and don’t ask questions. Didn’t take Dire long to pick up skills in this area.”

“I bet not. Ain’t all of us geniuses, though.” He frowned. “Genii?”

“Geniuses.” I grinned. “English is weird. Don’t worry, just sit down and hold still, and Dire will do you.”

“Uh...”

CHAPTER 3: MISTER FIXER

“Anywhere you find costumes, you find a shadow economy rising up to support them. Clandestine services, discrete businesses, and neutral agents who'll do business with both sides. It's human nature, really. Where there's money to be made, someone will step up to make it. Especially if it's a little shady, that's where the money is.”

--Name withheld by request, appearing on the Villains Anonymous television show, Episode Fourteen.

“Stop playing with it, or you’ll pull it off!”

Martin removed his hand from the goatee, with a guilty start. “Sorry. It just feels weird.”

“That’s probably the spirit gum.” It had taken half an hour for me to do up his face. I didn’t want him ruining it with an errant scratch.

He watched the streets go by, as I drove the Fjord through the residential neighborhoods, northeast toward Barside. The Waterfront is where the tourists of Icon go to play and relax and gamble in the casinos and marinas. Barside is where they go to eat and drink. Nothing but restaurants and pubs and convenience stores, several streets worth, back from the ocean and the Boardwalk. The place was just seedy enough to give that thrill of danger to a drunken tourist, but out-of-towners were generally safe. Mugging the poor locals who work here is one thing. Mugging rich tourists is another entirely.

We found parking in a nearby garage, and I straightened my clothing before following Martin to street level. With a simple white blouse, black skirt, and a set of fake thick glasses, I looked like a schoolteacher. I’d even done my hair up in a bun. My sole concession to accessories was a briefcase.

Taken together, we looked like a couple of office workers out for a drink before staggering home after the close of a business day. It was a common sight in this location; No one paid much attention to us, and I took the opportunity to study Martin as we went. I took note of the quickened breathing as we got out onto the street, and the way his hands shook before he tucked them into his pockets. His eyes darted back and forth behind his own glasses, trying to track every oncoming pedestrian or passing tourist, and I took care to catch his eye before setting my hand onto his arm.

“Relax,” I whispered.

“Don’t know if I can,” he muttered. “It’s the people. Been a while since I been ’round this many people.”

Had months in solitary changed him so much? Perhaps.

He’d always been one of the most social members of the camp, back on the beach. Always had someone to talk to, always doing something with other people. It must have been a shock, going from that to incarceration and days with no one else around.

My lips tightened. I was responsible for his plight. He’d ended up in prison by following me. I’d have to fix that, somehow. Find a way to help him recover. I didn’t know how, yet, but I added it to the pile of tasks ahead of me.

“Breathe,” I whispered. “She’s got you.”

And he did, though he never completely relaxed. Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go.

“Nothing’s Personal?” I said, reading the weathered sign tucked in among newer, more kitschy themed bars.

“Yeah,” Martin said. “This is one of several spots. The guy we’re meeting rotates between them. Cuts down on the chances of a raid, or someone getting stupid.”

The age-old conundrum for those who offer illegal services: balancing the prospect of profit versus the risk of discovery. Sure, you can have an unassailable fortress, or a secret location so deep that no one can find it, but that’s at the cost of paying customers being unable to connect with you. Conversely, a prime business spot that brings plenty of work will get busted if you don’t take adequate precautions. Which then cuts into your bottom line... and so on, and so forth, in an unending tug-of-war.

From the little that Martin had said this broker had been in the game a long time, so he’d evidently found the balance that worked for him.

The dark-glass double doors opened into a gloomy room, poorly lit even by contrast to the setting sun that chased us inside. It was five degrees too cold in here, and my skin went to goosebumps, as I stood there and let my eyes adjust. A musty smell pervaded the entryway... old food, not precisely rotting— but left to wither to dust on an unseen shelf. Classical music. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons? The strains sounded just a touch too loud, covering the noise of anyone who might be further back inside.

When my eyes adjusted and the shadows settled, I examined the large, dark-wooden paneled room of what appeared to be a high-class restaurant. The bar was microscopic and packed with people who eyed us briefly, before turning back to the solemn task of imbibing alcohol. There were no tables. What appeared to be three rows of enclosed booths stretched back into the dimness. 

The sign on the post next to us instructed us to wait to be seated, but Martin walked by it without a second glance, made for one of the booths that had its door ajar, and motioned me to follow. Aside from the four men and one woman sitting at the tiny bar, and the bartender behind it, I really couldn’t tell if anyone else was present. The walls of each booth stretched up to touch the low ceiling, and the doors were thick and of the same dark wood that lined the place.

I slid into a leather-upholstered bench opposite to Martin, and he guided the door shut behind me. Once it closed the music diminished, muffled and now bearable. The table between us glimmered, lit by a pair of candles, and faded menus sat neatly folded next to cloth napkins.

I set the briefcase next to me, and tapped my earring. A menu appeared on the lens of my glasses, and I blinked until the e-band scanner inside of the briefcase went from PASSIVE to ACTIVE.

“So. Safe to talk?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Martin nodded, sweat beading his brow. He was breathing hard again, clutching the table like a drowning man clinging to a shipwreck. “Just give me a minute.”

I blinked. It hadn’t been more than a three-block walk. He was worse off than I’d thought.

“We can leave,” I offered.

“No!” He caught himself. “No. Shit, I’ll be fine. It was... it was just too many people all at once. Didn’t ’spect it to hit me so hard. Shit—” He raised his sleeve to his forehead, and I grabbed his arm.

“Nope. Don’t smear the makeup.”

“Right. Sorry. Fuck, this is pathetic. I’m a mess.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, staring through the thick glasses, into his eyes. “You’ll adjust, given time.” At least I hoped so.

He smiled, but it was weak, and he wouldn’t meet my gaze. But he unclenched his hand from the table’s edge, and the white faded from his knuckles. Small victory, but victory nonetheless.

“When it comes time to leave, you can wait here. She can bring the car around,” I offered.

“Yeah. That’d help. Thanks.”

I gave him some space, flipped through the menu. The fare was plain given the prices, which were exorbitant. The wine list made up three pages of the five page pamphlet.

“We gonna be waiting a while,” Martin said. “Service here is shitty.”

“By design?”

“Yeah. Funny thing is this place does okay business anyway. Some people like the snooty. But it keeps the random douches out anyways. This and the other little touches.”

I nodded. “All right. Well, if we’re to be waiting and it’s safe to talk, then she’s got some questions. You said this place was a cover for a freelance fixer?” Yes, that was the term he’d used.

“Yeah. Mister Fixer, that’s what he’s called. Dude’s like the ultimate middleman.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s whoever’s riding him that we gotta worry about.”

“Explain.”

“Okay. So way I heard it, back in the day he or she used to be this villain called Hollowhusk. Real weirdo. Dude’s like a reverse ghost.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Still not comprehending, here.”

“Okay... So basically Hollowhusk’s got this ghost body, right? Can fly around go through walls, and shit. Thing is if it touches you, you fall unconscious, and your soul jumps into Hollowhusk’s body.”

“Soul? So Hollowhusk’s a mystical sort?”

“Soul, mind, something like that. I dunno the details. Basically you wake up in this dripping gooey form made of this ghost shit— what do they call it, erectoplasm? No, that ain’t right.”

I rubbed my chin. “Same capabilities as the original body?”

“Naw. No superpowers transfer over, and you’re made of slime. Stuck there until something destroys the body or he releases you. Maybe. This is all just rumor, mind. Not like Hollowhusk went around telling people his powers. Mostly he used it to keep heavy hitters busy, while his teammates cleaned up.”

“Hm. So what happened?”

“Lost a fight. Did time. When the dude came out, he went into the brokering business. Now he sells his body, literally. Or her. Hard to say?”

“If people end up in Hollowhusk’s body, then how do they not know that individual’s gender?”

“Well, way I hear it, the body turns into sort of a duplicate of its possessor. So yeah, nobody knows. Nobody that’s talking, anyway. Rumor is he got outta jail by doing some black ops shit for the CIA or some other government spooks.”

I nodded. “Starting to see the picture now. So people with illegal business occupy his body, instead of sending their own into danger.”

“Got it in one. He ain’t Hollowhusk no more, he’s Mister Fixer. And the dude. Makes. Bank.”

I folded my fingers, and rested my chin on my hands, as I thought. “He’d have to remain neutral. Keep the info he hears confidential.”

“Not sure he hears any of it. It’s other people in his body when the deals go down. Bottom line is, he’s been doin’ this for a decade or so, and nobody’s ever caught him leakin’ anything.”

“Hrm. So who are we meeting, then? Really?”

“Don’t know. Someone looking for a mercenary who can do what you can do.” Martin shrugged. “Truth is, we got lucky. His client needs someone now. Figured we’d be waiting awhile.”

One more question occurred to me; “Why haven’t the authorities brought him in?”

“For what? Dude’s got plausible deniability for everything. He ain’t the one breaking the law. He’s just setting up safe meetings for people. What they discuss is between them. Hell, rumor is some finance types use him for legit meetings. It’s more secure than a phone call.”

“You know a lot about this individual,” I mused.

“Former ganglord, yo.” He thumped his chest. “Used the guy a time or two. Well, not me personally, but Coate—” His voice trailed off.

Coate. Ah yes, his former second, the one who had betrayed him. Coate had killed Martin’s brother, and kicked Martin out of the gang.

“He’s going to be a problem at some point, isn’t he?” I asked. “Coate, Dire means.”

“If he is I’ll handle him.” Martin’s face was stone.

I nodded. How much of that was bluster? Hard to say. He hadn’t been able to handle Coate last time around. But I kept the doubt from my face, and after a few seconds he relaxed, started looking over the menu.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Well at least we don’t have to pay for this stuff. Let me see...”

He tore the menu in half, picked up the saltshaker, unscrewed it, and dumped a pile of sea-salt on the center of the table. He followed it up by snuffing the candles, unwrapping the cloth napkins, and putting the silverware into a pile with the handles touching the salt pile.

I raised an eyebrow. “Feel better now after that little display?”

“All that had a purpose. Way my friend tells me, this is how you signal you’re here for a talk.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I know. Still, what are the odds of some chucklefuck stumbling in and randomly doing this?”

“Higher than you’d think with all those bars out there and drunken tourists wandering about.”

“Hey, I didn’t make the rules. I just play by them.”

Whatever the case, when a waiter finally showed up ten minutes later, he looked at the mess and left without a word.

“Odds that he calls the cops on us or has us thrown out for making a mess?” I murmured to Martin.

“Just wait.”

The man was back inside of two minutes, offering a covered metal tray. He lifted it to reveal two full-faced black cloth hoods, blank save for eyeholes. I picked one up, felt it. Just cloth, no wires or suspicious lumps. My scanner didn’t scream an alarm at me, either.

“Please put them on and come with me, sir and madam.”

He’d lead us back, I assumed. Right past the bar.

“What about the people at the bar?” I asked. “They might find it a little strange.”

“Everyone at the bar is an employee, madam.” The waiter said, stone-faced.

I slipped on my mask, nodded to Martin, and slid out of the booth.

The music was as loud as I remembered it. I glanced around the room as we walked back, but the only people visible were the ones at the bar, and they didn’t even look at us. The waiter led us back past the restrooms to a plain unmarked door, and opened it without hesitation. He bowed, making an ‘after you’ gesture.

I nodded my thanks, and moved in. Martin followed, and the door shut behind us, cutting off the music. A glance around showed a storeroom, lit by a single dangling bulb. The walls were lined with cloth, and my scanner flashed a SIGNAL BLOCKED message to my glasses. Heartening, that. No way to spy on us electronically.

There were three simple steel chairs in the center of the room, set between racks and shelves of cleaning supplies and other sundries. I chose one, and folded myself into it.

After a moment a door on the other end of the room opened, and the man we were here to meet oozed in.

Five foot ten or so, a hair shorter than me. Face and head obscured by a cloth hood just like my own. A bit pudgy, but not unreasonably so, he wore a business suit similar to Martin’s.

He would have been just another man on the street, save for the hood, and the fact that I could see right through him. His body shimmered and roiled, mostly-translucent with a faint oiliness to it that suggested a chemical spill. He left slimy footprints on the concrete floor as he walked, but as I watched each one started shrinking as soon as it appeared, returning to wherever it had come from.

“Good evening,” the oozy figure said. His voice was a bit burbly. “As this is our first time doing business, I’m obliged to tell you that you are under no requirement to tell me your name.”

“Her name is Dire. Doctor Dire.” Martin said. I shot a look his way, but his face was unreadable beneath his hood. Had Martin just given up an advantage?

I thought not. He’d spent his whole life negotiating and selling illegal goods and services. I decided to have a little faith in him.

“Ah. That too is acceptable.” There was a pause, and the figure considered me. “You’re quite the busy woman, Doctor.”

I nodded. “Yes. Her time is both valuable and short, so let us skip directly to the business at hand.”

A nod, and I got the feeling he was pleased. “We’re of the same mind, then. Very well.” He took a seat, and Martin sat as well. “The job is a simple hijacking. In two days, a convoy will leave a facility belonging to Morgenstern Incorporated. It will travel west out of the city. Before it leaves the outskirts of Icon City, you and the rest of your team will retrieve a valuable piece of cargo from one of the vehicles. Is this job within your capabilities?”

Morgenstern Incorporated... the second-biggest technological firm in the city, run by the multi-billionaire Aegon Morgenstern, third and last of his line. I’d considered robbing him once, dropped the idea. For a non-metahuman, he’d accomplished much. His company was known for both philanthropy and an utter ruthlessness, particularly when it came to security. Villains had tried to steal his tech before. Some had succeeded, but never for long, and never without price.

But to express doubt would be to weaken my bargaining position. So instead, I snorted. “Did you see the six-o-clock news? That should answer your question right there.”

He nodded again. “Very well. Do you have questions?”

“Yes. What sort of security will the convoy have?”

“At least a dozen guards, spaced throughout three vehicles. Top of the line civilian weaponry, though not up to mil-spec levels. No known metahuman presence at this time. You and your team should be the only supers on the field.”

“Twice now you’ve mentioned a team,” I said. “Who are they?”

“Other discriminating professionals, similar to yourself. You’ll understand if I don’t give names until you’ve accepted the job.”

“Only fair,” I mused. “Nature of the cargo?”

“We’re paying for discretion and confidentiality. The cargo is in a container that should remain sealed, for your own safety, so it shouldn’t be an issue.”

I didn’t like that, but I let it pass.

“Where is it to be delivered, after we secure it?”

“You will be given a phone number. After the cargo is secured, call the number and we’ll give you an address for the hand-off. That’s when you’ll receive the rest of your payment.”

Seemed like a good idea, though it did put a fair amount of power in their court. Whoever this man was working for, they were maximizing plausible deniability and minimizing risk. I drew my mind back to matters at hand.

“Ah yes, payment. What did you have in mind, for Dire’s time and trouble?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

That... was quite a bit more than the small amounts I’d made with my weekly bank-hacks. I’d been unable to dip too far, due to the priority of avoiding detection. Two-hundred thousand was a good couple of month’s work. It wasn’t all of what I needed, of course, but it was a good start. I opened my mouth to accept the offer—

“Five hundred thousand,” Martin said.

What?

“Please,” the businessman said. “Don’t waste my time.”

“You’re wasting hers,” Martin said. “Two hundred thousand is chump change.”

“For a power-armored mercenary without power armor? I’m being kind, here.”

“Oh, she has armor.” I said. “It will be used on the job. If you can meet her price.”

“And yet I saw a suit being hauled out of the Courthouse on a forklift, on the evening news. The MRB likely has it now, Doctor.”

I let out a cold chuckle. “What they have is a charred husk. After completing her mission, Dire utilized the escape teleporter, and the armor bricked itself as designed.”

Half-lie, half-truth. I didn’t want anyone else finding out the armor had been a drone, but it had been rigged with a non-explosive self-destruct in the form of EMP charges. Enough time away from my virtual harness’ signal, and the charges were programmed to detonate and destroy the electronics. I’d set the limit to three minutes away from the signal. I had no doubt that it had wiped, as planned.

“An impressive feat, if true,” the businessman said. “If you have another suit to bring to the table, I could see increasing the fee... but if we’re taking into consideration the day’s actions, there’s also the issue that you’re somewhat hot property. The FBI and Icon City’s other authorities and heroes are looking for you, Doctor. I’m afraid I couldn’t offer more than... Two-hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Four hundred thousand,” Martin said. “Job like this is high-profile, and Morgenstern’s got pull. Yeah she’s hot, but the sort of risky shit you’re offering would just make her hotter. Since it would end with the authorities on our asses anyway, your worries are kind of moot.”

“It’s not the hunt afterward that I’m concerned about, it’s the possibility of authorities interfering during the mission. Especially if you exhibit the same sort of head-on tactics that you did during your assault on the courthouse. Three-hundred thousand is the highest I can reasonably go, here.”

“Yeah, funny thing ’bout that,” Martin said. “You want it hit before it leaves the outskirts, and you say there ain’t no confirmed metahuman presence, but this is Icon City. Shit like this, you’re gonna get heroes. So we’re gonna go up against heroes, and next to that, who the fuck cares about the authorities? So we already got one guaranteed super-fight on our hands with this. You know it, I know it, and Dire here? She knew it before she walked in the damn door. Supergenius, man. You ain’t just getting a suit of power armor that can wreck a tank in a fistfight, you’re getting a brain makes Einstein holler in his grave.”

The suit actually didn’t have the strength to punch out a tank, but instinct told me that now was not the time to correct Martin.

The businessman folded his arms, considered us for a minute, then nodded. “Three-hundred and fifty-thousand. Take it or leave it.”

Martin looked to me, I looked to him, and nodded. “Dire finds that acceptable for the task requested.”

The businessman nodded. “Very well, then.” He reached up under his hood, and withdrew a memory stick. “You’ll find the details of the convoy and the cargo here, along with contact numbers for myself and also for the rest of your teammates. Also included is the account number and access code for your down payment. With your negotiation, the down payment will be... roughly seven percent. A bit less. Give me an hour and I’ll notify your teammates of your name, advertised capabilities, and contact number. I assume you have one?”

I recited the number for one of my burner phones. He recited it back, and offered the stick. “Thank you, Doctor. I wish you luck with this venture.”

I took it and handed it to Martin without looking. “And she wishes you luck with yours, whatever they may be.”

He turned and left without another word, and I took that as my cue to do the same. As I opened the door, we were met again by the waiter, who offered the metal tray in one hand. “Your masks, please?”

I waited until the other door shut behind me and the businessman was gone, before removing mine and  placing it on the tray. Martin did the same, and the man covered them, smiled, and set the lid on the tray with a ‘clink’. “Thank you for your patronage,” he said, bowing and gesturing towards the door.

I offered a tight smile, before following the unspoken request to depart. Martin lagged behind, and shot me a look before we hit the door. “Uh, about what we discussed...”

“Still want her to bring the car around?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“All right. Wait here.”

Night had fallen over Barside when I departed, and the crowds were mainly indoors, getting merrily inebriated and tucking into dinner. My stomach rumbled as it reminded me that I hadn’t eaten, and I gritted my teeth and ignored it. I’d gone hungry for days while I was on the run, recovering from my ordeal in the WEB base and trying to lose myself in the chaos that followed the aftermath of Y2K. This was a minor setback compared to the troubles that I’d already fought through.

Every day I survived and was free, was another day that I grew stronger. Every day that I won and achieved small goals, was a step toward my larger goal. I had time and I had patience, and I was smart enough to use both of these advantages to their full potential.

And now I had somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty grand awaiting me, with fourteen times that if I completed the job successfully. I needed to talk over the ramifications of this job with Martin. I had questions that would have been imprudent to ask within the restaurant.

It was evidently peak hour for Barside, as the parking garage signs declared it full. The elevator in the parking garage took me up to the appropriate floor, as I mused on the day’s events. It had been exhausting, to tell the truth. I was looking forward to getting back to the lair and soaking in the hot tub for a while. Perhaps Martin would join me? The shows I had watched indicated that was a social thing to do. Although, half of them seemed to use it as a romantic driver, particularly when only two people were involved. I didn’t know if I wanted to pursue that option with Martin. Honestly, catching up with the rest of humanity in regards to popular culture and social customs was more of a chore than I’d expected. Initiating a romance, even if he was willing, would be more of a strain then I wanted to take on at this time. I was smart enough to realize that there were so, so many ways it could go wrong, and that super-genius or no, if I messed it up, then the consequences could be catastrophic.

No. Better off friends. Friends I knew, friends I could do. Lovers were an unknown quantity.

Pity, though. From the little I’d seen when he changed there was a pretty good body under those clothes, and my biology insisted on informing me that mating was a thing I should be doing. Ah well. Save that experiment for when I had a more secure base, and enough social contacts that I could afford to lose one.

A final nod as I reached my decision, and the elevator doors hummed open. The lights were out, and I found that strange.

Puzzlement turned to panic, as someone tried to shoot me.

CHAPTER 4: BULLETS AND BASTARDS

“Weird as the costume life is, sometimes you gotta take a step back and realize that not everything you run into is about you. Sometimes shit just happens, man.”

--Ballista, Independent hero active within Icon City from 1999-2008

CRACK!

A flare of light in the darkened garage showed muzzle flash from the second shot.  I realized that I was in a lit box in the middle of the dark, and my luck couldn’t hold forever so I dove out of the elevator, heading low. The bullet clipped a car to my left, sent up sparks, followed in a microsecond by a second CRACK, and I was on the ground and scrabbling out of the light. I moved low and fast, briefcase tangled in my skirt before I slid it across the ground under a car, and half-crawled, half-skittered after it.

I was out of the light, and behind cover. I breathed hard, reached under the car, and pulled the briefcase back to me as the echoes of the shot faded in the garage. They faded quickly. Silenced? Yes. That sounded likely. Silenced pistols.

Voices rose, angry and male, but I ignored them for the moment as I cracked open the briefcase, and reached inside until my fingers touched ceramic-steel. I withdrew my find, pulled my glasses off with my free hand, and jammed my mask over my face.

Pneumatics tickled as it locked into place, and darkness turned to light as the operating system hummed to life.

Hot panic ebbed, replaced by cold rage.

I didn’t know who, but someone was going to pay for this.

I considered the array of gadgets in the case. The scanner was still going, since I’d neglected to turn it off. Might as well leave it on, if they were using a tactical net then that would give me options there. After another thought, I withdrew the universal remote, my pistol, two magazines, and a flashpak. I considered the taser, then shook my head and shut the case, slid it back under the car.

Whoever they were, they’d opened with lethal force, a violation of the unwritten rules that limited wasteful escalation by heroes and villains. In this case, my use of lethal force would be acceptable; it was basically self-defense.

My mask informed me that it was at 100% synchronization, and I glanced up. Still a darkened parking garage, but I could see it clearly, as if my mask was invisible. This was due to the sensors on the outside of the mask recording the world around it, and displaying it on every visible surface inside. The net effect was to render the mask translucent to my vision. But that wasn’t the reason I’d masked up.

“Nightvision,” I whispered, and the garage went from shadowy and full of ill-defined shapes, to clear as day, with only a hint of greenshift.

“You get her?” A voice said, off to my right. “I don’t know how the fuck she called that elevator without you spotting it.” A male voice, perhaps a hundred feet from me. I crouched down, looked under the cars.

“Hey, I was watching!” Sounded younger than the first one. I saw motion, what looked like two sets of legs, and decent shoes. “Don’t fucking imply—”

“Shut it. Vince, you took the shot. Go over there and confirm.” A third voice, out of my sight. Behind one of the pillars, or the other row of cars? Maybe. Couldn’t rule out the ramp’s slope cutting him out of my sight, either.

So. Three people, presumably all armed. Upslope from me, sheltered by the grade and a plethora of objects usable as cover.

Not for the first time, I regretted the loss of my first power armored suit, and the pocket-sized forcefield generator that my old self had built. That thing could stop about twenty bullets before the charge was drained, and it had stopped far more when I’d wired it into the suit’s generator core. With it, taking out three hostiles would be a snap. But the components to replicate that model were rare, and impossible to get without a lot of money and the right connections. I hadn’t been able to build a replacement, not with the decoy suit and the true armor taking the bulk of my funds. The best I could do was a toaster-sized component that required a ton of power to operate, and worked half as well.

Clicking sounds, and a white disk appeared on the ground, and danced downslope. A flashlight beam, by the looks of it. So I had nightvision and they didn’t? Good to know.

I removed my shoes, set them next to the briefcase. Stealth and offense, those would be the best way to proceed. Still, three of them were bad odds, and the first shot would give away my position.

Unless...

The sound of footsteps, as the flashlight swept down the center aisle to the elevator, danced to either side, skirting me by six feet. “No bloodstains,” young voice said.

I gripped my gun in my right hand, pulled out the universal remote with my left, and pointed it upslope, waving it around until the words COMPATIBLE VEHICLE appeared in my HUD. I maneuvered the cursor over via the thumbswitch, until the CAR ALARM option was highlighted, and took a deep breath. One good distraction, then I could pop out, kill the young one and relocate, moving while the noise and lights covered my actions. Then I’d need to hunt down the others, get sight on them quickly and shoot first. Simple.

I took another breath for courage, lowered my thumb to the button—

Gunshots, from below. More silenced pistols, and the dull thunder of a shotgun, quite unsilenced.

“Shit! She got past us!”

What?

“Musta taken the elevator down!”

“Right.” Hidden voice agreed. “Vince, Carl, take the stairs down a floor. I’ll keep watch up here. Call when you’re in position.”

“You got it, boss.”

They rushed past me, turning past the elevator to the stairwell. I could have gunned them down easily, but I refrained.

There was someone else in the equation.

I’d thought the ‘she’ they were talking about was me, but what if that wasn’t so? What if I’d stumbled into something quite unrelated to my current drama?

My luck had always been bad, why should tonight be any different? I had half a mind to wait until these goons were done with their work, then depart.

The shotgun thundered again, throwing echoes around the garage, and I sighed. No, waiting wasn’t an option. Someone would notice that sooner or later. The police would be here quickly, or worse, a hero would investigate. I’d be questioned, scrutinized, and my briefcase full of illegal devices might draw some attention.

Besides, they’d shot at me. That was annoying at the best of times.

I reached under the car, slid the briefcase out again, pulling out the taser this time. If they didn’t mean to kill me, then I’d stick to nonlethal as long as I could.

Safety on, pistol in my pocket, back to the universal remote. I scrolled up the tab again, found the switch that would turn on the car alarm—

“Yeah.”

What? I went still, listened. The scanner in the briefcase flickered an OUTGOING CALL DETECTED message to my HUD.

“Yeah, no. Ain’t got her yet. We only got ten guys and a big garage to cover. Bitch brought a shotty to the meet, too.”

He was talking on a fucking cell phone. Seriously?

I considered the remote, and pocketed it. These were not professionals. These were idiots. There was no point in overthinking this.

I stood and walked up the ramp, silent in my stocking feet. With my nightvision I saw him far before he could possibly see me, turned slightly away with his phone to his ear, leaning against a pylon. I slid up within forty feet, went still, and listened.

“Yes sir. We’re on this. Bitch is wounded, just gotta finish the job quick.”

He snapped the phone shut, and at the same time I tazed him, aiming for the lower back. He dropped with a squeak, and I gave him a few more squeezes of current until he stopped thrashing. He’d live, with a hell of a headache when he woke up.

Then I picked up the phone. I flipped it open... still working, good. I’d aimed low so I wouldn’t short the thing out when I zapped him. It was a bit scuffed, but still functional.

I ignored the first number on his history, and started running down the rest of them, dialing for a couple of rings then hanging up.

Phones started ringing, above and below, and distant curses reached my ears. I snickered, and set the thing to auto-dial every thirty seconds.

This is why you use a tacnet, and not cell phones. Sweet, unsecured cell phones. I’d just revealed their positions, and thrown a spanner in their communications at the same time.

Five above, as best my audio sensors could tell, and three below. He’d said ten? Two unaccounted for then, either with phones shut off, silenced, or broken.

I left the phone where it was, jogged back to retrieve my briefcase, and went hunting.

I’d gone up against professional techno-terrorists. I’d gone up against gangers trained by a special ops soldier gone bad. I’d gone up against heroes, villains, and brain-dead vampire-things. These were dumbasses with guns, who couldn’t murder a single target with a ten-to-one advantage.

There was no contest, now that I knew what I was up against.

I had night vision, they had flashlights. The only working powered devices in the place were the elevators and the signs outside. They had too few men to cover the garage, and as I went I took out two of the three below, working my way down floor by floor, tazing and leaving them unconscious. It wasn’t quite fish in a barrel, more like frogs in a wading pool. On the second one, I noticed that I’d stopped hearing phones from above. They’d finally wised up and discarded them, or turned them off. Didn’t hear the third one either. He was either on the floor below me, or the ground floor below that.

And as I picked past the fallen fool on the floor, angling toward the ramp down, I heard a muffled ‘click-clack’ behind me.

A shotgun being racked.

I dove behind a van, as it boomed, and I felt insects sting my back as the buckshot went by, grazing and tearing my blouse and skin. Then I was up against the van, cursing myself for getting complacent. For my overconfidence, and the price I’d nearly paid for it.

Click-clack.

Wait.

Hadn’t the men said something about the one they were hunting bringing a ‘shotty’ to the meet?

Movement by the edge of the van, and I threw myself across the hood, scrabbling without heed of dignity as the shotgun roared again. Missed this time, though my back itched and ached, and I couldn’t stop to check the wounds. My blouse was sticking to my back, so I was probably bleeding, but how much I couldn’t tell.

I hit the ground on the other side, taking the concrete with my shoulder and rolling, losing my briefcase in the process.

Not good. Very not good. Worse, the noise would draw the hunters. I had nothing to lose by talking now, seeing if we could find common cause.

“YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE,” I boomed, my voice roaring and echoing through the garage.

“Dire? You? You’re the one? Why the fuck are you doing this?”

The voice was female and familiar, though it took me a second to place it. Bunny! One of the Midtown Militia, she’d helped me fight the Black Bloods, back during our conflict.

“BUNNY? IS THAT YOU?”

Clicking noises were my only answer. She was reloading the shotgun.

“BELIEVE IT OR NOT, DIRE’S PRESENCE IS A COINCIDENCE. BUT SHE’S WILLING TO MAKE COMMON CAUSE AGAINST THE DUMBASSES.”

Hard breathing. I crouched down, looked under the van. A pair of boots on the other side, standing in a small dark splotch. As I watched, it spread. Blood, had to be.

“YOU’RE HIT.”

“But I’m not down.” Heavy breathing, and a pregnant pause. “Tell them to stand down, or I take you with me.” She sounded mad. Couldn’t blame her.

“THEY’RE NOT HERS.”

BLAM!

Only the fact that I was crouched saved me, as she fired through the thin-walled van to get at me. She’d switched to slugs, fired where she thought I was standing.

“Tell them!” She shrieked. I saw her boots stagger a second, before she started walking around—

—and perhaps thirty feet behind her, coming up the ramp from the ground floor, I saw a man in a suit leveling a silenced pistol.

“BEHIND YOU!” I called, as I rolled under the van, pulled my pistol from my pocket, and shot. It was a bad angle and I missed, missed again as he ran for cover.

Bunny didn’t miss.

Two barrels shouted in lead and fury, and he was lifted off his feet, thrown back against a car’s windshield as it splintered and exploded, as he slid to the ground, chest dark and gory.

“Shit,” Bunny said.

“YOU BELIEVE HER NOW? THEY’RE AFTER DIRE TOO.” Half-truth there. Couldn’t hurt.

She considered, breath a little more ragged than before. Above her labored gasps, I heard the sound of shoes running on the levels above.

“Okay. Got a plan?”

“MOSTLY.” I slid out, slowly, and retrieved my briefcase. When I turned around, I was staring into two sawn-off barrels.

“HEY NOW.” With exaggerated motions, I slid my pistol back into my pocket, and Bunny lowered the shotgun.

“YOU’VE GOT GOOD NIGHT VISION...” I studied her. The right side of her hoodie was soaked through with blood. “...AND A SERIOUS WOUND. YOU NEED A DOCTOR.”

“No!” She leaned against the van. “Just... can you hotwire a car or something?”

I snorted, and the mask amplified and distorted the flat, razzing sound. “PLEASE. THAT’S SO NINETIES.”

I pulled out the universal remote, waved it around various vehicles until I found a Cadillac that was wireless-enabled, and turned the thing on. It purred to life, and I waved her over to it as I hit the UNLOCK DOORS and START IGNITION options.

A faint popping of guns, and flash from the level above as the goons peppered the Caddy with bullets. In response I pointed the universal remote up to the gunmen’s level, and started triggering every remote car alarm I could find. Blaring and shrieking, the cacophony threw them for a second, gave us the chance to slide into the car. I pulled out of the parking spot, sent it screeching down the ramp, and into the ground floor.

“The gates—”

“DON’T MAKE HER LAUGH.” I pointed the universal remote at the barriers as we approached, hit OPEN. The bar slid up and we bumped out onto the street, scraping the chassis of the long car against the grade of the street.

Two blocks later, at a stoplight I stripped the mask from my face, tossed it into the backseat with my briefcase. I shot Bunny a look, but she was slumped in her seat, shotgun between her knees, clutching her side.

“Adrenaline’s running out, huh?” I’d been there before.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m bleeding on the upholstery. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I grinned. “It isn’t Dire’s car.”

She coughed, and there were dark specks on her hand, as the red glow from the light shifted to green.

“You need a doctor,” I said.

“No!” She coughed a little more. “No doctors. I’m dead if... hospital...”

I shifted the caddy back into gear, headed left, and over to stop in front of the Nothing’s Personal.

Of course he didn’t come out. He didn’t recognize the car!

I rolled down the window, gestured at the restaurant. Finally, the doors open, and Martin walked out, looking puzzled.

“That’s uh, that’s not the Fjord.”

“Nope. Get in.”

“Aight.” He started around, and I shook my head.

“Nope. Backseat.”

“What?” He bent over, looked past me, into the car. It was dark enough, but he must have made out enough details because his eyes got wide under the glasses. “Shit. Shit shit shit. What the fuck you do?”

“Not her doing. In! In!”

He folded himself into the backseat, and barely had the door shut before I pulled out, and slid into traffic. Though every part of me wanted to go go go, I forced myself to drive slowly. Unlike Bunny, my adrenaline hadn’t crashed yet.

The pulsing itch in my back told me it would hurt like a fucker when I did crash.

“Okay. So who’s the dead guy riding shotgun?”

“Not dead, not a guy. You’re right on the shotgun.”

“S’a fucking hogleg,” Bunny slurred.

“The fuck... wait.” Martin leaned forward. “You’re that Militia chick? What the fuck?”

She didn’t answer.

“She’s hurt,” I said for her. “We need to get her back to the lair before she dies. You know first aid, right?”

“Fuck!”

“That wasn’t a yes or a no.”

“I... shit. Holy fucking shit. Wait. There is a baby seat in this caddy! Why the fuck is there a baby seat in this caddy!”

“Oh. Hm. Is there a baby in it?”

“No!”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Why is there a baby seat in this caddy?”

“Well, Dire stole it from a family she supposes, come on Martin, focus here!”

“We are in a fucking stolen car with a bleeding ganger from the worst bunch out there, and you want me to fucking focus?” Martin was practically bouncing in his seat.

“Yes.” What was his problem?

Martin buried his face in his hands. “I just asked you to bring the car around. That’s all. Shit woman, from now on I ain’t askin’ you to pick up carryout. You’d come back in a monster truck with dead heroes in the back of it.”

I sighed. “Look. We get to the lair, you patch up Bunny if she’s still alive. Then you patch up Dire—”

“What the fuck!”

“—and we call it a night. Fair?”

“This shit is not even remotely fair. One job. Bring the car back. Didn’t happen. What kind of shit went down, woman?”

I brought the car to a screeching halt, right there on the on-ramp to the highway. Martin scrabbled for balance, lurched forward, and I grabbed his shoulder, looked him in the eyes from a distance of inches.

A chorus of horns started up behind me. I ignored them as I smiled, wide and feral.

“Martin,” I whispered.

His eyes went wide. “Uh.”

“She’s had a rough night.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Explanations at the lair. ’kay?”

“Yuh-huh.”

I grinned. “Thanks.” I let go of his shoulder, and hit the accelerator, heading up the ramp and out, joining the flow of traffic with only a slight hitch.

Martin was quiet the whole ride back, as was Bunny. Also, when I felt the last of the adrenaline fade and the fatigue hit, the pain wasn’t half as bad as I feared. It was pretty much a win-win situation all the way around.

Even better, Bunny was still breathing when we pulled up to the warehouse gate. I hopped out, undid the locks, and gritted my teeth as the fabric of the blouse flecked and ripped away scabs. Yeah, this was getting old.

I opened up the front doors, after shutting down several defenses, then climbed back into the car and drove it directly inside.

“Bunny, can you walk?”

I glanced over at her. She was out. “That’s a no then,” I muttered.

“Lemme go get changed before I haul her out,” Martin said. “Don’t want blood all over these good clothes.”

I reached over, felt her pulse. It took me three tries, and it was hard to tell if it was good or bad. It was still there, though, so that was something. “Hurry,” I told Martin.

He did, coming back in his prison clothes and hoisting her as gently as he could. Under the lights, her bald head gleamed with perspiration, and the dark stains of blood soaked all up and down her jacket and pants, from where she’d twisted in the seat.

“Motherfucker,” was Martin’s assessment of the situation. “Uh. This ain’t good.”

“The words ‘no’ and ‘shit’ seem to go together for Dire’s response,” I said, heading to a control panel and bringing a couple of track-mounted arms whirring over above the car.

“She needs a hospital.”

“She said no,” I replied. “Do you know first aid?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, that’s more than Dire does. Take her up and do what you can. If she dies it’s not on us.”

“You don’t know first aid? Supergenius like you?”

“No time to explain. You do that, Dire will take care of the car’s tracker before it gets reported stolen.”

“Oh shit, right. On it.” He adjusted his grip around the thin woman, and moved as gently as he could up the stairs.

Something I’d learned when I’d been on the run, and scavenging components where I could get them, was that most remote-enabled cars came with a VIN tracker. On a regular basis they’d send their signature through the same broadcast channels they drew power from. Their broadcasting patterns varied by the type of car and whether or not the owner cared to adjust it. The more expensive ones checked in every ten minutes. A caddy? Hard to say.

Also, regardless of how often they sent the signal, it didn’t matter much if there wasn’t anyone around to listen to it. Again, for all but the most expensive cars, most owners didn’t care enough to pay the fees to have it constantly monitored. But once this one was reported stolen, the police precincts would start monitoring the frequencies for its VIN broadcast. Once found, they could pinpoint the location with a little searching.

It was a decent anti-theft device, mainly due to the fact that most VIN trackers were either camouflaged pretty well as other internal components, or so embedded into the infrastructure that it’d break the car irrevocably to remove them.

But I was good with engineering. And it didn’t take long to locate, remove, and disable the tracker. After which, I commanded the arms to start breaking down the car into parts. It was too distinctive to risk using again, and I could put the raw materials to good use. I checked my still-active scanner, just to make sure, and it reported no activity from the car’s tracker, now or within the last half-hour that I’d been driving it. We were clear.

Before the stripping got too far, I retrieved my belongings, paused, and retrieved Bunny’s shotgun as well. It turned out to be a sawed-off twelve-gauge, more of a scattergun really. I figured she’d want it back if she lived, so I brought it with me as I paced up the stairs, and opened the door to the living area.

I found to my annoyance that Martin had hauled her to my main bedroom area, and put her on the best cot. But I bit back my criticism, as I saw him work, hands stained with blood as he pulled bandages out of the first-aid kit, a laptop open next to him showing a gridsite of medical procedures.

“Hey,” I said, once he looked like he’d reached a stopping point. “How is she?”

“Bad. Lost a lot of blood, I think. She’s pretty pale. Hey, this is the badass one, right? The Militia chick who stuck around to train our guys?”

“And the one who helped Dire take out Stig. Well, sort of.”

I’d done most of the heavy lifting when we’d gone to kill the Black Blood lieutenant. He’d brought an APC to a power-armor fight. But Bunny and her squad had softened his forces up beforehand, and I owed her for that.

She’d also joined in on the final assault against the Black Bloods. She was the only one of her gang who had, when the chips were down. I owed her for that.

Martin nodded. “Okay. Sorry for spazzing out earlier. Yeah, she was cool.”

“Think she’ll survive?”

He shrugged. “Gonna try to soak a rag, get it in her mouth so she gets water. Same for broth in a few hours. You’ve got soup or something right?”

“That can be arranged.”

“On the plus side, looks like the bullet that hit her didn’t get anything vital. I think. If we’re lucky. And the bullet’s still in there.”

I frowned. “Isn’t that bad? Don’t we have to dig it out?”

“Fuck no. That’s some Hollywood bullshit. You dig out the bullet, it starts the bleeding again. Maybe does worse if it’s near an artery or some shit like that.”

“Ah. Going to have to take your word for it.”

He moved to the main bathroom, started washing his hands. I followed, pulling at my blouse. More scabs gave, with a tearing tug, and I gasped a bit. He glanced back, saw how stained my own clothing was. Not much compared to Bunny’s, but the back was a mess.

“Goddamn. Uh. Can you get your blouse off?” He looked sheepish.

I nodded and went back, tugging it off as I went. I grabbed a swivel chair, turned it around, and sat with my breasts pressed against the back of it.

Eventually I heard him come in.

A low whistle. “Wow. They gotcha good, huh?”

“She did, yes.”

“Bunny did this?”

“Let’s just say that friendly fire isn’t too friendly.”

“Alright. Lemme get some antiseptic, see what we’re dealing with.”

I gritted my teeth as the wounds burned.

“Now these, these pellets are close enough to the surface and not near anything big, so we can yank them out. Sorry Dire, this is gonna hurt. Want something to bite on?”

“Do it.”

“You’re hardcore. Sure, here we go.”

Cold tweezers, searing pain, and I thumped the chair repeatedly with a fist as Martin did his work.

“So you really don’t know first aid?”

“Nothing medical related,” I confirmed, through clenched teeth. “At all.”

Clink, clink, went pellets as he dropped them in a jar or bottle or something behind me.

“Thought you were a supergenius? Uh, no offense an’ all.”

“None taken. And Dire is, when it comes to machines, or most matters industrial. But organic effects and medical science? No good at all. Attention wanders when she tries to learn, and she can’t seem to retain any useful procedures. Best guess Dire has is that her past self scrambled that part of her brain to prevent Dire from undoing the surgical alterations.”

Silence for a bit as he worked. A spritz of antiseptic spray later, and I was pounding the chair’s back harder, trying not to scream. But the pain faded to an ache, and I heard paper ripping as he started pressing cloth to my back.

“There. Okay, we’re good.”

I sighed. “Thank you, Martin.”

“No problem. We ain’t even yet, but it’s kind of nice knowing I can be useful somehow, in some way you can’t do yourself.”

I scooted the chair around to face him, my front still pressed against the chair’s back. He averted his eyes anyway.

“You’re a friend, Martin,” I told him. “You don’t have to be useful. Just being here is good.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s...” He shrugged. “Jus’ pride I guess.”

“She knows how that goes.” I grinned.

He smiled, looked back. “So how the fuck you run into Bunny? You the one shot her?”

“No, no. See, it all started when someone shot at Dire in the garage...” I told him the events that had transpired after I’d left him at the restaurant, and his face got more worried the farther I got into the tale.

“Shit. Why the hell’s a Militia girl meeting a bunch of goons in a garage?”

“Don’t know. They definitely weren’t good at assassinations. Height of stupidity to pull that in a well-used garage during peak hours.”

“Might have done that so she didn’t suspect nothing,” Martin rubbed his chin. “Goes to meet someone, gets up there, lights go off, and there’s guys waiting for her in the dark...”

“But who?”

“Militia’s got enemies. Hell, I used to be one of them. I wouldn’t use dumbasses like the ones you described, though. Shit, cell phones on a hit? Stupid.”

“Yeah.” I yawned. “Well, Dire’s going to eat an MRE and hit the sack. You good to care for Bunny for a few hours?”

“I got her. Go, rest.” He stood, moved back to the main bedroom. I watched him go, and smiled.

Good friends are hard to find. I was glad to have him.

CHAPTER 5: SOMETHING FISHY

“Morgenstern Incorporated is one of the veterans of the nineties dotcom bubble and burst. It came out of that stressful time stronger for its competitors troubles, buying up many of them during their time of  crisis. The current CEO, Aegon Morgenstern, was a noted world-traveler and playboy in his youth, engaging in everything from big-game hunting to mountain climbing. No stranger to the vagaries of villains and criminals, he's survived assassination attempts, kidnapping, hostile takeover attempts, and disasters both natural and unnatural. Not bad for a man pushing sixty-three!”

--Documentary of a Master Mogul, an article by Davis Jaffees appearing in Gates Magazine

I wasn’t feeling so charitable when he shook me awake. “Mfuszavrz!” I insisted, rolling over and swiping a hand in his general direction. But he persisted.

“Your phone is blowing up.” He said, poking my shoulder as I snarled into the pillow.

“Frmbubl. Gr. Urg...” But he was right— I could hear the burner phone chiming repeatedly. I pulled myself together. “How long was Dire out?”

“Couple hours.” I blinked, looked at his face. He was looking a little ragged himself.

“All right.” I started to sit up, remembered his penchant for modesty. I was wearing a bra at the moment, but still it might upset him. “Actually, could you hand Dire the phone?”

“Sure, sure.”

He fetched it, I took it, and glanced at the number. One of the advantages my supergenius gave me was a mostly eidetic memory. I recognized the number as one of the pair I’d been given by the businessman. This, then, was one of my teammates to be.

And as it turned out, they were cranky.

“You did not call. We do not have much time to plan this thing.” Sounded female. College-age or older. A slight accent. European? Maybe.

“Dire was unsure of the etiquette in this situation,” I explained.

“Who?”

“She. Dire.”

A sigh. “Look, this is no time to fuck around.”

“We are agreed on that. So how do you wish to proceed?”

“We have a lot of things we can’t talk about over the phone, so—”

“Actually that’s incorrect,” I interrupted. “As soon as you called this phone, your transmission was quietly swapped to a circuit normally reserved for government personages wishing to talk off the record. No logs, no record it ever happened, no one listening in. Once Dire found the backdoors, it was pretty easy to hack.”

Silence for a minute. “Hello?” I asked.

“Still here. Not that I doubt your abilities, but we need a face-to-face. There is another in this team.”

“And Dire’s got one more. Non-combatant.”

Her voice got colder. “The client did not mention this.”

“He’s drawing payment from Dire’s share.”

“I do not like deviations from the deal this close to the mission.”

“We can discuss it at the meeting.” Her attitude was starting to grate.

“Very well.” She gave an address. “Twelve o’clock noon. Go around back and pass through the scratched door. Costumed if possible, masked if not.”

“Understood.” Come to think of it, I could offer a few useful devices for this task. “Would you want—”

Click. She’d hung up. I scowled at the phone, then glanced around. Martin had left the room, perhaps to give me some privacy. He need not have bothered, but I took the opportunity to dress in new clothing. Not a skirt this time, just a simple jeans and black t-shirt combo. I had work to do before noon rolled around.

I headed back to the main bedroom, and found Martin leaning on his hands, sitting at the edge of the lone scuffed easy chair in the room, watching Bunny breathe. She didn’t look any different to my eyes. That was good, I supposed.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Long day,” he said. “It’s... I’m still adjusting, too. When you’re in prison it’s a fixed schedule all day every day. Meals at a fixed time. Exercise at a fixed time. Lights-out at a fixed time. Wake up the same time every day. Your body gets used to it. Right now it’s telling me it’s time to go to sleep.”

“Mm.” I gnawed my lip. “Think you can hold out for another hour or so?”

“Yeah. You got coffee?”

“Yes, but we don’t have the luxury of sleeping in tomorrow.”

“Shit. It’s already midnight.” He mopped his face. “I’ll stay up. You going somewhere?”

“Going to steal another car. A van this time, she’s thinking.”

He just gave me a sour look.

I shrugged. “Got to costume up for the next part. Unless you want us to meet two unknown villains without an eight-hundred pound steel battlesuit between us and them.”

“Between you and them,” he clarified. “Wait. You want me there?”

“Yes. And it’s a long walk without a van.”

“Fair enough.” He sighed. “Guess I ain’t got room to gripe. Go on, I’ll be fine. Can’t promise the same for Bunny.”

“Hoping she pulls through,” I said. “But it’s up to Bunny, now.”

He didn’t respond. I grabbed my bug-out bag and headed out of the lair, into the night.

West of here were some seedy tenements. I’d seen the local gang, a group of shaven-headed tough-looking men in green jackets, entering and leaving while I was driving around the neighborhood. I’d also seen a white panel van parked around the side, that was still in reasonably good shape.

A little fiddling with the scanner to make sure there were no broadcast cameras nearby, a pulled-down balaclava over my face, a last glance around for watchers, and I crept up to the van and broke out my tools. This one wasn’t remote-enabled, another plus. I was inside it in about two minutes, and bypassing the ignition in three.

The neighborhood streets were pretty well deserted at this hour, so I kept the lights off as I drove away. Took all of five minutes to get back to the warehouse, pull it into the lair, and lock the gate behind me.

I’d planned for this contingency. Never can tell when you need to pull vehicles off the street, and life is infinitely easier if they leave your lair much different than their original shapes coming in. I decided to make this one a Chievy Hauler. A few commands tapped into the nearest terminal, and the automated arms swung around, started changing the shape of the van. Once they were done, another arm applied a coat of new paint and added weathering marks and a few new dents.

Another few taps hacked into a DMV across town, and registered it with plates and papers. To anyone looking it up, it would appear to belong to one Shaundi Saint, who’d bought and registered it six years ago. I decided on a generic mix of numbers and letters for the plate, and started running a pair off on the metal-grade three-dimensional printer. They’d need a little dirt and weathering too, but I could take care of that in the morning.

All that took perhaps twenty minutes to get moving. I headed upstairs, content to let the machines finish their duty. I’d made them, and programmed every bit of their code myself or through a compiler of my own design. They wouldn’t let me down.

Martin was pacing when I walked into the room. “It’s good,” I said. “Business is done.”

“Aight. Make sure you do the rag thing. Got broth on the stove, and rags soaking in a pot of water.”

“Understood. Go, sleep.”

He headed out, and I settled in to keep watch over Bunny.

I did pretty well for the first hour. Fed her twice, gave her water three times. Bunny sucked greedily at the rag whenever I pushed it into her mouth, so I assumed it was working. She still didn’t wake up enough to talk, and I didn’t want to try rousing her.

After the first hour, it was pretty boring. I brewed up some coffee, and that occupied five minutes, but soon I was counting the minutes.

One of the downsides to my power is that my mind needs things to work on. It needs constant stimulation, as much and as often as I can manage. Without it I get bored beyond any regular human’s understanding, and time stretches unbearably. It’s not exactly attention deficit disorder, more of a constant need to build and create mixed with an absolute loathing of wasted time. I’m pretty sure many other engineers would recognize some of the same symptoms.

I killed ten minutes by going back to the hacked DMV databases, and making up false licenses for Shaundi Saint and her boyfriend, Tommy Grand. Easy enough to transfer photos of one of my cover identities. After a pause to consider my work, I retrieved a good shot of Martin from my mask’s camera, and altered the details a bit to a look he’d be able to achieve with minor makeup.

I took longer then I needed to do this, but eventually it had to end. Then I got up and gave Bunny water again. This time she didn’t suck on the rag. I bent my head down, listened to her breath. It could be snoring. Maybe.

Wait. I did have something to do, didn’t I? I paced back to the front room. I remembered seeing the business suit here, tossed over a chair after Martin changed. Sure enough, it was there, and a search of its pockets turned up the memory stick that we’d gotten from our client.

I stared at the thing, and shut the laptop I’d used for the minor hacking required for the DMV record shuffling. Then I opened the secret panel in the back of the janitorial closet, to reveal the real computer.

I’d spent almost twenty thousand dollars, all told, for the various components that made this hardware up. And then, on top of that, I’d added some of my own improvements. It had taken five straight days to do up the custom code, and make sure everything played well together. The coolant it required to operate could probably double as a fire suppressant in a pinch.

I waved the stick at it, and the lights adorning the front of it flashed, as the scanners did their work, reading it without going through the trouble of slotting it in.

The lights went red. A virus? Hm. Not very sporting of our client.

“Quarantine stage one,” I commanded. “Oh, and activate holo-interface.”

A blue light sprang to life on the side, and painted the room in the glowing shape of my own customized operating system. I reached out and opened up the quarantine box, studied the raw code of the virus as it spooled by.

Clever little thing. A passive trojan, that would find its way through most firewalls without tripping alarms. Time-delayed, too, so there would be no warning until the time came and it activated. Maybe not even then, as it was designed to go after anti-viral software first.

But it wasn’t harmful to the host system. Instead, it looked like it was designed to find whatever transmitting capability its host computer had, and transmit a single packet of code. Just one. In computing terms, that was so tiny it was almost nothing.

Had it been put there as a tracking device? Possible. Maybe it was insurance against us keeping the cargo. Still, its very presence was a bad sign.

I’d been betrayed, once, and the results had been near-catastrophic. If not for a series of contingencies that I’d quietly put in place, I’d be dead or worse. Since that turncoat’s treachery, I was very cautious about who I trusted.

Virus aside, there were some actual datafiles on the memory stick, so I looked those over. Part of a shipping schedule, photos of a gray steel box, about the size of a dumpster. A few shots of trucks, taken through a chain-link fence. A few shots of security guards drilling, wearing riot gear. Two phone numbers, and an account number, for Pursuit Bank, one of the East Coast’s larger financial institutions.

Also one I’d thoroughly hacked a few months ago. In fact...

I moved out of the quarantine zone, and over to the exploits portal. Sure enough, my old backdoors were still there. Eventually they’d catch on to a few of the early ones and shift their security, but for now I was good.

I inspected the bank account number, started tracing it back, getting names and numbers and Grid Protocol addresses, and putting together the big picture. Several times I was almost tagged by intrusion prevention measures, other times the data stores I was investigating turned out to be honeypots, lures to sucker a hacker in while they were traced back.

But I was good at this, and I had both bleeding-edge equipment and patience. I took a break every twenty minutes to check on Bunny, repeating the water bit. The broth, eh... it had gotten cold so I poured it down the sink. I tried milk instead, and she took to that well enough.

Hm, there was something I hadn’t considered. There was enough food in the fridge for a couple of meals. I hadn’t planned a grocery run before my assault on the courthouse, and now we might have another sheltering here for a time. I made a mental note to replenish the food stocks accordingly. Sure, I had a couple of cases of MRE’s in the back, but those got tedious fast.

Finally, two hours later, I had cracked the chain, and found the origin of the money.

It was from Morgenstern Incorporated. Someone within Morgenstern Incorporated was paying me to steal cargo from one of their own trucks.

I thought back to the crime dramas I had watched to absorb and become familiar with popular culture. There were a few where a situation like this had occurred, and most of them didn’t end well for the patsies hired to commit the crime.

I tapped my fingernails on the wall.

Just what kind of cargo were we going after?

I started digging around and got absolutely nowhere.

The only reason I’d been able to trace the funds back to Morgenstern was due to the nature of the interfaces required by the financial institutions that they dealt with. They were actually much looser than the internal countermeasures of Morgenstern Incorporated’s systems. No matter how good my gear and how skilled I was, it soon became apparent that the majority of their databases were kept on internal, wired servers. I’d need to be onsite and directly accessing them in order to get at their data.

All right. If I couldn’t get that, then what else could I get to?

I spent about an hour poking around, and thinking over my options, checking out the parts of their network that were accessible through gridspace, and the thought came to me, that the shipping networks that dealt with their trucks were stored outside of corporate headquarters. They were handled through a subsidiary corporation, New Dawn Transportation.

And their databases were not so well protected. Half an hour got me answers that brought more questions.

I thought I saw the nature of things, but I wanted to bounce it off of Martin. Supergenius was a fine power, but there was no substitute for cunning and experience. But I didn’t see the point in interrupting his sleep over it. Assuming he got up somewhere around seven to eight, I had perhaps three hours to wait. I’d need him rested for the meet tomorrow.

I got another cup of coffee, checked on Bunny. She was shivering now, so I dug out a blanket and threw it over her. I had the air conditioning cranked up high in the living section of the warehouse. It was July outside, and even the ocean’s proximity did little to cut the mugginess.

Hm. Hadn’t I promised myself a hot tub session?

That killed another half an hour. It was a good use of it, too, even if I had to keep the bandaged portion of my back out of the tub. I finally dragged myself out of the soothing, swirling water when I started getting sleepy. I’d only rested for a few hours before my new teammate’s call had woken me up.

Back to the black T-shirt and jeans. A new bra, though, the old one was getting kind of... manky? Yes. That was a good use for the word.

I split the last few hours checking on Bunny and doing another code check on the new armor’s operating systems. I hadn’t planned to use it this early, so I’d have to hope that there were no major problems that needed attention. No testing like live testing.

Midway through, it occurred to me that my client was probably expecting me to take the payment he’d set up. It would look suspicious if I didn’t, so I used one of the dummy accounts I’d set up months ago, and swapped it over. Twenty-thousand dollars... I could do a fair amount with twenty-thousand. No major improvements over what I already had, but it was good emergency money, or materials for a few more assembly robots.

Or a down-payment on a permanent site. This lair was temporary, after all.

Finally, I heard Martin stir. “The hot tub’s on the left side,” I called.

“Hot tub? Shit.”

“There’s a toilet in that room too.” I was teasing him but he took it literally.

“I didn’t mean literally shit. Just like... shit, a hot tub! That’s the life!”

“Ah. All that in one word?”

“The word’s got nuances. Gots to listen to the tone.”

“Good to know.”

He coughed. “So how’s...?”

“Bunny?”

“Yeah, shit, forgot her name there.”

“She’s sleeping, Dire thinks. Got most of the broth down, and took plenty of water.”

“Aight. Gimme ten.”

I gave him twelve, and used the time to prepare breakfast.

Once we were both tucking into oatmeal, I decided the time was right to broach my concerns. “So. Dire did some hacking on our client.”

He froze, mid-spoonful. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“Well, it’s a good thing she did, because Dire’s pretty sure something’s fishy about the job.”

“Hm.” He took a bite of his oatmeal. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything there, and later there wasn’t no time to talk about it.”

“You knew?”

“Naw. It’s that the money’s too good.”

I raised an eyebrow. “For a suit of power armor and a supergenius operator?”

“Even still, for a job this simple there’s one too many zeroes. I mean, I been out of the game a few years so maybe the prices gone up some, but it seems like too good a payoff for this low a profile. If it was something more in the public eye, sure, but this? Naw.” He finished the oatmeal, started in on the fruit cup.

“All right. Well, here’s what Dire knows. The money paying us for the job against Morgenstern Incorporated is coming from Morgenstern Incorporated.”

“No shit?” Martin’s face fell. “Yeah, okay, this is fishy alright.”

“It gets worse. There was a timed tracking trojan in the memory stick we got from the client.”

“A what to the what now?”

“A bad computer virus. Timed to go off shortly after the scheduled hijack.”

“Yeah... this is sounding worse and worse. Was the downpayment money in the account, at least?”

“Twenty-thousand of it.”

“So let’s take it and bail. If it’s this fishy, I guarantee they don’t intend to pay us the rest of it. If they start putting shit out about how we ran, we can bring up the virus, or reveal who they really are. Our rep might take a hit, but theirs will take worse.”

“We could drop it...” I finished my oatmeal in a few bites. “But Dire is disinclined to do so. Particularly with the other information she’s found.”

“Which is?”

“There’s another convoy going out at the same time. Better protected, in a different part of the city, heading north. The long-term record of this shipment had been erased, but, well, their systems administrators should learn to empty their recycle bin more often.” I offered a predatory smile.

Martin didn’t share the smile. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed the back of his head with one well-muscled arm. “Okay. There’s a couple of reasons this could be happening.”

“Any of them good for us?”

“Hell naw. Well, maybe. Depends on your definition of good.”

“She’s listening.”

“Okay.” He held up three fingers. “First thing I can think of is this is a smokescreen. They’re smuggling something out on that secret convoy, and we’re being paid to hit a decoy convoy and kick up a fuss, draw eyes to it.”

“Possible. Whose eyes?” I pondered. “Heroes? You seemed certain this would turn into a fight with patrolling heroes.”

“It will. If we go through with it, I mean. Anyways, it could be heroes. Could be someone else.”

“All right. The second possibility?”

He folded a finger. “It’s a trap to catch villains. Have them hit a convoy, heroes or Morgenstern Security goons are waiting to show off new technology or some shit, and we’re walking straight into the ambush.”

Paranoia flared. “How likely is this?”

“Unlikely. They wouldn’t have used Mister Fixer if they were doing this. But there’s also possibility three.” He lowered his ring finger, leaving the middle one pointing skyward.

Thanks to my popular culture television time, I recognized the gesture and  chuckled. “Did you mean to do that?”

“Yeah. A big screw you, but uh, not from me. Or to you. Um...” he folded his finger. “Sorry, I guess this worked cooler in my head. Anyway, basically, I’m thinking that possibility three is one part of the company is trying to fuck over another part of the company. Like this is two executives running ops against each other, or one department’s been doing shady shit and they’re trying to get it blamed on another department. Or something.”

“Office politics?”

“Morgenstern’s a big tech R&D company. Electronics, machines, chemicals... all that sort of stuff. Lots of money in that. Office politics can get pretty cutthroat at that sorta level. And Old Man Morgenstern’s supposed to be a hardass. Comes down hard on anyone who gets the company in trouble.”

“Does he?” I tilted my head back to look straight-on at him. “Wait, is he that famed among the gangs?”

Martin snorted. “Fuck no. Rich old white assholes don’t come to our fucking hoods ’less their limo drivers get lost. But I read about him in the Wall Street Record. Company’s got a pretty fascinating history, business-wise.”

“Fair enough.” I nodded. “So which of the three possibilities do you think awaits us?”

“None, because we’re smart enough to take the downpayment and run. Right?” He studied my face. “Well, shit.”

“You’re right.” I told him.

“Yeah?” He looked surprised.

“Yes. The tone is everything, when you say ‘shit’.”

His face fell. “Goddammit.”

“Relax. The only reason Dire’s contemplating unraveling this Gordian knot is because there’s a team involved, and she told them she’d meet with them. We’ll lay our findings before them, and see what they make of it.”

“Right, because random mercenary villains are totally known for their sterling fucking judgment.”

I didn’t have a good retort to that, so I made him wash the oatmeal bowls.

CHAPTER 6: MEETING THE TEAM

“Why aren't there more villain teams? Buddy, have you ever tried to work with villains? Villains don't like working with villains! It's not like cats and dogs, it's more like chainsaws and chihuahuas. Or chihuahuas with chainsaws. Messy, noisy, and sad.”

--Cue Ball, one of the founding members of the Icons

Kayfabe.

It was a concept that Martin had shown me. He’d put forward the notion that the whole costumed ‘scene’ was deliberately overblown, to lower fatalities, collateral, and unnecessary escalation. Moreover, he’d shown me enough episodes of professional wrestling to illustrate the point.

And sure enough, when I started playing to the persona of an insane genius, an implacable and unstoppable power-armored force of science, I’d gotten people to follow me into battle. I’d won allies, gotten respect, and though I had been too busy at the time to analyze it...  it felt good. It felt right.

I had built an image and a reputation and controlled how people saw it and reacted by never breaking character in public, and maintaining it no matter how hard things got. I had played to the crowd so well that the play became reality, or close enough that my goals were accomplished.

Things had gone almost precisely to plan in the courtroom, because I’d acted like Ballista and his ilk expected me to act, and by doing so, managed to get the real job done while they were thinking they were in the equivalent of a steel-cage match.

That time-traveler had been a weird anomaly, but that had worked out too, sort of.

In any case, I’d be meeting with unknown metahumans here, with their own reputations, personas, and goals. So it behooved me to make a good entrance, establish my place in the pecking order, and build my character right at the start.

After examining the address the unnamed villain gave me, I’d come to the conclusion that it was a challenge. She’d told me to come in costume if I could, masked if I couldn’t. But the address was on a busy street, and in the middle of the day; there would be many eyes watching. She was testing my ability to covertly infiltrate the place. Logical. There were plenty of villains out there who would have trouble. Fortunately, I had the materials on hand to accomplish the task.

At ten minutes until noon, the van that I’d chopped and modded into an entirely new van pulled up around the back of a decrepit strip mall, that had all of two active businesses in its eight storefronts. Boards and black paint covered the windows of the rest of them.

Martin, wearing a pair of overalls and a cap, walked around to the back of it and opened the doors, pulling out a dolly and manhandling a refrigerator-sized crate onto it. Through the camera that I’d put on the outside of the crate, I got a good view of the street beyond, the liquor store across the street, and the packed sidewalk. It was lunch hour for the employees of the factories a few blocks beyond, and they were drifting around to the various eateries, fast-food joints, and places of relaxation before the daily drudgery of their jobs had to resume.

The box was lighter than it should have been, due to the spare gravitics system I’d rigged in the bottom; a legacy of my first flight test with an earlier version of the armor. It let Martin place it on the dolly, and push the dolly along. True, a dedicated observer could see a telltale shimmering in the few inches between the crate and the ground, but we wouldn’t be outside long enough for it to be an issue.

And just as described, one of the doors had deep gouges on it. After a bit of looking around to make sure none of the others were similarly scratched, Martin wheeled the dolly up the ramp and tried the door. It opened, and he wheeled the dolly into the darkness.

“Wrong door, man,” a male voice said from the shadows in the back of what had once been a convenience store. “Turn around and walk away.”

I hadn’t equipped the cameras on the outside of the box with nightvision. But no matter, if it came to a fight my particle beams would pierce the cardboard easily enough.

“Wait.” Ah. There was the female voice I’d heard over the phone. “You’re in the right place after all, aren’t you?”

The box tilted straight, and I saw Martin pull the dolly back.

Now.

I hit the red button, and the box blew away with a soft WHUMP, as smoke billowed out. Shouts, and a sizzling noise, and I responded with a low laugh through my mask’s modulator. “HMHMHMHMH... HAHAHAHAHHA...”

“Is this a fucking joke?” The woman shrieked.

“NO. THIS—” I hit the green button, and the smoke blew away, small fans venting it up.

“—IS DIRE. LOOK UPON HER, AND DESPAIR.”

And look they did, as I sat upon a throne made of twisted steel bars, with jagged spikes protruding from the top of the thing. Smoke wisped from the armrests, and the two iron skulls that gaped open-mouthed at the end of them. The buttons that operated the thing were hidden behind the skulls. I had a few more than the ones I’d already used, but the situation didn’t call for pyro, or an ejection from my seat, or a self-destruct.

Not yet, anyway.

I sat slouched into the thing, one gauntlet supporting my mask’s chin, the other stroking the left skull absent-mindedly. Even sitting, my armor was a good six feet tall, dull gray metal with black reinforcing plates over the critical components. Behind me, my cape and cowl were bloody red, as were the glowing eyes of my mask.

I’d aimed for the effect of red glowing eyes staring through the smoke as the rest of me materialized to their sight, but it was hard to tell if I’d succeeded.

As they studied me, I studied them.

The woman was clad in dark blue, almost a jumpsuit, with a silver mask that covered the top half of her face, and left her almost white-blonde hair flowing loose and long behind. Her eyes were blue, her stance was guarded, and she was leveling a thin sword at me that roiled and flickered with silent electricity. She was a bit taller than average, shorter than my unarmored form. Her build was athletic, as far as I could tell under what appeared to be her padded costume. Armor? Maybe something light, that didn’t impede movement.

Her lips were set in a scowl. She hadn’t liked my entrance one bit, I supposed.

In the other corner, stood a muscled, bulky man, bald and shorn of facial hair save for a short beard-mustache combination. His skin was a bit pale, and I couldn’t tell if he was pissed or bored. His arms were bare and crossed over a similarly bare chest... In fact, the only clothing he wore was a pair of long, loose shorts. No socks, no shoes. Given what I could now see of the general mess of this deserted store, and the broken glass and metal scattered about, I thought him either brave or foolish. He stared at me with unwavering intensity, dark eyes narrowed as they flicked up and down my frame.

“You’re noisy,” the woman muttered. “The walls are thin. Tone your voice down.”

I hit a white button on the armrest, and a hissing, wavering mutter filled the room.

“A WHITE NOISE GENERATOR,” I explained. “IT WILL MUTE DIRE’S VOICE, KEEP HER WORDS WITHIN THESE WALLS.” At the same time I lowered my volume a notch, out of politeness.

“Dire...” The electricity on the sword vanished, with a faint snap. She tucked the sword behind her, sheathing it on her back. “You were on the news, recently. Not good.”

“I beg to fucking differ,” Martin said.

“And you?” She asked. “Wait. The one from the trial.”

The man spoke, for the first time. His voice was higher than his appearance suggested, mild and calm. “The way it looked, you were hauled out of there, armor frozen. They didn’t say anything about you and him escaping.”

“THEN THE FBI IS CONCEALING THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER,” I stated. “DIRE ACHIEVED HER OBJECTIVES, THEN DEPARTED.”

“At the cost of a suit of armor,” The woman said. “Sloppy.”

“IT WAS A CHEAP, DISPOSABLE SUIT,” I gestured at my current form. “THIS ONE IS NOT SO CHEAP.”

“What are its capabilities?” Yes, definitely an accent, you could tell when she said longer words.

“FLIGHT. ENHANCED STRENGTH. SUFFICIENT WEAPONRY TO LEVEL A BUILDING OR TWO. A TOP-QUALITY SENSOR SUITE.” The basics, really. “WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE, BEYOND AN ELECTRIFIED BLADE?”

“It’s not the blade,” she said. “It’s me.” She reached over to a shelf, and picked up a steel ruler, discarded among the other junk. With a flourish, electricity crackled up the ruler. With another flourish, the energy vanished, as flames burst into life around it. With another flourish, the flames were replaced by steam, and what looked like a sheen of frost.

“IMPRESSIVE,” I said simply.

“Not yet,” She smiled, smug. Another flourish, and the ruler went black. Sheer black. My sensors threw back errors, when they tried to focus on it. What was that?

She swiped the ruler to her right, negligently... and it passed through a shelf, without slowing and without any visible effort on her part.

CLANG! The shelf fell in two pieces, clattering across the floor. She tossed the ruler aside, the anomaly-generating energy surrounding it dissipating before it hit the ground. “Now you can be impressed,” she said. “My name is Vorpal. I doubt you know it.”

No point in feeding her ego, wouldn’t fit the attitude I was portraying. I shifted my mask to look directly at the half-dressed muscleman. “AND YOU?”

“I’m Chaingang.”

“POWERS?”

He pointed to his left.

SNAPSPLAT! Something shot out of his abdomen, splattered on the floor. A bloody rope or a tether or part of his intestines or something, and in a matter of seconds, the goo on floor roiled, bubbled, and surged upward, reshaping itself into a roughly humanoid form until a bloody, duplicate of Chaingang stood, the tether from Chaingang’s  abdomen leading into his back. As I watched, it mopped its face, and beneath the gore he was as pale as his maker. Same beard, same hard-to-read look, and as my gaze fell downward out of perverse curiosity, I noted that he was wearing the same shorts.

“Jesus,” Martin whispered behind me. “That was messy.”

I was a little disgusted myself, but the mask hid my reaction. “THE PANTS?” I inquired.

“Superscience stuff,” he said. “First thing I bought after I had enough money. Don’t want to do my dupe thing near a school or a playground and end up with my dick flapping in the wind near kids. The fucking cops would put a sex offender charge on me. I don’t need that kind of thing.”

“Smart,” Martin said. “That’s the kind of mean little shit most would do, aight.”

As I watched, the duplicate of him pointed left with two fingers, and with another ripping splatter, two tethers shot forth from its abdomen, and pair of copies rose from the goo.

“I’m also tough and strong,” he said. “Not a lot, I can’t go toe-to-toe with Ragequit, or anybody like that, but I can take down most guys without getting more than bruises, and bench press eight-hundred or so. Bullets hurt but I can take a few before I drop, and I heal pretty good. The healing part’s for me, not these guys. They just turn to mush if the tether breaks or they take too much of a hurting.”

“And you?” Vorpal glanced to Martin. We’d discussed this part, and I hoped he’d stick to the script. Their reaction so far was within predictable boundaries, we had a decent response ready for it.

“Planning, connections, knowledge of the city, and overwatch,” he said. “No powers. Just support. Oh, and first aid if you need it. Hopefully won’t come to that.”

Good.

“Ah, a henchman then,” said Vorpal, sneering. “Well, try not to get in the way.”

Not good. Martin shifted behind me, and I heard him draw in a breath. Come on Martin, she’s baiting you...

“You know, I been trying to remember where I heard your name,” he said.

“And?”

“I haven’t. You’re new in town, ain’t you?”

Her sneer faded a bit. “And if I am?”

“Seen a lot of new vills try to make it in the ’Con. Seen a lot fail. Think they’re hot shit, then get over their heads, or pick a fight they can’t win. Average street life of a new villain ’round here... maybe two months.”

Her face was blank now. Deliberate, I thought. My own lips curved in a smile. Masks meant that I didn’t have to use a poker face.

“That said, there’s no shortage of new ones. Risks are big, but the scores are bigger. Like this one. At first look, anyways.”

She folded her arms. “What do you mean?”

“How much he offer you? Hundred grand? Hundred fifty?”

This wasn’t according to script. I contemplated interrupting him, but decided to trust his instincts for now.

Vorpal was frowning. “One-twenty, if you must know. Rude to ask.”

He looked over to Chaingang. “Same for you?”

“Ninety for me.”

“Jesus, you got robbed.”

Chaingang didn’t look upset. “Oh yeah? How much did he offer you?”

“Didn’t offer me shit. No powers, I’m just here to support the Lady.” He thumped my throne. “Her, he offered three-fifty.”

Vorpal’s jaw dropped. “Three hundred and fifty thousand? Wait. Her?” She studied me again.

“Yeah. Proven badass, better than military-grade hardware, genius, gadgets... makes sense, yeah? Except the part where it doesn’t.”

“Now you’re making no sense.” She said, unfolding her arms, and pointing at him. “We don’t have much time to waste. We need to start planning.”

“Listen,” Martin said. “It’s too much money.”

“What?”

“Even the lowball here of ninety grand, that’s a zero it shouldn’t have. Let alone three-fifty large!”

“So the cargo is important.” She folded both of her arms behind her back, and paced in irritation. “Get to the point, minion.”

“ACTUALLY, DIRE SHALL EXPLAIN...”

And I did.

But as I finished laying out the theories, she kept pacing. What I could see of her eyes behind her mask was hard, and suspicious.

“You are overlooking the most likely theory,” she said.

“WHICH IS?”

“This is a very important cargo, and worth more than we’re being paid to whoever wishes it hijacked.”

“And the virus?” Martin asked.  “How’s that fit in with that notion?”

“Obviously it is there to track us, if we try to flee and keep the cargo for ourselves.”

The original Chaingang fished around in his pocket, hauled out his phone, and stared at it. Then his hand tightened, and plastic cracked as it shattered and broke, the neo-lithium battery cooking off in a flare of electricity.

“Shiiiiit,” said Martin. “Got all your fingers, man?”

Chaingang showed him his empty hand. Untouched, save for a few scorchmarks. “No problem.”

Vorpal shook her head. “You honestly believe her?”

“She has no reason to lie,” Chaingang said. “Besides, I can get another phone.”

Vorpal raised her arms in front of her, palms up. “Conspiracy theories! There’s no proof to any of it!”

“DIRE CAN PROVIDE THE SHIPPING SCHEDULE, AND THE CODE OF THE VIRUS IF YOU WISH IT TO BE INDEPENDENTLY CHECKED.”

“Which we cannot do in the timeframe we have remaining,” Vorpal snarled. “How do I know you are not playing us?”

“AND WHAT WOULD YOU TAKE AS PROOF THAT SHE HAS NOT OFFERED ALREADY?”

“Come out of there. Come out of that shell and say it to my face.”

“Now hold on a second—” Martin began. I raised a gauntlet, interrupted him as I stood.

Vorpal took a step back as I rose, armor unfolding to its full eight feet of steel and menace, looming over her and sweeping my cape back behind me. I looked down upon her, and she put her hand on the hilt of her blade, half-drew the weapon.

My hands flexed inside the gauntlets, in a specific, pre-set pattern. With a hiss of escaping gas, the air supply vented into the room as the back cracked open. I wormed my hands free of the sleeves, grasped the edges of the suit, and pulled, hoisted myself out of the armor. My mask detached from the reinforcing pylons that held it in place with soft ‘snks’ as the bolts retracted. At no point did it leave my face, as I stepped out of the armor, and down to the floor.

Glass crunched under my feet, as I walked around the armor, looked down at Vorpal as she stood there, hilt of her sword still in her hand, eyes flicking up and down as she studied me. I moved in, until our faces were perhaps half-a-foot apart.

“You are brave,” she said, finally.

“DIRE IS CONFIDENT.”

Her head jerked back, and her lips pressed together in a thin line.

“You know what my blade can do, and you still left your armor.”

A threat or a test? I wondered. She’d tested me once already.

“YOU THINK DIRE ANY LESS DANGEROUS WITHOUT HER ARMOR? FOOLISH, THAT.” And it was. The armor was programmed to defend me, and kill everyone in the room if I was harmed. Well, everyone except for Martin. He’d reminded me to add that part, when I was telling him about my contingencies.

Vorpal stared at me, eyes narrowed.

Then she nodded, and let her sword slip back into its sheath.

To the left, squelching noises, and we glanced over to see Chaingang’s duplicates dissolving back into mush, as the tether retracted into his navel. He looked back at us. “What? If you’re not going to fight, then I don’t need them.”

Martin laughed, and the tension dissolved, just a bit.

“You are telling the truth about the shipment, then?”

“YES.”

Vorpal puffed her cheeks out, sighed in frustration. “And here I thought my luck had turned. Still, there is a chance that we may yet receive payment.” I moved back to my armor, leaned against it as I watched the others discuss.

“Yeah. if it’s office politics, the money might be on the level,” Martin said. “Might.”

“The other possibilities are either an outright double-cross, or a distraction,” Vorpal pondered.

“I don’t think that someone would use Mister Fixer to burn us,” Chaingang said. “If word got back to him, then Fixer wouldn’t take work from them again. That’d hurt, to lose a pricey contact like him.”

“But we can’t rule it out,” Martin said. “So my vote is we ditch this one.”

“Bad idea,” Chaingang said. “We took the money. We’re the ones who lose Fixer, if word gets out we ditched.”

“A price I’m not willing to pay,” Vorpal said. “But how do we cover ourselves?”

I tapped the chin of my mask, as an idea occurred to me, and the plan I’d been mulling over finally fell into place. “DIRE MIGHT HAVE A SOLUTION.”

CHAPTER 7: RED LIGHT, STOP

“You'd be surprised how a lot of emergency measures turn out to be really bad ideas in the long run. Especially when you forget about them, and the villains don't. Hahaha. Yeah, there's no way this won't hurt my ratings.”

– Off-the-record statement by Icon City's Mayor Tressler, after the Interstate Three Outage in 2000.

Past the glittering skyscrapers of Downtown, west of the crumbling neighborhood of the Brownstones and east of the Westmarket District, sat the eight-lane highway of Interstate Three. The last time I’d been over this way, it had been choked with abandoned cars, in the aftermath of the power loss from Y2K. An empty stretch of icy road, barren and silent save for the howling January wind.

Now it was a healthy network of trade and transport, with cars and trucks surging in and out of the city, garish blood cells humming their way along asphalt arteries, to and from the heart of Icon. With this many electric cars drawing power from the city’s broadcast array, the air above it hummed and thrummed and danced with power.

I had a pretty good view of the highway in the valley below, as I stared out of the window of a Little Nero’s pizza parlor off to the side of a busy truck stop, trying to ignore the stains and sticky patches of the ancient booth that my posterior was occupying. My fingers danced and flew over the laptop in front of me, as I checked over my various programs.

Hacking private corporations, even banks, was one thing. Hacking the parts of the Grid that controlled this section of highway? That was pretty hard. I wasn’t the first to think of this, and even though I was good, there were a lot of preventative measures in place. That was fine, though. I’d gotten the crucial subroutines in place, with fifteen minutes to spare. That left me with time to kill.

I considered the lump of greasy pizza on the plate in front of me, and grimaced. At least the breadsticks had been good.

Couldn’t figure out why the lumpy lady at the counter had asked if I was a ‘lot lizard’, though. I’d never come across that term before. Judging by the way she snuck glares at me whenever she thought I wasn’t looking, it probably didn’t mean anything good.

I turned away from her, and considered myself in the reflection of the window glass. Simple denim jacket, baseball cap, a red t-shirt with a local sports team on it, and some loose jeans. And with my hair hanging loose and down to my shoulders, it hid the subvocal earpiece pretty well.

I tapped it on to private channel one. “Martin? You in position?”

“Yeah. Pulling up now. Sorry ’bout the delay, Bunny was awake.”

“Yeah?” That was a good sign. She’d slept pretty much the whole day yesterday. She still took food and water, though, so we assumed she was healing. Good to hear we’d assumed right. “How was she?”

“Groggy. Out of it. Weak. Not too happy to see me. I had to help her uh, use the bathroom.”

I caught a flicker of motion in the reflection, caught the lumpy pizza wench sweeping a broom along the floor near my booth, craning her head, obviously trying to see the laptop’s screen. I looked at her, just a flat stare, and something in my eyes warned her off. She retreated back to her counter, eyes tight and mean behind her thick glasses.

I wondered how she had spent her time during Y2K. An uncharitable part of me suggested that she’d probably locked herself in the storeroom with the food until it was over.

The earbud had been quiet, and I realized that I’d been idle too long, let my tongue slip away from the contact point. I opened the channel again.

“—pretty sure she won’t cause trouble. She can barely walk, I mean. Gotta say, that girl’s a trooper. You can tell she’s in pain and shit, but she gives no fucks.”

“Dire thought you hated the Midtown Militiamen. Not so much with the Militiawomen?” It was difficult to put a teasing tone in your voice over subvocal mikes. But I thought he sounded a bit defensive when he replied, so I counted it successful.

“Hey now, ain’t like that. Still think those fuckers are the worst gang around.”

“Now that the Black Bloods are gone, you mean.”

Silence for a bit. “Well yeah. Anyway, I’m in position. See me?”

I looked across the highway, to the Mcbeefy’s that occupied the lot nearest the northbound exit. The van was there, and there were no signs that anyone had taken its presence amiss. “Very well. Going to check with Vorpal.”

“Cool. Think she’s got that stick out her ass yet?”

I smiled. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I ain’t holding my breath.” He had a point. We’d spent hours yesterday planning and plotting, and she’d tried to adjust things every step of the way, or insist that she take a leading role for the entire operation. We finally compromised, and gave her authority over this half of the operation. I had control over the other half, and was also in reserve if I was needed on this end of things. I had the sense that she was used to a different way of doing business, one where she needed to assert her authority often and loudly, in order to avoid being marginalized.

Was that how most villains operated? No wonder nobody had conquered the world yet. At least Chaingang had been easy going, even if he’d gotten bored midway through and gone on a food run. His taste in tacos left something to be desired, though; my stomach was still a little off from that takeout.

Well, no sense in putting it off any more. I tapped the earbud over to channel three. “Vorpal. Are you in position?”

“Traffic is shit here.” She replied, sour as ever. “But I should be able to do this. Worry about the others, not me.”

“As you wish,” I said, tapping her channel off. I leaned back in the booth, ignoring the sucking noise my jacket made as it peeled away from the backrest.

A glance to the side showed the lumpy woman whispering into her phone, hand cupped around her mouth. She shot another sidelong glance my way, and I rolled my eyes. Some people just couldn’t mind their own damn business.

Then again, I couldn’t fault her instincts. I was bad news, and here for nefarious purposes. Just not for her, today.

I tapped over to channel two. “Chaingang. All set?”

“Yeah. I got the easy job, here. All the rest of you are complicated, mine’s just like wait for stuff to happen, then go get ’em. Long as your armor does its job, we’re golden.”

Chaingang and my empty armor were covering the truck that the client had wanted us to hit, and the setup on Route 5 west out of the city was a lot simpler. A mere two lanes through some rolling hills, past a couple of old quarries and farmland, some of which had been converted into a nature preserve. Surveying this spot, I was more certain than ever that this job was bad; the route was chock full of ambush points, hard for the convoy to defend.

Given my choice I would have preferred to make a token effort at the grab, maybe commit Chaingang or Vorpal to put up a show, then retreat if there was any serious resistance or a trap. But Vorpal had argued against the idea, insisting that there was still a chance that the client was acting in good faith. In which case, we’d have to go through with the grab, if we wanted to fulfill our end of the bargain.

So we’d split up, to hit both convoys. Chaingang and my suit, governed by its battle computer and my own multi-tasking capacity for the rural route, and myself, Vorpal, and Martin would try a strike on the secret convoy heading north.

The strategy was simple. We’d hit the convoy we’d been paid to hit, first. If the one on the rural route was a trap or had no cargo, then it meant that there was something valuable in the northern convoy that we could ransom back to our treacherous client. We’d take it and do just that. If the rural route was on the level, then we’d get the cargo and back away from the northern convoy.

Channel three clicked on. “I have visual!” Vorpal said. She sounded eager, and I couldn’t blame her. Stakeouts were boring.

I glanced at the highway to the west. Traffic was moving at a pretty good pace. Hours to go yet before the businesses let out, and the nine-to-five crowd drove home. No major accidents, or delays, or anything of the sort. Vorpal was stationed about five minutes south, so it was on me to delay things, give the rural convoy a chance to get to our primary ambush spot.

“Between exits?”

“Yes. I count four SUVs,” she added. “More than we expected, yah?”

“Two more. Still within parameters.”

I waited, timing it, peering southwest from the window, zooming in with my contact lenses until I caught sight of what had to be the semi-truck in question. And yeah, there were four black SUV’s in a loose diamond formation around it. I waited, let them get within half a mile of the exit, before I acted.

“ All right, Dire’s shutting her down... now!”

A rattle of my fingers across the keys, and it was done. I watched in satisfaction, as the shimmering haze over the highways disappeared, and every electric car out there slowed, and started rolling to a stop. The power was down for the next five minutes, give or take.

Originally this emergency override had been put in the power grid as a law enforcement measure. Fugitives escaping via the highway? Shut it down, shut it all down. But for all its effectiveness, it was rarely used, and I was seeing the reason why. Only about seventy percent of the cars on the highway were electric. Perhaps twenty to twenty five percent were fueled by hydrogen cells, and they had to adjust to suddenly-slowing traffic, and scramble to avoid their electric cousins. Not all of them made it, and I winced as a few collisions happened. Nothing serious that I could see, not in this part, but I still felt a twinge of guilt as a nasty fenderbender threw a sedan into a guard rail. “Insurance,” I muttered to myself. “Insurance will cover it.”

The few diesel vehicles out there, mainly semi-trucks, fared a bit better. Horns exploded in a frenzy of indignant roars, electric cars used the last of their charge to dodge out of their way, and disaster was averted. Mostly. There was a distant WHUMP, and a thin plume of smoke to the south. I winced to see it.

A part of me knew that I’d hurt people with this, no matter how much I tried to avoid thinking about it. I stared out the window, eyes unseeing, as tempers flared and horns blared.

Was this who I wanted to be? Someone who clawed her way up regardless of who got hurt? Taking a few hundred thousand or million here or there to further my own agendas, at the cost of a few injuries here, or a few dead there?

I shut the laptop, pulled a pair of sunglasses from my pocket, and slid them over my face. The HUD on my contacts flickered softly as it booted up, giving me a window into my armor’s viewpoint. The AR display manifested around my hands, hovering above the table inset into the booth. But I hesitated, holding my hand over the glowing text boxes that were my programs. The guilt bothered me, and I knew I had to think it through.

A breath, then another. I thought back to the beach. To my first friends... homeless, outcast, unwanted. Just trying to find ways to survive the winter, surviving on kindness and their scavenging skills. No one had cared when they died, until everyone else was at risk, too. Sure, the neighbors had shown up to help, but only when their own rumps were on the line. People like that deserved what they got!

I looked down at the highway again, feeling my lips curl back— but no. I couldn’t work up anger. This, too, was a prevarication. Just because my friends had a hard time, didn’t mean that random faceless commuters deserved a bad time, too.

I was trying to make the world a better place. This didn’t help any.

“She’s sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to touch the glass. “She won’t do things this way again.”

And I wouldn’t. I took pride in my genius, didn’t I? From now on I’d put that genius to work, and find ways to my goals without this level of collateral.

“So swears Dire,” I rasped. I powered down the laptop, and tucked it away in my backpack, next to the blocky lump of my backup forcefield generator. Vorpal was using my primary mobile unit; we expected her to come under heavy fire on the approach. Of course, with the broadcast grid down along this section of the highway, she was limited to battery power. If she got in a tight spot, it would only delay the inevitable.

My other gadgets for this were a taser, a pistol version of my particle beam cannons, the universal remote, and three grenade versions of the sonic screamers I’d used in the courthouse. I supposed the subvocal rig and AR contact lenses were gadgets too, but they were more of a utility than anything else.

I did have my mask of course, tucked safely away in the backpack. These days, the thing felt more like my face than my unmasked visage did.

Not that my collection of gadgets really mattered. I was in reserve for this part of things. Acting as overwatch, only reinforcing if needed.

Channel two clicked open. “Here it comes!” Chaingang said. I toggled through the AR menus, maximized the armor’s view to my left contact. And yeah, there was the delivery truck, plain white just like thousands of others in the local area. Two cars behind it, black sedans with four guards apiece, if the information was good. Four-to-eight more in the truck. I couldn’t see into the cab of it to get a count, not with the polarized windows in the way, but it didn’t matter.

The truck was leading. Too easy, too easy by far! That was confirmation enough for me that this wouldn’t go right, but I’d promised Vorpal, so I went ahead with the plan.

We’d chosen a spot near a spur of Lake Silent for our ambush spot. The road curved and wound through some light trees here, so the truck was forced to slow.

And right as it was about to make the last turn, my suit put a particle beam right through its engine, from one side to another.

Brakes screamed, the front of the truck exploded in smoke, and the vehicle shuddered as it tried to stop, failed, and plowed through the fringe of vegetation until the front end of it hit the lake, and was brought to a stop by the sucking mud of the shallows.

Channel three clicked open. “Beginning my approach! They are turtled up.”

“Hit’em hard, Vorpal.” I said. “The fewer shots they get off into the stopped traffic, the better.” Then I clicked back to Channel two. “What are the other two cars doing?”

“Pulling to a stop at the edge of the road. Yep, they’re coming out, getting into cover.”

“They’re yours. Now to crack the shell...” I whispered commands, and the armor burst from its cover, flying at half-speed through the trees. I heard distant shouts through the audio link, and a smattering of gunfire. Uncaring, I maneuvered to the right of the mired truck.

The doors were still shut. Had they hunkered down? Were they still stunned from the sudden stop?

I was suspicious, so I kept my distance, popped open my right shoulder launch array, and fired a concussion micromissile at the vehicle. It hit, and the water geysered up, as the glass windshield of the truck pretty much disintegrated from the sheer force of the munition.

Nonlethal, to minimize casualties, here. It’d shake the occupants up, but wouldn’t kill them. I’d even angled it so that the windshield would blow outward, rather than inward. They should be fine.

Except that they weren’t. They were nonexistant. With the smoke from the engine temporarily scattered, and the glass no longer in the way, I could see inside the cab without trouble. There was nobody there.

“Trap!” I called. “Get out of—”

The truck exploded, and damage reports scrawled across my screen, as my armor fought to stay stable. I winced as my viewpoint spun, and showed flashes of trees before I got a very close and personal view of dirt, grass, and fleeing wildlife as my suit was blown to the opposite bank, hit it face first, and skidded across the ground, tumbling like a discarded doll.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! What did you do?” Chaingang shouted.

“Quietly! Subvocalize! It was empty, the truck was empty save for explosives.” I checked over the reports, winced. The forcefield had taken the brunt of the hit and soaked the impact of the ground, but was temporarily nonfunctional. Still, several secondary systems were offline, and my missile array on the right-hand side was jammed, since it had been open for the whole tumbling trip. I didn’t dare launch another missile until that got repaired. Too much chance of a misfire.

Interestingly enough, it looked like the forcefield had negated some of the impact. I’d have to look into the physics of that, later. That hadn’t been my intention when I designed it, but I could maybe use that to assist with surviving unexpected drops, and other gravity-related problems.

I switched channels over to Vorpal. “Trap confirmed. Go!”

“Scheisse! Alright, here I go!” Vorpal responded.

“No cargo?” Chaingang asked. “Fuck. We’re withdrawing, yeah? Got two of them but the rest scattered, and the bullets are starting to— oh fuck. Heroes are here.”

I struggled to get the armor upright, saw it lurch, and grimaced. The gravitics system was down. Flight wasn’t possible, until that was handled. It would take a couple of minutes for the damage mitigation mechanisms to reroute to backup circuits, but until that was done, the armor was grounded.

Then Chaingang’s comment sunk in.“Wait. Heroes? Plural?”

“Torchbearers, coming straight up the road. I’d know those speedlines anywhere.”

Speedlines were afterimages, left behind by certain types of superspeed. These suggested that Speedbump, the fastest member of the Torchbearers, was on the scene. He wasn’t as fast as Freeway, but he had a few different tricks, including the ability to carry other people in his wake. There had been speculation that he was related to Freeway, but that had died down a few years ago.

I’d done my research on the public Icon hero teams, and I knew about the Torchbearers. They were one of the rare junior teams; teenagers and others who’d gotten their powers early, and were training to join other superteams someday. I didn’t like it on general principles; it smacked a little too much of using children as soldiers. But from what I’d learned, most of them had either volunteered, or come from circumstances that precluded a “normal” life. Either their powers caused problems that needed special treatment, or they’d been rescued from villainous exploitation.

The absolute worst thing you could do when fighting a Torchbearer was kill one. The hero community, and even a few supervillains would declare open season on you, above and beyond the regular unwritten rules which discouraged killing if at all possible. Great Clown Pagliacci had slaughtered the entire team back in the eighties, but that was him, and he’d reaped punishment for what had happened. I wasn’t his brand of crazy, or particularly evil, so that was off the plate.

Well. That was fine. I hadn’t come out here to kill anyone. Nonetheless, I couldn’t just escape, not with the gravitics damaged and a teammate in the field.

“Go,” I told Chaingang. “Cut and run, Dire will keep them busy.”

“Got it,” he said. The armor’s sensors registered an increase in the gunfire from across the lake, and I zoomed in until I saw muzzle flashes, and started picking off the shooters with stunning particle beams. I caught a glimpse of Chaingang, down to three duplicates, running like mad through the trees, before diving into the lake. His copies moved with an eerie synchronicity, using the organic tethers between them to swing up over obstacles, and help each other change direction. He vanished below the waterline, and I wondered how long he could hold his breath. Probably a good while, the power speculation gridsites I haunted suggested that most enhanced-strength types had enhanced lungs to boot.

Movement in the treeline, shouts, and a scaly bulk burst through the trees, pink cloth and green skin, and a mane of pink hair on top of a ten-foot tall body that was some mix of reptile and human.

I didn’t get much of a chance to study it. It was heading in the same direction as Chaingang, so I opened up on it, but beams that would have stunned and thrown back a regular human just knocked it off balance for a second. It skidded to a stop, raised an arm to shield its broad, snake-like face, and looked at me.

Ah, yes. This had to be Serpent Tina, the Torchbearer’s current powerhouse. Big, strong, sturdy, kind of slow.

“We’ve got a blaster!” She called back. Deep voice, still identifiable as feminine.

I amped up the power on the particle beams, and had the armor drill her square on. She staggered back, and slipped behind one of the larger trees, with a muttered “Ouch!”

I shook my head, amped up the power a little more, and shot through the tree to get to her. The blast knocked her backward, through the fringe of trees, and out onto the road. Cored clean through, the tree stood smoking for a second, before crumbling, toppling into the water with a creaking groan.

“SHE GIVES YOU ONE CHANCE, AND ONE CHANCE ONLY,” I boomed through the armor’s speakers. “RETREAT, AND DIRE WILL LET YOU GO.”

A flight of crows lifted off from the trees to the west, circling and cawing in protest at the fuss. Aside from that, the silence was my only reply.

Vorpal’s channel pinged open. “They have fucking lasers!”

I winced. Lasers? That was military-grade stuff at best, or superscience at worse. The forcefield was a lot less effective against lasers, they’d drain charge much faster than bullets. I tapped to open channels one and two at the same time. “Martin, are you in position to assist?”

“No! The off-ramp’s full of stopped traffic. Can’t get close unless I abandon the van.”

“Three minutes, minimum, before the power’s back on. Vorpal?”

“Pinned down. Took out two cars full of guards, but the rest have those fucking lasers! I can’t get cover, had to ditch the motorcycle, and if I stop moving, they’ll kill me!”

“Calm down. Dire’s on her way.” I left the booth, ignored the glare that the lumpy woman shot me, and jogged toward the overpass. If I could get a good angle from there, maybe I could do something.

“Are they watching their fire? Avoiding civilians?”

“Fuck no! There’s a panic going on, people abandoning their cars and flee—” She broke off.

“Vorpal?”

No response. I ran faster. Something exploded to the south, sending greasy smoke high into the sky.

I was out of breath by the time I reached the overpass, passing parked and stalled cars, and a few brave souls who had ventured out to stare at the flashing lights just south of it.

Thankfully, Vorpal’s channel clicked on again by the time I’d reached the middle of the bridge. “Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse! They blew up a car near me. I took cover after the explosion. Hard to tell, but I think they’re hunting me now. Spreading out a bit, I’ll see if I can pick off a couple of them.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “One car’s worth or both?”

“I think it’s both. Going quiet for now.”

I gnawed my lip. Two minutes to go, give or take. Then the city engineers would be able to reset the traffic grid, and we’d lose our shot.

And speaking of losing our shot...

“She can’t get a good angle,” I told Martin and Vorpal. I could see the truck, sure, and the two remaining SUV’s, with doors open and black-uniformed men scattering through the traffic. But if I fired and missed, the beam would hit another vehicle. Too many civilians, too much collateral.

Flaming wreckage of a car about three hundred feet back from the truck marked Vorpal’s general area. But I couldn’t do much from up here. I glanced to the exit ramps... nope, too far. I was already out of breath, and it would take more than two minutes to get down them.

An idea struck me, a horrible and wonderful idea. I swung my backpack off, pulled it open, and looked at the forcefield generator.

It had shielded my armor from the impact, prevented the worst of it.

I eyed the highway below.

Math. I had to make sure I had the math right. I ran through the calculations in my head—

—And as I did so, my armor trilled an alarm through my HUD. The Torchbearers had finished huddling or talking strategy or whatever, and were moving in. Damn it all! Not now! “Dire’s got a situation!” I subvocalized. “Stay alive, she’ll be down to help directly.” No response, but I didn’t expect one. I was already switching the armor’s view to both lenses.

Thirty more seconds on the flight gravitics, but I didn’t have that. The speedlines were darting around the curving road to my right, barely visible through the trees. Speedbump, probably with a teammate or two.

My proximity alert screamed and I threw the armor to the left, and a whirling tree trunk merely clipped its side, rather than striking it head on. With the forcefield down the armor took it straight on the layers, staggering but not falling. The trees to the right of me weren’t as lucky as the trunk rebounded from me and ripped through them, two of the smaller, thinner beeches exploding into splinters and cracking to bits, branches and leaves coming down in masses of bark and green.

They’d distracted me, and Serpent Tina had thrown a tree. The armor was a bit exposed out there on the shore. I withdrew back behind more trees, getting out of sight as best as I could. A few more hits like that would shake armored plates loose, or crack the ceramic. And after that, things would go downhill fast.

The speedlines had stopped. The heroes were in the trees around me. A lot depended on who they’d brought with them for this trip. There were two of them whose powers were useless against the armor, more or less, and one who’d be a real pain in the ass.

I couldn’t see them. But the armor had a directional microphone... I tested it, and my lips curled in a grin as I caught whispers to my left.

“—Can’t feel anything, it’s like she’s not there! I don’t know if this is how her brain works, but there’s nothing there for me to grab—”

Mentot, the young mentalist. One of the useless Torchbearers for this situation. I could safely ignore her.

And then my alarm was shrieking, as a sonic boom ripped through the trees and leaves exploded, as something cracked into my abdomen armor at the speed of sound. I backed up, brought an arm up to protect my middle, and WHACK, speedlines blurred as something hit me from behind. Speedbump!

Well, I knew the solution to speedsters, didn’t I? I hit the screamers, and was rewarded as a yellow-and-blue costumed teen phased in twenty feet away, staggering, and dropping to his knees. A rock fell from his hands, chipped and smoking from impact where he’d been slamming it into me repeatedly at Mach 2. I sent him backward with a flourished taser shot, flipping my cape over my shoulder, and waiting to confirm he was unconscious before killing the screamers. Got one!

Wait. Something was missing. What, though? I thought through it, then smacked myself on the forehead. Right, right, dialogue!

“A VALIANT BUT FUTILE ATTEMPT TO ROCK DIRE’S WORLD.” I brought the armor’s heel down on the stone, crunching it into glowing fragments as I stood over his unconscious form. “NOT FAST ENOUGH, BOY. NOT FAST ENOUGH.”

Had to maintain the kayfabe, after all.

“Get away from him!” A deep voice at my back, and crashing noises behind me as Serpent Tina moved in, and I turned as she jumped at the suit. I slammed its fist into her chest, and held it there, digging the armor’s heels in as I was shoved backward, dirt spraying. But I wasn’t still as she was pushing me... my free hand jack-hammered into her skull again and again, as she tried to fight to grab me, succeeded in catching my fist and twisting the arm, wrenching the armor and sending plates flying—

—And she jerked and shuddered, as I opened the taser at full zap.

My back hit a tree, electricity sheeting down her and my armor and scorching the bark, lances and feelers of it spearing out to set the underbrush on fire around us. Light flared in brilliant glow, almost blinding even through the armor’s shielded lenses.

And yet she still moved, still fought to hang on, hair smoking and eyes shut as she strained to grab hold on me, grab my face—

My loose fist caught her jaw in a straight haymaker, and she wobbled, stunned, and my other hand slipped from her grasp.

I put all the armor’s strength into a blow to her midsection, and she folded, as I turned off the taser. The emitters were smoking, and I eyed the readouts with a sigh. It would need maintenance before I could use it again.

I stood there for a second, but she didn’t get up. Still looked like she was breathing, so that was good.

“PATHETIC,” I rasped. It had been anything but, and my first layer of armor was pretty well buckled along my right arm, but appearances had to be maintained.

The repair subroutines chimed. Gravitics were operational again. Good, time to get the suit out of there. “REMEMBER HER MERCY, TORCHBEARERS. YOU SHALL NOT SEE IT AGAIN.” I directed the armor upward, moving slowly—

And errors filled my screen, as the suit froze.

Something was holding it in place.

“Gotcha!”

I killed the gravitics, and it hung there in midair. Metal groaned and gave slightly as I shifted the mask downward. There, where she’d snuck up on me during Serpent Tina’s charge, stood a grey-and-gold costumed teenager. She was wearing a breastplate, and a metal half-faced helmet with the visor down, and she had her own pair of gauntlets. Her lower body was mostly unarmored, save for greaves protecting her shins and knees. Her  jumpsuit was gold under the armor, and a red ponytail was visible sticking out of the back of the helmet.

My heart sank.

Mags. The current leader of the Torchbearers, and my worst possible opponent in her group.

“Okay Dire. You’re not going anywhere, so let’s just sit tight until my group wakes up, or the MRB gets here. Unless you want to surrender, and slide out of that armor, maybe?”

Mags, famed for magnetic powers, that allowed her to control metal.

CHAPTER 8: PYRRHIC VICTORIES

“Biggest risk to doing the supervillain thing? Pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory. Seriously, right after you've won is when shit can really go wrong.”

--Quote attributed to Martin Jackson, felon and known henchman of Doctor Dire

I pursed my lips, and blew a breath out in frustration. But after some thought, I shrugged. Fine, let her hold the armor for now. It would take minutes for her help to arrive or her teammates to wake up, so I could leave her holding the suit for now, and use the time to save Vorpal. I whispered commands to the armor, to notify me if anything changed, and waved the screens away, giving me a full view of the highway.

The math checked out, but still... I looked at the forcefield generator again, and turned it on. Then I slid the mask and particle pistol from the pack, settled one on my face and held the other.

I zipped the pack back up and settled it in place, then looked over the railing. It was a long way down, and I felt sweat bead under the mask. It came down to this, came down to the big question; did I have faith in what I’d built?

I closed my eyes until I’d found the answer, and then, without opening them, I leaped over the railing.

I had faith in myself, for I was Dire. I was the maker, I was the architect of my own fate, and inventions that would one day change the world.

Dire does not build shoddy goods!

Sixty-four feet to the road below, in the valley between hills. Sixty-four feet, and I barely had time to register it before I struck the pavement and light flared around me, visible through even my closed lids. Sixty-four feet and then hard asphalt below me—

Then nothing, and I opened my eyes in surprise.

I was hurtling upward again at an angle.

The field had held. I didn’t have the mass of the armor, so instead of absorbing the hit and leaving me with only a few bruises when it failed, it had contracted, then expanded. Quickly.

Throwing me into the air.

I tumbled, field glowing around me, hurtling like a rubber ball across the highway, dropping again, only to slam into a car or truck and rebound, shunted in a new direction, losing momentum as I went.

It took every effort of willpower I had to keep my gorge down, otherwise I would have left a trail of vomit all around me as I bounced through my merry trip.

I came to rest up against a minivan, as the field sparked its last, and disappeared with a wet “pop” sound.

Mental note; maybe refine the field and test it out in a lab before trying that again.

I blinked and held my head until everything stopped spinning. But no matter what I did, blue streaks kept appearing in my vision, zipping past me.

Then one hit the asphalt near me, and a patch of the road boiled and bubbled as steam burst up. Those weren’t visual effects, those were lasers. The guards were shooting at me.

I scrabbled under the van as I finished the thought, then I squirmed around until I was facing their general direction. No good! I could see a lot of moving feet, most of them running in all directions. Looked like the civilians were getting clear of the firefight, and good for them. Unfortunately, it made for a target-rich environment, and not in a good way.

Hm...

I slid a screamer grenade out of my backpack, scraping my arm against the underside of the van, and cursing as I felt something tear my skin. What was it with this week, and crawling around under vans? Just my luck, I figured. I popped the subvocal mike out and the earplugs in, and readied to roll the grenade as far as I could towards the truck.

And stopped. Some of the feet weren’t moving, they were huddled, hiding, much in the same way as I was. And a few of them were small.

Screamer grenades were calibrated for adults. They’d wreak painful, bloody harm on children.

I slid the grenade back into the pack, replaced my mike, and glanced to my particle pistol.

This was going to suck.

A laser sizzled to my left, piercing the tire of the van. Molten rubber sprayed, and I was glad for my mask, and the rebreather inside it. The stench must have been hideous. More worrisome, it indicated that they’d found me.

Without thought, with barely a plan, I squirmed around, and elbow-crawled out from under the van, on the front end of it. I got to my knees, and glanced at the side mirror of the car in front of the van... sure enough, running figures in black, coming up on the right-hand side.

I flipped the particle pistol to stun, stuck it around the side, and cut loose with a few blaring shots. Yellow beams lanced out, and I was sure I hadn’t hit any of them, but it made them take cover. And I grinned, as I saw them hide behind a garbage truck.

It was a smart move, really. So much metal that bullets wouldn’t get past it, and even beam weapons would take time to burn through it.

But they didn’t know the full capabilities of my particle beams. I did some quick math in my head, drew my arm back in, and amped up the beam to near-maximum power, maximum dispersal.

Then I dove, rolled to the next car in line to get a better firing line, and targeted the front of the garbage truck, bracing myself against the ground as I did so.

VVVVVVORP!

It was a column of golden light, a split-second image that could have been the fist of god itself, and it hit the garbage truck square on.

Minimum penetration.

Maximum force.

The truck was thrown backward, and I heard despairing yells, as it crunched into the guards, before slamming to a stop against a pickup behind it, pushing that vehicle back a good twenty feet, and ramming the whole mess into an SUV.

Like a mournful, spastic bird, a car alarm wailed as blood dripped onto the asphalt.

I took a breath, smiled. There had been no civilians hiding over in that direction, I’d made sure of it before I took the shot.

“Nice work!” Vorpal’s voice was louder, amplified by the fact I had earbuds in. I winced, dialed the connection down before I considered the charge indicator on the pistol.

“Can’t do that again,” I said, “how’s the other group coming?”

“I’m stalking the last one now. Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have one. Traffic will be back up before then.”

“Scheisse. Ah, how much do you trust me?”

“You haven’t given Dire a reason to distrust you yet. Don’t.”

“Alright. Can you make some noise to your left? Run that way?”

“Now?”

“Yah.”

“On it!” If I took time to think about it, I’d regret it. But I’d come this far. I got to my feet, and bolted, feeling the aches from my bouncing ball trip, riding the adrenaline, knowing that the crash was going to be horrible, ignoring common sense and pounding my feet into the pavement.

About forty feet into the run, blue light ripped past me, and again, and again, so close that I felt heat trace along my back and I whimpered as my scars from a few nights back throbbed in pain... and then they stopped.

“Got him!” Vorpal called.

“He let you get that close?” I slowed, stopped.

“No. I took a laser from one I dropped. They work pretty well.”

I took a breath, took another, and leaned on my knees.

Martin’s channel kicked on. “Power’s back!”

Damn. “There’s still guards in the truck?”

“Yah!”

“Can you carve a hole in the side? Into the back compartment?”

“On it!” She said, and I ran, pushing myself despite my shortness of breath, ignoring the pain, weaving a course through the parked and no-longer stalled vehicles. Some of the commuters hadn’t left their cars, and they were firing them up, starting to inch forward, trying to bypass the abandoned vehicles.

A muffled blare... the truck had blown its air horn, audible even through the earplugs. I ran faster, and ahead of me I saw a blue flash as Vorpal came from the other direction, rapier flashing free, as black energy coalesced around it.

And she leaped, flipping head over feet as she came along side the truck, leaped with athletic grace, blade flicking out as she went.

She landed, sheathed her blade with a grin, and behind her a circular chunk of armored trailer fell out and hit the highway.

Showoff. Still, I grinned under my mask, as I panted and got within range, climbing up on a nearby flatbed as the truck’s cab reached me.

I pulled out a screamer grenade, and as the truck passed me, picking up speed, I tossed it into the hole that Vorpal had opened.

I couldn’t use it in the open air, not when there were people within fifty feet of it.

But inside, with the truck walls to contain its noise? And with the shape of the trailer amplifying it, right through the thin walls between the trailer and the cab?

The effect was immediate. The truck listed to the side, crunched into a motionless sedan, and came to a stop, horns blaring. Vorpal looked to me, and I held up a hand, folded fingers down; five, four, three.. two... I gestured to the truck at one, and she ran to catch up to it, slashed the back door to bits, and hauled herself in as it fell around her.

Damn, she was fit. For my part, I sat and caught my breath. I caught the driver of the flatbed staring back at me through his cab’s rear window, and gave him a little wave. His baseball-capped bald head darted below the window, and I laughed, loud and booming, echoing around the freeway and drowning out the car alarms and horns.

“HMHMHMHMHMH! HAHAHAHHAHAHA!”

And as it died away, sirens wailed in the distance. I sighed. To all good things, must come an end.

“Three crates!” Vorpal reported. “I’ll need help to haul them out.”

“On my way,” Martin responded. “Now that traffic’s moving I’ll circle ’round. Gonna be tight before the cops get here...”

“Dire’s going to be busy for a bit, manage it please.” I said, and pulled up the AR interface again, switching over to my armor’s viewpoint. Time to see if I could get my suit out of there.

When I logged back in, the suit was still held fast in the grip of Mags’ powers. The girl herself was sitting on one of the tree-trunks that Serpent Tina had knocked over, talking with a dwarf clad in a green-and-purple jumpsuit. The dwarf’s head was encephalic, swollen beyond the expected size. Mentot, I knew.

I considered my options. They were in range for the Screamers, but so were their fallen colleagues. I didn’t want to risk any more exposure. Serpent Tina would probably be fine, but it would be bad to risk crippling or killing Speedbump.

The micromissile launcher was jammed, and all of them were made of metal, anyway. Mags would just lob them back, even if I could get one to fire to begin with.

Particle beams or the tasers were my best bet. One of the tasers was practically burnt out, but the one in my right gauntlet was still functional. But I had no idea how much influence Mags’ powers had on electricity. So that left particle beams.

Gas grenades. I needed gas grenades. I resolved to get on that when I repaired the suit. And it would need repairs. There were plates gouged out of the front and side, and the steel plates of the right arm were in tatters, exposing the ceramic layer beneath—

Wait.

I could turn a weakness into a strength, here. Into an opportunity. Maybe. It all depended on whether or not Mags had to see metal before she could control it. The second layer of my suit was hardened ceramic, but the layer under that was steel mesh. Was she grabbing onto the outer armor, or was she also holding the mesh?

I disengaged one of the steel clamps on the mask. If it loosened, then she was only grabbing the armor. If it stayed shut, then my suit was well and truly stuck.

With a pop and a hiss, the seal was broken, and vapor escaped from the side of the mask, obscuring part of my view. I pounded my thigh in triumph, and grinned.

The noise caught the Torchbearers’ attention, and they started in surprise, then whipped around to look at me. I resealed the clamp, and stared back at them.

“Don’t try anything funny, Doctor,” said Mags. “We’ve got you dead to rights.”

“DO YOU?” I asked. “WOULD YOU CARE TO LAY A WAGER UPON THAT?”

I could twist my arm, rip the ceramic underlayer and the rest of the structure free from the metal surrounding it. Once done, it would be child’s play to aim the particle cannon in my palm at Mags and zap her into senselessness. It would cause some pretty heavy damage, strain the motors in that side, but it was better than losing the suit. And I rather thought I could do it fast enough that she’d have no counter.

She lifted a fist, and squeezed. I saw her grimace, and then the suit’s sensors were screaming, as my armor was compressed by incredible force...

But only the outer layer.

Rivets popped, and a few bits of the right arm’s outer layer fell away. I grinned. The kid was making my job easier, without even knowing it.

“No,” Mags said, unclenching her hand. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“INCORRECT,” I said. “THOUGH BY ALL MEANS, KEEP SQUEEZING IF YOU WISH TO RESUME THE BATTLE. WHICH, INCIDENTALLY, SHALL BE QUITE SHORT THIS TIME.”

She flushed, lifted her hand again— and Mentot reached up, grabbed her elbow, gave it a pat before she turned to me.

“Mr. Carson told us about you,”

“SHE DOES NOT KNOW THAT NAME.”

Mentot tilted her head. “No? He was one of the first people you met, if you were telling the truth. On the beach, I mean.”

“AH.” Well, if she was willing to be civil, I saw no reason to be rude. “MOST PEOPLE IN THE CAMP USED NICKNAMES OR FIRST NAMES. DIRE HAD LITTLE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN LAST NAMES.”

“Leon Carson. You called him Sparky?”

Ah, right. Martin had mentioned that Sparky had gone on to mentor the Torchbearers. Well now!

The clever little girl was trying to stall me, doubtless, but the bait was too much for my curiosity.

“WELL!” I let a pleased tone seep into my modulator. As much as I could, anyway. “THAT’S RIGHT, HE’S ONE OF YOUR TEACHERS NOW! HOW IS HE DOING THESE DAYS?”

“He’s good. Really good. He told us about you. I mean as much as he could, the MRB sealed some of the details. Of you and of the Black Bloods, and all that.”

I hadn’t known that. Made sense, in a depressing way. This nation’s government is paranoid when it comes to sharing information, even when it would be helpful. I’d suspected this was the reason that the truth of Great Clown Pagliacci never hit the news. Good to have it confirmed.

A tap on my flesh-and-blood shoulder, and I started. Distant shouting, until I removed my earbud. Martin? Yes.

“Dire! We gotta go, get in the van!” I cut back to half a screen, clambering in the van as Vorpal finished loading crates. Once inside and belted up, I turned my attention back to my armor’s conversation.

“DIRE IMAGINES HE HAS SOME GOOD STORIES,” I said. “WELL, NOW YOU HAVE ONE TO SHARE WITH HIM. GIVE HIM DIRE’S REGARDS WHEN YOU SEE HIM, YES?”

“You can tell him yourself,” said Mags. “Plenty of time for him to visit you when you’re in prison. Seriously, what the hell happened? You could have been a hero!”

Mentot frowned at her, and Mags looked chagrined. Talking telepathically? I couldn’t tell.

“THE MORE DIRE SEES OF HEROES, THE LESS SHE IS IMPRESSED,” I said, removing the warm tone from the modulator. “CASE IN POINT.”

“We were good enough to take you down,” Mags grinned.

“INCORRECT, THOUGH YOU FOUGHT WELL ENOUGH. DIRE REFERS NOT TO THE FIGHT, BUT THE REASON YOU’RE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU ARE BEING USED.”

“How so?” Mentot asked.

“WAS IT COINCIDENCE THAT YOU WERE PATROLLING THIS AREA AT THIS TIME? FOUR OF YOU?”

They shared another look.

“Anonymous tip,” Mags said. Her stance loosened a bit, and she put her hands on her hips. “You think this was a setup? What was in that truck that you needed to destroy it?”

“NOTHING. NOT EVEN A DRIVER. THE TRUCK WAS EMPTY SAVE FOR REMOTELY-TRIGGERED EXPLOSIVES.”

“Yeah, like I believe that.”

I turned my cameras to the truck. “GO AND LOOK FOR BODIES IN THE WATER, DIRE WILL WAIT—”

I stopped cold, as I saw what was going on back at the site of the explosion. Vines were crawling out of the water, leafy vines that were flexing and contracting like tendrils, inching along and poking through the smoldering wreckage of the truck.

“OKAY. THAT’S A NEW ONE.”

Mags looked confused. “What’s a new one?”

But Mentot was staring at the water, eyes growing wide. “Oh shit.”

“Language,” Mags cautioned. “Don’t need any more demerits with— Oh holy fuck!”

“INTERESTING.” I didn’t know any plant controllers. None had shown up when I’d done my research on Icon’s heroes and villains. Didn’t mean there weren’t any, though.

“Is this like that hentai stuff I’m not allowed to watch?” Mentot asked.

“Jesus I hope not,” Mags muttered. “Whoa. Whoa whoops, that’s bad.” Several of the tendrils slunk out of the water on our side of the inlet.

“YES, IT IS. THAT THING’S LOOKING FOR CARGO THAT ISN’T THERE. SO IT’S GOING TO KEEP SEARCHING... AND YOU’VE GOT TWO UNCONSCIOUS TEAMMATES NOT TOO FAR FROM IT, DON’T YOU?”

“Crap. Get Speedbump,” Mag told Mentot.

The shorter hero flapped her arms. “Muscle problems, remember? No go!”

“So use your telekinesis!”

“It’s too weak! I could, like, lift his legs, but not all of him! Can you drag him by his belt buckle, like you did that one time?”

“Yeah, but—” She shot me a look, and I finished her sentence.

“BUT YOU’RE USING YOUR FULL POWER TO RESTRAIN DIRE. QUITE THE QUANDARY, HM?”

“How about the MRB? Are they almost here?” Mags asked Mentot.

“They said they’d be about ten minutes, it’s been like four!”

“YOU KNOW THE SOLUTION TO THIS.”

I watched Mags mouth pull into a frown, as she glanced back and forth from me, to the encroaching vines. Finally Mags jogged over to Speedbump, grabbed his arms, and pulled him back. She was moving slow, and I could see sweat rolling down the exposed part of her face. Physical activity, plus the effort of maintaining her powers, was taking a toll.

The vines kept coming.

“YOU KNOW WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN HERE,” I said with a sigh. “WHY DO YOU DELAY?”

“She’s right,” Mentot said. “If that thing had a brain, I could do something, but once again I’m totally flipping useless. And you can’t drag Tina like that, so you have to let Dire go—”

“Hush!” Mags barked, dropping Speedbump, putting her hands on her knees and heaving. “Maybe the vines won’t...”

There were a lot of vines. And in a few of them, I was seeing thorns under the leaves. Slowly, they crept toward Serpent Tina’s prone form, questing and coiling.

“WELL. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE,” I said. “TYPICAL HERO.”

Servos shrieked, and the armor’s motors ground, as I wrenched with terrible force, and in a cacophony of sparks and shrapnel, I tore the ceramic structure of the arm free of the steel of the armor. Mags shrieked, and Mentot dove for cover as I swept the glowing palm of my gauntlet across them—

—And aimed it at the vines.

Three shots at wide dispersal, and the vines were torn to shreds, along with the nearby foliage, the remnants of the truck, the trees on the opposite bank, and most of the underbrush on the other side.

“Holy Christ,” I heard Mags whisper.

We watched the water for a second. The vines didn’t come out again.

“You, ah, you could have done that any time, yeah?” Mentot asked.

“YES.”

“You didn’t.”

“DIRE WISHED TO SEE WHAT YOU WOULD DO. THOUGH THIS FARCE DOES BEGIN TO BORE HER.”

The force around my armor dissipated, and the armor fell to the ground. I managed to turn it into a three-point landing, falling with some modicum of grace.

I straightened the suit up and had it turn, looming over the two standing Torchbearers, eight feet of battered armor and intimidation. I folded my arms. “ARE WE DONE HERE?”

“Okay. I’m not dumb,” Mags said. “There’s something going on here, and it looks like I need more facts. And you just proved I can’t hold you here, so I guess truce and we both back off?”

Yeah, that worked. Except... wait, there was an opportunity, here. They were in contact with Sparky. There was one matter he could help me with, one that I needed to solve as soon as I could.

“THERE IS ONE MORE THING.”

“What?”

“TELL SPARKY THAT DIRE NEEDS TO KNOW SUSAN’S LAST NAME. SHE MAY BE IN DANGER.”

“Susan?”

“THE ONE MINNA SAVED. HE CAN FIND OUT HER NAME IF HE DOESN’T KNOW IT. DIRE WILL MEET WITH HIM ALONE AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT IN THE PLACE WHERE HE ALMOST KILLED DIRE. PASS THIS ON.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if he’ll go for that.”

“HE WILL.”

She sighed. “Fine. We’ll pass along the message.”

Without another word I launched into the air, moving at half speed, and heading south, low over the treetops. I set the armor on autopilot. It would evade for a while, move randomly and as stealthily as it could, before ending up in an old quarry that I’d scouted beforehand. Come nightfall I could get it back to the outskirts of town and fly it out to a pickup point.

With a sigh of relief, I closed the link, and pulled my mask off, returning my attention to my own body. Working remotely without the control harness was tricky.

But it had mostly worked out in the end.

“Everything go okay?” Martin asked.

“Mostly.  Everything good here?”

“Yeah. We got off the highway ’fore the cops showed up. Vorpal’s a ways back on her bike making sure we ain’t followed. Gonna be a few minutes to the swap point. Transfer the cargo, ditch the van, go to the rendezvous. Simple. Easy.”

“Maybe not,” I mused. “Turns out there’s someone else in this mess.”

“Oh?” Vorpal asked over the subvocal channel.

I told them about the exploding truck, the Torchbearers, and the strange vines.

Midway through, Vorpal started cursing, a steady stream of foul language. I understood about half of it, before she finished. “Never easy, never simple. Great. Just great.”

“So there’s another player in the game,” Martin mused. “Now this adds a fourth possibility; A fake out.”

I nodded. “Not a trap, or a distraction, or office politics. Unless the office plants are rebelling against their masters.”

“Fear the ficus,” Martin muttered. “No, my guess is that was a fake out. Make whoever was controlling the plants think that the cargo got destroyed.”

I nodded. That made sense, and raised even more questions. Who was the new player? How did they know of the shipment? What is in those boxes?

I turned and considered them. “Such a fuss over these crates. Tempting to open one and see—”

“Hell fucking no,” Martin said. “Our luck it’d be plant zombie virus bullshit. Turn us all into kudzu or something.”

“—which is why Dire’s going to wait until we’ve got a secure environment and some hazmat suits before we look inside,” I finished. “Have a little faith, Martin.”

Vorpal’s channel clicked open again. “I have a question.”

“Yes?” I asked.

“How did the plant controller know where we were going to ambush the convoy?”

I opened my mouth, and shut it again. “The controller may have known the route... but the vines showed up within minutes. That is oddly specific.”

“Maybe he knew ’cause someone told him.” Said Martin.

I narrowed my eyes. Betrayal? I’d been stung once by it, twice if you counted a druggie who’d murdered one of my best friends.

I didn’t like traitors.

Neither did Vorpal, from the venom in her voice. “Chaingang,” she snarled.

“We don’t know for certain.” Martin said.

“True,” she said. “There were no plant creatures on the highway during our assault.”

“But that could simply mean they’ll be waiting at the rendezvous point.” I finished the thought, and settled back in the seat. Adrenaline was fading, but a cold anger was growing. I was tired, and had a few bruises from my bouncy force field ride. This made me even more exhausted. I puffed my cheeks out, blew a raspberry.

“Say again?” Vorpal asked.

That must have sounded pretty weird over the channel. “Just commenting on the tragedy of existence. All right, so here’s what we’ll do...”

Ten minutes later, we were pulling up five blocks away from the rendezvous point in a stolen pickup, with a camper shell on the back. The van had been ditched and sterilized with bleach, and the license plates stripped. For good measure I’d swapped out the ones on the pickup with some generic fakes. As long as no cop ran them, we’d be fine. Which meant that I’d be the one driving. Even in a city as tolerant as Icon, we were still on the north side, the local cops were still mostly corrupt assholes, and Martin was still black.

Vorpal was covering us from a few streets down, with the stolen laser rifle. We’d convinced her to ditch it after we were done here. I’d disabled the obvious tracker, but if the rifle had something like the trojan they’d tried to slip us through the memory sticks, then it would send up a signal later at the worst possible time.

The rendezvous point was an old power station, next to a few warehouses. It had been stripped of most of its copper long ago, and there was nothing left to steal. It was in former Black Blood territory, and squatters still feared to shelter in places like this.

But it wasn’t the power station I cared about. Some of the warehouses around it were still in use, and their security systems were just what I needed. I adjusted the universal remote to maximum range, and started searching through the networks of the area.

And soon enough, I found what I needed. “Got it! Active camera system.”

“Can you see it?” Martin asked.

“Give her a second.”

I piped the camera feed to my contacts, and adjusted the camera angles until the power station came into sight.

“Not seeing much—” I panned around, considered it from several angles. “Wait.”

One of the larger windows around back was broken. By itself not a big deal, could have been attributed to vandals, would have if we hadn’t been suspicious. But there was something just inside of the window. Something large. I couldn’t make out details, but something that could have been slimy flesh rippled and fell.

It was breathing.

I muttered a curse. “Martin, take over please. Drive us to where we can get a vantage on the back of it. Don’t go slow, just average speed.”

“Drive casual, got it.”

I slipped my mask on as we went, and clicked over to infrared vision. And as he pulled around past chain-link fences and empty street corners, we finally got a good look at the back of the building. I gasped, as an enormous red splotch filled my vision. The power station was two stories high, and that thing looked to be filling both floors.

“KEEP DRI—” I paused, pulled my mask off. “Keep driving,” I said through clenched teeth. “Whatever that thing is, we want no part of it.”

“Thing?” Vorpal asked.

“Not sure, but it looks like there’s a small kaiju in there. Or something equivalent.”

Martin’s hands shook on the wheel, but he got us turned and gone without trouble. I clicked through the camera networks, and erased the brief views of the van as we pulled away.

“Kaiju. Gott im Himmel.” Vorpal swore.

I nodded, realized she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”

Kaiju is a term used to refer to giant monsters, usually created by the maddest of mad scientists. They were usually mutants, although some were new species in their own right. Rumors said that the Atlanteans had a number of them below the ocean, just in case humanity got surly. More rumors said that some kaiju were of alien origin. I doubted that one. Every alien or alien-related incident on record had either been a hoax or later been proven to be quite terrestrial.

They were fairly rare, going by the bits I’d read. I hadn’t spent a lot of time studying them.

As I mused, Martin drove, looking more and more pissed as we went.

“We would have walked in there,” Martin said. “Walked right into the yard, waiting for Chaingang.”

“And been within its reach before we knew it was there,” I said. “Then it could rip through a door or window or even the concrete wall if it had the strength, and, well, squish.”

Martin pulled the van to a stop.

“What?” I asked.

“The fuck you so calm?” He snapped. He raised his hand. “Look!”

It was shaking.

“Well, that just shows you’re sane,” I said.

“Uh-huh. The fuck does that say about you?” He snarled.

I stared at him, as evenly as I could, until he realized what he said. “Shit, sorry.” He looked away. “Didn’t mean it like that.”

I muted Vorpal’s channel. “You’re forgiven. Odds are good she isn’t sane, or wasn’t. You know, that whole operating on her own brain thing.”

“Sorry.” He raised his left hand, slapped the door in frustration. “Just... this whole thing. We caused like twenty traffic accidents, you had a shootout with a bunch of dudes with frikkin’ lasers, and now we got kaiju in this shit? Hidin’ in that building like ‘ho ho ho, this house disguise gives me plus eight in urban environments?’ Yeah. I think... I think maybe it’s good I’m not getting used to this shit.”

I took his free hand, gave it a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For losing my shit?”

“For providing a baseline. She’s still not good at being human. This helps.”

He looked out the window, laughed. When he looked back, he was smiling a bit. “You ain’t getting on my case like you did when I gave you a hard time about Bunny, back in that drive with the Caddy.”

I shrugged. “Time isn’t critical, here. Well, that we know of. We need to contact Vorpal, make plans.”

I reached up, but just as my fingertip was about to tap the subvocal rig and de-mute her channel, my phone rang.

I picked it up, stared at it. Vorpal’s number.

Waitaminute...

“Dire? Are you there? You went quiet.”

“You didn’t destroy your phone?” I hissed.

“No. I didn’t use it to read the datastick.”

“Oh.” Well, that was a relief. Then my eyes narrowed. “Wait. What did you use to read the datastick?”

“My desktop computer.”

“Did you destroy it?”

“No.”

“What!” The trojan was due to go off in minutes!

“Do not worry. I ensured that it was powered down before we came out here.”

I closed my eyes. “Not good enough.” Mostly-eidetic memory, meant that I could recall every line of the code, every function that trojan called. “It’ll turn your computer back on.”

“Bullshit!”

“Nope. Decidedly feces-free. Your computer has a Grid link, yes?”

“Yes. But I haven’t used that since I put the datastick in there.”

“Won’t matter. It found the link, put a subroutine out there. Even if your computer is off, your profile is still on the grid. Including the drop point.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“In about three minutes, our employer, who by now knows we burned him, will know the location of your desktop computer. Which is where?”

Silence for a bit. Then a ton of swearing, in that language I didn’t recognize. Russian? German? Something European. I made a note to brush up on European languages in my free time.

“Vorpal?” Martin’s voice was calm, soothing. “Where’s the computer?”

“In my apartment. Along with everything else I own. Including my papers, my false ID, and my bank information.”

I frowned. “You leave your bank information lying around?”

“Well fucking excuse me for not being a supergenius and remembering sixteen character passwords! I wrote them down. Sue me.”

I rubbed my face. Looked to Martin. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

I kept looking, and understanding dawned in his eyes as he cursed. “Aw no. Fuck no. Fuck no... we’ve already got one stray.”

“She’s got nowhere else to go, has information on us, and now she needs her share of the ransom more than ever.”

“We could burn her,” Martin suggested. Then flinched, as I glared at him. “What? Just saying, we could ditch her, keep her share, and life would be a lot simpler.”

“Not going to betray her,” I said. “Not going to betray anyone. That’s not how Dire does business. Unless she’s betrayed first, mind. But Vorpal’s played fair. Deserves help.”

“Dire... look, I’m pretty sure she was killing some of those laser dudes down there. That’s not cool.”

“They were the ones using lethal force. And firing into crowds of civilians.”

He sighed. “Yeah, guess so. Well fuck, it’s your call.”

I nodded, and opened the subvocal comm back up. “Okay Vorpal, here’s the plan...”

CHAPTER 9: DOCTOR? DOCTOR!

“Supervillains usually don't have health insurance.”

--Quote attributed to Agent Coleman, MRB

“I’m still not comfortable with this,” Vorpal groused.

She was younger than I’d thought, now that her mask was off. Had a smattering of freckles across her snub nose, and a small face to match her thin frame. I supposed other people considered her pretty; she seemed to match the parameters of social acceptance.

“It’s temporary,” I said, closing the chain-link gate behind us, and locking it. She tugged her borrowed jacket around her torso, and scowled. We didn’t have any spare pants, but the jacket hid her costume well enough, I thought. The pants could be mistaken for slacks at a distance.

“Come on. Longer you’re out here more risk we’re running.” Martin held the door for her, with an exaggerated bow.

“You good to move the crates by yourself?” I asked him.

“Should be. They’re more bulky than heavy.” Martin was stronger than he looked. I was glad to see that prison hadn’t dulled that. I followed Vorpal through the door.

She seemed impressed by the inside of the warehouse. “This is what I was expecting.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Most of your types need workshops.”

I blinked, and she scowled. “Mad science types.”

“Supergeniuses.”

She shook her head. “Not necessarily. Some are merely smart without the need to invent or build. Like Mentat.”

“Well. Mentat’s got his mental powers. Dire doesn’t know that he’d really need inventions.” Although the ‘mad’ part certainly seemed to apply to him. The man had been active since the eighties, and his crimes got weirder and weirder as time went on. The archives I’d searched through had quite a lot to say about him.

“If he could he would. He has certainly tried everything else. No, inventors are a class in of themselves.”

She really couldn’t be more than twenty, at best, but she spoke with a veteran’s voice.

“You’ve had a lot of experience with costumed people?”

“Costumes,” she corrected. Right, right, that was the proper slang. “And more than most, yes.” Her eyes shifted as she said that, looking faraway. There was a good amount of regret in those eyes.

No point in pushing her for more. I shut up and lead the way to the living quarters, ascended the stairs.

Bunny looked up from the desk as I opened the door, fumbled next to her, got her hand around the scattergun before I raised mine. “Easy, Bunny. Good to see you awake.”

She didn’t let go of the scattergun. “Dire.” Her face was pale, and her bald scalp was streaked with sweat. One arm was wrapped around her side, clutching the bandage.

“And company,” I confirmed. Vorpal padded in after me, face cold and neutral, not blinking as she looked Bunny up and down. “You don’t need that right now.” I pointed at the gun.

“I didn’t think I needed it back in the garage. Look where that got me.” But she took her hand away from it, rested it on the desk. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me the password for the computer?”

I walked over, glanced at it. Still locked. “That would depend on what you wanted it for.”

“Need to talk to some people. Warn them.”

“About what?”

Her eyes flicked to Vorpal, who was still staring at her. “Don’t know if I should say.”

“Your call,” I said. “Come, Vorpal. Dire will see about getting you set up with a room, and show you the facilities.”

Vorpal let out a chuckle when she saw the hot tub. I left her to steam up the bathroom, went down to help Martin with the crates. We got the last one inside, then I drove the pickup in and had my robots start up the chop shop treatment. Martin seemed impressed by the results.

“This is some Grand Theft Pinto shit right here. I know guys would’ve traded their left nuts for this kind of thing.”

“Fortunately, Dire has none to barter, so she went with cash instead.” We headed back upstairs, and Bunny nodded at us as we came in. She’d moved over to the couch instead, and was curled up on it.

Martin nodded. “I think it’s ’bout time to change that bandage again. You up for it?”

“It’s been hurting more,” Bunny replied.

Martin grunted.

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Don’t know. I ain’t a doctor. Can’t see many ways it’d be good.” Martin went, got the first aid kit, and rolled up Bunny’s shirt.

“Shit.”

“What?” I asked.

“Those red lines around the hole? They’re spreading.”

Bunny groaned. “Infection. Got to be. My immune system’s been shot since the big C.”

“Whoa,” Martin said, looking her up and down. “Cancer?”

“Smokeless Fire Syndrome.”

“That Gulf War shit? You’re a vet?”

“Yep.”

Martin looked impressed, but I had little idea what she was talking about. I resolved to read up on it later. In the meantime, Martin finished up his diagnosis. He didn’t look happy. “Yeah. I can change the bandage, but there ain’t much I can do ’bout that. If the stuff I already dumped on there didn’t fix this, then it’s above my paygrade.”

“Do what you can, please,” I said. “Dire doesn’t want to lose any more friends.”

“We’re friends now?” Bunny asked.

“You alone stayed behind, out of all of your gang. You helped assault the Black Bloods, risked your life for Dire and her people.”

“It was the right thing to do. Whether or not I liked you didn’t enter into it. Not that I don’t appreciate the help, here, mind.”

I nodded. “Then this is the right thing for Dire to do. And she’ll consider you a friend, in gratitude for the lives you saved.”

Her eyes shifted to the wall of televisions, volume turned off, chattering in close captioned subtitles. “After you left, there was something up north. Trouble on the highway, some kind of attack. Some wounded, some dead. Was that you?”

I nodded. “Yes. Though the dead were the fault of her foes.”

“Then I don’t know if I can call you a friend, sorry. You’re one of the people we should be trying to stop.”

It hurt. She was one of the few I’d respected, back in the day. But I nodded, and forced my face to smile. “Your honesty is appreciated, and Dire is willing to help you regardless.”

“If you’re willing to accept our help,” Martin said. “I mean, if you’re too good for it, we could drop your ass off at a hospital like we shoulda done in the first place.”

“No hospitals. I’d be dead in hours.”

“Why?” I asked. “What is this all about?”

She grimaced. “Not sure I should tell you.”

Martin shook his head, as he finished up with her bandage. “You are one stubborn bitch— GAAH!”

I started forward, as she reached out, grabbed his ear, and twisted it.

“You do not fucking get to call me a bitch. Got it?”

“Bunny—” I didn’t get to finish the sentence. Martin grabbed her wrist, twisted it back until her hand opened.

“Fine. You’re a stubborn fucking asshole. Better?”

Of all things, Bunny smiled. It looked weird on her normally-glowering face. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

He backed up, stood, let go of her wrist. She offered no further fuss, and he wandered off, rubbing his ear. “Gonna get some lunch going. You want anything Dire?”

“Some of those pizza pastry things,” I decided. “Those are enjoyable.”

“On it.”

I dragged a chair over to the couch, sat in it. Bunny looked up at me, raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“What would it take for you to be sure that you should tell Dire of your troubles?”

“I don’t want my friends getting hurt. And you, you’re pretty destructive.”

“When Dire needs to be, yes. But she also doesn’t want her friends getting hurt.”

“I already told you I’m not your friend.”

I grinned. “Yeah, you don’t get to decide that. Sorry.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” She took a deep breath, grimaced, and clutched at her side. “Okay. Look. Promise me a few things and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

“Maybe.” I was wary. “What did you have in mind?”

“You don’t hurt my friends, you don’t get involved in this without running your plans by me first and getting my approval, and you help me get to the Doctor.”

I frowned. “Didn’t you want to avoid hospitals?”

“The Doctor, not a doctor. I know a street doc. He’s discrete, and works on short notice. But you locked your flippin’ computer and every phone around here, so I can’t contact him.”

“Ah. Okay, Dire promises to abide by your conditions.”

“Me too,” Martin said from the doorway. We both jumped a bit, and Bunny shot him a glare. He met it head on, smiled, and offered her a bottle of water.

“Fine.” She took the water. “So. You know what happened when you took out the Black Bloods?”

“Property values went up,” Martin said. “North Side got a whole lot safer to live in. Lots of stuff like that.”

“Yeah. But what else?”

Martin leaned against the wall, frowned. “Shiiiiiit. Power vacuum, yeah?”

“Big time.”

I tilted my head. “What?”

“Okay, see, the Black Bloods had their hands in a lot of crime. A lot of profitable crime.” Martin explained. “So when they went out, there was a lot of profit out there still going on—”

“—but no one there to tend to it.” I finished.

“The whole of North side was open for the taking,” Bunny said. “The gangs gave it a few months for the aftermath of the Black Bloods and the publicity from that and Dire to die down, then they started moving in. Your old Crew was first, Martin.”

“Fuck. Yeah, Coate would, wouldn’t he?” Martin rubbed his chin. “And of course Die Kriegers couldn’t let that stand.”

“Right,” Bunny said. “And we’re caught in the middle.”

Martin frowned. “Unless you been doing a lot of expanding, the Midtown Militia’s turf should be way east of there. You guys got the Waterfront, right?”

“Yeah, but we couldn’t sit by and let innocent people be victimized again. This was a chance to stop crime before it started.”

“So you stuck your dick in the meatgrinder,” he said, then glanced down at her. “Uh, so to speak, anyway. You being the gang in general. If the gang was a dude. I mean— shit, I’ll quit now.”

“Thank you.” But she was smiling, just slightly, again. “It actually hasn’t been much of a meatgrinder. More of a cold war. Everyone knows that the first group to escalate is going to take the worst pain.”

“When it does break—” I stopped, collected my thoughts. “When it does break, how bad is the fallout going to be?”

“Bad.” Martin said. “Die Kriegers do most of the gunrunning round the ’Con. And SCK’s got numbers. It’ll be blood on the streets.”

“Lots of civilians in the crossfire. Only reason we’re trying to head it off, really. Otherwise we wouldn’t care if your bunch and their bunch took each other to hell a few bullets at a time.”

“Sure. That’s the only reason you’re involved. Riiiiiight.”

Bunny glared at him, but I held up a hand and interjected. “So how did this get you shot? Was it one of the other gangs?”

Her glare faded. “I wish. No. I noticed some weird stuff going on. Money getting shifted around, patrols getting cut back around the casinos. Strange meetings that didn’t get briefed up the chain to Munin like they’re supposed to. It looked like my boss, Carson, was trying to cut a deal with somebody else.”

“Somebody else?” Martin rubbed his cheek. “Who else— aw fuck. The mob.”

“Yep,” Bunny said. “The Caviliogne family.”

“They ain’t been players for years.”

Bunny shook her head. “When I did some digging, I found that the New York mob decided to back one of the local bosses after Y2K. Most of the heroes who brought them down are dead or moved on. I don’t know what kind of deal Carson cut with them. I decided to give him a chance to come clean, arranged for a private meeting... and, well, he wasn’t there. Those guys you ran into were there, with guns.” She nodded my way. “So thanks.”

“You are welcome. Dire too has felt the sting of betrayal, you have her sympathies.” I said, as I folded my hands together. “This begs the question; what will you do now?”

She shook her head. “Got a few people to get in touch with. Huginn’s branch of the Militia, and some emergency numbers. A few heroes I’ve worked with before.” Then she grimaced, and rubbed her side. “But before any of that, I need to see the Doctor. Doesn’t do me much good if I die before I warn people.”

I nodded. “Phone or computer?”

“Phone’s better.”

I went back into my main storage room, came out with one of the burners. A quick check of the serial number refreshed my memory on the passcode, and I unlocked it, tossed it to her as I came back to the main room. “There you go.”

“Thanks.”

I headed back to my quarters, and Martin followed. I glanced up at him, but he just shook his head, until we’d gotten away from the front room, to one of the lounge areas I’d set up. He shut the door, and leaned against it.

“You want to talk about something?” I asked.

“Maybe. I know that look.”

“Oh?”

“That look that says someone needs a beating. I’m thinking you’re thinking you want to go take down some mobsters.”

I grinned. “The thought had crossed her mind.”

“Yeah. So let’s say you go in hard and brutal, like you did with the Black Bloods. Let’s say you win.”

“Foregone conclusion,” I said. “if the people they have are like the ones they deployed in the parking garage, then they won’t be a challenge.”

“Except it’s a different challenge.” Martin said. “They’ll fight back in different ways than the Bloods did. And unlike the Bloods, they follow the rules. Syndicate rules. They’ll have allies, and legal assets, and mercenaries, and shit. They might not have the crazy or the brute force that the Bloods did, but they got the mean. And people in charge who aren’t batshit crazy.”

I shrugged. “So it’s a challenge.”

“Yeah. But let’s say you win. Who comes in after them?”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. There’s money in the casinos they control, and the brand of vice they got. Demand’s still gonna be there. But if you get rid of those guys, then someone else rises up. And on top of that, you just took out the Midtown Militia’s big secret ally, so that when the gang war comes, the Militia takes it up the ass the worst.”

I rubbed my chin, thought it over. “So what’s the solution?”

“There ain’t a simple solution. Most simple solutions are for dumbasses, ’cause the world’s a complicated place. But maybe you figure out your goals before you go charging in? What are your goals, here?”

That was a good question. I sat down on an overstuffed armchair and gave it some thought. Martin leaned against the wall and gave me space to ponder.

Finally, I nodded. “Got it.”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure Bunny lives through this.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all.”

“Kind of surprised.” He sat down across from me, taking the recliner. “I mean, I was expecting something more... ambitious, I guess.”

“Well, she can always scale it up if the situation demands. And if they kill her, she’ll kill them right back and take their stuff. Dire’s promises to Bunny preclude immediate or drastic action right now.” I spread my hands. “Only two goals in play; get enough money to grow and expand, and protect her friends. Bunny’s a friend, even if she won’t admit it. The rest of the city?” I shrugged. “Not Dire’s friends. A problem to be fixed eventually, once Dire has a good solution. But if the gangs move in on new territory or the mob grows in influence, so be it. Without a good view of the big picture, there’s no way to say that she won’t enable a worse situation later.”

Martin nodded. “Common fucking sense. Cool. Aight, just wanted to make sure you were thinking on this.”

“She’s always thinking.”

A knock at the door. I opened it, found Vorpal wearing a towel, and not much else. She took a step back as Martin’s eyes snapped open wide, and shot him a glare until he looked away.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Fresh clothes?”

“Dire’s might be a bit big on you.”

“I can roll sleeves and pantlegs up.”

“Good enough.” I left Martin in the lounge, went and got her some of my spare casual wear.

“Thank you. I will pay you back when I get my share.”

“Not necessary.”

She smiled, headed into the bathroom, and returned in a more clothed state.

“You seem calmer now.”

She was smiling still. “I have had time to think.”

“And?”

“I think that we are in a good situation. The cargo is ours, we can examine it at our leisure, and the longer we sit on it, the more frantic our treacherous employer will become. We stand to make much from this ransom.”

“Assuming the cargo’s not time-sensitive,” I pointed out.

“True. And also there is the matter of the other player in this game. And Chaingang.”

“Who’s probably working for the other player.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“No, it’s pretty certain. A plant-monster at the ambush site, and a kaiju at the rendezvous— no, once would have been coincidence. Twice is confirmation. It’s pretty obvious that he’s compromised.” I leaned against the wall, glanced back toward the front room.

“Who is the woman?” Vorpal asked.

“A guest, much like yourself. A vigilante of sorts.”

“She is dangerous. I have seen eyes like hers before. A killer. A fighter.”

“Like you?” I asked.

She grinned. “I am cuter than she is.”

I snorted. “Point.”

That made her happier for some reason, she straightened up a bit, and her smile grew.

Well, whatever. “In any case, Bunny will probably be leaving here soon. We’re going to go run her to the doctor.”

“I see. You trust me to stay here while you are gone? With the cargo, and your secret lair full of goods and inventions?”

“Well, yes.” I blinked. “Any reason Dire shouldn’t?”

She chuckled. “I would not trust me. You have only known me a few days.”

“Oh. That. Well, Dire’s pretty sure the security system could take you if it came down to it. Maybe not stop you from leaving, but any attempt to abscond with the cargo would end badly for you.”

Her smile died a bit. “Ah.” But she rallied, and put a hand on my shoulder. “I could come with you on this trip. Just in case.”

“Are you sure?” I looked at her hand, decided it wasn’t doing any harm there. “It will probably be boring. Just a run out to drop her off, and maybe some takeout on the way back, or something.”

“It would be less boring than staying here alone. Besides, I would like to talk with you more.” She squeezed my shoulder, and stared up into my eyes.

“Okay. Well, let’s collect Martin and get going then.”

Her smile cooled a bit, and she let go of my shoulder. I gave her a nod, went back to the lounge, knocked on the door.

“Safe to come out yet?” He asked.

“Er... as it always is, yes.”

“She wearing clothes, I mean?”

“Oh. Yes, come on out.”

Bunny offered the phone back to me when we returned to the front room, but I put up a hand and shook my head. “No need. Keep it for now. Here, take Dire’s number if you need something after this.” I gridmailed it to her phone. “So, what’s the word?”

“He’ll see me in half an hour, over in the Cove. Can I beg a ride?”

I moved to the window, looked over the pickup’s progress. The robots were finishing up its new paint job. “Might be a bit tight, but we can probably do it. We’ll have to wait for the paint to dry a bit.”

And twenty minutes later, we were driving north. The three of us in the pickup, and Vorpal on her motorcycle.

Cobbles Cove was the oldest part of Icon City. Back before Nikola Tesla had bought the land to the west of it, the Cove was a small New England fishing village. Now it was a sleepy residential area, that had last seen major infrastructure rework back in the seventies. Blocks of weathered apartments and prefab houses shared space with strip malls and small parks. The subway station here conveyed many of the residents to their jobs in the surrounding districts... the only real fishing and cargo business left in Icon had moved south to Whalers Wharf long ago. According to Martin, most of it was Die Kriegers turf. He pointed out men in green jackets as we drove by, and I was surprised to find their colors identical to the gangers down the street.

“They’re in Whaler’s Wharf, too?”

“Yeah.”

I decided not to mention I’d stolen a van from them. He’d only worry.

We finally found the place, with two minutes left before Bunny’s appointment. It was a small orange brick building, perhaps two stories with a belltower. The sign proclaimed it to be the Greenwater Methodist church. The lot was bare of other cars, and I wondered if the doctor was running late. But the side door was unlocked, and I held it open as Martin helped Bunny through, giving her a shoulder to lean on. Vorpal brought up the rear, glancing around. She’d left her sword behind, hidden in a compartment on her motorcycle, but I was sure that she was armed in some manner.

Inside, white-painted concrete hallways stretched into closed wooden doors. The floor was tile and a bit dusty, and noteboards were stacked with fliers proclaiming bake sales, campouts, and other community events.

“Is this the right place?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Bunny said. “You know what a sacristy looks like?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. Don’t know what the word means.”

“I got it,” said Martin. “It’s where you keep vestments and censers and stuff. Different place in every church, though.”

“So a store room. I’ll go looking,” Vorpal said, and headed off.

I kept my guard up. The last time I’d been in a church it had been bad. At least this one had power, this time around.

Vorpal returned after a minute. “Found it.”

“Anyone in there?” I asked.

“No, but there are instruments laid out, and medical supplies around.”

“He’ll be along,” Bunny said through gritted teeth. She was braced on Martin, with sweat pouring down her face. Just the walk from the parking lot to this point had done a number on her.

“Think Hollowhusk has branched out?” I arched an eyebrow at Martin.

“Shush.” He shot a look toward Bunny. Ah, right, vigilante. Probably didn’t need to know about that contact. But she paid no attention, so I let it drop.

The sacristy was a ten by fifteen room, with shades over its windows, and a few hanging fluorescent tubes. Racks of vestments hung on the wall, along with children’s costumes and puppets. Bits of odds and ends had been cleared away, with a cot set up in the center of it, and a lamp shining down from a stand. Stainless steel medical tools were set on a towel, resting on a card table that had been pushed against the wall.

“Well,” I said, “we’ve got everything but the doctor.”

“You called, I came.”

The voice was rich, deep, and coming from behind us. I don’t think any of them could have faulted me for spinning around and grabbing for a weapon, not when they were doing the same themselves.

The man behind us didn’t look concerned. He had a deep, walnut-brown skin, and black hair that was running to gray. Stocky, with a bit of a gut. He was in his forties or early fifties, perhaps, wearing a lab coat, slacks and a shirt, glasses, and a patient smile.

“Easy,” said Bunny. “That’s him.”

“Guess there’s no point in asking who my patient is,” he said. And something about his voice tugged at my memory.

I knew where I’d heard it before. And that body shape, that skin tone...

Freeway! This was Freeway!

“Trap!” I yelled, diving into the doorway and wrestling a screamer grenade out of my purse.

“Whoa, hold on,” he protested. “I don’t know what—”

In the hall, Vorpal paused in the middle of drawing a knife, and from the room I saw her eyes go wide...

And another familiar voice echoed through the hall. “Gotcha, Doc!”

Timetripper.

Vorpal went still, as a shimmer appeared around her. She looked almost frozen. “Martin!” I yelled. “Earplugs!”

I took a few steps back and popped my own earplugs in, but before I could throw the grenade the air in front of me flickered, and I could hear normally again. Freeway had taken my earplugs.

He reappeared, standing next to Vorpal, arms outstretched and looking down the hall. “Nobody move! That means you too— hey!”

Everything slowed, as the air blurred, and I saw Freeway’s face shift into a mask of confusion—

—As Timetripper, now wearing a tattered tie-dye shirt and a pair of bell-bottoms, sauntered past Martin. He ducked Martin's easy swing in slow motion, and tried to go around Freeway. Tried being the operative word, as Freeway sped up, and clocked him one in the jaw.

“Ow! Fuck man, what the hell!” Timetripper’s words were distant, like noise through water.

I reached for my taser in slow motion.

Freeway pointed at him.“I don’t know what you’re doing, but you’re violating a truce. Stand down and leave.” His voice was clear.

He didn’t see another Timetripper coming in from the side. I tried to yell a warning, but my lips were moving slowly, slowly...

And then the other Timetripper grabbed Vorpal.

BIP!

Just like that they were gone, Vorpal with them, and time returned to normal.

“Freeway look behind— oh.” I finished.

“The hell?” Freeway asked.

“It was a trap, but not from you.” I said, returning the screamer grenade to my purse.

“Wait. Freeway? Fuck, I knew I recognized that voice!” Martin said.

“No way...” Bunny muttered.

Freeway sighed, pulled his spectacles from his face, and mopped them sourly as he glared at me. “Well, congratulations. It was a good secret identity while it lasted. Now get that young lady up on the table, will you?”

I shook my head. “We have no intention of disclosing your true identity, whoever you are.”

“Good. Safer that way. Now please leave the room and let me take a look at my patient.”

I followed his orders, and Martin tagged along behind. Once the door was shut, he looked at me. “Okay, so what are we gonna do about Vorpal?”

I gave him a blank look. “Do?”

“Yeah. How we gonna rescue her?”

“Well, Dire’s pretty sure he pulled her somewhere else in time. So we’re going to need a time machine, then a way to track Timetripper through time. Dire’s going to put that on her list of long-term goals.”

“We’re not—” He closed his mouth. “No. Guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“No, not really. No way to get to them without time travel capabilities. He might bring her back once he realizes his mistake. She’s probably educating him on it very vigorously.” A thought crossed my mind. “Well, assuming he didn’t send her back in time to a point where the Earth’s atmosphere was unbreatheable. Or forward to a time like that, given how we’re going with greenhouse emissions. Might be able to save her depending on what he did. But he doesn’t strike Dire as a lethal-force type of hero. Odds are he just stranded her somewhere.”

“Doesn’t feel right,” Martin said, crossing his arms. “I mean, I got no real love for Vorpal, but she’s part of the team until we’re done with—”

I held up a hand. “Let’s not discuss this while there’s only a thin wooden door between us and a hero, hm?”

A muffled “Thank you,” from Freeway through the door. Martin jumped a bit, looked chagrined.

We waited in silence, and after a few minutes, the door opened. Freeway stood there, glowering.

“A speedster with surgical skills,” I remarked. “Handy, that.”

“So you’re Dire.” He looked me up and done. “Figured you’d be meaner looking.”

I shrugged. “She’ll try to snarl more next time.”

“You’re awfully calm right now.”

“If you wanted her beaten to a pulp and captured you’d have tried it by now. But you mentioned a truce, so she’s going to assume this is neutral ground..”

He shot a glance over at Martin. “You weren’t lying. She’s difficult to parse.”

Martin shrugged, then chewed on his cheek for a second. “Hey. Man, I’m sorry.”

Freeway shook his head. “You made the wrong choice and you know it. I don’t think I want to talk to you again until you’re back in jail. And you will end up there, if you don’t die first. Being a minion’s no way to live, son.”

Martin’s face fell. Shame warred with guilt, and he took a shuddering breath. All the while, Freeway just looked at him.

“He’s no minion,” I said.

“No? Hmph. Make sure it stays that way.” He turned his back on Martin, and pointed down the hall. “I want to talk with you. You mind?”

“Actually, no.” I was curious. This wasn’t the sort of hero I was used to. “Lead the way.”

He walked down the hall, to a door that had a ‘community room’ sign on it, and even held it for me as I strolled through. I debated taking one of the loose folding chairs that were scattered around the bare room, and when he settled into one with a grunt of weariness, I decided to stay on equal footing. I took one, spun it around, and surveyed him as I sat.

“Martin’s told me about you.” He began.

“Dire imagines you had plenty of time to speak with him in the jail. Thank you for paying for his lawyer, by the way.”

He waved a hand. “Money’s no problem for me now. Least I could do for the kid.”

“Curious about that.”

“Why?”

I crossed my wrists on the back of the chair, took a second before responding. “Why were you concerned with Martin’s welfare?”

“I wasn’t. I was concerned he wouldn’t get a fair trial.”

“He had no chance of that. The system was rigged against him.”

“Did he kill those cops?”

“No!” I was surprised. Surely Martin had told him that?

“You didn’t either?”

“No.”

“Well, the whole world thinks you and he did.”

“That was the Black Bloods. The cops were corrupt, and didn’t do the job the Bloods paid them to do—”

“Which won’t matter, because now people think this crime’s on you. Because you couldn’t wait for that charge to be disproved.”

“You’re assuming Dire cares what stupid people believe.” I felt my face draw into a scowl. “The ones that matter to her know the truth.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I cocked my head at an angle. “What?”

“You talked about ’The ones that matter to you’. What about the ones that don’t?”

“Well, they’re free to live their lives, unless they’re part of a problem. Then some adjustments will be necessary.”

“Like the ones driving home on I-3 an hour ago?”

I studied him. “You knew about that?”

He grunted. “So that was you. Wasn’t sure until you said that.”

I winced. Walked right into that. Twice I’d fallen for that trick, now. Had to get better at banter. Work on a poker face.

“Partly her,” I said. “The opposition was... less careful of their surroundings and the bystanders than Dire.”

“Then that’s on them,” he said. “But it’s also on you. So I ask again; what about the people you don’t care about? How many of them are you going to hurt? How many are going to die?”

I stood, sending the chair clattering to the ground as heat coursed through me. I felt my face flush, and breathed hard, trying to control my temper.

“How dare you. How dare you! She went to war to save people from the Black Bloods! All of them, not just her friends!”

He took the spectacles off, rose to face me. “Yes. And that was a bad situation. You hit your power surge in a bad time, and you did the best you could. But now the war’s over.”

A throbbing in my temples, as I shook in rage. Why couldn’t he see? “That war? Yes!” I hissed. “But the system itself is broken! Your society is flawed. Too many crises, too many near-misses, and all it takes is one patch of bad luck, or one semi-competent powerful villain, and the world is fucked. The system is broken. It needs to be fixed! And if you and the rest of the heroes won’t do it, then Dire will.”

He sighed. In the faint light from the windows, he looked older. Tired. He reminded me of Roy all of a sudden, and I felt some of the rage ebb out of me. This man wasn’t my enemy. He wasn’t broken. He didn’t need fixing.

“That’s the problem,” he said. “You can’t fix the system from the outside. You want real change? You have to work with the system. Change it from the inside. That’s the only way to make it last.”

“Really?” I asked, moving around the chairs, to stop a few feet from him. “Then why are you here?”

“To fix your friend.”

“And why couldn’t she go to the hospital for that?”

He replaced his glasses, and frowned. “I see where you’re going with this. You’re going to use my own pro bono work as an excuse for your villainy. Not buying it.”

“Oh? What’s the difference? You’re doing this because the system doesn’t work for her.” I shrugged. “Let’s be honest, the state of the modern medical complex in this nation is a joke. They broke and twisted the laws to put the doctors under their thumbs, and extort the sick and the elderly, and collaborated with the insurance companies that were supposed to keep them in check. And that’s not even getting into the price-fixing plaguing big pharmaceutical companies—”

He held up a hand. “Enough. You’re reminding me of why I retired. The reason I offer this service because without it, people die or get hurt needlessly. Gangsters and villains need doctors too, and this way gets bad people their medical care so they don’t go getting desperate and stupid.”

I nodded. “Don’t you see? This is as it should be. Doctors should be free to heal people, without the bureaucracy or the sanction of the rich and uncaring.”

“And people should be able to drive on the roads without getting injured when a supervillain hijacks a truck.”

I shook my head. “We’re not going to see eye to eye on this.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I appreciate the good you’ve done, but I hate the bad you’ve done. When you’re ready to admit your approach is bad, find me. I’ll help you make things right.”

I looked at him for a long moment.

“You’re a hell of a lot more reasonable than Quantum. For the record, she appreciates that.”

“Eh. Twenty years a surgeon, and I still can’t tell you the proper procedure for removing the stick from Doc Quantum’s ass.”

I stared at him for a long minute, surprised. Then he winked, and I burst into laughter.

He was smiling by the time I finished. “Good. Had me worried for a minute there.”

“You know the funny part?” I asked. “You’re the second superhero she’s met who’s doing the doctor thing as a secret identity. Is that a custom in this city?”

Freeway shrugged. “Usually how it works is you find your powers in the most stressful moment of your life. Doesn’t surprise me if another medical professional ended up with a power surge.”

That wasn’t precisely the case with the Last Janissary, I thought, but I shelved the notion. Another, more pressing question, was crossing my mind.

“How did Timetripper know we were meeting you here? Why here? He has an entire future of knowledge to draw from, and he focuses on this secret meeting? You’d think he’d have other events to go from.”

He scowled. “I don’t know why he knew about this, and that worries me. Anyway, thanks for bringing Bunny on over. I’ll take her off your hands.” He checked his watch. “Got anything else, or are we done?”

I nodded and we left, off to heroics and villainy as we saw fit.

CHAPTER 10: AN OLD FRIEND

“I've never liked the whole meet-under-flag-of-truce thing, even when you get something from it. Getting information from vills usually isn't worth putting up with their smug, punchable faces. And oh my gawd, the monologues...”

--Mags, leader of the Torchbearers junior hero group, 1998-2002

It was an uneventful return trip. We grabbed some Chinese takeout, then retrieved the armor and headed back to the lair. I’d originally planned to grab it at nightfall, but the confirmation that Timetripper was still after me was reason enough to get it into the shop for an overhaul a little earlier than planned.

Martin was silent the whole trip back, only opening his mouth to order his dim sum. And when we got back to the factory, he headed straight for the living quarters, leaving me to guide the armor to the repair station.

I didn’t know what to make of it. Running into Freeway had shaken him up, obviously. I gave it some thought as I directed the arms to disassemble the damaged layers from the outside in, and fed in materials to the various hoppers, for repair and in some cases, reforging.

Was it better to give Martin space, or confront him upon it? The hero had gotten my temper going, with only a few sentences... but he’d caused me to think about what I was doing. And I rather thought I’d returned the favor, but it was hard to tell the impact of my words without further observation.

I rather doubted he’d go easy on me, during our next encounter. And we’d have one sooner or later, if I stuck around Icon City. Most heroes you could predict, or distract away, but speedsters had a large operating range by their very nature. I’d need better countermeasures than the screamers.

A few damaged components demanded my attention. Serpent Tina’s charge had crushed some of the abdominal circuits, and blown out a motivator in the shoulder of my damaged arm. Those took about half an hour to fix. After it was done I surveyed my now-cold box of chow mein, sighed, and took it upstairs.

As it turned out, my dilemma on whether or not to confront Martin was solved when I walked through the door.

“Hey. Dire. What am I to you?”

“Er... human male? Five-foot-nine? Mostly water, with a mix of chemicals?”

He looked up at me from where he was lying on the couch. His own takeout box was next to him, unopened.

“Am I a minion to you?”

“No! No, no, no. Dire doesn’t have minions.” Ah, so that’s what this was about. “You are upset Freeway called you a minion?”

“He called it like he saw it. And what else have I been doing, but helping you with minion work?”

“Martin—” I put the chow mein on the arm of the nearest chair. “You’re a friend. You’re Dire’s friend.”

He was quiet for a moment. When he looked at me again, his face was almost pleading. “I don’t know if that’s enough.”

I took a breath. “Well, then what’s enough?”

“It...” he lifted a hand, let it fall. “I don’t know. Fuck. I’m whining. Just gimme time to think here.”

I nodded. “As you wish.” I sat in the chair, found one of the plastic sporks that had come with the take out, and did my best to enjoy the chow mein. Eating had always been an incidental thing for me. I grabbed food when I remembered to, and scarfed it down as fast as possible. After all, time spent on nourishment is time away from invention and engineering.

Martin was still silent by the time I’d finished, so I headed back down to the factory floor, and logged into one of the infrastructure terminals. What I wanted wasn’t complex, just a matter of using some of the glass, and a liquid sealant to ensure an airtight space.

Two hours later, I tested the pressure in the modified cargo container, and found it good. I wiped moisture away from the inside of the container’s new window, which had once been part of a Cadillac’s windshield. Next to me the smallest of the robotic arms twitched on its new base.

“You making a tank or something?” Martin asked. I started a bit— hadn’t heard him approach.

“No. Just a hermetically sealed and shielded viewing chamber.”

“Oh. Gonna crack open the cargo?”

“Yep.”

He went and got the crates without me asking, setting them in there one by one. I tried to help on the second one, and he shook his head. “I got this.”

I shrugged and let him get on with it. Whatever was eating at him, he’d get over it eventually.

Once it was done, I closed the container and tapped in a series of commands through my AR interface. A long hiss announced the flushing of the atmosphere, and the lights clicked on one by one inside my viewing chamber. I tested the range of the arm, nodded as it checked out, and maneuvered it over to the nearest box. When it was in position, I lowered the blast shield over the window.

“Thought we were gonna take a look at it?”

“Well, if it’s rigged to blow, then Dire doesn’t want to eat a face full of glass. That’s a bad chaser after cold chow mein.”

“You think it’ll blow?”

“Not really, but there’s no point in leaving this to chance.” I tapped in the final command, and waited as the robot opened the first box.

Immediately my sensor suite went to work. I frowned at the readings. “Slight radioactivity? Not enough to be dangerous.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, radiation? That explains it.”

I paused, and looked at him. “Explains what?”

“It’s bomb material. You get people trying to smuggle that shit all the time.”

“Ah... no, actually. This is nowhere near weapons grade emissions. What do you know of radioactive material? It probably doesn’t work like you think.”

“We dropped a bomb full of that shit on Japan, made them surrender, and got Ginormozilla out of it. Wait we got a kaiju involved here, too! This is making sense. Sick sense.”

“Slow down there,” I recommended. “There are a lot of fallacies about nuclear physics. Didn’t help that Tesla opposed further development in the field. Humanity never got those nuclear power plants that science fiction speculated upon, back in the day, because of that.” I sighed. “Opportunities lost.”

“Because radiation is fucking dangerous and makes mutants.”

“Actually most radiation just kills you. You need a balanced Eastman-Laird reaction to get possible mutational effects, according to the few studies Dire’s seen.”

“You’re not helping.” Martin said.

“In any case, this isn’t a significant amount. It’ll register on a Geiger counter, but won’t do much else.” I looked over the other readings, found them within tolerances. Should be safe to open the viewing port.

With a flick of my fingers along the AR interface, the blast shield cranked open, and we looked into the open crate.

“Flowers?” Martin asked. “All this over some goddamn pansies?”

To be fair, they were pretty flowers. Pink and white, about the size of a small apple. They rose from what looked to simple ceramic pots filled with black dirt, and looked no worse the wear for having spent presumably a day or two in a steel crate.

I studied the crate itself. It looked to have a basic hydroponics mister along the sides of it, and those inset lights within the lid of the crate were probably miniature ultraviolet grow lights. Someone had taken care to make sure they would survive the trip.

“Wait a minute.” The metal on the inside of the crates had a different texture than the outside. I zoomed in. “Lead. Got to be lead.” Didn’t know why they bothered. Geiger counters were pretty rare.

Unless the unknown party with the vines and the giant monster was trying to track them by the radiation... hm. Couldn’t rule that out. I used the mechanical arm to replace the lid, lowered the blast shield, popped the other two crates, and went through the same processes. All were the same, as far as I could tell.

“Hey,” Martin said. “Inside of the window’s getting a little dusty.”

It was, and it shouldn’t be. I got in close, peered at it. “Pollen.”

“Radioactive pollen?”

“Maybe.” I used the arm to add in a burst RFID tracker to each crate, then closed them up again. “Going to bet that pollen does something. Going to have to decontaminate the chamber before we open it up again.”

“Prob’ly a safe bet,” Martin muttered. “Turns people into plant zombies maybe or some bullshit.”

I shrugged. “No way to tell without a method of analyzing the samples. And Dire’s lousy with organic things. But we’ve found out the important thing, they’re not useful to us right now and possibly dangerous.”

“So, does this change the plan any?”

“Not really. Going to call up our client and see how much he’ll offer to get his plants back. Set up something a few days out, and then we can use the time to take care of the important business.”

“Which is?”

“Minna. Got a lead on her earlier, and a midnight meeting with Sparky to follow up on it. Possibly.”

“Sparky? No shit?” He looked pleased.

“Well, Dire sent the message through the Torchbearers. Up to him if he accepts it.” I looked at the factory floor, at the pickup. “Was going to use that to get most of the way there, but— well, odds are good Freeway saw it as he came in to the church. Going to need to procure a new vehicle.”

“I can help with that.” Martin said. “Van okay?”

“Probably best. The armor’s heavy. After that, get some sleep, okay? It’s a midnight meeting. Only a few hours to go.”

“Great. I’ll start making some calls.”

He went off to it, and I rolled the blast shield up again, and turned my attention to my armor. The big advantage of my powerset was the flexibility inherent with my focus on engineering and robotics. After each conflict I could analyze the performance of the suit, and adjust it to the situations and foes that I expected to encounter. I was limited only by time and the resources at hand, but even if I stuck to the inexpensive modifications, I could still customize quite a lot.

The screamers were a prime example. It hadn’t missed my notice that Freeway had kept the earplugs he’d snatched out of my hands during our last encounter. I couldn’t expect them to work on him again, and they certainly wouldn’t work on that kaiju, if I was unlucky enough to run into it. Also, the potential for collateral was too high for most urban combat. I had to factor in acoustics, and exposure time, and there was too much potential for accidents. No, the screamers had to go.

Which was fine, because that let me shift a few more things in. Still, I hated to abandon a useful tool entirely, so I put two screamer grenades in the armor’s utility compartment. I filled the now-empty space with a phlogistonic igniter. All the use of a flamethrower, without having to carry fuel. Might be handy against a kaiju, and hell, sometimes a little applied arson can save a ton of trouble.

Now, the forcefield generator... I tapped my chin for a bit, and considered. It was a huge power draw, and one close-range explosion had just about fried it. My collision with the shore had finished the job. It cost a ton of resources to build, and it would about finish my gold stores off entirely, to replace the threads in the shunt circuits. It was a tough call, but I decided to keep it. Armor alone wasn’t enough, when there were potentially more laser-armed guards out there.

Speaking of the armor, there was that outer layer to consider, now that Mags had shown me her trick. Hopefully I wouldn’t run across the Torchbearers again after tonight but I couldn’t rule it out. So how would I keep myself from being immobilized again?

After consideration, I switched over to a slightly-heavier, ablative design. I put in a few small shaped charges that would let me blow away selected parts of it, or fire off all of them at once if I was having a bad day. Not an ideal solution, and each part would weaken as it took damage, but it had a modular advantage, was cheaper and easier to replace, and it had the added advantage of putting a spray of shrapnel into the air if it came down to it. Kind of like having shotguns strapped all over my body under a really big coat.

Hm. Recoil could be an issue. I lowered the size of the shaped charges a bit more, and moved the ones I’d planned for my helm assembly down to the neck. No sense in giving myself a concussion. That’s the sort of thing you make your enemies work for, after all.

As I was finishing up the recompiling, I checked the time, and winced. Ten PM already? I’d gone and lost myself in the project at hand. I eyeballed the robots reconfiguring the armor, and nodded. It would be cutting it close, but they’d finish just in time for our trip north.

In the meantime, I had one thing left to do. Leaving the noise and bustle of the workshop’s floor, I retreated up to the private quarters and gave a half-wave to Martin. “You get the van?”

“It’s outside.” He frowned. “A lot of people out and about. Die Kriegers moving around in groups.”

“Maybe they’re getting ready to hit the SCK, touch off that gang war that Bunny was worried about.”

“If that was the case they’d have more boys up north of here. This is solid turf for them, has been for years.”

“Meh. Well, it shouldn’t matter in a few days, if things go right. Our stay here is temporary, so they can get back to killing each other once we’re gone; Dire cares not.”

“Only thing that concerns me is their attitude on costumes.”

“Ah, right, they’re the ones who hate metahumans.”

“Yeah. They’re fanatics. They catch wind of you in here, right near one of their big safehouses, it’s gonna be bad. As in they’ll come after us with everything they got, bad.”

Ah, bigotry. That perfect combination of fear and stupidity.

“Well. Their loss if they do.” No point in worrying about it, either. I had other things to tend to. I moved back to my supercomputer rig, and bounced a burner phone’s number through a labyrinthine series of anti-trace programs. Thus protected, I put my mask on and called our ‘client’.

He picked up on the second ring. “I’m going to assume that you’re one of three people.”

“YOU ASSUME CORRECTLY.”

An angry exhale. “Of course.”

“WE HAVE YOUR CARGO. WHERE DO YOU WISH IT DELIVERED?”

“Do not toy with me.”

“FUNNY, THAT SHOULD BE DIRE’S LINE.”

“You were paid for a task that you did not do, and did a task that I did not ask you to do.”

“YES. BECAUSE YOU LIED. THERE WAS NO CARGO TO BE HIJACKED, AT THE POINT YOU DESCRIBED. AND THERE WAS NO FINAL PAYMENT PLANNED.” That was the point that pissed me off the most. If he’d simply told us what we’d be doing ahead of time, I would have been okay with it. Hell, we could have done it better, thrown some good kayfabe in there, really made a show of it. But no, he’d used us as patsies.

Then again, Chaingang had been secretly working for the third party in this mess, so I could maybe see why he hadn’t told us the full plan. Still, that was no concern of mine. Money was my concern, here.

He’d been silent for a long minute. “WELL?” I demanded.

“If you have the cargo, you’ll be able to tell me what’s inside. I’m sure you’ve opened it.”

A beep from my computer. He’d started a trace. Tch, it had taken him this long? Amateur.

“LET US SAY IT IS A GOOD THING DIRE DOES NOT HAVE HAY FEVER.”

“Ah. My condolences.”

“NONE NECESSARY.”

“Yet.”

Yep, the pollen did something bad, all right. Thank heavens for my paranoia. “IN ANY CASE, THE PRICE FOR THIS CARGO HAS GONE UP.”

“Oh?”

Another beep. I surveyed my defenses and found them still sturdy, but that trace was persistent. He might be an amateur, but he had some smoking hardware. Shouldn’t have expected any less, really. Morgenstern was primarily a tech and heavy machinery corporation, they’d have cutting edge stuff.

“YES. QUADRUPLE THE ORIGINAL PRICE, DIRE THINKS. FOR TIME, EFFORT, AND YOUR TREACHERY.”

I’d collect Vorpal’s fee for her, and hold it in escrow until we managed to find her again. If we did.

“No.”

That threw me a bit. “NO? YOU DON’T WANT YOUR FLOWERS BACK?”

“I would like them back, but the person I represent takes a dim view on extortion. So let me make you a counteroffer.”

“GO ON.”

“I’ll give you a drop-off point. Leave them there and walk away. You’ve earned twenty-thousand apiece from our down payments, that’s fair for the job you undertook. Do this and we won’t bear a grudge—”

“HMHMHMHMHMH... HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!” More beeps as the trace closed in, but I didn’t care. “YOU WON’T BEAR A GRUDGE? YOU THINK DIRE IS IN THE LEAST CONCERNED ABOUT THAT? YOU BETRAYED HER TRUST. YOU SHOULD BE WORRYING ABOUT HER GRUDGES.”

“You are making a mistake. I represent a powerful client.”

“VERY WELL. IF YOU WILL NOT PAY, THERE IS ANOTHER PARTY WHO MIGHT.”

An intake of breath, and a choked name. “Vec-” He stopped himself, and for a moment the receiver was silent. “You wouldn’t. That’s madness.”

“MADNESS THAT PAYS, VERSUS MALICE THAT DOESN’T. MAKES THE CHOICE A BIT MORE PALATABLE, YES?”

“Look. I have another solution.”

A series of beeps. I eyed the defenses, and frowned. Two of my programs were choking— it was down to the last three. “YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS.”

“Destroy them!” He blurted. “Just get rid of them! Burn them, make sure you get all the spores, too. All that you can.”

I paused. This was unexpected.

“IS HE REALLY THAT BAD?”

“That bad— you don’t know. Oh god, you don’t know.” He whispered.

“TEN SECONDS.” Another program down, too.

His voice was serious again. “Doctor Dire, I promise you this. We will take any and all steps to prevent Vector from getting those flowers, including your destruction if necessary. Either give them to us, or destroy them yourself. You—”

“TIME’S UP.”

The second-to last program failed. I hung up, and threw the computer into a hard purge. The burner phone’s Grid profile ceased to exist, and I held my breath as the AR line of the trace coiled, flexed, then grounded out somewhere around Rhode Island.

Well.

That hadn’t gone as planned.

I pulled my mask off, and tucked the computer back into its hidden compartment.

I’d need a different approach if we wanted to get paid our ransom. But I had a name now, and another clue. Whoever this Vector was, Morgenstern Inc. feared him.

In any case, the matter wouldn’t be easily resolved, and that let me move on to my next task. I strolled out of the back rooms, tossing my mask from hand to hand. “Martin, are you good to drive?”

“Yeah. We going now?”

I checked the armor. It was almost done, just had the paint cycle left to go. “Sure. Dire will go get suited up. Pull the van around, and she’ll hop in. ”

Around the north end of Broadoak avenue I called for a halt. “SOMEWHERE AROUND HERE,” I rumbled.

“Neighborhood’s still shitty.”

Unsurprising, but still sad. He found a parking lot at the edge of the coast, near a marina that had seen better days. I clambered out, nightvision amped up, surveying the area for observers, and finding none. To the south the lights of Boardwalk’s marinas glittered softly along the water, and the Boardwalk itself was filled with its own cascades of light and colors of tourists and vacationers living it up. The eager pulse of party music pounded across the waves, and I wished them the joy of it.

To the north, the ruins of the old docks moldered, and dirty beach stretched into darkness— darkness that ended in a cluster of ruins out on a long pier, old skeletons of roller coasters and rotted clown faces against a low moon.

Funland.

“Place looks different, without the camp.” Martin said, whispering. I nodded, and turned my Mask’s volume as low as it could go. “READY?”

He held out his arms to me, and shut his eyes tight as I picked him up into a fireman’s carry. He was no weight at all to my armor, and the gravitics flew us silently across the water, arcing out into the ocean, and coming around low and fast until rotted wooden pilings and crumbling planks cropped up on my nightvision. “GOING UP,” I said, and he groaned as we ascended, darting past a half-intact Ferris wheel and over to the north end of the big pier.

As I went, a light glimmered at the edge of my vision, and I saw that we weren’t the first to arrive. A small electric lantern shed its glow, next to an old man in a wheelchair. Next to him, the armored and glowering form of Mags was just visible. Though I was still in the darkness, her head snapped toward me as I got within a few hundred yards. Some sort of metal-sense? I noted that for future conflicts.

I touched down, and set Martin to the ground, using my sensors to examine the area. Nothing and no one else, so I approached, letting my metal-shod feet clank thud against the planks. Some broke and cracked under my weight, but with the gravitics on, I didn’t fall. Martin, for his part, gave me a wide birth as he came in on my flank. And he was the first to speak, as he ran ahead.

“Hahahhaha! Sparky! M’man!”

A mane of white hair raised its head, as a brown-skinned face peered into the darkness. “Martin?”

And damn, it was good to hear that querulous, creaky old voice again. I sniffled, and felt a tear roll down my face. Thank heavens for my mask, it let me cry without shame. We’d been through so much together. And he hadn’t changed a bit.

Martin slowed when he approached the chair, and Mags tensed up.

“Shit, Sparky, call off the dog. Hey, is your ground up?”

Sparky shook his head, tapped a metal choker around his neck. “Don’t need that no more. Now c’mere, son!”

Martin crouched down, and I watched as the two folded into a hug. Martin was weeping too at this point, and I’m pretty sure Sparky’s eyes were moist in the lanternlight. Mags looked uncomfortable; she shifted her feet around, coughed, and moved her visor over to look directly at me.

“You might as well come out too before you drop the entire pier.”

“VERY WELL.”

Martin pulled back from Sparky, rubbed his face. Sparky’s eyes got bigger and bigger as my armored bulk stomped out of the darkness, red cape swaying around me as I pulled up, and surveyed the three of them.

“Long time no see, Dire lady. Looks like you got an upgrade.”

“MADE IT HERSELF.”

“Well, least it’s American-made. Not too many things are these days.”

“YOU HAVE AN UPGRADE TOO.” I indicated the broadcast torc he wore around his neck. It wasn’t as spiky as the version I’d made him, back in the day.

“Eh, I’ve still got that one, but one of the Brigade techs made me this one that ain’t so noticeable. They’re turnin’ me into a respectable citizen.” he cackled.

“Psh, like that’ll happen,” Martin said. “Got your hip flask on you?”

Sparky fished around in his wheelchair, and tossed it to Martin. “Careful with that. That was Roy’s.”

“Ah.”

We bowed our heads for a moment, remembering. When I looked up, I caught Mags staring at me, before she shifted her visor away, lips tight.

“THAT’S ABOUT THE HARDEST PART OF THIS PATH, REALLY.”

“Oh?” Sparky asked.

“COULDN’T GO TO HIS FUNERAL. CAN’T VISIT HIS GRAVE.”

It was too risky. The veteran’s cemetery was well-monitored, and the MRB was surely watching. I just couldn’t justify the risk, no matter how much I wanted to. Roy had been the closest thing I’d had to a father, really. Tears threatened again, but I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Dire,” Sparky whispered, and my audio sensors picked up the squeak of his wheelchair as he rolled it closer. “It ain’t too late. You can come in out of the cold. Give this up.”

“NO. NO SHE REALLY CANNOT.”

“A villain’s life ain’t no life at all. You saw what it does to people. You fought the worst of ’em. And now you want to throw that away? You want to go out there and fight my kids? Hells, Dire. You’re better than that. You could be a hero. The best of ’em...”

I considered him for a long moment, then turned to look at Martin. “AND WHAT OF MARTIN, IF DIRE SURRENDERS?”

“Hey. If you wanna...” Martin raised his hands. “I ain’t saying you should, but don’t let me hold you back if you want to. Your life, your choices. I’ll be fine on my own if I have to.”

It was tempting, I couldn’t deny it. But I’d considered it before, and always ground down to the same conclusion.

“NO.” I raised a hand, and clenched it. “HEROES ARE A NECESSARY PART OF THIS WORLD; IT IS TRUE. BUT THEY ARE NOT ENOUGH. THERE ARE PROBLEMS OUT THERE, SPARKY, PROBLEMS THAT HEROES CANNOT PUNCH OUT. PROBLEMS THAT NO AMOUNT OF FIGHTING WILL SOLVE. YOU AND THE REST OF THE WORLD NEED DIRE DOING WHAT SHE’S DOING, EVEN IF YOU CANNOT SEE IT YET.”

“And just what are you doing?” Mag asked. “Besides hurting my friends, I mean? Because I’m really not seeing it.”

“SIMPLE, CHILD,” I said, shifting my mask to look down upon her. “DIRE WILL FIX THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS.”

“Ha! Yeah, you and every politician out there.”

“UNLIKELY. POLITICIANS ARE CONSTRAINED BY BEING PART OF THE PROCESS, PAWNS UPON A BOARD, LIKE MOST OF THE REST OF THIS WORLD’S INHABITANTS.”

“Aren’t you one of those inhabitants? Calling yourself a pawn now?” She grinned. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“TRUE. BUT DO YOU KNOW THE FIRST STEP TO BECOMING A PLAYER, INSTEAD OF A PIECE?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll shout it at me here in a second.”

Irritating. I continued anyway. “THE FIRST STEP IS TO LOOK AT THE BOARD.”

“Yep, called it.”

Sparky swatted at her. “Look at the board, hah? Never too good at chess. Poker’s more fun.” He frowned. “Lost so much money on that, back in the day. You wouldn’t believe how much Unstoppable cheated outta the regiment ’fore we caught on he was sharking us.”

“CHESS WORKS BETTER FOR THE ANALOGY,” I clarified. C’mon Sparky, focus. “BUT AT ANY RATE, LOOKING AT THE BOARD REQUIRES RESOURCES. SO DIRE’S GATHERING THOSE.”

“Stealing them, you mean,” Mags clarified.

“FROM THOSE WHO DESERVE IT OR CAN SPARE IT, YES. FROM OTHERS, OBTAINING THEM LEGALLY.”

“Yeah. We didn’t have a truce right now I’d take you to bits, lady.”

I narrowed my eyes, and turned to face Mags full on, stomping closer, step by step. Unhurried, I watched her back up a step, half-raise a hand. But Sparky caught her arm, shook his head.

I leaned down over her, brought the armor down and half-crouched, bringing the eyes of my mask level to her visor.

“YOU WILL TRY TO STOP DIRE, AGAIN AND AGAIN. AND YOU WILL FAIL, AGAIN AND AGAIN. THIS IS NOT A THREAT. THIS IS NOT INTIMIDATION. THIS IS SIMPLY HOW IT WILL BE. IN TIME YOU WILL GAIN VICTORIES AGAINST HER, BUT NOT HERE AND NOT SOON, AND NEVER SIGNIFICANT WINS. DIRE WILL NOT STOP. DIRE WILL NOT REST. DIRE WILL NOT CEASE UNTIL THIS UNJUST, CORRUPTED WORLD IS RESTORED TO A PLACE WHERE HUMANS ARE FREE TO LIVE WITHOUT FEAR, AND OUR SPECIES ASCENDS TO ITS FULL POTENTIAL.”

She opened her mouth, shut it again.

“SO FIGHT YOUR HARDEST. BRING YOUR TEAMS, PUSH YOUR POWERS TO THE LIMIT, AND TEST YOURSELVES IN THE CRUCIBLE THAT IS DIRE. ONLY THEN, WILL YOU COME TO BE READY FOR THE INEVITABLE.”

“And what’s the inevitable, hah?” Sparky asked.

I straightened up. “THE TIME WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD ADMITS THAT DIRE IS RIGHT. THE TIME WHEN HEROES AND VILLAINS AND ORDINARY PEOPLE, ALL OF HUMANITY UNITES UNDER HER BANNER. THE TIME WHEN THE HUMAN RACE PUTS ASIDE PETTY, WASTEFUL CONFLICTS AND GREED AND FEAR AND IGNORANCE, AND GOES FORTH TO CONQUER THE WHOLE DAMN UNIVERSE.”

“Lady,” Mags said. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“YOU WILL SEE.” I said, turning my back on her. “IN ANY CASE, DIRE IS DONE WITH BANTER. SPARKY, DO YOU HAVE SUSAN’S LAST NAME?”

“I do.” He confirmed. “But I ain’t too sure I should be givin’ it to you.”

“SHE’LL COME TO NO HARM.”

He tapped his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair, and his face was as calm as a still pond. “I believe you believe that. But when villains go lookin’ for people, sometimes they bring trouble with’em. Even if they don’t mean to.”

I had to admit, he had a point. Come to think of it, that time traveler was a perfect example of the truth of that statement.

Truth. Perhaps that was the most effective tool, here.

“IT’S MINNA,” I confessed. “SHE’S DISAPPEARED.”

“What?” He looked surprised. “She didn’t get settled with the rest of the camp?”

“Nah, man,” Martin said. “Dunno where she got to. I think Susan got Anya, was taking care of her. But no sign of Minna.”

“That ain’t good. No way Minna’d go off and leave Anya with someone else this long.” He pulled on his beard. “Yeah. Alright. Her last name’s Donner.”

“SUSAN DONNER.” I nodded. With my backdoors and the supercomputer, that was enough to start with. “THANK YOU.”

“Jus’ don’t go givin’ her no trouble, alright? You do that for me, Dire lady?”

“THAT SHE CAN PROMISE. AH— ONE MORE THING.”

Mags tensed, and I saw Sparky raise a hand casually, too casually, to the back of his neck. He didn’t trust me, and it damn near broke my heart.

“RELAX. IT’S JUST A NAME. VECTOR. EVER HEAR OF A COSTUME WHO USES THAT AS HIS ALIAS?”

Sparky shook his head. “Ain’t heard ’a that one.”

But Mags twitched. “Vector? Of course!”

“YOU KNOW HIM?”

“I know of him. He—” She shut her mouth, glanced at me. “Y’know, I think I’ll let you find that out on your own.”

“HE’S IN THE CITY AND CAUSING TROUBLE. ANY INFORMATION YOU SHARE WILL HINDER HIM.”

“Yeah. But I don’t have to tell you squat. Fight your own battles, Dorktor.”

“A TRADE, THEN?”

“You’ve got nothing I want.”

“DIRE KNOWS WHAT HE’S AFTER.”

She scowled. “And how do I know you’d tell the truth?”

“WHAT GUARANTEE DOES DIRE HAVE OF YOUR VERACITY?”

“Huh?”

“DIRE DOESN’T KNOW IF YOU’LL LIE EITHER. BUT SHE’S WILLING TO TRUST YOU. SPARKY WOULDN’T TEACH YOU TO LIE, AFTER ALL.”

Like hell he wouldn’t. Back in the day the man had gotten me here under a pretense and tricked me into a vulnerable position. Almost killed me, too. It had all been a misunderstanding, mind you, but the old geezer was devious in his own way.

But I figured I could guilt the brat into talking. Heavens knew she hadn’t shown much restraint there earlier in this conversation.

She gnawed her lip. “Alright. You first.”

“FLOWERS. THREE BIG CRATES FULL OF PINK AND WHITE FLOWERS.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“THEY PUT OUT A LOT OF POLLEN, THAT HAS SOME SORT OF HORRIBLE EFFECT.”

“Yeah, that would be up his alley. Still not telling me much.”

I shrugged. “THEN RECIPROCATE WITH AN AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THAT YOU FEEL IS FAIR.”

“Well, I guess I could save you some Grid searching, that’d be fair. He was a doctor in a bad part of Africa. Working with the World Peace Corps, or something like that? Anyway, he got fed up with the hunger and starvation that he saw there. And either he had powers or got them there, because he started trying to fix it.”

“COMMENDABLE.”

“Uh, not so much. His idea of fixing things was letting loose plagues that changed people’s digestion, to make it more effective and let them eat weird things for nutrients.”

“HM.”

“Oh crap, please don’t go getting ideas!” She honestly looked concerned.

“NOT HOW DIRE DOES BUSINESS.”

“Yeah, that’s good, because the plagues killed a bunch of people. And a lot of the survivors were— well, the pictures are out there. They got messed up pretty bad. Like they had to be mercy-killed bad.”

Well. There went the notion of trying to sell the flowers to Vector. No wonder the client had been scared of the suggestion.

“SO WHY IS HE NOT IMPRISONED?”

Mags leaned on Sparky’s chair. “It turned out he wasn’t limited to plagues. He had made some mutant beasts and stuff. Which is why when you mentioned him it made sense to me, because those freaky vines we saw? Totally something he’d do.”

“HE’S GOT SOMETHING BIGGER, TOO. A SMALL KAIJU.”

“Jesus fucking Christ—”

“Hey!” Sparky bonked her helmet. “Language, young missy.”

Martin chuckled, and she flushed. “Sorry. Wow. Uh, that’s bad. Wait...”

She pointed at me. “These flowers you mentioned... where are they now?”

I smiled under my mask. “WELL, OUR BUSINESS IS DONE. READY TO GO, MARTIN?”

“Sure am.”

Mags took a few steps forward. “Hey! Look, this is serious, if—”

“GOODNIGHT SPARKY. BE WELL.”

“G’night Dire. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

“No, stop! If there’s anything you—”

I half wondered if she’d try to stop me, when I grabbed Martin and lifted off.

She didn’t, and we got back to the van unmolested.

“Well, that kid was pretty pissed.” He remarked. “Teenagers, amirite?”

“IT WAS A BIT OF A PLEASURE TO LEAVE HER HANGING.” I grinned under the mask.

The grin turned to horror, as red messages flickered across my HUD.

“GET IN THE VAN. DRIVE!”

“What—”

“THE LAIR’S UNDER ASSAULT! GO! DIRE WILL MEET YOU THERE!”

“Hey, don’t leave—”

I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, as I dropped him and kicked the gravitics in from hovering to full thrust, launching myself south.

And as I flew, hot panic turned to smoldering anger.

Someone was going to pay for this.

CHAPTER 11: MOVING ON DOWN

“Doctor Dire? Oh yeah, we know that bitch. Time comes, we're going to pay her back for what she did...”

--Excerpt from a wiretapped conversation with Kiefer, leader of Die Kriegers, the East Coast's largest human supremacist organization

My armor was not built for speed. The best I could do was around fifty miles per hour, and that was with a good tailwind behind me. This gave me plenty of time to read each damage report thoroughly as it came in, and fume over the loss.

The worst part was the lack of visual feed. They’d been smart enough to take out the outside cameras first, and the inside feed didn’t have much more than a shadowed figure rushing in through the side door, catching a taser dart from the grid and dropping. Someone dragged him back, then a few more came in more cautiously with weapons out, and got dropped by a directional screamer. Then there were billowing clouds of smoke everywhere. I hadn’t put smoke in any of my defenses, so that was something the invaders had brought. Not good. That would interfere with some of the defenses.

I wove through the skyscrapers of downtown, well under the airships in their set flight paths above me. It was dark and I had no light on me, but there were people on the streets below even at this hour, and some of them doubtless saw me. I didn’t care. I had too much invested in my lair, I’d spent months building the damn thing up, and now I’d have to move the irreplaceable components.

If there was one silver lining to this, it was that Tomorrow Force and Crusader were both out of town. They were some of the main sky watchers for the city, and they would have been on me in a heartbeat if they’d been around.

I winced as a red wall of damage reports rolled up my HUD. Something had taken out the networks in the Lair’s west wall. Something that caused a lot of massive damage, all at once. The kaiju? I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to face the thing now, not on my own turf. Giant monsters and collateral damage went together like heroes and self-righteousness.

As the central part of Whaler’s Wharf passed underneath me and my neighborhood came into view, I surveyed the plume of smoke rising up into the sky from my property and groaned. No, there was no way to hide this. It’d be a hurried salvage and reclamation for sure.

But that would come later. For now? Vengeance.

I brought myself to a stop, cape swirling in the downdraft as I circled around the front of the building, and...

Okay, that was not what I expected. A motley mix of muscle cars, trucks, and SUV’s were pulled up in a half-circle around the rear of the Lair. Most of them were green, or had green as a primary color, and about thirty bald people wearing camo or some variation of it were crouched around the facility, watching it burn. Most of the western wall was rubble, and part of the smoke rising up was actually dust, thrown up by what looked to be the aftermath of several good-sized explosions. What the heck?

I started scanning through them, and soon found my answer. Several of those bastards were packing rocket launchers.

That was a concern. My force field could tank two or three, maybe. What the hell was going on?

I settled on a rooftop to the side, back from their pickets, and started using the universal remote to sniff around. Sure enough, I found a tactical net. They were using linked headsets with cameras to direct their people, real military-grade equipment. And like most military-grade equipment, encryption was a secondary concern. I slipped into their networks and listened, reading texts and gridmails with grim irritation.

In a matter of minutes I had two things; answers, and an urge to pound my fist through my mask to knock the stupid out of my brain.

This had all been my fault. I’d set up shop near one of their main safehouses without noticing them at first beyond an ‘oh hey, gangers’ reaction. I’d figured that I would be quiet enough that they wouldn’t really mess with me much, and so they hadn’t...

...until I’d started grabbing vehicles and moving them inside. Then different vehicles came out. They noticed that sort of thing. They had people around the neighborhood watching for that sort of thing. And it didn’t take too long to figure out where their stolen van had gotten to.

So they’d sent a few guys to kick in my door and tell me about their displeasure. They’d hit the automated defenses, panicked, and came back with every available guy in the area and all the hardware they had lying around... which was, quite frankly, a lot. The smoke I’d seen through the cameras was the result of smoke grenades. They’d been destroying broadcast collectors and generators to knock out the defenses, and there wasn’t much left at this point. The bombardment of the western wall had been the last straw, and they had people moving in now, looking for me.

They didn’t know it was me precisely, but they figured some ‘costume freak’ was behind all of this, and they aimed to kill him.

Police sirens screamed in the distance as I finished my review of their actions, and I growled as I saw the orders come down their tac-net from their boss. They were to search the place for whatever they could grab, and get out of there.

I contemplated killing every last one of them. At this range, from stealth, I could amp up the particle beams to maximum penetration and mow them down before they figured out my position.

But the more I thought about it, the more the idea rankled. It would be a slaughter, and the last thing I needed was more kills on my record. Moreover, they hadn’t damaged anything I wasn’t prepared to lose, yet. Slaying them would be a disproportionate response. The final nail in the coffin, however, was the fact that I was dealing with bigoted fanatics. If I went bloodthirsty here, they’d take the loss and use it as recruitment propaganda. That was how these sort of groups work... they drum up fear and offer a solution. And the world has no shortage of gullible cowards, or ignorant fools. Killing thirty now would just give them ninety in a year. Martyrs are currency.

Leaders, on the other hand, never even got in the field of fire. The boss calling the shots was piping his orders in from elsewhere in the city. I noted that his grid profile seemed to be calling in from a good part of town.

So. I couldn’t kill them. How should I hurt them?

A few seconds later my grin stretched wide under my mask, as I set my plan into motion.

The first step: communications. I remembered the Black Bloods fight. They had the advantage of communications, and I’d damn near lost because of it. No sense in giving the Kriegers the same advantage.

I hacked into their leader’s connection, and started lowering the quality, filling it with static and distorting his voice. Once it was bad enough, I quietly locked him out. He’d hear nothing until I was done here, not from his tac-net or any of the phones that I’d flagged during my examination of their network. Meanwhile, I quietly stole his credentials and fused them to a hastily-created false profile. Now when I spoke into the tac-net, it would seem to be coming from their leader. A little voice modulation to deepen my tones, and it’d sound like the broken voice that my prior interference had arranged.

“Everyone inside, report!” I barked.

A chorus of replies chattered through, and I nodded in satisfaction. They’d explored the western end. There were still a couple of defenses active on the eastern end so they were having to avoid those, and only a few of them had made it up the stairs to the living area. They’d grabbed my desktop computer, but hadn’t found the super-computer... nor would they, unless they started tearing the walls apart. Well, more than they had, anyway.

I studied their loadouts, when I saw them cross the visual feed. Bandannas over their lower faces to cut the smoke and dust, headsets and eyepieces, assorted weapons, and flashlights. An odd mix of improvised and professional.

Then one of them spoke up, and my blood ran cold. “Found some crates in a cargo container. They looked important, but there’s nothing in them except flowers.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Whatever that pollen was, they’d dosed themselves with it. Well, no time to cry about it. First step was to pull their teeth.

“Leave it and get out,” I said. “Close those crates, then set charges and blow the place.”

“Uh, boss? We don’t have any explosives can drop this place. We’re almost out of rockets—”

I reviewed what I’d heard of the leader’s speech patterns. Vulgarity was called for. “Fucking improvise!” I roared. “You need someone to hold your dick when you piss?”

“Sorry Kiefer, sorry, sorry, we got this. It’ll drop, no problem.”

The guys outside dug in their vehicles, and started pulling out various bags of explosive goodies, handing them off to the guys inside. Looked like small-grade stuff, from what I could see.

I let them go to it for a second, and called Martin. “Hey. Got Kriegers swarming the place.”

“Motherfucker.”

“Not as bad as it sounds. Dire’s got a plan. You know the Slappy Pizza down Cuttle Street?”

“Yeah. Shitty pizza.”

“Shitty pizza, big, dark parking lot in back. Park back there, get ready to load what Dire brings you. Oh, ignore the explosions.”

“What—”

I had to hang up and cut him off. They’d finished piling things up, and were heading inside.

An incoming call from their leader’s location rang one of his lieutenant’s phones. I squelched it before the ganger could pick up, marked the phone he was calling, and blocked that, too.

The second step was to have them dig their own graves. Well, so to speak. If I did this right, they wouldn’t have a single martyr for their cause.

I tapped back into their tac-net. “Hold on, movement! We’ve got movement inside!”

It was satisfying watching them flee out of the building, running from nothing in particular. “Use tear gas!” I yelled. “Throw everything we have in there, flush the fucker out!”

Got to admit, that one was a gamble. If they didn’t have tear gas, then they might start getting suspicious. But bless their little zealot hearts, they dug out drum-style grenade launchers, loaded them up, and started launching grenades into the warehouse. Gas billowed into the air, joining the smoke and dust already present.

One of the lieutenants tapped into the net. “Boss? Cops are gonna be here in five.”

“Shut up.”

On to the third step; herding them. I blocked another incoming call from their probably-frantic leader, and sealed another lieutenant’s phone. Then with an evil snicker, I pulled out the universal remote, and started checking their cars.

On the third one I hit paydirt. It was remote-enabled. I started it up, and started it rolling forward as Kriegers yelled and pointed. One gave chase, and I had it stop, reverse, and slam into him trunkfirst. He bounced a good twenty feet, rolling and scrambling away from it, limping on a busted leg.

And then I started up every other remote-enabled car I found, a good seven of the fifteen vehicles there.

“Shit! He’s hacked your cars!” I yelled into the link. “Get to cover! Get inside the warehouse!”

That wasn’t too popular an idea. But they were stuck outside, and all the explosives that could have done any real damage to the cars were on the inside. I saw one of the Kriegers jog backwards, fumbling with a rocket launcher until one of his smarter buddies grabbed him and took it away. At this range, the rockets would kill their own people, too.

A few of them tried shots anyway, and they did a little damage before I had the cars chase them around. A few more tried to jump the fence and get away, and the first and fastest managed it, but with a little careful positioning and some vehicular assault, two tons of SUV managed to discourage the rest of them.

In the end, they had no option but to retreat into the warehouse. The warehouse that they’d just filled with tear gas.

I howled with laughter, watching them go, switching to my thermal sight to watch them choke and stay low, trying to avoid the worst of it. If they’d brought masks, they hadn’t thought to wear them. Or they were back in the cars.

And now for the final step in this little orchestra of absurdity.

I positioned the cars to block the exits, jetted into the air, and brought myself crashing through the warehouse roof. Yells and shouts of alarm filled the tac-net... before I silenced it.

“TREMBLE BEFORE DIRE!” I roared, and descended into the clouds of choking gas.

It wasn’t a contest. It was more of a mercy. Two minutes later I was the only thing capable of moving in that factory without puking, whimpering, or screaming.

I didn’t want to kill them, true, but I was under no obligation to be gentle with them. It took only a few moments to retrieve the flower crates, close them, and wrap them with cable for easy transportation. With a grunt of satisfaction, I flew up to the living space, removed the super-computer from its hiding spot, and threw it in a loose crate. I’d had the thing ruggedized for just such an occasion.

As I was throwing scoops of packing material in with it, the warehouse shuddered. I paused, and eyed the gaping hole where the western wall used to be. Had they hit a support beam?

Another shudder.

SQUELCH.

That came from the factory floor. What the hell?

BURBLE. SQUELCH.

Squishing noise echoed throughout the warehouse, drowning out the cries and sobs of the wounded. But not the screams, as those who could cry out through the coughing raised their voices and howled their lungs out in fear. Pure, primal fear.

I turned on my mask’s thermal vision, and looked towards the main room.

Something was there. Oozing out of the grate in the floor that I’d sealed over when I moved in, shuffling an impossible bulk through the tiny space, more and more of it spreading out and expanding like an airbag from a crashing car. It couldn’t have bones, it shouldn’t have bones, with a structure like that.

Appendages that I dearly, dearly hoped were tentacles whipped around from the top, groping around the warehouse, and I watched the thermal images of the gangers I’d beaten up try to drag themselves away, or fend off the thing’s boneless grasp, to no avail. I watched in horrified fascination as the thing sorted through them meticulously, picking them up and ignoring their frantic, wheezing attempts to escape, bringing them in close and... licking them? It was hard to tell through the thermal vision. But after licking them, it placed them back on the ground.

Perhaps twenty feet of it was out of the grate now. I measured it, nodded. This had been the thing in the power station. This was the kaiju we’d avoided yesterday.

Suddenly, it tensed and the tentacles shot out. One of the gangers screamed, as the creature brought it up to an orifice, and devoured him in a single convulsive motion.

A suspicion tickled my mind, and I checked his number on the tac-net. My fear was confirmed. He was one of the gangers who had reported finding the flowers. The thing was here for the cargo, and had a way of tracking the pollen. Probably a sensitivity to the radiation.

My gaze fell upon the cargo containers at my feet. And the glittering specks of pollen that now adorned them.

The thing snorted and glass shattered as I snapped my view up to see it drive tentacles through the windows of the living quarters. Panting, eager moans reverberated through the structure, as the thing shuffled and flowed over the factory floor, seeking the scent that had drawn it hither.

I pointed an arm skyward, and set the gauntlet’s particle beam to a wide spread. The roof above me disintegrated with one shot, and I hiked the bundle of crates onto my back as I pushed upward.

But not fast enough.

Tentacles whipped and ripped through the drywall toward me, seeking the noise, seeking the pollen.

Very well, then.

Leaving the particle beam at a wide spread, I amped up the force, and opened up on the thing. At this setting, the intervening walls disintegrated, parting like paper to a broadsword, before striking the creature full on.

It didn’t seem to like that one bit. The answering roar shook the air around me, and windows burst in the nearby buildings.

As I jetted upward, I peered over my shoulder, switching from thermal sight to nightvision. The thing was still moving! Not only that, but it was pouring through the hole I’d made, hurtling itself like some sort of mass of... vines?

It seemed to be a knotted mass of vines, with fruit-like eyes hanging around the central mass of it. A large charred hole in the center of it marked where my beam had cored it, but the hole was already closing, black, charred plant-like fibers and oozing sap squeezing out by the bucketload, as it sealed the wound. Tentacles— no, the appendages I’d thought of as tentacles were twisted vines, studded with leaves and thorns.

I recognized those vines. They were the same sort of vines that had come out of the water, back when I’d had my little standoff with the Torchbearers.

I didn’t like the implications of that. Not one bit. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I needed to lose the thing, and fast.

I sped away over the rooftops, over the cordon of police cars set up at the end of the street, calling a warning as I went. Say this for the police in Icon, they were well trained for this sort of weirdness. They wasted no time in scattering as the plant kaiju squelched upward in a mighty bound, hit the street, and scrabbled through their cordon throwing cars into the buildings on either side as it pounded after me, vines moving like hundreds of little legs. It was faster than it had any right to be, big as two city buses put together, and slimy.

Aquatic? Yes. Couldn’t count on escaping into the ocean. Couldn’t outrun it, not at my speed. Couldn’t lose it, it had some sort of radiation sense that let it smell the pollen... the pollen. If I could get the pollen off the crates, then I could possibly lose it.

How? Burn it? I had the phlogiston projector, but at this range, that would melt the crates and destroy the flowers. The thing was a little too powerful.

But I didn’t need to shoot the crates directly now, did I? Not when there were so many other flammable things nearby.

I hurtled through the streets, and the thing crunched after me. Impossibly, it was gaining, no matter the obstacles I threw in its path. I glanced back, and saw that several of its vines had twisted together, to form leglike appendages the size of tree trunks. It moved with less scuttling and more bounding now, crushing cars and sending people screaming off the sidewalks, trying to escape the botanical abomination.

I’d have one shot at this. I turned my attention back to my escape, and set my sensors looking for just the right sort of car...

And a few seconds later I found what I needed.

An old hydrogen-celled truck, parked in front of a movie theater. I darted low, and opened up with the phlogiston projector, bathing the car with a crimson, pulsing ray as as I slowed, hovering over it.

BOOM!

The hydrogen explosion flared against my forcefield and I rolled with it, let it drive me up and higher as I held the crates out, bathing them in the worst of the inferno as I went. Behind me the beast screamed as the flames caught the edge of it, and I glanced back to see it hesitate, whipping flaming vines about. Didn’t like fire, huh?

The flames withdrew and I looked the crates over. Charred, but not cracked. And as planned, I didn’t see a single speck of glittering pollen. Pollen’s highly flammable after all. No way the creature could track me now.

Heat sensors on my back flared, and I realized my cape was on fire. Crap. I made a mental note to get something that didn’t burn so easily, next time. With regrets I hit the quick-release, sending it fluttering to the ground below. I’d liked that cape.

A scraping of metal from below, and I glanced around just in time to duck the car as it flew past me, hurtling into the night before impacting a Slappy Pizza billboard and crashing to the street below.

Oh. Right. The monster could still see me. I should probably do something about that.

I darted over a Fastee-Mart, and the creature went through the building, thin drywall, plexiglass and weathered girders collapsing under its bulk and sinewy vines. Screams from inside, and I winced as I turned, speeding along the street instead of continuing across the city block as planned. Damn it! I sped west, keeping to the streets. At least there the thing wouldn’t cause as much collateral— though I didn’t envy the drivers, right about now.

Couldn’t dive into the ocean to lose it; the thing was aquatic. Couldn’t outrun it, my armor just didn’t have the speed. Particle beams? Too soft. Anything that would hurt it would blow through, and cause collateral damage behind the thing. And that would only slow it down for a bit anyway. It didn’t like fire. Could I use that? Maybe.

Cars honked horns behind me as I fled, and blended with crashing, galloping, wanton destruction as the thing trampled after me. It wasn’t crushing all of them, it was actually fairly loosely put together, and the legs were thin. But they had terrible strength behind them, so when they came down, whatever was between them and the asphalt was pretty well smashed.

I tried to aim for the less-occupied streets. It was post-midnight so the traffic was light, thankfully, but it couldn’t stay this way forever.

Maybe I could go up? That seemed good. I started angling upward, and for a few seconds, I thought I’d escaped it.

I turned and looked, and a hurled car missed me by a matter of meters.

The thing was keeping pace under me, and as I watched, it scooped up a mini-van as it went, and started to wind up. I kept going up, and another car shot toward me, dropped out of sight.

And then, to my left, a flicker of light caught my eye to the west.

Speedlines. Fast approaching the creature.

I whirled in broad circles, keeping the kaiju moving below me, moving quickly so that it couldn’t draw a good bead with its hurled cars. I kept its attention focused on me, right up until the point that the speedlines blurred out a few hundred feet from the thing. The Torchbearers were here, and as I watched, the thing flinched and roared, as someone tore up a lightpost, ran down the street, and started beating the hell out of it with the long metal pole. Serpent Tina most likely. I was glad she hadn’t gotten her hands around me for more than a few moments.

I watched for a minute, debated blasting it, but decided against it. At this range I couldn’t rule out friendly fire against the heroes, and besides, the kaiju was no longer my priority. Now that the heroes were here to beat the thing, and minimize further property damage and risk to civilians, I had no further stake in fighting it.

I flew east, glancing behind me as I went. The creature’s attention seemed fully occupied by the junior heroes, and no speed lines pursued, so I figured I was clear.

Four minutes later, I dropped down into the parking lot behind Slappy Pizza, to find Martin waiting with the van. We loaded the crates, and I slid out of the armor. I had a layer of sweat on me, and fatigue filled every portion of my body. Now that the adrenaline was gone, I had nothing left to run on. I pulled myself into the front seat of the van, pulled my mask off, and let the back of my head hit the seat with an audible ‘thump’.

“Dire?”

“There’s more than one kaiju.” I replied.

“Uh. What?”

“The vines at the lake when we Chaingang and the armor hit the decoy convoy, those were part of a kaiju. It just kept the bulk of itself below the water, that’s all. And it was too close to when we arrived at the rendezvous point, to find the thing occupying the power station. So there are at least two of them, probably more.”

“How many you think are out there?”

“Don’t know. It’s amorphous so it can fit in hard-to-find places, and looks like a mass of plant material to the unwary. But there have to be several out there. It was tracking the radiation from the crates, and the crates were only open a matter of minutes. So the one Dire fought tonight had to be fairly close.” I rubbed my eyes. “Vector. Professor Vector has to be their master. He’s seeded these things through the city.”

“Hold up. The crates got opened?”

“Kriegers. They’re taken care of.”

“You kill them?”

“No. The cops have probably found them in the lair by now, rendered helpless by their own teargas and all the beating that Dire could give them before she had to depart. The kaiju killed a few.”

“Alright, that ain’t so bad. But, uh... where are we gonna go now?”

I tried to clear my mind, to think. But I was just so tired. We needed some place that could be secured with a minimum of effort, something out of the way, with a decent security system. Some place Professor Vector wouldn’t look.

“The power station. The planned site of the rendezvous.”

Martin considered it, as he pulled onto the highway. “You’re thinking he won’t look there, since he already looked there once.”

“The cameras on the warehouses around it are easily hacked. We can use them to watch the place. And the facility on the end rarely sees use. We can slip the van in there, for a day or two anyway.”

“And if he’s still got a kaiju waiting there?”

I shrugged. “Dire’s still got thermal sight. The thing will show up if it’s still there. If it is, we go get a cheap hotel room somewhere.”

Martin nodded. “Sounds legit.”

I shut my eyes, and sagged back into the seat. Didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep, until Martin was shaking me awake.

“Dire? We got a situation.”

I opened my eyes, blinked the fog away. The power station was ahead of us, and there, illuminated by the headlights, was Vorpal. She was wearing the same clothes I’d loaned her when Timetripper nabbed her, and looked no worse the wear for her jaunt. She was standing next to the open gate to the station, gesturing us in.

I slid my mask on, and activated her channel on the sub-vocal network. I’d never deactivated the thing, after the job was done, and now I was glad of it.

“Vorpal?”

“Yah. You coming in or not?”

“What the hell happened?”

“Complicated. Look, there’s someone here you need to meet.”

I frowned, and paranoia stirred within me. Her words struck me as ominous.

“Who?”

“Timetripper.”

I snorted. “And she should do this why?”

“A different Timetripper from a different time. Less-inclined to murder you. Says he needs to talk with you.”

I sighed, and rubbed the back of my neck. Thinking logically, the fact that he hadn’t tried to attack us already was a good sign. By now he surely knew that we were in this van, but he hadn’t tried anything. At least, anything I could see.

“Drive in,” I told Martin. “We’ll see what the man wants.”

“What?” Oh, right. He had removed his subvocal rig a while ago.

“Long story. Just be prepared to run.”

“Shit. That’s my life now, ain’t it?” He muttered.

We drove through the fence, parked next to the building. Weary as I was, I hauled myself into my armor, powered it up, and emerged from the van to face Vorpal. Though we were alone out here I dialed my volume down, just in case.

“IF THIS IS A TRAP...”

Vorpal opened her mouth—

“It’s not,” the man in the doorway said.

A stooped, ancient figure stood in the doorway. Stark-white hair gleamed in the dim electric emergency lights shining through from the inside. A tie-dyed t-shirt hung baggy and worn over a scrawny frame, and a pair of round-lensed glasses covered glittering eyes. He wore a pair of Bermuda shorts over his non-existent hips, and his legs were flabby. He leaned hard on a simple cane, and his other hand was holding the door open, arm shaking with even that minor effort.

“TIMETRIPPER.”

“In the flesh, what’s left of it. You gonna come in and be civilized?”

“WHY SHOULD SHE?”

“It’s time for me to die. I need your help.”

“YOU WANT DIRE TO SAVE YOUR LIFE?”

“Hell no. I need you to kill me.”

CHAPTER 12: CHRONOLOGICAL SHENANIGANS

“STATEMENT? YES, DIRE HAS A STATEMENT. AND THAT STATMENT IS FUCK TIME TRAVEL.”

--Doctor Dire, recorded after her fifteenth public confrontation with Timetripper.

I stared at him for a long moment. “YOU’RE JOKING.” Had Timetripper just asked me to kill him?

“I’m serious.”

“DO IT YOURSELF. DIRE’S BEEN BLAMED FOR ENOUGH DEATHS ALREADY.”

“Look, just come in and hear me out. Please?”

I really, really wanted to turn around and stomp away. But I had nowhere else to go, that wasn’t a bigger risk. I shot a look at Vorpal, who was quietly talking with Martin. He looked up at me, caught my gaze, and nodded.

Well. What did I have to lose, at this point?

I moved inside, scanning with regular and thermal vision. No kaijus burst out at me, no mobsters tried to shoot me, and no laser-toting mercenaries tried to burn me down so already it was a cut above my last few days. The room was bare, just a few walls full of old fuse boxes and monitoring equipment, half-stripped copper wires and coils from non-functional Van Der Graaf Mk IV generators, and a few pieces of smashed furniture. Yellow emergency lighting illuminated the place, and high windows inset with bars provided ventilation through their glassless frames. A sewer lid in the center of the floor was bent in its socket, warped by incredible force.

And in the back of the room, next to a grungy stairwell, sat a dull, black metal frame. It looked like a series of wires, twisted into a vaguely humanoid shape. It was tall, eight feet all told, and studded with twinkling lights.

As I studied it, I felt my back stiffen. I knew that design, I knew those aesthetics.

Whatever that thing might do, I had built it.

“Groovy, huh?” Timetripper’s cane tapped the floor, as he moved up next to me. “Your own personal time machine.”

I sagged back, going limp inside the armor. Had he just— had I just handed myself the power to...

“WAIT. SERIOUSLY?”

“Don’t get too excited. Future you gimped it. It’s got like three trips in it. After that it shorts out or something.”

“AH.” But my mind was racing ahead. I’d built it after all, I could deconstruct it, reverse-engineer it. All I’d need was time and my factory. The factory that had just been stormed by gangers, located by police, and mostly-destroyed by a kaiju.

Well crap.

“WELL-PLAYED, FUTURE DIRE. WELL-PLAYED.”

“Huh? You high or something, Dire?”

“HARDLY.”

“You wanna be? It’s gonna be a rough night. Sorry about this. I know you’re busy.”

Vorpal wandered in, shut the door behind her. “Martin’s hiding the van. Did you tell her?”

“TELL HER WHAT?”

“Shit, man, don’t rush me.”

Vorpal scowled. “I’m no man, Timetripper.”

“Just like, a figure of speech. Okay, sure.” He eased himself onto the stairs, dug out a joint, and lit it up. I watched him puff, sunken cheeks drawing the smoke back into his throat like a child sucking on a bottle.

After two minutes, I put my hands on my hips. “WELL?”

“Huh?”

“OUT WITH IT.”

“Gimme a few.” He finished the joint, ground it out, and let blue smoke escape his lungs with a long sigh. “Aw yeah. This century’s got the best green. Uh. So...you know you conquer the world, right? What’s left of it, anyway.”

“NO. NO SHE DIDN’T KNOW THAT.” Conquer the world? How would that fix anything? The last thing this world needed was a dictator.

“Well. I mean nothing’s certain. Future’s what you make of it. But every time I go far enough forward, you’re at the end of it.”

“THE END?” That didn’t sound good.

“Yeah. You figured out time machines and stuff. You put up some chrono jammers or something and I can’t go past you. So you’re like the end. Which really makes young me worried the first couple times I go to your era, and see what you’re doing.”

“WHICH IS?”

“Bad,” he said. “Just... bad.”

“YOU’RE AFRAID TO ELABORATE FOR FEAR THAT IT WILL CAUSE THE FUTURE YOU DO NOT WANT.”

He nodded.

“I’ve seen it,” Vorpal said. “From the part I saw, it looked pretty grim. Whether or not it is your fault, or that of others, I could not say.”

“So young me, dumb me, drunk with his new powers and full of piss and vinegar decides to go after you. Stop you before you get started. Only things go weird. See, back then I didn’t know shit.” He snorted. “I still don’t know a lot of shit. But him? He’s just trying to grok it as he goes.”

“ROCK IT AS HE GOES?” I asked, confused.

“No. Grok. Like... get. You ever read Heinlein?”

“NO.”

“You’d like it.”

“SO YOUNGER YOU IS THE ONE WHO CAME BACK HERE AND SHOWED UP IN THE COURTHOUSE, AND THE CHURCH. SO WHY GRAB VORPAL?”

“Future you’s blonde.”

“WHAT?”

“And kind of a hottie.”

“BLONDE’S YOUR THING, HM?” I asked him, shooting a glance at Vorpal.

“Heh, well.” Timetripper leered at her.

Vorpal glared at him. “I told you already, I am not into men. Nor do I owe you a fuck for rescuing me from a problem you caused.”

He lifted his hands. “Hey, I had to ask. No harm done, lady.”

“No, you did not have to ask. You really, really did not.”

“BLONDE...” A thought struck me. “JUST HOW FAR IN THE FUTURE IS DIRE’S CONQUEST?”

He coughed. “Uh. I better not say.”

“She looked young,” Vorpal said, studying me out of the corner of her eye. “Her face was different. Her build was more muscular. But she was you. The way she moved, the way she talked, the things she knew— It could have been a trick, I suppose. Damned good one if so.”

I gnawed my lip. “STARTING TO DISLIKE THIS WHOLE TIME-TRAVEL THING.”

“You and me alike.” Timetripper said. “Which is why it’s time to end it.”

“YOU REALLY WANT TO DIE?” I asked. “WHY?”

He sighed, and stared at the wall. His once glittering eyes were bleary and glazed now. The weed was kicking in. “Man. I didn’t know shit about my powers when I got them. No instruction manual, you know?” His voice trailed off, but he managed to regain focus and continue. “I made mistake after mistake. See... the amount of shit I can do? It’s finite. That multiple dudes thing he’s doing right now? Drains power like a motherfucker. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of stuff back in the day, but... well, it runs out. I can’t even spare the stuff to stop me from aging anymore. Which is why I’m geriatric and fucked up. But... more importantly... it’s a paradox if I don’t.”

“A PARADOX.”

“Yeah. See, the very first thing I do, is hop randomly and end up in some weird ass place. And guess who’s there?”

A picture was starting to form. “DIRE. KILLING YOU.”

“Yep. Brains blown out with that colt of yours. Execution style.”

I shook my head. “NO.”

“Dire... listen. This has to happen. If it doesn’t, then it’s gonna be a big paradox, and random shit I’ve done will start coming undone. My powers will go out of control.”

“DIRE THOUGHT THEY WERE FINITE AND NEARLY EXPENDED.”

“No! Yes! Sort of. The amount I can control is finite. But if the timestream gets too warped, it’s like a breaking dam. Things get weird. Like, extinction event weird. Game over. Don’t put a quarter in, ’cause there ain’t no extra lives.”

He was throwing this at me now, when I was tired and aching and dealing with so much other crap. I glowered at him, and saw no reason to hide my displeasure. “YOU HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT TROUBLE TO DIRE.”

He grinned, showing cracked, gray teeth. “So hey, you get to kill me at least. Work off some angst, huh?”

“DON’T TEMPT HER.”

He laughed, in that high-pitched, monotone way that long-term marijuana smokers had. “Dude, what do you think I’ve been doing?”

He had me there.

I pointed at the wireframe. “SO LET DIRE GUESS. FUTURE HER PROVIDED THAT SO DIRE WOULDN’T BE STRANDED AFTER YOU’RE DEAD?”

“Got it in one. Don’t know why she put extra trips on there.” His face smoothed into a solemn frown. “Take it from me, it’s not a blessing. It’s really fucking dangerous.”

To a moron like him, perhaps. To me, it was possibilities opening up. A world of possibilities, more so if I could hang onto the thing until I could get it to a sufficiently-equipped lab I could use to reverse-engineer its secrets.

I opened my mouth to accept... and thought it over. Really thought it over.

“NOT ENOUGH.”

“What?”

“YOU HEARD HER.”

“Dude, I just saved your friend.”

“FROM A SITUATION YOU CREATED.”

“A free time machine isn’t enough?”

“NO. TELL HER HOW TO BEAT YOU.”

He laughed. “Man, you can’t be serious.”

“OH, SHE IS.” I leaned down until my mask was level with his face. “DEADLY SERIOUS. YOU WANT AN EXECUTION? TELL HER HOW TO KEEP YOUR YOUNGER SELF OFF HER BACK.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Man. Uh. Shit. Look, if I say the wrong thing it changes things. Paradoxes them. We are like literally a few steps away from the dam bursting and time shit going all over the place. You really wanna risk it all because you got greedy?”

Sense in that. Still...

“A HINT, THEN? PRESUMABLY SHE DOES BEAT YOU. THINK ON THAT.”

His eyes got even more unfocused for a bit, then he grinned. “Alright. Yeah, sure. Fuck that young asshole anyway. He’s got this coming. Paradoxes. You need to paradox him.”

“YOU JUST SAID PARADOXES WERE BAD.”

“For me, yeah! For him, nah. He’s full of power. But he doesn’t know how to ride them out yet, so forcing him into a paradox is like giving him a nine-alarm tequila hangover. You do that, you’ll force him out, hit him so hard he’ll lose focus. He won’t be able to come back for a while.”

I mulled on it.

“STILL NOT CLEAR ON HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS, OR WHAT LAWS GOVERN IT.”

“That makes two of us, man.”

“Three,” Vorpal added.

The door opened and shut. “Four,” Martin said. “I miss something? Why we counting?”

Vorpal filled him in on the deal. He whistled. “A time machine for plugging this dork? Not bad.”

“Easy man. She’s the one who’s got to do it.”

“I wonder what else future you’s installed on this time machine?” Martin looked concerned.

I frowned. “DON’T KNOW. THAT’S A WORRY.”

“You don’t trust yourself?” Vorpal asked.

“PAST DIRE MESSED UP DIRE’S LIFE PRETTY WELL WITH DO-IT-YOURSELF BRAIN SURGERY. NO TELLING HOW CRAZY FUTURE DIRE’S GOTTEN. ESPECIALLY IF SHE THINKS RULING THE WORLD IS A GOOD IDEA.”

Martin stared. “What?”

“LONG STORY. VORPAL CAN FILL YOU IN LATER.”

Vorpal shrugged. “The parts I know, anyway.”

“ALL RIGHT. WELL, THE POTENTIAL GAINS OF THIS BARGAIN ARE TOO MUCH TO TURN DOWN. GIVE DIRE A BIT TO EXAMINE THE TIME MACHINE.”

I decanted from the armor, taking my mask with me. Timetripper didn’t seem surprised, just sat on the stairs and lit up another joint as I scrutinized the frame. I regretted not having my toolkit with me. I hadn’t managed to get it packed up before the Kaiju interrupted my departure. I needed to build tools into the armor. Maybe in the gauntlets. Hm, shift the particle cannons back toward the wrists, pack them into the fingers, enlarge the hands themselves a bit... yes, then make the—

“Dire?” Martin asked.

“RIGHT, RIGHT.” I looked over the framework, cautiously ran a finger down along a contact port. If I were to build in a diagnostic port, I’d put it right there.

With a rustle and the sound of steel on steel, the framework blossomed open, and flickering holo-images blurred by, almost too fast to read even for my enhanced comprehension. Keyword there being ‘almost’.

“Woah,” Timetripper drawled. “Colors, man. Nice.” Again he cackled that stoner’s laugh.

“Jesus. Epilepsy warning, maybe?” Martin muttered, shielding his eyes.

“SHE THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING,” I muttered. “ALL RIGHT. INITIATE THE BOND.”

The framework rattled, reformed into a humanoid shape, walked across the floor to my armor, and flowed through the open hatch in the back. I heard it rattling around inside, then a faint crackling noise, as fumes wafted from the hole where my mask went.

“YEAH, DON’T BREATHE THOSE. NANITE DUST.”

“I had not planned to,” Vorpal said, glancing uneasily from me to the suit. “You are certain you can trust yourself?”

“NO,” I said, donning the armor again, and initiating an operating system reboot. “BUT THE GAIN IS WORTH THE RISK RIGHT NOW.” I watched my HUD boot up, and saw new icons on it. Simple interface, shouldn’t be hard to initiate. It did look like I had to remain still for thirty seconds in order to time travel. So it wasn’t something meant to be used in a fight, good to know that beforehand.

Two trips through time, not counting my return trip from Timetripper’s errand. What I could do with two trips through time. But caution stirred my mind. “TIMETRIPPER. IS DIRE VULNERABLE TO PARADOX?”

“I don’t know man, probably not. It’s worse for me because I’m kind of like a fundamental part of the universe or some shit. You? Time would probably roll with the punch, you dig?”

“NOTHING HERE TO DIG.” I shot the concrete a look.

“Old slang. Anyway, you ready? Got your gun?”

I popped the inset holster, pulled out my Colt. “READY WHEN YOU ARE.”

“Hey,” Martin said. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“OKAY WITH IT? THIS IS ONE OF THE THINGS DIRE PLANS TO FIX. VOLUNTARY ASSISTED SUICIDE SHOULD BE ALLOWED WITHIN THIS SOCIETY. IT FIXES MORE PROBLEMS THAN IT CREATES.”

Martin gnawed on his lip. He didn’t look okay with the idea, but he nodded, and waved anyway. “Aight. Guess we’ll see you soon.”

“First trip’s on me,” Timetripper said, standing and wobbling, before he managed to plant his cane and laugh. “I am so fucking high right now.”

“LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH.”

He shambled over, and took my arm, like an old-style gentlemen escorting a lady to the ball. Well, if said lady was wearing a ton of steel and better-than-military grade ordnance.

BIP!

Darkness, save for the stars wheeling overhead. A tall plain of grass, with stone tables and columns laid out in patterns. No lights for as far as I could see, save for the stars above and a thin sliver of moon.

The moon was in the wrong place in the sky. I flipped through several star charts, found nothing.

“TIMETRIPPER? WHERE ARE WE? WHEN ARE WE?”

“It’s called Sora’s Lament,” he said, moving toward the nearest plinths. He fumbled, pulled out a book of matches as he arrived. “Wait. Shit, I need to be younger for this. Eh, I’ve been saving it anyway, what the hell.”

And in the dim green of my nightvision, his wrinkles smoothed out, his body straightened up, and he gained muscle tone until he was identical to the Timetripper I’d first met, save for the clothing.

“There we go. Oh man, bladder control! Sweet sweet bladder control, I missed you so.”

“WON’T THIS CAUSE PROBLEMS? USING YOUR POWER LIKE THIS?”

“Nah man, it’s too small a use to count.”

Rrrrrrrrip.

We watched a long, white tear open in the starry sky above, as thin as a hair and twisting, shedding brilliant light on the ground below. After half a minute it faded.

“Uh. Maybe it’ll cause some small problems. Fuck, I bet some assholes make a religion from this.”

“ENOUGH!” I stomped toward him, raising my pistol. He fumbled with the matches, touching them to what appeared to be old wax candles, huge and deformed from heavy use. One by one they lit.

I watched tears leak from the corner of his eyes, as he lit the last one.

BIP!

“....holy fuck, man. I am so fucking high right now.”

His voice, off to the side, a few hundred feet away.

“Do it!” My Timetripper shouted. “Just fucking do it!”

“Hey, what—” I glanced over, to see a version of the Timetripper, staring at me with horror. “Man, not cool!”

I turned back to my Timetripper, “KNEEL, THEN, AND LOOK AWAY.”

He did, and I put the gun to the back of his skull.

“What? No! Hey! No! Nonononnono!” The new Timetripper was running through the grass now, but too late, far too late.

My gun spoke, and my version of Timetripper fell.

“Oh shit! Dude, why... no!”

I aimed the gun at him, and he raised his hands... then glowed, brighter and brighter, until I could barely see his outline.

BIP!

And then I was alone, in that field of monuments, with candles the only light. Timetripper’s body sighed out its last breath in the grass. It didn’t disappear, or turn to dust, or fade into light, or do anything beyond persist in being a corpse.

“WELL, THAT WAS ANTICLIMACTIC.”

There were none to hear me. I opened up my interface, fiddled with it, and found it fairly easy to use. Thanks to the timestamps and GPS in my armor, I could narrow my departure point down to the second and the exact coordinate. For a moment I contemplated returning to a point before my jump, but I decided against it. Too much risk of paradox before I had observed the process fully. Without knowing the exact mechanics of altering the past via time travel, it was dangerous to randomly experiment. I’d save something like that for a last resort.

Instead, I punched in the travel point for five minutes after my departure, in the same room.

Instead of a ‘bip’, there was a delightful hum, followed by a corona of winking lights around me. With a shudder and a twist, I left that starry field behind—

—and returned to the sickly yellow emergency-lit room of the power station. Noises from the floor above me, and I heard Martin’s voice rise up.

“I’ve seen worse, I guess. We’ll have to run out for blankets and shit, but from what I remember there’s an All-Mart six streets over. Uh, you might want to make that run, our disguise kit kinda got blown up. Or something.”

I decanted from the armor and took my mask off, following the narrow stairwell up. “Do you need money for the run?” I asked Vorpal.

“You're back. Good.” Martin said.

“You doubted?”

“You I trust. Timetripper? Hell naw.”

“Well, he came through. This time. Vorpal? Money?”

She shook her head. “I still have my wallet and a few hundred in it. So, what did I miss? Martin has told me some of it.”

“Well, good news and bad. He told you of the flowers?”

“Yah.”

“Morgenstern Inc. isn’t willing to pay for their return. Their best offer is that if we destroy them, they’ll forgive our treachery.”

She snorted. “I have not forgiven theirs.”

My grin was wide and probably looked very toothy. “Nor has Dire. Unfortunately, this leaves us in the position of not getting paid.”

“What about the other party?”

“Professor Vector.” I stopped grinning. “Quite a piece of work, according to Mags.”

“Yeah. No way in hell we can give him those flowers,” Martin said.

Vorpal looked askance at him. “And why not?”

“Dude unleashes plagues! That shit’s not good.”

“Neither am I,” Vorpal said, tapping her chest. “Villain, remember?”

“As it is, Dire agrees with Martin.” He smiled in relief. I continued. “Besides, it is unlikely he could pay the price we would need to recoup our losses and risks thus far.” Martin’s smile faded a bit.

Vorpal sighed. “I suppose he would be more likely to try and take it, too. If he has several Kaiju, under his control. Oh, and Chaingang, too. Did we ever confirm his betrayal?”

“No, but Dire would be surprised if he hadn’t at least alerted Vector. That Kaiju in the lake was no coincidence.”

She shrugged. “So Morgenstern Inc. will not pay for its return. Vector cannot pay. Morgenstern has the money. Easy, then.”

“It is?” I asked.

“We blackmail Morgenstern. Why did they have these flowers to begin with? Everything they have done points to the fact they do not want people to know of them.”

I gave it some thought, nodded. “That’s not a bad idea, but we have no proof. The contract was through a third party, and the shipping has all been through deniable subsidiaries.”

“So we sneak into their headquarters and find the blackmail information we need, then.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure it’s there?”

“You said you could not hack their headquarter servers?”

“Correct.”

“Well, either the information we need is there, or we find some other information that we can sell or ransom. There’s got to be something valuable in there.”

“Risky,” I muttered. “Risky, but...”

“At this point, why not?” Martin said.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Thought you were having a crisis of conscience.”

He flushed a little, I think. Hard to tell in the dim light. “It’s one thing hurting people don’t deserve it. It’s another to hurt someone who’s doing something bad. You know?”

I nodded. I’d had a few moments of reflection myself, these last few days. But what he said rang true to me. Whatever Morgenstern Inc. was mixed up in, it wasn’t good. They needed to stop. And if making them stop got me the money I needed, then hey, bonus.

I stifled a yawn, and glanced around. The upstairs room was a bit dirty, but secure enough. “Vorpal, please go on that bedding and supplies run.”

“As you wish.” She smiled, and gave me a pat on the shoulder as she passed me, headed downstairs. I put my hand on the shoulder where she’d thumped me. What was that about?

“I think she likes you,” Martin said, grinning.

“Oh. Well, that’s nice.”

“No, like likes you, likes you.”

“Well yes, you said that.”

“Wait. Shit. Hold on, you’re like a kid with this stuff. Uh... how do I put this? She wants to have sex with you.”

“What? Why?”

He laughed. “She’s into girls, and you’re hot.”

“Uh.” I didn’t consider myself hot. By conventional standards, my face was plain, my breasts were small, and I did not possess that attribute commonly known as ‘booty’. “She seems to be in error.”

He chuckled louder. “Naw, you’re hot. It’s in how you carry yourself, you know? Confidence and shit. Don’t matter how you look, it’s all in how you act. Assertive. That appeals. Be lying if I said it didn’t.” He put his hand on the wall, twisted, cracking his neck. “Goddamn, what a long ass day.”

“Was that why you kissed Dire back then?” I blurted out.

He froze, midway through a torso twist. “Oh. Uh. Well... yyyyyyes? One of the reasons, anyway.”

“Oh. Okay.” For some reason I felt flustered. I had more questions, but no frame of reference as to how to ask them. I’d watched many romantic comedies as a result of my popular culture catch-up program, but all of them seemed to indicate awkwardness was called for. And possibly sex. And I was far, far too tired for sex. That’s what I thought, anyway. I’d never tried the stuff. It looked messy, and the floor was really dirty, too.

And to my embarrassment, I was getting aroused. “Um.” I licked my lips, trying to figure out a way to shift the conversation.

Martin’s smile took on a hungry aspect, and he straightened up, took a couple of steps forward. He paused, and tucked his hands in his jacket pockets. “Yeah?” He asked.

“She, uh. Doesn’t quite know much of... it’s complicated. Give her a second.”

He nodded, shifted his legs. “Take your time,” he whispered. Was he aroused too? Great. Just great.

And then, mercifully, my phone rang. We both jumped.

“Oh! She’d better take this.” I turned around, headed downstairs at full speed, jerking the phone out of my pocket as I went. I think I heard Martin snort and mutter something, but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t recognize the number on the phone, and that worried me. I flipped it open anyway.

“Yes?”

“Hello, Dire.” I knew that voice.

“Arachne. Dire trusts the job is complete, then?” Arachne was an artificial intelligence. We’d been at odds, my first week after my new awakening. But we’d come to an agreement, after she’d had her techno-terrorist minions kidnap me and try some impromptu brain surgery. I’d helped her out of a tight spot, and she’d contacted me later. We’d established mutual terms of assistance. She wanted power, control, and prestige within her own organization, the World Evolution Brigade. I wanted answers.

The last favor I’d done for her had been to leak word of a W.E.B base to Tomorrow Force. It got them out of my hair for a while, let me rescue Martin without their interference. In return, the base, which was under the control of Arachne’s rivals, would be thoroughly trashed by heroes.

“The job went swimmingly,” Arachne said. “It took Quantum and company a few days to locate it, and I was starting to despair. But Schrodinger came through, like he always does for them.”

“Yes. He’s annoying that way.” Schrodinger’s powers were some form of probability control. It made going up against Doc Quantum’s team a fool’s venture, most of the time. The man could simply choose a possible future where his team won. Ridiculously unfair, that.

“On the upside, I think I’ve figured out one of Schrodinger’s limitations.” Arachne sounded smug.

“Care to share?”

“Actually, I don’t mind a bit. I’ll be spreading it far and wide soon. The more villains that know, the better the chance that someone will kill that jerk.”

Couldn’t fault that logic. I owed them a beating myself, though killing seemed counterproductive to my plans. At least at this point. “What is it, then?”

“Thirty seconds. Schrodinger can only see thirty seconds into any possible future.”

“Precognition...” That made sense, if it was true. “You’re sure that was what he was doing?”

“Reasonably so. They spent all their time in Los Angeles going from location to location, just hovering there for about half a minute each. Combined with a few other things I’ve noticed over the years, I’m pretty sure that what they were doing was letting Schrodinger look through the possible futures where they got out of their jet, and searched for the base.”

“Lazy,” I muttered. “But their laziness is our gain. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, as to your price...”

“Yes. Who is Dire? Who was Dire?” That was my price, for helping her with this scheme. She knew something of my true past, and I wanted that information.

She sighed. “I wish I could tell you.”

“What? You don’t know after all?”

“At the time we made the bargain I thought I did. But some in-depth investigation revealed that to be incorrect. I’m sorry, you covered your tracks well. Too well.”

I folded my arms, shifted the phone to my other ear. “That was not the bargain.”

Some of my irritation must have gotten through to Arachne. A faint nervous tinge crept into her digitized voice. “All I can tell you is that we thought you were one of us. An agent recruited from academia, Doctor Dinah Aeris.”

“Who recruited her, then?”

“Well, it turns out that no one did. The records were forged, the recruiter tagged as your mentor has no memory of you. Basically you faked your way into our organization, grabbed a lot of gear, and ran. That’s what got you on our radar in the first place, the medical chair that you stole had a tracker in it.”

The medical chair that I’d woken up in, so long ago. The one my past self had used to alter her brain, wipe her own memory. She’d created me from her, more or less.

“Well, that’s something,” I said. “But not enough.”

“I know. Which is why I’d like to amend the bargain.”

I sighed. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll owe you a favor. Nothing impossible or beyond my resources, mind.”

“Your resources are pretty damn impressive.”

“I know.” Smug little AI. Still, now that we weren’t trying to kill each other, she was likeable enough. And useful.

“All right, we’ll give that a shot,” I said. I considered asking about Professor Vector or Morgenstern Inc, but decided against it. I could probably dig up those answers myself, given time. Oooh, I could ask about Minna... no, wait. I had to talk to Susan Donner, first, see if I could get the answer that way.

I yawned. I was tired, too. Not thinking clearly. “Dire will give her question due consideration. Anything else?”

“Just a warning. Tomorrow Force will probably be back in town in a matter of days.”

I grimaced. We had to wrap this thing with the flowers up quickly, or that would be a problem. Tomorrow Force wanted me behind bars. It was personal, between us. “Thank you,” I replied. “Have a good night.”

Vorpal showed up a little later, and the sleeping bags she brought with her were comfy enough, but I lay awake anyway, staring into the shadows.

CHAPTER 13: A SCOURGE TO THE MIGHTY AND WICKED

“—the Senator, who won his office on the conservative ticket with a campaign that included staunch family values, transparency in all dealings, and a refusal to compromise the party line will sorely be missed by his party. Although the unknown assailant has not yet been identified, the Color Guard are confident that the computer failures of the Y2K blackout will not slow down their analysis of the evidence and identification of the assassins—”

--Excerpt from a DNN broadcast from January of 2000.

Morning found me working at the computer. It had occurred to me, during the night, that a lot could go wrong with the run on Morgenstern Inc. That noted, I had one outstanding problem I felt obligated to resolve, before I risked my life.

Minna.

She’d been missing for far too long, and if I died with this unsettled I was pretty sure that it was going to bother me, if there was indeed such a thing as an afterlife. Before I’d been blind on this matter, but my recent discussion with Sparky had turned up a lead, in the form of Susan Donner.

And thanks to some fast hacking, after a mere couple of hours I’d turned up a good amount of information. Not only did I have her address, I also had her phone number.

I wondered if I could settle this simply. I was in little shape for anything complex. But hell, it was worth a shot. I pulled out my phone and called her. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Susan Donner?”

“Who is this, please?” Was it her? I’d never actually heard her speak.

“This is Doctor Dire.”

She gasped. “I... oh. Okay.”

Well, she hadn’t hung up. That was a good sign.

“Dire’s trying to find Minna. You remember, the woman who rescued you?”

“How... how could I forget?” She whispered. That was a good question. From what I’d learned since I’d left the camp, signs seemed to indicate that she’d been subjected to rape before Minna got her out there. All media I’d read seemed to indicate that left a mark on those so victimized.

“Yes. Minna has been missing since the last battle against the Black Bloods. She left camp, and disappeared. Anya is missing too. Do you know where either of them are?”

“I had her. For a little while. Anya, I mean.” Hope rose within me. I shifted the phone in my hand, leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

“Yes? Wait, had? What happened?”

“I... they... they said I... they threatened me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know!” Her voice rose, unsteady. “They came and they had suits, and they said a child should be with her mother. Threatened me with jail... for...”

“Susan. Please, take a deep breath.” I’d seen some therapy shows, during my studies of the media known as daytime talk shows. Perhaps some techniques might be effective?

I continued. “Now remember that Dire is a scary, scary person who can thoroughly beat the hell out of anyone that threatens you.”

She giggled, with more than one note of hysteria in there. “Well. I can’t argue with that.”

“Are your shoes on?” I asked.

“What?”

“Taking your shoes off is fundamental to relaxing,” I continued. “Take them off, if they’re not off already. Now breathe in rhythm, until you feel at peace.”

“I... are you really Doctor Dire? This is getting weird.”

“Is it?” I couldn’t see why. But she did sound less hysterical, so the relaxation techniques must have worked. “Look, Dire could show up personally, but that wouldn’t end too well given today’s earlier scuffles. Last thing we want is a SWAT team at your door.”

“Well, yeah.”

“So now that you’re relaxed, cast your memory back and tell Dire everything you can about the men in suits.”

“There’s not much to say. After the government came in and shut down the camp, almost everyone there got resettled into different shelters. The ones who had homes went back home. I got my apartment back and since Minna never returned, I took Anya with me. We were there for a few weeks, but... then one day there was a knock at the door.”

She fell silent.

“The men in suits?” I prompted.

“Two of them. They... I don’t think they were MRB, or FEMA. They had earpieces, and sunglasses. They came in, told me that I could be charged with human trafficking, for taking Anya. I told them I didn’t take her, I was taking care of her until her mother came back! But they didn’t care. I told them I’d even started up the paperwork to adopt her, just in case, but they... they told me that was how they’d found me, and that they could have a warrant on me inside of an hour, with six witnesses saying I’d used her for... for child porn back in the camps.”

“Jesus.” I commented. People seemed to say that a lot, when horrible subjects arose.

“I told them that was all ridiculous, and they said that I had a choice. I give her to them and they take her to her real mother, or I go to jail and they take her anyway. I... I’m sorry.”

I let out a breath. So there was another player involved. Was it those Vory people that Minna had been running from? Possible. Though from what I’d researched about them, I doubted they’d have been so polite.

“Is there anything else you can think of? Anything at all?”

“Well...” she swallowed. “I did write down their license plate number, just in case. I had an idea to give it to the police. But no one would do anything when I tried to call them about it.”

“Wait. A missing child case, and no one would listen to you? An outright abduction, and no one cared?” Heat built up along my scalp.

“I... they said that they’d put out alerts, but since I wasn’t a legal guardian, and Anya wasn’t in the system, it wasn’t worth trying.”

Beep!

I jerked upright, startled. My fingers had clenched around the phone so tightly that I’d hit a number on the keypad.

“What was that?” Susan sounded panicked.

“Relax, slight accident, that’s all. Can you give Dire the license plate number?”

She did so. I trusted it to memory, and stood, pacing as I thought. This was a solid lead, the best I’d gotten in this sorry muddle so far.

“Thank you, Susan, you’ve been a great help.”

“There’s one more thing. Maybe.”

“Oh?”

“On the way out to their car, once Anya stopped trying to fight them, I heard one of them mutter something like... maybe the kid will settle the bitch down.”

I took a long breath. “Really.” My voice was tight, and the pain was back, as my anger built.

“Maybe you should take your shoes off. You sound like you need to relax.” She laughed, but her giggle was nervous again.

“Perhaps.” I stopped, and did so. Oddly enough, it didn’t help. “In any case, thank you. Dire will see what she can do with this.”

“No. Thank you! The Black Bloods, they were monsters. I know. No matter what everyone says about you, I know you’re good. You saved us. You’re a hero, even if they keep lying about you.”

The anger faded. “Er. Thank you.”

“You find Minna and Anya and you save them, okay? Please.”

I nodded. I wanted to point out the fact that nothing was certain, or that it might not be possible, or that they might both be dead, but for some reason, every time I tried to say one of those things, tears started at the corners of my eyes, and my throat closed up. Was I sick? Troublesome.

“She will,” I husked out, finally. I managed that, at least.

“Thank you. God bless.” And she hung up.

I sat back down into the swivel chair next to the computer, and stared into the distance until my eyes could see without tears again.

I didn’t have time for this, not really. But I couldn’t let it alone. Minna had been lost for far too long, and Anya with her.

What good was I, if I couldn’t help my friends when they needed it the most?

I settled in for a few more hours of hacking, with only vague ideas of how to start... wait. Wait a minute. I didn’t have to personally attend to this, now did I? I knew a very good hacker, and she owed me a favor. I could call in Arachne's favor, to sort this out in short order.

I hesitated.

It wasn't just a favor. It was a serious favor from an artificial intelligence. A computing mind with connections to secret databases and obscure contacts worldwide. A favor from her could get me blackmail on Morgenstern Inc, or an analysis of the flowers, or help with Timetripper. It could set me up with the money I needed, or a fully-stocked secret villain lair in the active volcano of my choice.

And I wanted to use it to find a friend? A friend who I could probably track down, given time and effort?

I chewed my lip.

After far too long, I closed my eyes. I could always get more money, and any secret lairs she could get me wouldn't be secret to her. Morgenstern Inc. was slippery and well-armored, and who's to say she'd have better luck than I would? I'd be a fool to hand the flowers over to a member of WEB, especially if they were as problematic as I feared. And Timetripper... well, he was pretty stupid, by all the evidence so far. If I couldn't handle him without Arachne's help, then I deserved to lose to him.

But there was only one Minna, and only one Anya. I didn't want to lose them if there was even the slightest chance to rescue them from whatever bad situation they'd come to.

I sighed, and bid farewell to easy money.

Arachne picked up on the first ring, naturally. “Hello Dire.”

“Arachne. Going to need your help with something—” I laid out the situation, holding no details back. Another person might have hesitated, but Minna was months gone, and the situation was, well, dire.

“Hm, interesting! They threatened her with jail? That definitely rules out most of the syndicates. The Vory wouldn’t have done that and the Mafia wouldn’t have bothered. They might have actually been with the government in some capacity. Your friend might still be alive.”

“That’s the hope.”

“All right, I’ll take what you’ve given me and look into it. Depending on what I find, that’ll pay off the favor I owe you. Acceptable?”

“You have a deal.”

Three minutes later, I’d barely gone back to my work studying Morgenstern, when the phone rang again. Arachne’s number.

“What do you have?”  I leaned forward.

“I’m sorry.” She said. “I found Anya, but... you’re not going to like this.”

She spoke, and I didn’t. At the end of it, I hung up without a word, shuddering as tears rolled down my eyes. It took some doing, but I found paper and pen, wrote a short note and left it next to Martin’s slumbering form before I climbed back into my armor and headed out to the van.

Two minutes later I was roaring down the road, heading west. West to New York, to kill a man as painfully as I could.

His name was Senator Mark Malone, and he was the son of a business mogul. His name was Senator Mark Malone, and he was a staunch member of his party. Never wavered or compromised where the public could see him. His name was Mark Malone, and he’d ridden into office on a platform of ‘family values’ and ‘making America great’ again. His name was Mark Malone, and he was a rapist. Not a pedophile, thank god for small favors, but a rapist.

He’d been one of the rich bastards who’d dealt with the Vory. He’d bought women for private parties, used them up, and let the Vory ‘take care of them’ once the women no longer appealed. But something about Minna had drawn his eye. Something about Minna stuck with him. And when she’d fled, he’d worried about that. Worried initially that she might reveal his secret... worry that eventually turned to obsession. He stopped showing up at the ‘parties’. He’d hired private detectives of loose morals to go looking for her. He’d gotten his thoroughly bribed, thoroughly corrupt security detail in on the act.

And a scant few nights before Y2K, they found her. But what had been a simple-planned snatch and grab operation went south once Y2K happened, and the city went dark. They held back for a few days, watched and waited, and readied to grab her, but another obstacle to their plans arose.

Me.

They didn’t have the resources to deal with a battle-armored supergenius. So they watched and they waited, and when I lead our forces to war, they saw that Minna had been left behind.

They took her, then. They brought her back to her abhorrent admirer, back to her rapist.

All this and more, Arachne told me.

I crashed through the roof of his mansion like a meteorite, straight into the bedroom at the wee hours of the morning. He thrashed in his bed, aged arms rippling with slack muscles as he flailed, reaching for his phone.

I vaporized it, along with the tips of his right hand’s fingers.

He screamed then, and I grabbed him by his arm, jerked him upright as chunks of the roof and the ceiling rained down among us.

“WHERE IS ANYA?”

He screamed louder, and blood sprayed and pumped from the partially-cauterized wounds. I squeezed, and bones ground in his arm. “WHERE IS ANYA?”

The door burst open, and gunfire flared, as my forcefield flashed. I raised my hand, put a particle beam through the door at wide burst, and charred chunks of meat blew through the opposite wall.

“LAST TIME. WHERE IS ANYA!”

“Downstairs!” He yelled. “In the nursery! Downstairs!”

I dragged him with me, stomping so hard I left dents in the floor, uncaring that the gravitics would get me there more quietly. I wanted to take my time. I wanted him to scream and thrash and sob in his nakedness, tortoise-like old wrinkled face bawling as pain worse than any he’d suffered in his pampered, perverted life filled him and became the whole of his being.

And also, I wanted to draw his guardians to me before I got downstairs. That way I could kill them all without accidentally hurting Anya.

They came and they died, and a minute later, after a quick thermal sweep, I was breaking down the locked door of a downstairs room.

A child huddled in the corner, under a mass of blankets as round little eyes stared at me. “ANYA.” I said, turning on the lights.

A pause, then the blankets rippled, and a blonde-haired girl crawled out, clad in a fuzzy pink onesie. She walked up to me, stared up at my mask. “Dia?”

“YES.”

“Where mommy?”

“THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION. LET’S ASK YOUR DADDY.” I hurled him into the corner and he shrieked.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“WHERE IS MINNA?”

“I... She’s gone, okay? She ran away!”

“WHERE IS MINNA?”

“She’s gone! Your mommy’s gone. I loved her and she’s gone.” he wept.

“LOVE.” I hunkered down over him, glared down into his face as he tried to crawl back, screamed as he put weight on his maimed hand, and collapsed.

“YOU HAVE A FUNNY DEFINITION OF LOVE.”

“I loved her! She couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it. I loved her... and I love my daughter.”

I looked to Anya. Anya was still, watching him without any expression on her face. Slowly a thumb came up to her mouth and she chewed on it.

“YOU LOVED MINNA.”

“I did. God help me I did. I wanted to marry her. I wanted to protect her. I offered her everything. Everything!”

“YOU RAPED HER.”

“She liked it.”

I stepped on his foot and he screamed, as I brought the weight of my armor down, pulverizing flesh and bone. “YOU KIDNAPPED HER.”

“She— I— she— oh god.”

“YOU HELD HER HERE.”

“Oh god oh god oh god— please. Please, I have money. I have power.”

“YOU BEAT HER.”

“She... she kept trying to escape. Kept trying to— ungrateful. I couldn’t— I—” He sobbed.

“YOU RAPED HER.”

“Once! Only once when I got her back! I gave her a week to adjust, a whole week, and she tried to kill me!” He screamed as I ground my foot, and piss stained the floor as he gave in to his fear and pain.

“AND YOU TOOK HER DAUGHTER.”

“Look... the Color Guard. My people will have called them. They’ll be here...”

“YOUR PEOPLE ARE DEAD.” They probably had called in the Color Guard. That was a problem. Those heroes were out of my league with my current level of technology. But I had a plan for that, and two minutes before their fastest member could make it here.

“Please... not in front of my daughter.”

“YOU THOUGHT SHE’D BE A BARGAINING CHIP, PERHAPS. THOUGHT WITH HER DAUGHTER HERE, MINNA WOULD STOP TRYING TO ESCAPE.”

“She— I would have given her everything,” he whispered. “Everything.”

“EXCEPT FREEDOM.”

He sobbed, weaker now. “Like she had it better somewhere else? She could have lived in luxury for the rest of her life.”

“WITH HER RAPIST.”

He shuddered. “Please. God... take the kid and go. Just... please.”

“SHE WILL. BUT ONE MORE QUESTION, FIRST.”

“Anything. Anything.”

“YOUR MEN. WHEN THEY GRABBED MINNA, DID THEY TAKE HER DIRECTLY HERE?”

“Yes.”

“IMMEDIATELY AFTER.”

“I... I... I can’t remember exact...”

“THINK HARD OR DIE NOW!”

“It took a day! They called me that day, and then, and then they had to get her quietly through the blockades, and... they brought her home the day after that.”

“HOME. WHERE YOU KILLED HER.”

Anya was still as a statue.

“Yes.” He said, closing his eyes. “She tried to escape with Anya. She got to the outer gate. They didn’t know her, didn’t know she was living here. They, they thought she was an intruder. She died.”

He opened his eyes, stared at me, no, not at me. At Anya. “And you know what? She didn’t cry. Not a bit.” He sounded both freaked out and proud, simultaneously. “Daddy’s little girl.” He smiled, raising a shaking, bloody hand. “Daddy’s little girl.”

“ONE LAST QUESTION.”

“Hah? Hah.... uh...” He was going into shock. I slapped his face.

“ONE LAST QUESTION. WHERE WAS HER ROOM? WHERE WAS MINNA’S ROOM?”

“The... the large one at the end of the hall. Up-upstairs.”

The sound of whirring filled the air. Color Guard’s first responders. The senator glanced up, smiled. “Now you’ll ha-have to let me go. You’ll—”

I shot him with a particle beam at full charge and spread. When I was done, there was a smoking hole through every room left in the floor in a direct line west, several burning trees beyond, and a pair of feet with smoking stumps of legs attached. The rest of the senator was sprayed over the scenery to my west.

Anya hugged my leg, and I gathered her up. Forty seconds until the Color Guard reached me. Ten more than I needed.

“HOLD ON TIGHT,” I told Anya.

And I set the date for two days after Minna’s capture, and activated my time machine.

I’d wondered why my future self had given this to me. But after Arachne told me of how Minna had died, I didn’t wonder at all.

Purple sparks rose about me, flaring more and more as the room seemed to shiver. I watched, fascinated, as a pattern built itself out of tachyon flare and photons bent in ways they were never meant to go. I watched, my mind spinning as I pondered the effects I was seeing, glorying in the sheer science of it.

I doubted I could duplicate this just from the visual effects and readings I was getting. But given time, a budget, and enough experimentation, I rather thought I might be able to learn a few more things about chronological physics if I applied myself.

Time for that later. Literally if it worked out. Now was the time for killing, and saving. I’d get one shot at this.

I warped into a quiet sunroom, with nobody in sight. It was still the middle of the night. Good.

I triggered my thermal vision, peered through the walls, then peered up. The room at the end of the hall should be the one. Sure enough, there was someone sleeping there. A tall someone. I curled into a ball around Anya, who hugged me harder.

WHAM!

Through the ceiling.

WHAM!

Through the wall.

WHAM!

Through a surprised guard, sent crashing against the far wall in a spray of blood with bonebreaking force.

WHAM!

And through the last wall, into a large bedroom. And there, sitting bolt upright in a large bed, literally held to it with handcuffs, was a blonde figure with a hard look in her eyes.

“Mommy!” Anya yelled. I tossed her on the bed, and whirled around. Nodded as I recalibrated my thermal vision, and tied it to my targeting systems.

Ten searing blasts of gold light later, the structural integrity of the mansion was slightly compromised, and everyone else in the other rooms was a shredded pile of meat.

Everyone else, save for one person.

“MINNA.” I said, reaching over and snapping the handcuffs.

“Dire. Thank you!” She said, rolling out of bed. “We have to leave. Quickly.”

“NOT YET.” I said. “FIRST SHE HAS TO KILL A MAN FOR THE SECOND TIME.”

“What is this you say?” She asked, but I was already in motion, shoulder-checking the door, bursting it from its hinges. Across the way the bedroom door opened, and the senator peered, looking like an aged turtle in his fright and shock, as I charged down the hall at him.

“SHE IS YOUR END!” I roared, and grabbed him, as he struggled and screamed. “WE’LL MAKE THIS QUICK—“

“No.” Minna’s voice echoed through the hall.

We stopped. Looked to her.

“Anya, go inside the room,” she said, and pushed Anya through a door... but Anya wouldn’t let go. Anya was crying.

“What... what is this?” The senator blustered. “Who are you?”

“AH, YOUR MEN DIDN’T BRIEF YOU YET. OOPS.” I said. “THEIR BAD.”

“This is crazy! Leave at once, and let my family be.”

“Family.” Minna said, and there was such venom in her tone that we both fell silent. We watched as she shut Anya into a bathroom, and locked it behind her. Then she moved down the hall, face a mask of coldness.

The senator stared at her, and trembled as she approached. “Minna, please. This is crazy.”

Minna paused before she got to him, turned and vanished into one of the upstairs rooms.

“And you! You know that Color Guard will be here in minutes. There’s no escape. I don’t know what you were thinking.”

Minna came out of the doorway, with a golf club in her hand.

“A GOLF CLUB?” I asked. “DIRE WOULD HAVE GONE WITH A BASEBALL BAT, BUT HEY, YOUR CHOICE.”

“Minna!” He said. “Go back to your room! It’s not too late!”

Minna moved in, stopped a few feet away. Looked up to my mask, towering above. “Hold him?” She said.

I nodded.

“Minna! No! For the love of god!”

I used the time to hack into the mansion’s network and erase their security logs. Best to avoid paradoxes, I thought.

By the time she was done, we were both splattered in blood, and she was crying. She wanted to keep going past his death, but I heard the whirring in the air, and knew it was time to go. It took seconds to retrieve Anya, seconds more to leave the estate and find a quiet patch of road and hug them tight, and no time at all to set my time machine to return to the present day.

I wondered what I would find? Would I arrive to find myself in a prison cell? My friends dead? All my hard work undone?

I doubted it, but I couldn’t be sure. Time travel was a risk, but after what Arachne had told me about Minna’s capture, torture, and death, well... I had to try.

I wondered if this was what heroes felt like.

Then I remembered the sound of the golf club as Minna killed her tormentor, and I grinned a vicious smile. No, no this wasn’t at all what heroes felt like.

This was better.

This was right.

The road was as empty six months later as it had been when we left, and the van was in the same place. In the wee hours of the morning we departed, driving back east. I checked the news feeds as we went, and was heartened to see that nothing had really changed, as far as I could see. It had been tempting to do more, but not while Minna and Anya’s lives were on the line.

I stopped at an All-Mart along the way, got them some clothing that wasn’t nightgowns and a week’s worth of food. While they changed, I poked around with a burner phone, found what I was looking for.

“What now?” Minna asked when I returned to the van.

“Arbor Haven Vacation Cabins.” I showed her the image on the phone’s tiny screen. “Icon City’s finest vacation getaways. You’ve got Cabin Sixteen, all by itself on the northern end of Lake Silence.”

“We are to live there?”

“For now. Dire’s in the middle of an operation. If it goes well, she’ll show back up for you. If it doesn’t, then you’ll want to move on after a few weeks.” I peeled a wad of bills out of my pocket. “This should cover unexpected expenses.”

Minna studied me, her face as blank and cold as it had ever been. But her eyes told stories that the casual observer wouldn’t see. “I want to help.”

“Help Anya.” I said. “Keep yourself safe. That is how you’ll help.” I drew a shuddering breath, held back the tears that threatened at the corner of my eyes. “Dire won’t lose either of you, ever again.”

And then she was hugging me, and I was crying into her flannel shirt, and it was a messy scene for a while as Anya hugged the both of us and wailed.

After a few hours I dropped them off at the cabin, and found my way back to the power station. Martin and Vorpal were waiting.

“There you are!” He seemed upset. “The hell you mean, back in a day or two?”

I raised a hand as he started in on me. “Minna.” I watched Martin’s objections die on his lips.

Vorpal crossed her arms. “What?”

“Friend of ours. You found her? She okay?”

“Yes. Now, anyway. She died. Used the time machine to bring her back, grabbed Anya at the same time.”

He smiled, and sagged down onto his cot.

Vorpal wasn’t so pleased. “Both jumps?”

“Yes. No other way to do it.” Not one that didn’t risk paradox, conflict with the Color Guard, or trouble of an unforeseen nature.

“Hm. I hope we do not need them later.” Vorpal shook her head. “But dead friends are a good reason, I suppose.”

“She outside?” Martin asked.

“No. In a safe place. If we die or are captured in the assault, then she won’t face any repercussions.”

I'd burnt up a time machine and a priceless favor to save her. Be damned if she got dragged into this mess with us and got squished by a kaiju or whatever.

“That’ll do.” Martin said. “Aight. So what’s the plan?”

I grinned, as I ascended the staircase. “Give her a few hours with the supercomputer, and we should be ready to go.”

CHAPTER 14: INFILTRATION

“Life is difficult when your power has no defensive application. You must worry about things that luckier heroes and villains do not care about. Any person with a gun has a chance to kill you, if you are slow.”

--Quote attributed to Vorpal, independent mercenary and supervillain.

It was muggy and hot as hell inside the power station. July’s heat had reached full swing, and what had been a reasonably safe haven last night showed its problems in the high heat of noon. This added a bit of incentive to set up the supercomputer... after I got it up and running, and the coolant sinks activated, they cooled the room a good ten degrees. Martin sighed in relief, and curled up next to one as I worked.

“Just like a dog or a cat,” Vorpal snickered.

“Shut up,” Martin grumbled without malice. “Not my fault I’m bigger than you. I sweat more.”

“I know. The stench has been inescapable.” She’d been rather sweaty and ripe herself, but I held my tongue, unwilling to risk their ire turning upon me. I had more important things to do, anyway. Now that I’d used the Universal remote to subvert the local camera networks and edit us out of them, it was time to get hacking.

It didn’t take long to reconfigure my wave ports, and set up a new profile for the supercomputer’s Grid access, and then shield it behind a wall of misdirection and ECM. After that, the minutes slid away like water down a drain as I tapped my fingers in air, using the AR interface to direct my prowl through Morgenstern Incorporated’s network. The reachable parts of it, anyway.

Martin and Vorpal watched for a while, before they got bored. Real hacking was nothing like the movies, and without my boosted comprehension, they had no chance of reading the words that made up the codes and protocols that scrolled by at incredible speed. Vorpal wandered outside to get some air, and Martin lay back against the concrete, playing a game on his phone.

After perhaps twenty minutes I grunted and stood up, stretched the kink out of my back. “Well. Good news and bad.”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got our way in, but there’s no way we’ll remain undetected for long. Go get Vorpal please, and Dire will step you both through the plan...”

Two hours later, we were driving the van through Grand Avenue in the heart of Downtown, navigating the early morning traffic. A trip to All-Mart for a few supplies, and a quick stop at a no-tell motel for a shower had given us all the preparation we needed. Well, no, that wasn’t quite accurate. It had gotten us all the preparation that we could afford. This was still going to be dicey.

“Ready for your meeting, Fräulein Müller?” I asked Vorpal.

She just grinned. The bulk of our loose money had gone toward the business suit she was wearing; off the rack, but still good quality.

“Yah. Ninety percent of most marketing is bullshit. I should be able to fake it until we’re ready to move.” I’d found a conference room that was a day behind on their security patching, and exploited the hell out of the weakness, riding it all the way to about ten assorted minor executive gridmail accounts. By the end of my hackfest I’d rescheduled a European affiliate’s meeting from two weeks later to today, here and now. The deception wouldn’t last long, but it wouldn’t need to do so. All it had to do was get her in the building, a floor above the main security office.

For my own part, I was wearing a simple brown pair of coveralls. I had my contacts in, the subvocal rig tucked under my hair, and the universal remote in one pocket. The taser was concealed at the small of my back, but I had nothing else as far as gadgets went. I did have my phone, but that really didn’t count. The other toys were stored in the armor, which occupied one corner of the van.

My mask was set into the armor. For the first time in a very long while, I wouldn’t have it on or with me. I was a little nervous about that.

“Aight, here’s the dropoff,” Martin said, pulling to a stop. We couldn’t drop Fräulein Müller off at the front door. Going by her profile she was more of a limo person than someone who’d show up in a van.

“Wish me luck, hm?” Her smile hid nervousness, and I smiled back.

“You’ve got this.”

“Of course I do, you’ve got the hard part.”

I shrugged. “From what Dire’s seen, there aren’t many easy parts in this business.”

She slipped out the door and was gone into the crowd, heading towards our objective.

“Ten bucks says she tries to kiss you when we’re done.” Martin said, smirking.

“You think so?” It would fit the romantic comedy tropes that I’d observed.

“Not too hot on the idea?” He started the van back up, drove to the next dropoff point.

“Honestly not sure. Would be a bad idea to get involved with her either way until we are no longer business partners. Most things Dire’s read on that matter seem to indicate that romancing people you work with causes major problems.”

“Ah.” He started to say something, shook his head.

I looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

“Forget it. Let’s just get the job done, yeah? Get paid.”

I didn’t have time to pry it out of him, so I shrugged. “All right. Let her off here.”

After the van pulled away, I was left on the curb alone to mingle with the morning’s pedestrian traffic, staring up at Morgenstern’s corporate headquarters. Forty stories tall, one of Icon’s most major employers. Towards the top, private airship docks studded the building, a few with aircars ready and waiting for their owners to be done with the day’s business. Morgenstern was one of the city’s big tech firms, one that had survived the nineties boom and bubble, and come out stronger for it with the consumption of several rivals.

And like any huge business, while the main part of it was pretty well secured, there was far too much work in the day-to-day business to protect everything that went on in that building. Case in point: the janitorial staff. They went with the lowest-bid contract, a low-rated freelance company called Bud’s Scrubbers. Bud didn’t even provide his employees with uniforms. Instead he set a dress code, and made his people pay for the uniforms out of their own pockets.

After today I rather thought he might change that policy.

I entered through a service door, flashing my false ID at the checkpoint. The guard looked it over, compared the picture of “Shaundi Saint” to my smiling face. I’d added Shaundi to the work roster for today’s shift, transferring her in from one of Bud’s more remote contracts.

“New hire, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Good luck,” the guard said, buzzing me through.

“Thanks.” He didn’t respond, already turning his attention back to the monitors.

Ten minutes later I was signing out my first janitorial cart, with an overweight, balding supervisor who chuckled as he scribbled down one lousy job after another on my clipboard. His name tag said Curtis, and he was a dick.

“Okay, that should do it, Shaundi. So on to the afternoon stuff. After you get done with the restrooms on Floor Eight, then we’ve got a work order to re-grease the elevator cables on number five, so you’ll need to check out a climbing belt for that one. Here’s a pamphlet on how to wear the things.”

I took the instructions in silence, which he felt the need to fill with more blathering. “Nothing major, just hold the flashlight for the technician until he okays them, then slather a few buckets on them with the brush. Oh, and don’t breathe in that stuff too much, it’s carcinogenic. Also it doesn’t come out if you stain your uniform so you’ll have to buy a new one if you’re not careful. Figure you’ll be off by eight if you’re quick. I’m out the door at four so don’t call me with anything after that. Got it?”

“It’s kind of complicated.” I lied. “You sure that’s all doable for a first day trainee?”

“Well, if you think it’s too much for you honey, I guess I could lighten the load a bit.” He grinned. “Slide me a twenty and I’ll cut it by half. Twenty more and I’ll even toss you a good first-day evaluation.”

I glared at him, snatched the clipboard from his hands. “Go to hell.”

His good cheer disappeared, and his smile turned ugly. “Then get going, bitch. We don’t pay you to stand around.”

“No. You don’t.” I hauled the cart out of the room, wrestled it down the corridor. I felt his confused eyes on my back as I went, and smiled my own cold smile. One of the small advantages of being a supervillain was that you could ensure that horrible people got what they deserved. Curtis had made the list, and I would assign him some karmic justice later.

Putting up with the man had paid off, though. I’d gotten a basic janitorial badge, and access to a bit over half the building. Nothing vital, of course; the research and financial floors took care of their own cleaning. So in a sense I couldn’t fault the company for having lousy security for their lowest-tier janitorial staff, it wasn’t like they were risking much by having poor procedures here. Anyone trying to infiltrate by this method wouldn’t get far.

Of course, most people trying to infiltrate with this method didn’t have access to my technical skills, or a universal remote.

I started in with my work orders. It was amazingly dull work, but nobody looked twice at me. I took the opportunity to study the place.

Cubes of cloth and metal stretched across wide rooms, with evenly-set, reinforced windows. Hundreds of suited men and women moved through and chattered with each other, bearing documents, cups of coffee, and tablet computers on their inscrutable, mundane errands. Others sat and focused on their workstations, tapping in reports or gridmails or memos or the other things that people do in offices.

It was very much artificial to me. An air of stress ran through the entire place, and many of the employees seemed to be running on short sleep and caffeine. Was the pay truly so good to put up with this? Trapped day after day in a box designed to hold and pacify them, shackled to machines that instantly transmitted the whims of those who cared little for their well-being?

It seemed to me a form of living death. Perhaps made more tolerable by internet access, but still a fate to be avoided at all costs. I was mollified a bit by the fact that most of those here had doubtlessly chosen this fate. Morgenstern Inc. was near the top of the business chain in the area, and could afford good pay and benefits. They hadn’t bought into the downsizing fad that had ripped through similar businesses over the last few years.

That was what the business articles I’d studied in preparation for this run told me, anyway. I hadn’t conducted a full analysis of the market and their specialties within the field. But I’d worried about that for nothing, seemingly. I was pretty much invisible to the business folk living their cubicle lives.

My phone beeped, and I checked it. A text from Vorpal.

BEING SHOWN AROUND NOW READY WHEN YOU ARE

My return text was one short word.

BIDE.

At the first opportunity, I maneuvered into the floor’s janitorial closet, pulled out the universal remote, and began my hunt. The networks in here were still too tight to risk taking control of any local electronics— I’d surely alert their security if I tried that. Instead, I poked up and down through the nearby floors, looking for a place that I couldn’t get a read on. My reasoning there was that any network shielded against my remote was likely to have the data I wanted.

After a cursory scan and a quick hop and down the elevators, I growled in frustration at my findings. There were four possible locations. One in the third sublevel, a second one in the middle of the building, a fourth on the thirtieth floor, which should be the security room if the information I had turned up was correct, and a fourth spot in the uppermost floor.

Four places to check. Well, Vorpal had the responsibility for one of those. The key to the rest of them, if matters worked out.

Top down or bottom up? That was the choice. After mulling it over, I decided to start at the bottom, and work my way up. That was the best approach for my exit strategy, and Vorpal’s efforts would pull security to the floors above.

I took the elevator down to Sub-level One, the farthest down that my janitorial badge would get me, and took up a stance by the stairwell down. Pulling out my phone, I typed out a single message to Vorpal.

GO TIME.

Then I settled back against the wall to wait, mop in my hands, pretending to work. 

I didn’t have long to wait.

Within a minute, emergency lights starting flickering on and off, and sirens started to wail. The programmers and tech-types who seemed to inhabit this section of the building muttered, and stood up, peering over their cubicle walls.

“The hell?”

“I didn’t think we were due for an exercise.”

“Uh, guys? I don’t think this is a drill.”

“Fuck me running, this is gonna set back the release.”

“Bob, watch the language.”

“Easy for you to say Greg, it’s not your ass on the line here!”

A short woman walked around, glared into Bob’s cube. “Bob. You’ve been warned. And besides, we’ve got a guest.” She turned to me, and I blinked at the attention. “Sorry about that, dear. Bob’s got a bit of a mouth.”

“That’s alright,” I said. “Sheee... shoot, no problem at all. “D... heard worse. Haha.”

She narrowed her eyes a bit. “Well, no worry. I’m sure this will be over in no time at all. In the meantime, it looks like you’re stuck in here with us for this lockdown. Is there anything we can get you?”

The door next to me slammed open, and a fully-armored security guard emerged, took up point next to the door, and tapped his comm. “Sublevel one. Room is secure!”

“Copy!” Came the voice over his comm.

He didn’t see it coming.

I waited until he was glancing away, whipped my taser from the small of my back, and shocked him into unconsciousness. The entire room stood, shocked, as I took his comm, his badge, and his gun.

“No thank you,” I told the short woman, who was now staring at me with a dawning look of horror. “Got everything she needs right now.”

Before she could respond, I ran the guard’s badge through the stairwell access panel, and slipped through the door, closing it behind me.

It would have been smarter to stun or shoot them all. There were only perhaps ten people in the room, and each one of them I left conscious was one more to call for help, or alert guards to my presence. But hey, I’d sworn to limit collateral damage to civilians, hadn’t I? This entire caper with the flowers had caused enough chaos for my conscience. So instead of taking the ruthless but certain path, I pulled out my universal remote, and took a few precious moments to shut down their workstations and phones, one by one. Not a moment too soon, either; the last one I shut down was dialing nine-one-one.

I descended the stairs to sub-level three, got a text from Vorpal on the way down.

SECURITY ROOM GOT RDY FOR DOORS OPEN

I grinned. We’d pinpointed the location of the main security floor from the building’s own floor directory. Which was why we’d gotten Vorpal into position in marketing, the next floor up. She’d used her energy blade powers to cut through the floor, drop in on the main security room, and disable the guards before taking it over. It was a pity that they’d managed to get an alarm off before she was done, but no help for it. I texted back as fast as I could, cursing the tiny keys of the phone.

YES. UNLOCK FLOOR 14, SUBLEVEL 1, AND PENTHOUSE 1

3 LOC?

Y

FML

DO IT OR ALLS FOR NOUGAT

WHAT?

STUPID AUTOCORRECT. NOUGHT! NAUGHT! JUST DO IT!

LOL

Ahead of me, the light from the door at the bottom of the stairwell clicked from red to green, and without slowing down I threw it open, tased the man stationed there as he looked up in shock, and pointed my taser at the unarmored guard behind the checkpoint.

“How many guards on this floor?” I yelled.

“I, uh...”

I tased him, plucked his badge from his chest, and ran it through the panel behind him. The next door hummed and opened...

...revealing a wide, mostly-empty room. Ultraviolet lights and grow lamps hung from the ceiling, and several rows of tables held hydroponic misters, set over frames square-cut to hold plastic trays. Plastic trays the size of the ones currently in the cargo boxes I’d liberated. This had to be the lab where they’d grown the flowers.

But every table was bare. There were spaces for a few hundred trays, but not a single space was filled. A cloying odor mixed with chemicals, and the drains in the floor looked moist from recent usage.

Nothing left. They must have disposed of any other plants in this facility, or shipped them to alternate locations. I took a few precious minutes to search in a few outlying chambers which seemed to have been used as offices, and testing rooms. There were spaces for servers and workstations, even a few hard-wired network drops, but not a single computer. I growled in frustration, as every network drop I tested with my remote turned out to be inactive. They’d scrubbed this place thoroughly, and there was nothing to be had here. No wonder they’d only had two guards on it.

I made my way back up the stairwell, dropping the guard’s comm at the door to sublevel one as I went. The comm wasn’t a benefit, too easily traced. Sooner or later they’d try to take the security room back, and Vorpal would be forced to escape. Once they’d done that, they’d start looking for things out of place, and a comm wandering through the building was a textbook example of a security breach.

Right. On to floor thirty— cautiously, though. Charging in there would probably get me killed. A more sneaky approach was called for.

UNLOCK ELEVATORS I texted, then slipped into the service elevator on floor one. Nobody stopped me as I moved through the employees only section... everyone was locked down in their rooms, and they evidently hadn’t seen a reason to put guards on locked-down elevators.

Vorpal came through, and I took a ride up to the Security floor. When the door hissed open I dove out, taser and stolen pistol at the ready. But no one was there to stop me, and as I clambered to my feet, my nose filled with the scent of chemicals, heavy enough to make me woozy. I pulled out one of my janitor’s rags, held it over my nose, and proceeded through the antechamber. Fallen guards were strewn all around me, unconscious but still breathing. Some sort of gas? Smelled like it. Vorpal must have activated an emergency measure, hosed the rest of the entire floor.

I found Vorpal in the central room, back to me, sitting in a swivel chair watching a bank of monitors. About ten security guards were laying there, some bloody, some unconscious, some armored, some not. In the center of the room, a large plug made of roofing material, flooring tile, and several feet of thick armor plate lay on the floor, with a smoking hole above it showing where Vorpal had dropped down.

“Dire. Good.” She said, without moving.

“Blood? Dire gave you a perfectly good taser. Why—” She turned, and I broke off. “Oh.”

One of her hands clutched a fire axe, white-knuckled and locked around it with a death grip. The other hand grasped her side, where large burn marks surrounded a charred hole in the blouse, and a horrific black-red burn on the flesh beneath.

“They had these laser things,” Vorpal said, nodding at the floor, and the bodies strewn about. “Quicker with them then I thought.”

“The taser didn’t help?”

“I dropped down in the middle of most of them. Tased a few, but for the rest, it was not fast enough.” There were a fair amount of bodies here. “I had to use the the axe, with a lightning aura. It wasn’t good...”

She trailed off, stared at the far wall for a second, head drooping.

“Vorpal.”

Her head snapped up. “Uh?”

“You’re done. Need to get you out of here.”

“No! I can still—” She struggled to her feet, swayed against the chair, hissing as her hand clamped on her burn again.

“You need to get to Martin and have him patch you up. Stop arguing, and sit down. She’s calling in the armor.” I popped my phone open, called the number I’d set up in advance, and snapped it shut. It would take a minute for my suit to boot up and get here. In the meantime, I studied the monitors. Two spots left where I could possibly find the information I needed. The eighteenth floor in the middle of the building, and the Penthouse at the top of it.

I busied myself while I waited, settling down in front of an unlocked terminal, and hacking into the video system. It didn’t take much. The central security room was the hub of the building, and they assumed that if you were in here, you were authorized to view pretty much everything.

But I couldn’t view the Penthouse level. No cameras up there, it seemed. I growled in frustration, and switched over to the eighteenth floor.

Most of the floor was devoted to a machine shop, with people scurrying around and working furiously. In the middle of it stood four racks, each one holding three metal suits of armor. They were dull green in color, much bulkier than my own suit, and I recognized servos, pistons, and heavy-duty armatures. Heavy duty stuff. They’d be in my strength range, maybe better depending on the materials and tolerances. Half of them were armed with large-caliber weapons. Machine guns, by the look of it. Most had jetpacks.

And the guards buckling into them definitely didn’t look happy. Technicians hovered around, running them through diagnostics and startup procedures. I had no doubts as to why they were being activated now.

“Mein gott...” Vorpal whispered from behind me.

“Yep.” I didn’t know what she’d just said, but it was probably safe to agree with the sentiment.

“They are going to come up here and kick our asses, yah?”

I curled my hands into fists. “They’ll try.”

WHAM!

She started. I smiled.

WHAM!

“What is...”

“The cavalry.”

CRASH!

The wall caved in, sending monitors sparking and popping, as Vorpal shrieked.

And as the dust settled, my mask loomed out of the cloud, the rest of the dull gray armor stomping forward, heavy feet crunching on the debris that its entry had kicked into the room.

I walked forward to meet it, put my hand on its mask. “The King in Yellow has much to answer for,” I muttered. The armor stopped at the sound of the preset command words. With a hiss, the mask unsealed and I pulled it free, returning it to its rightful place on my face. Blackness for a second then shimmering, as the room faded in around me, and once again I wore my rightful visage.

“MUCH BETTER.”

“How does this help?”

“IT DOESN’T. GET IN THE ARMOR.”

“What? No, I—”

“YOU CAN BARELY STAND. IT WILL TAKE YOU TO THE RENDEZVOUS POINT AND RETURN. DIRE WILL HOLD THEM OFF WITHOUT IT UNTIL THEN.”

“They have power armor. You cannot seriously think to prevail without your own.”

Depending on how good those suits were, I might not be able to do it even with my own. But that fact wouldn’t get her out of here any faster. “NON-NEGOTIABLE,” I said. “GET ABOARD AND GET GOING. THE SOONER YOU REACH THE RENDEZVOUS, THE SOONER IT CAN RETURN AND BACK DIRE UP.”

She stared at me for a long moment.

“GO!”

She moved around, and the suit grabbed her. She squealed in pain as the rough metal pressed against her laser burn.

“PEEL,” I commanded, and it was gone as fast as it had come, engines accelerating to full as it charged out the holes it had made on the way in. No way to avoid being seen on the exit, but I’d pre-programmed it with some twisty courses to the dropoff point before this whole affair started. Couldn’t guarantee it would get away clean. But I doubted there was much in the city that could stop it right now, if anyone tried to get in its way.

And then I was alone in the main security room, staring at the armored suits on the monitors, as the first of them finished booting up, and marched off of their stands, readying weapons and tromping toward the elevator shafts and stairwells up.

“ALRIGHT, YOU TIN SOLDIERS.” I sorted through the bodies and unconscious guards scattered around the room, and came up with a laser rifle. Then I started hacking for all I was worth.

“LET’S SEE WHAT YOU’RE REALLY MADE OF.”

CHAPTER 15: THE MAN IN CHARGE

“Perhaps it's old-fashioned of me, but I find that most problems are best addressed with a spring in your step, a handkerchief in your pocket, and a sturdy cane in your hand.”

--Aegon Morgenstern, during his 1994 interview on the long-running Tycoon Talk show.

I have to admit, a part of me was eager. It is one thing to menace civilians, and hurt security guards who are just doing their jobs. It is entirely another thing to see a troop of high-tech soldiers equipped with cutting edge power armor coming for my hide. It was more fair, somehow. The others hadn’t had a chance to really get clear or do anything but be neutralized. But these guys? They were a threat. They knew what they were doing. And until my armor returned, I was very much the underdog.

For once, I didn’t have to hold back.

I locked doors to slow down the ones on the stairwells, then shifted my attention to the primary elevator shaft. Once four of them started flying up it, I dropped an elevator car on them from the top floor. Probably wouldn’t kill them, but it would slow them down. Either way, I couldn’t stick around to confirm it; I had to evade the rest of them until my armor returned, or it was game over. They’d be shooting to kill, after what we’d done.

So I pulled over the nearest chair, clambered up on it, and wormed my way up through the hole in the ceiling.

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 could 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 bland 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.”

“YOU MUST BE JO—”

I never saw him move. Didn’t see him swing it either, but suddenly the ball of the cane was crashing against my mask, damage alarms were going off, and I was knocked backward into the wall, crunching through the hardwood paneling to find heavy steel beneath. I reeled, pushed myself free... and the fat man moved like a leaping ballerina, crossing the distance in a flicker, and swinging the cane like a baseball bat, cracking against my arms repeatedly as I raised them to fend him off. Steel groaned and deformed under the pressure, as I watched half-inch thick reinforcing plates buckle and dent.

“WHAT THE HE—”

He twisted, hooked my leg with the tip of the cane, and tumbled, twisting as he did so and sweeping it out from me. I kicked on the gravitics just before I hit the floor, jetted away, and he pursued, leaping over the desk with a nimbleness belying his bulk.

“My property!” He roared, catching me one-handed just as I straightened upright, and landed a blow to his midsection. It should have broken bones, but it phased him not an inch, didn’t even budge him. “You come to my property, and harm my people!” The cane descended once, twice, thrice, hammering my left shoulder joint in the same spot, and with a grinding CRUNCH, my shoulder pauldron went flying away.

I hammered my right hand toward his face with a punch that could pulverize concrete, and he spun the cane, deflected my forearm a few inches, and jammed the pointed end of it under my right pauldron. Damage reports flickered to life, and I struggled to move my arm, couldn’t. He’d jammed the motivator.

“And for what? Money? A pathetic and paltry sum!” I brought my left arm around, grabbed for him, got the suit, but he tore free. He twisted his legs into mine, seized the oaken desk behind him for leverage, and rolled. And with incredible, inexorable strength he brought me to the ground facefirst. I barely managed to arrest my fall one-handed, before scrabbling, trying to free the cane from my shoulder motivator.

WHAM!

I shook, as he brought something heavy down on my weakened back plates.

“Really, you know what gets me the most? Shoddy craftsmanship.” He remarked, conversational now as I watched yellow damage indicators flare red, and circuits give. “That steel plate you’re using is utter trash. Titanium would be better.” I grabbed for the cane again.

WHAM!

Fragments went flying, and I bounced off the ground, rattling around in the armor hard enough to bruise.

“HOW ARE YOU—”

WHAM!

“Ah, a hardened mono-ceramic underlayer. Not entirely idiotic. Wait, I think I get the principles at work. The outer layer’s ablative, hm? Saves resources on replacement.”

WHAM! CRACK!

My face smacked into the mask, leaving a spray of blood as my nose crunched into it. Ow! The pain shook me, and I gave up grabbing for the cane, braced as best I could for impact.

WHAM!

CRUNCH!

“Tch. They don’t make coatracks like they used to. Hold still, Doctor Dire.”

Like hell! I got my hands around the cane, popped it free— and Morgenstern grabbed it, twisted, and I screamed as he broke both gauntlet and fingers as he ripped it from my hand.

“Ah, just the thing to continue your beatdown. Good idea, Doctor!”

CRUNCH! CRACK! THUD!

I rolled, cradling my broken hand, as pain roared and pulsed up my arm. But there was no escape, as he hammered blows into my side, my front, my legs, wherever he could reach. And every blow dented or warped armor.

I needed respite. I needed to seize the initiative. I needed to stay conscious!

And in the hell of my pain, an idea occurred to me.

As I fetched up against the desk, and he started working over my shin joints, I turned to glare up at him, holding out my unbroken arm like a shield over my mask. I coughed, and spat out blood until I could speak. “GOOD ANALYSIS ON THE ARMOR.”

He actually stopped to grin, the cheeky bastard, leaning on his cane as he removed a handkerchief from one pocket, and mopped his brow. “Thank you. Glad we agree.”

“HOWEVER, YOU MISSED ONE FEATURE.”

And he couldn’t see me smile under my mask, as I triggered every explosive charge along the front of my armor.

KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-BOOM!

A cloud of shrapnel ricocheted off my armor, depleting the last of my forcefield. It studded the desk, ripped through the shag rug, slammed into the ceiling, burst lights, and tore toward Morgenstern.

The bastard wasn’t surprised, though I don’t know how. He jumped straight up, tucked himself into a ball, and twisted to cover his face... but couldn’t escape. I watched him get blown back into a fish tank, and collapse into the water, torn and shredded. In the now-dim light of the penthouse, his blood looked blue.

I panted, and my busted nose throbbed. My hands braced underneath me, and I hissed as red-hot pain ran up my arm, from my broken fingers. I braced against the desk, and my steel digits left grooves in the top of it as I ground to my feet. I tried the gravitics, and they stuttered a bit, hummed to life. I floated into the air, and headed toward the nearest window, at a quarter speed.

“All right. I suppose I had that coming.”

I froze, and turned. No fucking way.

He was standing up in the ruins of the tank, goldfish flopping and dying around him, his front smeared with blue. Great, jelly-like oozing globs of blue goo, wobbling out from slashes in his abdomen and chest and legs.

“WHAT ARE YOU?”

He barked laughter, rubbed a hand along his face, and studied the red blood that smeared it. Some of the shrapnel had nicked his face.

“Human. Simply human. With a few tricks, mind. And some impact gel. Lovely stuff, that.”

He shrugged out of the ruins of his suit, and I gasped as I saw what was beneath it.

There were a series of bags, black rubber or some similar substance, all full of the blue goo if the ruptured ones were any indication. What I had taken to be a rather impressive gut was actually a large bag of the stuff. Beneath it was something like an exoskeleton, only I saw no motivators, motors, or pistons. The only thing there were weights, solid iron ones that he dropped piece by piece, until he was clad only in a pair of briefs. Beneath the frame of weights and the sacks of goo he was wiry, muscular, chiseled like an athlete. There were still signs of age on his body... a few liver spots, a few wrinkles, but he seemed to shed decades as he shed his disguise.

“YOU’RE A COSTUME. A METAHUMAN.”

He barked laughter, hooked a toe under his cane, and flipped it up to his waiting hand. “No. I was correct the first time. I’m human. Peak human, mind you, in every way. I’m everything a human could be.”

I looked at the few bits of shattered steel armor left on my front, and the cracks on the ceramic underlayer. “SHE BEGS TO DIFFER.”

“Oh, well. That’s just simple Maula-maula warclub technique. Learned from the Gorilla warriors of the Mistwarrior tribe, last time I was over there. And I’m controlling the pain from the few injuries you’ve inflicted on me with hypnotic biofeedback techniques acquired from the ancient mystics of the Seventh Gate. But at the end of the day, you’re going to die at the hands of a human.” He bowed, extending an arm, and never taking his eyes from me. “Just a very good human. Unlike you, I’m afraid.”

“YOU MAKE LITTLE SENSE.”

“Metahumans!” He snarled, stalking to the side, eyes never leaving me. “Your kind. Weak. Pathetic. Given undeserved powers, because in your moment of trial you broke. And look where that’s gotten us now, hm? The world a mess? Looking to golden flying gods for salvation? Giving up on our future, to survive day by day against villains and monsters and worse? Trusting in heroes?” He sneered.

A cold chill down my back, that broke through the pain. His analysis was starting to mirror my own.

“THAT IS WHY DIRE FIGHTS. THAT IS WHY DIRE NEEDS THE MONEY. TO FIX THIS WORLD!” I argued. “TO STOP ITS RELIANCE ON HEROES!”

He paused, frowned at me. “If you’re begging for mercy, there are better deceptions.”

“NO! DIRE DOES NOT BEG. BUT IF YOU’RE TRULY WORKING FOR A BETTER WORLD, THEN WE COULD PERHAPS WORK TOGETHER. THIS WORLD SHOULD BE SO, SO MUCH FARTHER ALONG. MOON COLONIES, MATTER REPLICATORS, STABLE NANOTECHNOLOGY, ASTEROID MINING, AND SO MUCH MORE! TECHNOLOGY HAS STOPPED, FROZEN BECAUSE EVERY TIME WE HIT A PROBLEM WE COULD SOLVE WITH HUMAN INGENUITY AND DRIVE, WE RELY ON SOME GODDAMN SUPERHERO OR THE OTHER TO FIX IT WITH THEIR POWERS!”

Morgenstern studied me. Something flickered in his eyes... hope? Sympathy? Was I getting through to him? I stretched out a gauntlet, open-palmed, shaking.

“WE STAND ON THE BACKS OF GIANTS. TESLA WAS A BOOST, NO DENYING IT, BUT HIS DREAMS WERE NEVER FINISHED. THEY WERE LOST WITH HIM WHEN HE DISAPPEARED, AND WE LIVE TODAY WITH THE TECHNOLOGY HE BUILT FOR US, NOT KNOWING HOW TO ADVANCE IT. HIS GENIUS, HIS POWER, WAS NOT REPLICABLE. NOT YET. IF WE CAN STOP KILLING EACH OTHER FOR A FEW YEARS, CALM DOWN AND FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY, WE AS A SPECIES CAN—”

He was laughing. I’d lost him. I lowered my hand.

“Tesla was a genius before he got powers, my dear Doctor.” He leaned on the cane, eyes faraway. “Not many know that. They attributed his inventions to his superpower, but in truth, all he gained was the ability to control and channel lightning. Not that he needed it, he was doing just fine with his inventions.”

I stared at him, forgetting my pain.

“WHO ARE YOU? NO, WHO WERE YOU? SURELY YOU’RE NOT TESLA. YOU CAN’T BE.”

He laughed harder. “No. I’m not. I’m the salvation of this world, and fear not, your death will be helpful.”

“CAN’T SEE HOW.”

“I’ve long been researching the biological effects of powers. The dissection of your brain and nervous system will be a help there, particularly with Project Algernon, once we recover the flowers from your lackeys and fix Vector’s sabotage. And your armor, despite its shoddy materials, has some advancements I can co-opt for my own designs. So you will contribute to the future of humanity, Doctor. Have no fear on—”

I threw my gravitics to full, charged, and as he flipped aside and swung the cane I twisted past it, kept twisting around so that I crashed into the wall behind him with my back instead of my front. I jerked inside the armor, slammed my back into the harness hard enough to bruise, and panted, fighting off blackness. My nose was bleeding more now, and I was swallowing blood to keep my mouth clear.

“Was there a purpose to that?” Morgenstern asked.

“YES.”

I reached up and jerked the pauldron off my shoulder... revealing the micromissile launch array below. I had just enough time to see his eyes widen before he flipped away, diving for cover—

As I launched everything I had at the nearest outer wall.

Concussion missiles rattled the armor panels, piercers went through them, frags blew them to bits, and when the smoke and dust cleared, I could see a hole. Not a big hole, but big enough. I twisted the gravitics, cursed as circuits blew, and flew at half speed toward the light and freedom.

“Oh no you don’t!”

My armor was fast, even in its damaged state. He was faster. I sobbed in frustration as he caught me, held on, straining with incredible force, as he twisted and shoved me to the side of the hole. I scrabbled at him with my broken fingers, screamed in pain, and the mask roared in sympathy.

“Enough of that!” I thought he said, couldn’t hear him over my roar. He wedged the thin end of the cane into the side of my helmet where the mask met the metal, and pushed, levering it with wiry strength, muscles standing out in his arms. I pounded against him with my right arm, tried to force him away, but he was too close. Too close for the phlogiston projector, too close for missiles if I had any left, too close for... wait. I did have something left.

CRRRRRRRRRKKKKKK.... POP!

A clamp gave. I stopped screaming, watched in horror as my mask’s HUD flickered, shorted out as the ceramic deformed, and a seam of light appeared to my left.

“Look at me when I’m killing you!” He snarled.

I popped open my utility compartment, fumbled with my good hand. He took no notice. The seam of light grew, millimeter by millimeter.

CRAAAAKKKKK.... POP!

Another clamp gave, and the mask warped further, screen splintering, and I closed my eyes, as my gauntlet found one of the screamer grenades. This was going to suck...

CRUNCH!

My mask peeled away and I yelled, yelled in pain as blood spouted from my nose and if it wasn’t broken before it sure as hell was now, and Morgenstern peered in at me, an ugly snarl on his face...

...and sudden recognition in his eyes. Shock, and something deep within there, almost like regret.

“You?” He whispered.

“Home!” I commanded the armor, as I triggered the screamer grenade.

Pain. Incredible pain, worse than any I’d suffered during the fight, worse than any I’d had before, and it was only due to the insulation around my ears in the helmet that I stayed conscious, as Morgenstern staggered back, blood bursting from ears, nose, and eyes. But though he staggered he still stood, and I gasped in amazement as he bellowed his pain, leaned against the wall, and fixed his gaze again on me.

And then I was moving, as the armor obeyed its last command, throwing me out into the skies of Icon City.

The last wails of the screamer wound down as I half-flew, half-dropped, the expended grenade slipping from my nerveless fingers. I gave up on trying to stay conscious, and left the sea of pain behind for sweet oblivion.

CHAPTER 16: CLICK BOOM SPLAT

“Well. This is gonna be a pain in the ass to clean up.”

--Louis Cavaliogne, businessman and casino owner

I woke to pain. Screaming, cascading waves of the stuff, radiating out from the center of my face, and up my hand, which felt like a red-hot balloon attached to a twisted lump of driftwood.

“Shit! Dire, don’t move, okay?”

My hand throbbed as fingers touched it, and I hissed as something soft pressed against my wounded digits. Then I did scream, as the fingers shifted against cloth.

“Hold still!” Martin. It was Martin. I flailed my other arm up, hissed as my side burned, and let my hand drop as I peeled open my eyes.

I was braced up on a camp cot, strapped into it, more or less. Around me dim yellow lights illuminated the inside of the power station. My empty armor stood silent sentry in the corner, mask half peeled away. Vorpal lay in another cot, down to her sports bra and the business skirt, with a mass of bandages wrapping her left side. She stared at me, face pale with her own pain, and I opened my mouth to reassure her. I groaned instead, coughing and spluttering up clotted blood. Internal damage?

Fresh blood rolled down from my nose, a warm trickle against my throat. Nope, evidently not.

Martin shook his head, held my shoulder still with one hand, and finished wrapping bandages around my mangled hand. I saw a couple of strips of metal tucked in there. Makeshift braces by the look of it, scavenged from the old panels of the station. I chuckled, and he shot me a look before he pulled out the tape, and made sure everything was secured.

“How long?” I rasped.

“Since you came crashing out of there? About half an hour. You headed back to the warehouse. You know, the one the gangers and the kaiju wrecked? I had to scramble to get there ’fore the cops did, and retrieve your ass.”

“Shit.” I tried to let my head fall back, couldn’t. I turned it, ignored the throb from my nose. He’d tucked some folded up blankets under my head, elevated it. The front of my janitor’s overalls was coated with crusted blood. The snaps were undone.

“You undressed Dire?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Wasn’t sure how bad it was. Looks like just bruises.”

Vorpal spoke up. “I would have done it, but I am not well.” She was breathing pretty heavily. “The laser, we think it hit organs. I cannot keep food down. Or water. It comes back up bloody.”

Not good.

“She sees.” We needed a hospital. Or possibly...“Bunny. We should call Bunny, get her to set up Freeway.”

“What? Freeway is a hero.” Vorpal said, confused.

Why was she confused? Oh, right. Timetripper had snatched her away before he’d revealed that to us. “He’s also a doctor, and willing to treat villains. Anyway, he’s the best option right now. Martin, please get Dire’s phone and bring it over here.”

“Like hell,” he said.

“What?”

“You need rest. Both of you need to rest, and we need to let things calm the fuck down. You’re the news right now, and you’re on every fucking channel.”

I pulled in a breath, let it out. “What is Morgenstern saying?”

“That you and Vorpal broke in, attacked the place, tried to take Old Man Morgenstern hostage but he fired up some power-armor prototypes and stopped you.”

I hissed laughter. “Half truths are the best truths. Dire fought the power armored troops, and they did pretty well, but they didn’t beat her. Aegon Morgenstern did.”

Martin turned, looked over what was left of my suit. “He have his own armor or something?”

“He had a stick.”

“A stick? You shitting me?”

“Well, it had a knob on the end.”

Martin stared at me, and I coughed laughter. “He’s some sort of metahuman. Insisted he wasn’t. Locked Dire in with him, then beat her until candy came out.”

“Holy fuck.” Martin’s eyes got wider and wider as I spoke. “That’s... big. Shit, no wonder the guy keeps heroes away.”

“What?”

“Ain’t the first time villains have taken a swing at him or his building. First couple of times that happened, heroes went chasing in after them, and Morgenstern sued their asses off. Said he hadn’t given them permission to enter, and got them on trespassing charges. The MRB went to bat for them, and lost. So now most heroes stay the fuck away. Probably why you got away clean, now I think of it,” he muttered, rubbing his goatee. “They figure Morgenstern’s up to some shady shit, they don’t care so much if his place gets hit.”

“You could have mentioned that, Martin.” I snorted blood from my nose.

He spread his hands. “I didn’t know you didn’t know.”

“Did anyone die?” I asked.

“Ah, not sure. Hang on.” He pulled out his phone, opened the grid browser and thumbed around. “Lotsa injuries. Two confirmed deaths. Says someone took an axe to them.”

I shot a glare at Vorpal, but she was curled around her wound, face pale, eyes shut. I sighed, and looked back to Martin. “We’ll do better next time.”

“Next time? Next time?” Martin stood, tucking his phone away, an expression of disbelief crossing his face. He swept a hand over in the direction of my armor. “What the fuck you gonna do now, with the suit in pieces like this? You got no way to repair it, you’re busted up, Vorpal’s out of commission, and the city’s after your ass! We need to run, and now. Ain’t gonna be a next time. This is a cut-your-losses-and-get-out scenario. I don’t see no way it can’t be.”

“Normally, you’d be right.” I said, scrabbling with my good hand, and finding the edge of the cot. “Help her up, yes?”

He knelt down, got his shoulder under my arm, and I pushed up and curled an arm around his neck, as I took shaky steps toward my armor. “But the fact is that Dire won.”

“You won? He looked pretty fine on television. Looks kinda like you lost.”

“He won the fight, true, but winning the fight wasn’t the objective.” I reached my armor, and put my hand on the utility compartment. “Open Cinnamon,” I commanded. It hissed open, and I reached in, withdrew the hard drive I’d taken from Morgenstern’s computer. “This was the objective.”

“I’m not sure what that is besides some kind of gizmo.”

Oh. Right. Not everyone knew computer hardware by sight. I blamed my injuries for my assumption. “That’s his personal workstation’s hard drive.”

A hiss of breath from Vorpal. I shot her a glance, and she was still curled up in a perfect ball of pain, but now she was grinning. “It wasn’t for nothing,” she whispered.

“Oh, we’ve got blackmail a-plenty even without that,” I grinned. “Recorded the whole fight with him through her mask’s cameras. He damaged the mask, true, but the memory should be salvageable.” I popped the armor open, hauled the mask out from the inside. Took a few tries to get the clamps released, the remaining intact ones were jammed in their sockets. But a little sweat, swearing, and assistance from Martin later, we got the job done.

“Good.” I stood back up with mask tucked under my bad arm, and the hard drive in my good hand. “No, she’s fine now.” I shook my head as Martin offered his arm again. The throbbing from my nose had receded, and though my broken fingers still hurt, the splints seemed to be keeping the wound in check. “Give Dire a bit to look over Morgenstern’s stuff, then we’ll give Bunny a call, and set up a doctor’s appointment.”

“Aight.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t know how much this is gonna work. This?” He gestured at the suit, and both of us. “This is proof that Morgenstern don’t play.”

I let my lips draw into a thin, flat line, and stared at him. He flinched, took a half-step back.

“Nor does Dire. He will pay, one way or the other.”

Martin shook his head. “Just sayin’, he’s a hardass.”

“And also a businessman. Just have to get to the point where it’s more effective to swallow his pride than it is to stand on his principles.” I let the hint of a smile creep back onto my face. “It’s not like it was with Pag— with Barbatos and the Black Bloods. He’s a different sort of foe. One that might not have been an enemy, had things fallen out differently.”

“Huh?”

“Long story. Tell you after we get the payday secured.” I headed upstairs, to where I’d set up the supercomputer.

Four scans and twenty minutes later, my dreams of a fast payday were gone, as I stared into the wall of layered encryption that was Aegon Morgenstern’s private files. My best icebreaker programs made a little progress against the mirrored image that I’d set up, but every time I seemed to get a little traction, I’d hit another trap and the entire thing would unravel. Without the quarantine box, I’d have nothing to show for it, as any experimentation directly on the hard drive would have bricked it in short order.

But it wasn’t entirely hopeless. Given time and persistence, I’d get through. Might take hours or days to get it all, but I had time. Well, once we made sure Vorpal wouldn’t die, anyhow.

A glance into the quarantine box... no, the computer hadn’t cracked Morgenstern’s encryption yet. As I watched, the mirrored image started to fragment itself, and wipe yet again. My subroutines caught it and restored the image, started another approach.

Another couple of minutes, another cascading failure. I sighed, reset it, tapped in few possible avenues that the algorithms hadn’t tried yet. This was obscenely difficult. I was starting to believe the man, when he said that he was at the peak of human potential... he was giving even my skills trouble.

A final wave of my wounded hand across the AR, and it loaded up another image. I was thankful for the programmed interface. Trying to type on a keyboard with two busted fingers would have been hellish.

I stared at it for a bit, then sighed, and slumped back against a concave part of the wall, where there had once been a conduit back. I relaxed against the cool metal, and studied my hands. So much work to do. Most of it on me, now. Martin would take on what parts he could, and I was glad for it. Saving him had been smart. He was the best friend I could ask for, even if he had no powers to speak of.

Now there was a thought; maybe I could make him some power armor to match my own? Or some devices to help increase his odds of survival? I’d have to talk with him after this was all done, and see where his preferences lay.

Vorpal seemed nice enough. I’d definitely won her respect, after the trouble we’d been through. Not a friend, yet, but could be given time. Martin seemed to think she was a romantic interest, but I didn’t know how I felt about that. Was I a lesbian? I rather thought not. My tastes in pornography ran to heterosexual pairings. Well, also men doing naughty things with men. Sometimes cowboy outfits were involved. I coughed and shifted, and winced as my bruises still told me that pain was going to be thing for a while. No, not a good time for sexy thoughts. No time for that now anyway, and besides, most of my noncritical devices had been lost when we abandoned the lair.

In any case, I’d have to let Vorpal down gently if and when she tried to initiate mating rituals. Not that she was likely to do that anytime soon, since she was pretty badly wounded, and—

I shot upright, jerked my phone from my pocket. I’d been so distracted, that I’d forgotten that she needed serious medical care, right the hell now! I dialed Bunny’s number.

She didn’t pick up. The call went to message, and I shut it down, dialed again.

On the third attempt, she picked up.

“Uh.. hi. This really isn’t a good time.” Her voice was trembling.

“Bunny? What’s wrong?”

“Dire?” She shrieked.

“Well, yes.”

Muffled sounds, and then a male voice spoke through the line. “Doctor Dire? Is this you?”

I knew that voice. It took my memory no time at all to put a face to it. Carson, one of the high-ranking members of the Midtown Militia. One of the ones who had negotiated with me, back during the fight with the Black Bloods.

Carson, who Bunny suspected of cutting a deal with the mafia. Carson, who Bunny had gone to rally support against.

It struck me that I might not have called at the best time. Visions danced across my mind, of Bunny sneaking up on him, trying to take him out during a deadly game of hide and seek, only to be revealed when her phone went off. I bit my lip, moved back to the computer, and started up a hack on her number. It shouldn’t take too many resources, should be doable...

“Well. This is a stroke of fortune. We might be in a position to do each other a favor.”

Bunny’s phone was showing up on the Boardwalk. Northern end, too. I blasted through Slant telecommunication’s network protocols, did nasty things with their protocols, and got an address. Cross-referencing it showed she was inside a building... a large one. The listing showed it as the Golden Galleon casino.

“She’s listening.”

I tapped in commands faster, favoring my good hand as Carson continued. “I’m going to ask you this question, and your reply is going to determine a fair number of things in the very near future. Do you value Bunny’s life?”

I started pinging grid addresses, getting a picture of the networks in and around the building. Good security on the casino floor, but they weren’t on the floor, going by the GPS and the response time variation. I found an unpatched switch, rode it on up into their main camera networks, and piped feed to my display. It hummed to augmented reality life in the upper floor power station’s room around me, replacing rusted metal walls with pale yellow frescoes, and what looked to be another executive’s office. But this one didn’t have a third of the art that Morgenstern’s did, and what art I saw in the display around me was gaudy. Ostentatious? Perhaps that was a better word. But the décor mattered little, as the camera shifted, and showed me the people in the middle of the room. Three standing, one sitting, and one kneeling.

The kneeling one was Bunny.

Two men in suits, one whom I recognized from the parking garage, held pistols to the back of her skull. She’d taken some hits, going by the bruises on her face, and the tearstreaks and bloodstains.

They’d put a tarp in front of Bunny. Most likely to catch the blood and brains when they killed her.

I felt my teeth grind, as I answered Carson. “Yes. Dire does value Bunny’s life.”

Carson stood well in front of Bunny, her phone up to his ear as he smiled, and gave a thumbs up to the man sitting behind the desk. Carson was much as I remembered him, a fat, red-haired man with hard eyes.

The man behind the desk was a stranger to me. Slicked black hair, tan skin, and a suit that would have impressed me, if I hadn’t met Aegon Morgenstern earlier. He was stout but not fat, and his features were graceful and handsome. His fingers glittered with rings, and a tiny golden cross hung from his neck. There wasn’t the slightest hint of mercy in his face, as his stare held Bunny’s eyes, looking at her like she was some random piece of filth that had ended up on his floor.

“Good,” Carson said. “I’m going to hand you over to a friend of mine. Bunny’s life is in his hands, do you understand? We both want her to live. But you alone can make that happen.”

“Dire’s beginning to get the picture,” I replied. I let their security feed run as a room overlay, and checked my system resources. Good enough for a bit more, so I turned it loose on the nearby phones. Within a few seconds, I had all of them identified. Carson’s was registered to himself, and I smiled to see it. I smiled more when I took another two seconds to page through his text messages, and found that the man didn’t have the sense to erase even the most incriminating texts. Perfect.

On the display, Carson handed the phone over to the man behind the desk. He took it, turned toward the wall. “Am I to understand that you are Doctor Dire, supervillain and scientist?”

“That’s a pretty good summary,” I replied. “And you?”

“A reputable businessman, who has a problem.”

“Sounds troublesome.”

“Oh, it was. Except now maybe it’s an opportunity.”

“Businessmen are always seeking opportunities, Dire supposes.”

“She supposes correctly. Bunny had some interesting information about you, it’s why she’s still alive.”

Wait. Had she sold me out? What the hell?

“Like what?” I asked.

“She said that you’re the reason the Kriegers lost one of their major safehouses last night.”

Oh. Well, that wasn’t so bad. “That’s correct. They decided to pick a fight with Dire. Not a good idea. Dire has little mercy for those who mean her harm. Or her friends harm, for that matter.”

“Heh. You’re a busy sort, Doctor. Saw your fall on the television. You didn’t look so good, there.”

“She’s had better days, it’s true. But her goals were accomplished. Not all parties involved in that can say the same.”

On the display, he turned to face Carson, rolled his eyes, and made little snapping motions with his free hand. Carson grinned. I narrowed my own eyes. That looked like an insult of some sort.

“One minute please,” I asked. “Got something on the stove.”

I went downstairs. Martin was waiting at the foot of it, looking concerned. “Hey, uh, are you on the phone with someone? Those voices are kinda—“ I shushed him, and turned to my armor. “Open Cinnamon,” I said, and plucked what I needed from the utility compartment. “Tell you in a minute,” I told him, then headed back upstairs.

Nothing had changed, much. Carson and the stranger were talking, and he had his hand over the receiver. I poked around on the computer while they talked, found the audio for their own security system, and gave myself root for their audio-visual systems while I was at it. Then I piped the feed into the display.

“—telling you, it’ll be worth it.” said Carson. “She’s pretty much a wrecking ball in that armored suit of hers, and best of all, anything she does is on her. Totally deniable asset. Hell, she already took out a mob of the Kriegers, it’s not a stretch that she’d go after the other gangs.”

“Carson, Carson, Carson. As usual, you’re thinking too small,” the stranger smiled. “One of those mad scientist types, who’s got a focus on weaponry and suchlike? She’s more valuable in a workshop, churning out weapons for us. You think your boys would like lasers? I think so. I know mine would.  And what we don’t keep to use, we sell. Why risk her going out and fighting? She’s the goose with the golden eggs. We keep her barefoot and workin’ in the kitchen, so to speak.”

Carson chuckled. “Hey, if you want to look at the long-term, all right. I mean, so long as you have our back, it’s all good. I don’t give three shits for her.”

Who was this stranger, anyway? A mafia type, going by the situation and what Bunny said earlier. So he probably wasn’t using an alias. I looked up his phone, found it registered to one Louis Cavaliogne. While I was at it, I poked through his text messages, too. A bit more disappointing, there. He, at least, knew the value of avoiding incriminating statements on electronic communications. Still, there were a few things I could use.

“You think this bitch is really leverage?” Louis said, considering Bunny.

“Oh yeah. Dire backs her friends one hundred percent.” Carson nodded.

“More than I can say for you, traitor,” Bunny snarled. I gasped as one of the men belted her on the temple, sending her sprawling to the floor.

“Watch it!” Carson snarled, walking over, and kneeling down next to her. “You’re the fucking traitor! You’re the one who tried to fuck us over!”

“You lying shit!” Bunny yelled, struggling to rise. One of the gunmen drew back his foot, looked at Louis. The head mafioso raised a hand, shook his head. He had an amused look on his face.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for this city! For our people. For our cause.” Carson berated her as he stepped back, letting her rise as best she could. “And you’d throw it all away? We are on the cusp of victory! The Kriegers are weak thanks to your friend, the SCK are gunning for them as we speak, and all we have to do is swoop in and finish off the winner. And with Louis and his men at our back, we’ll do it easy. We can do this, Bunny. We can do this.”

She shuddered, and mopped blood from her face. “By cutting a deal with the devil.”

“You’re one to talk! How many has Dire killed?” He grinned. “No saints here. So what’s the difference? What’s to fear?”

“If it’s all so noble, then why not tell Huginn? Why stop me from telling him the truth?”

Carson sneered. “Are you really that dumb? Really that fucking naive? Huginn already knows!”

She stared at him, eyes going wide, hands trembling. “You’re lying!”

“Huginn knows! Munin knows too! This was approved at the highest fucking levels!” He took a step forward, spreading his arms, and she stepped back, all of her trembling, now. “Me? I’m the disposable fucking middleman, Bunny. I’m the necessary evil here. No offense, Louis.”

“None taken,” he said, lighting a cigar as he watched the drama.

“You... why would they... this is the Mafia, Carson. The Mafia. They’re as bad as the other gangs. Worse, in every way.” Bunny was whispering now, strength draining from her as she stumbled, grabbed for the wall. “They run drugs. They run guns. They run slaves, Carson. They force women into prostitution. They force kids. They’re evil, just... evil.”

Carson followed, voice rising as he stabbed a finger at her. “Yeah, so they are! And you know what? It wouldn’t have mattered, if you hadn’t found out. If you hadn’t gone poking. Our troops would have been clean. Only a few people would have had to get their hands dirty. And at the end of the day, we’d run the city, minus a few areas that Louis takes care of, of course. But no, you had to come in, making noise, yelling about things you didn’t fucking understand. Getting people worked up. Giving them the Wrong. Fucking. Idea.”

“It’s the truth,” Bunny whispered.

Carson sighed, and put his hand on her shoulder. “The truth gets people dead. The lies let us live, and prosper. You never got that. Get it now, okay? This is your last chance. Play it smart. Beg Dire to cooperate. Or you can die. Choice is yours, kid.” He pushed her down until she was kneeling again. She didn’t resist.

“Hey now,” said Louis. “You want that, get it on your own time and not in my office.”

“Nah,” Carson said, backing up and scooting the tarp with his foot until it was in front of Bunny again. The gunmen resumed position behind her. “Just making it clear that the situation hasn’t changed.”

I grinned a hard grin, then raised my phone to my mouth again. “Sorry about that, Dire’s back.”

I watched Louis glance down at Bunny’s phone, as the vibrations ticked his palm. He raised it to his ear. “That you Doctor?”

“Still is, yes. Ah, quick question. You know that Dire’s a supergenius, yes?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, she’s deduced the situation. No need to discuss it further.”

“Ah, alright. I appreciate that, I’m a busy man.” He leaned back in the chair. “So, what’s your answer?”

“First, Dire has something to say to Carson. Could you hand him the phone, please?”

I watched on the display, as Carson took the phone, held it up to his ear. “Yeah?”

I slipped my earplugs in, held the screamer grenade I’d pulled out of my armor up to the phone, dialed it down to minimum radius, and triggered it.

Carson’s head exploded.

I nodded in satisfaction, as I studied the red and gray sprays across the upper part of the room. Splatters of Carson were dripping on the paintings, staining the floor, smearing the desk, and covering the gaping, stunned faces of the mafiosos.

I’d rather thought the principle was workable. The key had been identifying Bunny’s phone, and adjusting the hardware speakers via my hacked control of the device. They’d amplified and focused the sonics nicely. Though it had burned out the hardware, more’s the pity.

I checked my tap on the casino’s audio systems, and turned on the room’s intercom. “Well, that was easy. So, Louis, Dire assumes she has your undivided attention, now? Good. Listen closely.” I plucked the earplugs from my ears.

One of the gunmen was bent over in a corner, vomiting on a statue. The other one had dropped his gun, was frantically mopping his face, mopping his clothes, trying to get the fragments of Carson off of him.

Thud!

Carson’s body fell over, and Louis jumped out of his seat as blood sprayed from the stump of the fat man’s neck, pumping and spurting, splattering all over the floor, the desk, and the lower back wall. Louis took a step back, another, shaking as he fumbled for a handkerchief, and mopped his face. Some mixture of anger and fear? Hard to say.

“Here’s the first part of this deal, Louis. You’re going to give Bunny a set of car keys. Yours, or one of your men’s, it doesn’t matter. They’ll have to be currently present in the room, though, because—” I hit the lockdown button, and the office’s door went ‘clunk’, and settled in its frame. “—none of you are leaving this room until we’re done here.”

“How about a different deal?” Louis snarled, pulling a silvery gun from a shoulder holster. “How about you fucking can’t take all of us before we plug your dyke girlfriend here?”

“Well, before you try that, here’s something to consider, Louis.” I tapped in more commands on the phone system, and sent calls to every phone in the room.

The vomiting gunman scrabbled for his pocket, couldn’t coordinate his hands, and ripped his jacket off, hurling it into the corner. The one who had been mopping his face was crying now, hands lowered, standing there sobbing as his phone rang, and rang, and rang. And Louis? He lowered the gun, as his own phone chimed incessantly, closed his eyes as he realized just how fucked he was.

I silenced the phones. “Yep, that’s about the size of it. Any phone, any time. Any one of them can be an instant death sentence for you. No matter how you try to hide, no matter what precautions you take, if you ever, ever try to go after Dire or one of her friends ever again, it’ll be one short scream, then beef stroganoff all over the place. Now give her keys.”

He reached into his breast pocket, fished out a pair, and tossed them to Bunny. She caught them, stood.

“Alrighty!” I said, grinning. “Second part of the deal! One of your boys here escorts Bunny to the car. She drives off with his phone. Once she calls Dire and confirms that she’s happy and safe, Dire lets the rest of you live. Er, leave. Did Dire say live there? Hahahahaha. Well, that too.”

Louis opened and closed his mouth, pausing to spit out some of Carson. The gunmen who’d thrown away his coat stared, then turned, and emptied the rest of his stomach into the corner.

“Dire, can you hear me?” Bunny asked.

“Oh yes. Could before, quite easily.”

Louis facepalmed.

“Awesome. You mind if I change the deal?”

“Not at all.” I hoped she didn’t press her luck. I didn’t have any screamer grenades left, and didn’t have any way to stop them if they tried to hurt her. Not that they knew that, they were pretty well sold by the kayfabe, couldn’t tell it was a bluff.

“I’d like to clean up and get a change of clothes before we hit the road. Think that can be arranged?” She smiled at Louis.

Louis sat back in his chair, opened and shut his mouth again. He flapped a hand at the crying gunman. “Do it.”

“I— I— Snrfl—”

“Fucking do it!” Louis screamed, throwing a mass of bloody papers at the guy. He cringed, and I laughed. “Boss of the year!” I cheered, as I unlocked the door. “Okay, off you go then. Give Dire a call when you’re clear.”

I watched Bunny and the gunman leave, and smiled as I killed the display. Tapping into the computer, I withdrew my hacking efforts one by one. And as I did so, I noticed that the codebreakers had finally borne fruit. Part of Morgenstern’s files had been decrypted, and were awaiting my perusal.

Whistling a happy tune, I headed downstairs. “Hey, Martin?”

“Yeah? Everything work out okay? I heard something like feedback.”

“Oh yes. Bunny will be calling in a bit. Could you drive out toward the Boardwalk, and wait for her call?” I handed him the phone. “Just pick her up and bring her back, okay? We’ll work out the business with the Doctor when she gets here.”

He raised an eyebrow, as he took the device. “Can we trust her?”

I smiled, and it faded as old memories of treachery stirred in the back of my mind. Of how Abes had betrayed me to my worst enemy, at the moment of my triumph. “Yeah,” I whispered. “She’s got no-one else to turn to.”

Martin studied my face for a moment, and nodded. “Aight. You want I should grab dinner while I’m out?”

“Please.”

He departed and I glanced over to Vorpal. She looked to be asleep, or trying to become so. I left her to it, and headed back upstairs to read through the newly-cracked files. A quick browse showed quite a bit of music, most of it classical, with a good dose of jazz. Not important, not sure why he encrypted that. I checked through his business pages, and stock trackers, found them dull. Some insider information there I could use, maybe. Inner company decisions, nothing major. Stuff he wouldn’t want released, but nothing really embarrassing— ooh, speaking of that—

Sure enough, he had some pornography on there. Most of it well-hidden, and through a browser that didn’t use his company’s network. Smart, that. Particularly if it was the nasty stuff. But as I browsed through it, I found it non-nasty. His tastes mirrored mine, actually, with less preference for cowboys and more for medical personnel. Interesting. Would explain his company’s policy of tolerance where homosexuality was concerned. Nothing to blackmail him over, though. Embarrassing at best.

And then I found it. A single folder, labelled ‘Algernon’. I dug into it and found the secret of the flowers, and as I read, the horror built within me.

“Morgenstern, you fool,” I whispered. “This will doom the world, it won’t save it.”

I leaned back, rubbed my eyes, and felt fatigue in my bones. How long had I been sitting here? It had been a while. I rose, grabbed some bottled water from where Martin had stored it next to the supercomputer’s coolant sinks... and I paused.

The other bottles were quivering, the water inside trembling.

What? What was causing this? Possibilities flooded my mind, and in seconds my intellect ruled them out, until the last one arose.

Dispersed gravitational thrust, from an advanced aircraft. But there weren’t any craft like that in this city, except for one. One specific vehicle.

“Doctor Dire!” A voice boomed out over a loudspeaker, a voice I knew and I hated. “We’ve found you, and there’s no escape. Will you come peacefully?”

The bottled water was shaking because the Tomorrow Jet was hovering outside.

Tomorrow Force had found me.

CHAPTER 17: TOMORROW FORCED

“She's dangerous, I'm afraid. An intellect to match my own, a certain undeniable charisma, and the burning conviction that she's in the right, no matter what atrocities she commits. And the worst of it is that she sounds entirely reasonable, until you look at the big picture, and realize just how unfeasible and damaging her efforts will be if she remains unchecked.”

--Commentary by Doc Quantum concerning Doctor Dire

The metal handrail shook, sending spikes of pain through my injured hand as I pounded my feet on the steps. “Vorpal! Heroes!” I yelled, and darted past her as she stirred and flailed her arms. I reached the armor, popped the back hatch, and tried to clamber in.

I slipped. My foot caught on a spot of oil that had seeped out from a damaged joint, and I flailed for balance, caught the side of it with my broken fingers, and screamed in pain, dropping to one knee.

What the hell?

I reached up again, pulled myself up against the armor, and started to clamber through again—

—and lost my grip, as the room shuddered. I was stuck hopping on one foot, the other stuck inside my armor.

Finally I managed to get inside—and a gyro failed for no reason I could tell, sending it crashing to the ground.

By then I had figured out what was happening, and a sick feeling was rising in the pit of my stomach.

This was Schrodinger’s power. I remembered my conversation with Arachne, and through my pain and nausea, I knew that I couldn’t win this one. All he needed was thirty seconds to survey a situation, and he could shift reality over to a point where he got the result he wanted. I blinked my contacts on, synched them to the armor. Couldn’t use the mask. I tore it off, dropped it in my utility compartment, and searched the room.

There, in the corner. A glint of metal that hadn’t been there before. A camera drone, a thin spindle of wires, propellers, and a round visual sensor. They’d maneuvered it through a window slit, and now they were making their move.

“Vorpal!”

“Uh?” She paused, her armored jumpsuit half on, rapier in one hand.

“We can’t win this one! Escape!”

“Where? How?”

I’d given it some thought, when we took this as our new lair. I crawled over, my armor’s battered joints and servos whining with every motion, and grabbed ahold of the manhole cover in the center of the floor. I half-expected my gauntlet to break when I dug fingers into the metal, but no. The already-mangled cover creaked and whined as I bent it free, tossed it aside. “There. Go! Dire will cover you!”

She hesitated, and I screamed again. “Go!”

I was already pretty well fucked, but she had a chance to escape. Odds were good they didn’t know her powers, hadn’t accounted for everything she could do. If she could get out of their sight, she might be able to flee.

She sheathed her rapier, limped over the the hole. I took her right hand, started lowering her down—

—And she was torn from my grasp, as a massive silvery metal hand came up, grabbed her, and pulled her below.

“No!” I struggled to get to my feet, and the ground gave way beneath me as concrete crumbled, and my leg pushed through into a hollow. I knew who that arm belonged to.

Siegebreaker rose from the manhole, the concrete edges around it crumbling and breaking as he pushed his bulk through, blue electronic eyes glaring as he surveyed me. He held Vorpal in one hand, and as she struggled, he casually flicked her head with one finger. She went limp.

“No!” I roared, thrusting a gauntlet toward him in a wild punch. He took it with no real effect, and sparks flew up from my actuators as the stressed shoulder unit finally blew out.

“Sooner you surrender, the less this hurts, Dire.” He rumbled through the grille of his mouth, as he tossed Vorpal aside, and pushed his bulk up into the room. Silver and blue-painted metal, he was easily my height, and much, much thicker. My servos and motors allowed me enhanced strength, but his could bench-press tanks. And he was fresh, while my suit was damaged... no, this wouldn’t go well.

I opened up with the particle beams, sending him backward for a second, but it wouldn’t last. No place to go in this room. No easy means of escape, he was in front of the door. And my flight systems were damaged, too. And even if they weren’t, Quantum’s jet was out there.

My mind raced, at a speed unmatched by the unpowered, and I knew my course of action. I was going to lose the fight in here regardless of my actions. The only thing I could do was ensure that I didn’t lose the tools I needed to continue the fight in the future. To that end, I’d have to destroy the pieces of evidence I’d gathered. If Tomorrow Force got them, then any hopes of blackmailing Morgenstern were out the window. They’d do the hero thing, go after him in public, and probably bungle the job. Thirty seconds of prescience wasn’t much of an edge against someone who had an entire corporation at his back.

The computer was the first priority. I jerked an arm to the side, keeping one gauntlet’s fire focused on Siegebreaker, and set my free gauntlet’s beam to maximum dispersal. And as I ducked under a wide punch, I pointed my arm up, and triggered the beam.

BLAM!

A circular hole punched through the ceiling, the ceiling above it, and probably a satellite or two in low orbit, with as much juice as I’d given the beam. It took out most of the second floor, and my supercomputer, with Morgenstern’s attached hard drive.

One down. Next up, the flowers. I brought my phlogiston projector online, and half-turned toward the corner, readied to burn them, crates and all.

But that split-second of distraction cost me, as with only one particle beam blasting him, Siegebreaker was able to push toward me, and catch me with a sweeping backhand. I went ass over teakettle, ending up with a crunch, as something that shattered me.

Something that smelled of lilacs.

I froze in horror, as dust puffed up in the air, a veritable cloud of it. No, not dust.

Pollen.

He’d knocked me into the crates, and they’d broken open.

“No no no no no...” I started, trying to find my feet, and slipping, crushing another crate.

“I said give up!” Siegebreaker was on me in strides, grabbing my arm, and hurling me into another wall. My harness took the brunt of the impact, but I still felt it, as my head rattled in the armor, and I sprouted a new crop of fresh bruises along my back. My legs twitched as my spine spasmed, and I fell to the ground, coughing in pain. I was breathing the pollen, and I knew what that meant!

“No! No no no no no!” I was beyond thought, beyond rational sense, pounding the ground with my fist in a fit of rage It had all been for nothing.

Strong metal hands the size of hubcaps caught me, one about the midsection, and the other gripping the top of my helmet. Metal fingers scraped against my forehead, gashing it open, and with a heave of his servos, and a squeal of strained metal, Siegebreaker ripped the helmet from my armor.

“Give up!” He yelled, head inches from my own. I stared back, as the blood poured down my face, the horror of my situation fully visible on my face.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I said, simply. “She surrenders.”

He paused, one massive silver fist cocked back as he studied my face. “Alright. I’m peeling you out of there.”

“No need.” I popped the hatch, and clambered out as best I could, collapsing onto the ground. My legs weren’t working properly; for some reason they were numb. My back throbbed, a solid mass of pain to go with my nose as it flared up, and the ripped skin on my forehead. I lay there, listless on the ground, as around me the golden pollen drifted and settled.

Lilacs. My career, my hopes, my dreams. All of those were done now, ended, in a puff of lilac-scented bioagent.

The door opened, and I chuckled weakly as a blonde woman in a white jacket and a blue jumpsuit entered. “Hello, Doctor Dire. Remember me?”

“Kinetica.” I said, with no particular emotion behind it. “Get it over with.” The pollen wouldn’t affect her of course.

She moved to me, caution in her step as a trio of ball bearings whirled above one outstretched palm. She had the power to control motion, trajectories, momentum, and similar things. If I resisted, then she’d use the bearings to beat me senseless.

I didn’t resist. Instead I gathered myself, forced past the horror, and raised my head, neck screaming in more pain, as I caught her eyes beneath her mask. “The flowers. Burn them.”

“What are you talking about? Those things? Yeah, you’re not distracting me here. Roll over and put your hands together.”

“Burn them. Then get a hazmat team in here, scrub the place down. They’re bioagents. Professor Vector’s work.”

A flicker of hesitation... then her mouth hardened. “Yeah. You nearly fried my husband the last time we listened to you. Not going to happen. Roll over and put your hands together.”

I stared at her, mouth falling open in shock. How the hell could she be so petty? He’d survived! The mask wasn’t even on his face when I triggered the charge, I’d made sure it would only incapacitate him. “Kinetica,” I whispered. “She’s not lying.”

“Siegebreaker?”

He rolled me over, and I screamed, nearly passed out, as my back ground across the floor. This was more than bruises. It felt like my spine was being ripped apart. My legs were numb, and getting number. Something was wrong, and it was getting worse. But I forced past the pain, and persisted. “You have to burn the flowers! It’s the only hope!”

She pulled tight cord around my wrists, and I yelled again, as my head throbbed in agony. “The flowers!”

“Fuck. Your. Flowers.” Kinetica ground out, kneeling down to glare at me. “I’ll fucking send you some in jail.”

“For the love of god, woman, will you not listen!” I howled.

She slapped me, and I nearly blacked out.

“Hey! Kin.” Siegebreaker put a hand down. “Enough. Okay? Enough.”

“Then stop resisting arrest and come quietly.” She told me. “Can you at least do that? We’ll talk about your flowers later. Rather, the MRB detectives will, when they interrogate you— are you even paying attention?”

I wasn’t.

I was staring at the manhole, and the vines oozing forth from its shattered socket.

“No,” I whispered, as they felt around the room, and found the wrecked crates.

Kinetica mistook my denial for a reply. “Well then listen, okay? We’re going to take everything in this room, and let the authorities sort it out in a contained environment. So calm down and—”

“The flowers!” I yelled, and she rolled her eyes. The vines jerked, and Siegebreaker swiveled his head around on his torso and jumped upright, moving towards them... but too late. With a screech of metal on concrete, and blossoms and dirt spilling across the floor, the vines pulled the flowers, crates and all, down into the sewer.

I closed my eyes. Vector had left a kaiju behind just in case. Siegebreaker had probably moved right by it, without realizing it was anything beyond a tangled mess of plants.

“Uh. So that was a thing that just happened,” Siegebreaker said. “Doc, you catch that?”

“Yes.” Quantum’s voice boomed down from the jet. “Do not pursue. Schrodinger doesn’t have eyes down there.”

“We had a drone in the tunnels, didn’t we?”

“Looks like it got taken out while he was focused on Doctor Dire.”

“You couldn’t catch it anyway,” I muttered. “Those things go insanely fast in straightaways.”

Kinetica and Siegebreaker traded looks. “I think we’ll continue this conversation in privacy. Could you?” She asked Siegebreaker. The cyborg nodded, scooped me up, and dropped me. I had a split-second to freeze up in shock, before I was hovering in the air, slowly twisting around. Kinetica’s power had me, now that I was an object in motion, and she steered me through the door, and outside.

Above, the roughly-triangular shape of the Quantum Jet loomed over us. Shaped like a plane with no visible engines, it was about as long as a city bus, and three times as wide. A rough triangle with wings, wide at the back and tapered toward the front. A long strip of shining glass ran around the front of it, extending halfway down the body on either side.

I had no idea how it crept up on the Power Station without my notice.

“Silent engines,” I muttered, as she floated me up toward the open cargo bay. “That’s new.”

“Yeah, fun, aren’t they? Been hunting other terrorists out in California. People complained about the noise, so we made some stealth baffles.” Kinetica grinned, as she floated along next to me. “Compared to those other losers, you went down like a chump.”

I didn’t listen. Didn’t care.

The cargo bay was clean and white, like a hospital. She floated me past a few metal cylinders and what looked to be maintenance tools, before depositing my unresisting form in a small, open indentation, barely big enough to sit on. I blinked at it, confused. then glass indentations on the floor flared, and bars made of energy crackled to life. The scent of ozone filled the air, and I welcomed it. It was a nice change from lilacs, at least. Took my mind off what the pollen was doing to me.

“Phased solid photonic resonators,” I said, studying the emitters. “Interesting way of going about it.”

“I tend to agree,” Doc Quantum said, stepping out of a hatchway to the north. He was much as I remembered him: a tall, well-built man with a blue jacket, white shirt, white pants, and a white mask with goggles built into it. His hair protruded from the open top of his mask, as black as mine, but shorter, neatly cropped.

“There was another one?” He asked Kinetica.

“I’ll go get her.” Kinetica hopped out of the hatch.

Siegebreaker’s voice echoed over the Jet’s intercoms. “Take it easy with that one. Slight concussion.”

“Yeah yeah yeah...”

Quantum ignored their byplay, and settled on a crate next to me, looking me over. I lay on the floor and stared back. I couldn’t work up the anger to hate him.

“Why?” He finally asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did you choose this path? What has it gained you?”

I said nothing, stared at him.

He stirred, offered an open hand. “All this could have been averted, if you’d come with us in that WEB base. Stood trial for your crimes.”

“Crimes.” I gurgled laughter, shifted so that the blood didn’t flow in my face quite as much. I was making a good mess on their clean white floor, and didn’t care about that in the slightest. “You called her a villain. Are you not happy with how low she’s come?”

“I don’t see how you can blame us for your own actions,” he continued, as calm as a gardener considering how best to trim a hedge. “You’ve killed and harmed a lot of people, Doctor. You’ve caused massive amounts of property damage, and put civilians in danger for nothing more than your own gain.”

Behind him Vorpal floated by, with Kinetica following. But I didn’t watch them go, held the hero with my eyes as I put force into my voice. “You speak from ignorance, Quantum. Dire’s motives and methods were the result of reason and benevolence, even if the results have not been acceptable thus far. She fights necessary battles for every sentient mind on earth, not just herself.”

“You’re going to plead the greater good?” He shook his head. “I think not. You’ve suborned the law, aided felons in escaping justice, worked with known criminals, and targeted innocents. And what I’m trying to figure out is why. This doesn’t match your actions during the Y2K event. This doesn’t match up with what I found out about you. Your activities with the Black Blood situation and the Shanty Town seem more understandable than your recent crimes.”

“The Shanty Town?” I asked.

“That’s the MRB designation for your original home. The one we know about, anyway.”

“Ah.” I pulled myself up to a sitting position, as best I could with my back screaming at me and my legs a beat behind the rest of my body. “Then you know now that Dire was telling the truth about vampires, back in the WEB base. You know now that you acted incorrectly, and jumped to conclusions.”

He frowned for the first time, lips pulling back into a hard grimace. “I acted correctly for the information that I had at the time.”

“They you admit you owe Dire an apology.”

“I owe you an apology for that. Compared to some of the things we've been through, I suppose that vampires were fairly pedestrian.”

I smiled. “Apology accepted.” I lost the smile. “Now get lost.”

“I think not. You haven't answered my question. Why?”

“She'll answer your question with another question; did Great Clown Pagliacci and his Black Bloods follow the unwritten rules?”

“No.”

“And who ended up taking them down at the end?”

He massaged his temples. “I see where you're going with this, but there's a fallacy inherent in the assumption. You're implying that it was necessary to break the rules in order to stop him from committing worse atrocities. That his atrocities forgive yours.”

“Atrocities.” I snorted.

“Yes. You broke your word to us, Doctor Dire. You armed civilians, drove them to fight in the street under your banner. We took a chance on you, that you weren't the warlord it looked like you were shaping up to be, and—”

“You could have fucking stopped it!” I shrieked, pulling myself to my feet though it hurt, though every part of me hurt. He rose as well, but I had an inch on him and by god I looked down on him, glaring. “You knew what WEB was doing. You said you had a tracker on Dire, from the first beach-fight onward. You heard what we said! You could have stopped the Black Bloods, before Dire’s people died in the street like dogs!”

His eyes, barely visible under the goggles, blinked. He took a half-step back, put up his hands. “It was a tracker, not a bug. We couldn’t hear what was going on, and it was just one measure of many, so we couldn’t devote our full attention to it. By the time we learned you were assaulting the Black Bloods, we were too late to stop it, too late to intervene. The Steampunks were wrapping it up anyway—”

“Yes.” I hissed, anger overpowering my depression, pulsing through me in waves. “The villains. Who finished the fight that you couldn’t. So high and mighty you are, hero. Never touched by the blood that pools under your feet, high above them all as good people die in the gutters, and you call those who fight alongside them villains.”

I flicked my hand at him between the bars and he flinched, as blood spattered across his jumpsuit, staining the white with bright red.

He scowled again, and shook his head. “I suggest that you adjust your attitude before I return. We’ve got some questions for you before we hand you over to the authorities.”

“Not going to leave her to the MRB interrogators, then?”

“I recommend you tell the truth.” He turned and left, as I glared at his back.

Siegebreaker floated up into the jet, carrying the remnants of my armor. I slumped down in my cell, and watched him carry the armor forward, compacting his bulk to fit through the hallway ahead, scrunching himself down to a half of his regular size. He turned to look at me just before he left. “Don’t get any funny ideas. This is going in a sealed room, that doesn’t permit grid or other broadcast connections. Remote activation won’t work.”

I shook my head. “Not in the plan.”

“Of course you’ve got a plan,” he said, and headed through the hatchway. “Looks like a lousy one to me so far, but hey, knock yourself out. Save me the trouble.” But something made him hesitate, and meet my glower with his electronic eyes. “Hey. Listen, your back’s messed up. Looks like cracked vertebrae. The less you move, the less trouble you’ll have later. Alright?”

I stared at him in confusion. “Thank you?” I hadn’t expected kindness from these clods.

He turned without another word, and left.

I slumped onto the floor and tried not to move. The longer I lay there, the worse my back felt. Tiny shifts brought more pain, burning pain, worse than the rest of the beatings I’d taken today combined. But I clenched my jaws, and held tears back. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

I watched Kinetica head out with a rebreather and a device similar to an old-style vacuum cleaner, a ball with a hose attached. For lack of anything better to do I pondered the brief glimpse I had of it, and discerned its purpose. It was a molecular scrubber. It would break down organic particles at the atomic level. They were taking me seriously, scrubbing the site of pollen, at least. Well, that was something. Too late for me, but something. She returned after a couple of minutes, shut the hatch behind her, and went forward.

A few minutes later, a faint sense of motion informed me that we were on our way. Not long beyond that, Doc Quantum returned, with a new person following him. The stranger wore a jumpsuit split down the middle, half-white and half-blue. His mask was full-faced, and was also split, but the colors were the opposite of the sides of his costume. The mask on the right was white, and the right half of the jumpsuit was blue, and vice-versa. A mass of golden curls tumbled out from behind his mask, and he was thin, with little muscle on him. Thinner than me, even.

“Doctor Dire!” He said, coming to the edge of the cell, and hopping up on a nearby crate. “Good to meet you face to face. Well, more or less. Hi, I’m Schrodinger. Also known as the bane of your life for the last fight.”

I stared at him in sullen silence. The seconds ticked past, and after a bit, Schrodinger nodded at Quantum. “Got her. ”

“All right.” Quantum folded his arms. “Please answer truthfully. You said that the flowers were a bioagent?”

“The pollen’s a bioagent, the flowers are just the source.”

Quantum looked to Schrodinger. Schrodinger nodded.

I took the opportunity to scrutinize him. “Now how does this work, precisely? You see into the future, yes... presumably you hear the outcomes too, unless you're very good at reading lips.” I covered my mouth.

Schrodinger shook his head. “You're being ridiculous.”

“She's testing a theory,” I spoke, voice muffled behind my hand. “You know, that science thing you pretend to do when you're not wearing spandex and capturing your betters?”

“Focus.” Quantum said. “Where do the flowers come from?”

I cocked my head to the side. “Not going to tell you.”

Schrodinger smacked his thigh with an open hand. “Morgenstern! Of course!”

I blinked. How had he done that?

The answer came easily. Obviously, he'd sorted through various timelines until he found one where I'd decided to answer him truthfully. Probably found a couple more where I'd answered the same, just to double-check it.

“Clever. Dependent on the idea that she doesn't have prepared lies to tell you, but clever nonetheless.”

“Thank you. And seriously, I can hear you through the filter. The hand-over-mouth thing doesn't hinder me one bit.”

I started to withdraw my hand, hesitated. No way to know for sure. But at this point, it was a moot matter anyway. I let my hand fall away. “Did you choose the timeline where she did that? Or did you leave it to fate?”

Schrodinger shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“At any rate, we're asking the questions here,” Quantum interrupted. “What are the effects of this bioagent?”

I didn't speak. Schrodinger gasped. “Oh. Wow. Okay, that's bad.”

Quantum looked to him, and Schrodinger shook his head. “Tell you later. Let's just say we'll run a full scan back at the base.”

Quantum nodded. “Alright. Do you have any evidence linking the bioagent to Morgenstern?”

Frankly, no. I'd destroyed my supercomputer in an effort to preserve my leverage. I shook my head, and Schrodinger confirmed it. I watched Quantum's lips tighten. “So again he'll escape justice.”

“He's rich enough that you have little chance of bringing him to justice anyway, with the social system of this nation being what it is.” I supplied, leaning against the wall. “Though, to be fair, that's a species-wide problem. Dire had plans to do something about that, eventually.”

I saw the heroes share a look.

“You think?” Schrodinger asked.

“It's worth a shot.” Quantum confirmed.

“What?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Doctor. I know we got off on the wrong foot. Mistakes were made, but... for all your struggles, your motives seem just in retrospect.”

I nodded. “Well, yes.”

“There's a spark there. There's a spark that could grow into a mighty fire. You're right in some respects... justice is a worthy goal for this world. There's a shortage of it, and those who would defend it are in short supply.”

“You're flattering her. Get to the point.”

“I want you to do penance for your crimes, and redeem yourself. We can help you with this.”

Time came to a screeching halt. I stared at him, open-mouthed. What the hell was he thinking?

And then my eyes slid over to Schrodinger, inscrutable behind his mask.

No. That was the wrong question, I realized.

“You're trying to recruit her.” I smiled.

“Frankly, yes. Your intelligence is comparable to my own, you fill a niche we don't have at present, and you desire to do good. In a more positive environment, we can help you to realize that dream.”

“You're trying to recruit her, and you're using Schrodinger's power to cheat.”

“How so?”

“He's looking for one reality, one timeline where Doctor Dire agrees to join you. And once he finds it, he'll shunt it to be the main timeline.” I snickered, and straightened up. “It's kind of pathetic, really. Is this how you get dates on lonely nights, Schrody?”

He sighed. “If you must know I'm married to a wonderful husband.”

“Good for you. Now listen to her, and listen well.” I leaned forward, until my eyes were inches from the energy bars, glaring at the both of them. “In not one timeline, will you find any version of Dire who will ever agree to join your insipid, hypocritical, hindered, team.” I spat. “In all of the multiverse, however your power sorts things, look hard, and see the depths of her loathing for you and your methods. See how she despises you, and your hackneyed attempts to set her straight!”

I leaned back, smiled, smug and at ease despite the pain throbbing through my back, despite the spreading numbness in my legs. “Go on. She dares ya.”

Time crawled by, and after half a minute, Schrodinger shook his head. “Sorry Doc.”

“Apology not accepted,” I told him.

“Wrong Doc.” He hopped off his crate, and headed towards the hatch.

Quantum straightened up, and tapped the panel by the door. “You’re no longer our affair,” he said. “Good luck in jail.”

The jet shuddered. Quantum snapped his head around. “Status?” He yelled.

The hatch burst open, and Schrodinger slammed through it, hitting the back wall of the cargo bay as a heavy suit of power armor followed after him, turned, and oriented on Quantum.

I knew that armor. That was one of Morgenstern’s armored suits! But the face was different. The faceplate had been repainted, to look like my own mask. What the hell was this?

Quantum drew a pistol, snapped a shot of sparking energy off at the suit, which fell backward, with waves of electricity cascading across it. An ionic nullifier? Nasty. He’d be down for the count for a while.

“Kinetica! Siegebreaker! Respond!” He slammed the hatch shut, slid a heavy cargo box in front of it, then went to check on Schrodinger. “Thank god. Dire. Call off your minions, this won’t end well.”

The jet shook and shuddered again, and the lights blacked out for a second. So did the bars. They came back on before I could do more than blink, though. “These aren’t Dire’s minions.”

“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?”

I blinked. “There was a lot of ‘earlier’. Please elaborate.”

“Do you truly wish to free the world from reliance on metahumans? Do you really want to see a world that doesn’t need heroes to save it? Are you willing to devote your life and years of work to that cause?”

I nodded. “Without hesitation or despair.”

He smiled. “Then yes, I agree. No vendetta. We can’t be allies, but we need not be enemies.”

“Just like that?” Vorpal asked.

“Just like that.” He tapped the keyboard. “Now, that account?” I gave it to him, and we watched as he transferred the money over.

“You’ll want the frequency now?” I asked.

“Yes, please.” His fingers flew as I gave him details, and he gridmailed orders off to his black ops division. “That should do it. With your help, my power armored squad should be able to handle that monstrosity of his, and the thing you called Chaingang as well. We’ll maintain the polite fiction that they’re your minions. Useful to maintain deniability on my end.”

“There’s a problem,” I said. “He’s got multiple kaiju. At least two, probably more.”

“What?” He frowned. “Unacceptable. Explain.”

I told him of the one waiting at the fake convoy’s ambush, the one at the power station, and how the one who’d attacked me in my original lair came within minutes of the pollen hitting the air.

Morgenstern sighed. “Nothing’s ever simple. You’ll need time to repair your armor, yes?”

“Four hours, depending on your facility and materials to hand.”

“You should have plenty and you’ve got two hours. I’ll use the time to line up some other independent contractors.” He hit a button, and the proper door to the office opened. A slim young brown-haired man stood there, tablet computer in hand.

“Yes Aegon?”

“Jamie, show these guests to floor fourteen, get them researcher badges, and ensure that they’ve got everything they need. Any reasonable request and most unreasonable ones as well.”

“Sure thing. Ah, are you working late tonight?”

“Yes. Cancel the reservations at Arman’s. I’ll treat you tomorrow, the kerfluffle should be over by then.”

“Yes sir.” Jamie smiled warmly, a smile that shrunk a bit as he turned it on us. “Follow me please?”

We started out the door, but as we did, Morgenstern called after us. “Dire. One more thing?”

I glanced over my shoulder, and he continued. “You’re the sort of villain who people work for, not the sort of villain who works for other people. In the future, play to that paradigm. Much less fuss for everyone involved, hm?”

I bit back an instinctual retort, considered it. It had been a lot of fuss. “She’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good. Carry on.”

We followed Jamie to floor fourteen without any further incident. He gave us a pair of badges, swiped us past glowering security guards, and led us into the center of the power armor lab. To my satisfaction I saw three familiar-looking suits in the repair bays, all the ones I’d wrecked during my last scuffle. Four slots stood empty, and five more were filled with relatively-undamaged suit. Auto-sprayers were busy painting them to match my mask.

I surveyed the servos, took count of the counters, assayed the sanders, and nodded in satisfaction.

“This’ll do.”

A throat cleared behind me, and I turned to see an older gentleman in a lab coat and safety goggles. “Afternoon, ma’am. Jamie asked me to step you through the machinery we’ve got in place to fix your armor. It’ll be a tight job to get it done in two hours, but don’t you worry, missy, we’ll see it through.”

Missy. Hmph. I smiled wide and showed a lot of teeth. “You have her armor then?”

He gestured to a reinforced table, and I recognized my mangled suit. “Yeah. We’ve been trying to analyze it, but, uh, it seems to have some defenses in place.”

“Oh, yes. It does. No one died?” I smiled wider.

“No.  Uh, we’re ready to go, just tell us what you want done and we’ll—”

“That’s the main control console for your robots?” I gestured.

“Yes, but it uses a proprietary system that takes two weeks of training before—”

I slid on up to it, hacked through the security, peeled open the source code underlying the graphical user interface, grunted in disappointment, and recompiled it to a more efficient operating system. The various robotic arms, wheeled drones, and assembly bots roared to life, as I used them to ferry my suit over the table, and begin work.

“Um.” The man said, looking a bit lost. “We’re supposed to help you... however...”

Vorpal patted his shoulder. “Do not worry, friend. You can help us. Club sandwich for me. Cheesesteak for Dire. Yah?”

“Sure,” I said. “Curly fries with that, too, if you can get them. Fake onion flavoring for the win, hm? Sodas too, just standard Coax or Burpsi. Oh, and no diet, please. Just the hard stuff.”

He was back in twenty minutes with our order. By then I’d gotten my mask repaired, and was tweaking the operating system for my HUD. I’d had a few ideas after the Morgenstern fight, and wanted to try them out. Ten minutes after that I had the armor repairs going. Most of it I could trust to automation, with only a little light touchwork here and there for delicate repairs. I reinforced the seals around the helmet, to protect against more bio-weapons, but made no other major changes. I’d already made preparations for a kaiju fight, I didn’t need to reconfigure anything major at this point. Didn’t really have time to go experimenting, either.

At some point I looked up to find a gaggle of technicians and men in camo pants and sheer black shirts watching me go. One of the black-shirts, an attractive young man with a shaved head, nodded at me. “Holy shit, you work fast.”

“Dire has to. The rest of the world doesn’t wait for her.” I slid a grinder around, started working over the exterior of my mask, removing the scars that Morgenstern had given it.

“Name’s Vasquez.” He offered a hand and I shook it. Beyond, I saw Vorpal chatting with a woman in black-and-camo, while sharing her club sandwich with her. Oh, right, food. I had probably better eat mine. I looked around for the sandwich, and found it on a nearby table.

“You did a number on me and my hombres a little while ago.” Vasquez said.

“Oh? Oh, you’re the armored troopers.”

“Hooah!” He grinned. I looked at him quizzically. “It’s a military thing,” he said.

“You certainly fought like military. Did well enough.” I devoured about half the sandwich in one go. Hungrier than I thought. Aftereffect of Morgenstern’s extract? Couldn’t say.

“Yeah, I thought so but Jesus lady, you’re tough. What’s that thing made out of? I thought I had you with that shiverblade, but it broke like it was nothing.”

“Oh, you’re the one with the vibroblade.” I looked at his hands. He had both of them. “Glad you didn’t lose fingers when it blew back.”

“Naw. Our hands aren’t in there, they’re in about the wrists. More protected that way.”

“At the cost of losing tactile sensation and direct control. Still, not a bad idea.” I’d have to consider that if I went to a heavier suit. Broken fingers hurt like hell. “But no, the armor’s actually not as tough as yours. You’re built to withstand damage, your armor plate’s a little thicker. The key is Dire’s forcefield. It’s activated by extremely fast motions. So when you stuck a fast-moving weapon in there, physics happened.”

He blinked. “Shit. I’ll remember that for next time, huh?” He punched at my shoulder, and seemed surprised when I twisted aside, and brought a welding torch up between us. “Whoa whoa whoa.” He said, backing off. “Hey, just being friendly.”

I smiled. “Ah. Her mistake.” I didn’t lower the torch. “But there won’t be a next time. And even if there is, Dire has learned from her fight with you. She’ll adjust to your methods, and will have upgraded her technology.” Ah, my mask was done. I picked it off, shook the shavings from it, and seated it on my face. It hissed to life, and I relaxed as my display came up again. “NO, IF WE FIGHT AGAIN IT WON’T BE A CONTEST, VASQUEZ. DO REMEMBER THAT, HM?”

He lost his smile. The rest of the crowd drifted away after that, for some reason, and he with them. Not sure why, but no matter. I finished up repairs with time to spare.

“That may have been a mistake,” Vorpal said, quietly. “These men will be at your back in a few hours or so.”

I pushed my mask up. “He was getting overly familiar. Dire’s kayfabe doesn’t permit that, not with minions of other supervillains.”

“Kayfabe?”

“Long story. It’s an act. An image.”

“Ah. So you attempt to inspire fear, instead of camaraderie?”

I grinned. “Oh, he feared Dire already. His discussion there was his attempt to remove that fear. But now it will remain.”

“Actually I rather thought he was flirting with you.” Vorpal said, putting her hand over mine. “He does not know you like I do. Did not realize it would not work.”

I looked at her hand. A glance around showed the lab fairly well cleared out. I pulled my hand free. “Vorpal, she’s going to have to be blunt. Dire is pretty sure she’s not a lesbian.”

She flushed. “I did not—”

“Didn’t you?”

She looked aside, sighed. “I suppose I had some hopes. It has... been difficult. This life is difficult. Hard to meet people when you are always on the move. And most villains I worked with are, well, not good people. Not worth knowing when you are out of the mask. I thought I had found someone I could perhaps share my life with.”

I’d known that loneliness. She was young, too. Younger than me. But still...

“You can, Vorpal, but not that way.” I patted her shoulder. “Dire has few enough friends. You have been a good one so far. Is that enough for you?”

She sighed again. “No, but I suppose I need friends as well. Very well, let us try it for a while.” She smiled. “And if you find any good women who are a bit more open-minded, I wish to meet them.”

“Deal.” We shook on it.

She tilted her head to the side as she grasped my hand. “Actually, there is one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“My power is strong, but limited. Not very flexible. I have been thinking of including some machines. Perhaps a grapple gun, maybe something like that forcefield. Some stun bombs perhaps, and goggles so I do not stun myself. Things like that. Perhaps you can make them for me?”

I grinned. “Easy. Hell, that won’t take more than a day or two at worst.”

“Excuse me, ladies?” It was Jamie again. He looked out of place in that lab, wearing fine formal business attire where everyone else was in lab coats.

“Yes, Jamie?”

“We’ve located the target and the contractors have been brought on board. There’s a briefing upstairs and you’re invited.”

“Of course. One minute.” I pushed my mask down, let it reseal, then stepped up to my armor. “RISE.” I commanded. It did, lurching free of the diagnostic hookups, with clangs and pings as sensors went wide. Around me the lab went silent, as I tapped the back, and slipped through the open hatch. It sealed around me, and my mask slid into position, locking into place around the newly-reinforced seals.

I was eight feet tall and made of metal again, and oh how I’d missed it so.

I activated the gravitics, hovered an inch above the ground. “VERY WELL. LEAD THE WAY, JAMIE.”

“One minute,” Vorpal said, digging in the duffel bag of stuff they’d evidently returned to her at some point. “Here.” She offered me a spare red cape.

“YOU GRABBED IT?”

“Martin was going to wash it. It’s a bit stained.”

Stained or no, it was still my cape. I attached the clasps at my shoulders, and flipped the cowl over my head.

Good, good.

A whisper behind me, and I used the armor’s audio to listen in. “—insane bitch, but good god, the specs we’re going to get from her tech! It’ll put us years ahead of Arkayde.”

It was the tech who’d tried to act patronizing about his equipment.

“AH YES, ALMOST FORGOT.” I pointed at him. “YOU. IS THE POWER ARMOR IN THIS ROOM READY FOR THE OPERATION?”

“Uh—” He flinched. “I mean, what?”

I suppressed a sigh. “IS IT READY FOR FIELD USAGE? NO FURTHER MAINTENANCE OR REPAIR REQUIRED FROM THIS LABORATORY?”

“No, no, it’s good to go. We took care of that while you worked.”

“GOOD.” I reached over, and tapped the console I’d reconfigured. It hummed and went dim, as it reformatted, taking all of the networked computers with it, erasing every bit of data on them. “TELL MORGENSTERN THAT IF HE WANTS DIRE’S TECH HE CAN PAY FOR IT.”

His face went white. I turned my back, and ignored the giggles coming from Vorpal’s direction as we followed Jamie up to the briefing room.

He took me up by the service elevator, evading the main public parts of the building. It looked like they had sent non-essential personnel home for the day. Smart move after a supervillain attack. Vorpal changed into her costume along the way, and set her own mask in place. Jamie neither looked at her nor commented, not at all bothered by her brief nudity.

Finally he stopped in front of a pair of heavy oak double-doors, encrusted with gothic imagery; all gargoyles, knights, and dragons. “Through here,” he said. “Captain Vasquez has the briefing.”

I took a door in either hand, and threw them open, ignoring the booming noise as they hit the wall, rebounded, bounced off my hands again, and finally swung to a stop. Vasquez, at the head of the table, jerked backward and went for a holstered gun before forcing himself to stop.

Mixed reactions from the rest. I looked down the row of costumed people, and found them wary, but not overly alarmed. None of them were familiar to me.

Vorpal padded in behind me and took a seat next to a short goth girl wearing a plague doctor’s mask, the leather bird’s beak bobbing as she glanced between me and a black-robed man at the head of the table. His face looked to be half-destroyed, slick muscle and torn skin with bloody bone showing in a few spots. If it bothered him he didn’t seem to care. A scythe stuck out over his back. He had to hunch forward so that he fit in the seat, with that weapon harnessed to him.

Beside Black Robes, sat a man clad in burlap sackcloth with a skull mask. He stared at me without moving in the slightest. He wore fingerbones in a necklace around his throat. Across from him was a woman with incredibly white skin, with the occasional blue vein standing out. She wore blue, round sunglasses, black slacks, and a black shirt, with a black duster currently folded over an empty chair to her left. She had a round, flat, wide-brimmed hat on over short-cropped white hair. And at the very end of the table, sat a man in grungy, muddy overalls, wearing a high-peaked hat, with a shovel leaning next to him. He wore no mask, but his face was so dirty that I couldn’t make out anything more than broad features.

“VASQUEZ.” I said. “BRIEF DIRE.”

“Uh. Yeah, okay. We were waiting on you.”

“YOU WASTE TIME WITH THE OBVIOUS.”

The Goth girl’s beak bobbed toward Vorpal. “Jeeze. Vader much?” She whispered. Vorpal shot her a look, and I stifled a giggle.

“Right.” Vasquez said, pulling out a remote mouse, and starting up a series of slides through the overhead projector. “So we went looking on that frequency you told us, and an hour later, we found the tracker.”

A map of Icon City zoomed in to a large, oblong body of water surrounded by woodland. Lake Silence.

“That’s not far from the original ambush,” Vorpal said. I nodded. No wonder the kaiju had been so fast to react after the truck had blown up.

“We narrowed it down to this cluster of cabins here. It looks like someone rented out the entire cluster for a week.” The map tracked down from above, zooming in more to show a group of remote, somewhat grungy cabins surrounded by thick vegetation. A black van sat parked by the side of a gravel road. The nearest neighbors looked to be a couple of miles away. The cabins lurked on a slight hill, with a good view of the surrounding area. The place didn’t seem to have a beach, just a single overgrown dock that had seen better days. Overgrown? Some of those vines looked familiar.

“HOW RECENT IS THIS IMAGE?”

“It’s satellite. A few hours.”

“THERE’S A PLANT KAIJU UNDER THE DOCK.”

Black Robes turned his ruined face to me. “That what we’re up against?” He rasped.

“SEVERAL OF THOSE.”

The white woman steepled her fingers. “Any relation to that thing that went rampaging around the wharf last night?”

“THE SAME CREATURE. SIZE MAY VARY FROM BEAST TO BEAST.”

“How many is several?” Black robes asked.

“UNDETERMINED. AT LEAST TWO, PROBABLY THREE OR MORE.”

Vasquez cleared his throat. “There’s also a humanoid mutant.” He tapped the mouse, and brought up pictures of Chaingang. Amusingly enough they had a shot of him getting tacos from a local Mexican place, looking pleased as he spoke into a cell phone while balancing several large bags of Mexican food.

“I thought he was way too eager to break that phone,” Vorpal muttered. “Should have known he’d have a spare.”

“Capabilities?” Black Robes asked.

“HE’S A DUPLICATOR. SPAWNS COPIES OF HIMSELF THAT CAN SPAWN OTHERS, ALL HOOKED TOGETHER BY SOMETHING LIKE UMBILICAL CORDS. ALSO STRONGER AND TOUGHER THAN A NORMAL HUMAN, BUT IT’S HARD TO SAY HOW MUCH.” He’d given us a rough benchmark, but odds were good he’d been lying there.

“Duplicator,” said Black Robes. What was left of his lips smiled. “Deadweight, we’ll try you on that. Take Whippoorwill just in case. Rest of us’ll help with the giant plant things.”

“Hey! I could try singing to them.” Goth girl said, putting her elbows on the table.

Black Robes shook his head. “Plants don’t have ears.”

“Maybe it’s like corn monsters! Then they’d be nothing but ears!” She protested. “Didn’t think of that, did you, smarty robe?”

“Walked right into that one, didn’t I?” He sighed, turned to me. “Ignore her. Anything else.”

“THAT WE KNOW OF? JUST PROFESSOR VECTOR HIMSELF. VASQUEZ?”

He clicked the mouse, and the display changed to reveal a reedy, brown-haired man with a slightly-old-fashioned haircut, and a pair of thick spectacles, sitting in a cubicle. He looked nervous, and he was clutching a handful of vials in one hand, and a printout in the other.

“Professor Vector, also known as Raymond Mapplethorn. Genius-level intellect, with a power focused on biological development.”

“He done any work on himself?” The muddy one asked.

“Not that we know of. Not much of a combatant, as far as we can tell. Depends on his creations for defense. However, we know that he’s engineered at least two plagues. He created them with perhaps fifty dollars of biological materials, a bathtub, and some insect larvae. Assume that he can have both airborne and bloodborne bioagents.”

“This is going to involve hazard pay,” black robes said. “Is the client willing to cover this?”

Vasquez nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that, I work for a living,” Black Robes snarked. “All right. So what do we have in the way of forces on this one?”

Vasquez spoke up. “Your team. Nine troopers in power armor. I’ll be one of them. Four of them have working jetpacks, the rest of us will be ground insertion. You’ll also have Vorpal and Dire.”

“DOCTOR DIRE.” I clarified. “AND WHO ARE YOU ALL?”

Black Robes turned to me. “Not a local? That doesn’t match from what I’ve heard.”

“IT’S A LONG STORY. ENLIGHTEN HER WITH YOUR IDENTITY.”

“I’m Grim. I lead the Graveyard Gang.”

“AH. SHE HAS HEARD OF YOU.”

“Good.” He grinned. “Here I was thinking we were going to have to fire our PR guy.”

“We have one of those?” Goth girl asked.

“No, shut up. Anyway, she’s Whippoorwill. That’s Gravedigger over there, and the pale lady is Epitaph.” She nodded, tipped her hat to me. “Last and sure as hell not least, you’ve got Deadweight.”

“A PLEASURE. WHAT CAN YOU DO?” I asked Grim.

“I can’t die. Can’t regenerate fully, but I can’t die. I can also fly, slowly, and this scythe is pretty damn sharp. That usually means I’m the field leader in situations like this. Got a fair amount of experience with that.” I nodded. Only sensible. And a leader who couldn’t be killed had a definite edge, there.

He continued. “Whippoorwill’s song can manipulate emotions, which is why we’re putting her up against human-shaped things and not plants. It also hits friendlies, so keep a distance if you can, or wear earplugs. Gravedigger’s an earth controller. Can’t do rock, but he can do gravel, mud, sand, all that sort of thing. If you’re standing on the dirt, he can tell where you are from a mile away.”

The muddy guy grinned. “Good vibrations, you dig?”

Groans around the table showed me that wasn’t the first time he’d cracked that joke. Grim went on. “Epitaph’s a Powerhouse. Skin like stone, fists like really strong stone. Deadweight’s a zombie animator. Pretty much any corpse in his range he can raise and control.”

“It has to have muscles, though,” Deadweight said, in a voice like he was talking through marbles. “Can’t do skeletons.”

“So that’s us. Your turn.”

“DIRE IS A SUPERGENIUS, WITH A FOCUS ON ROBOTICS AND COMMON SENSE.” Snorts around the table, but Grim merely nodded. “HER POWERED ARMOR CAN THROW CARS, FLY AT FIFTY MILES PER HOUR, WITHSTAND OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF PUNISHMENT, AND HAS PARTICLE CANNONS THAT COULD HOLE A BATTLESHIP.” Given time and a couple of shots, anyway. “ALSO A FEW ALTERNATIVE WEAPONS. A PHLOGISTON PROJECTOR THAT CAN SET ANYTHING BURNABLE ON FIRE, MICROMISSILES OF A WIDE VARIETY, AND INBUILT TASERS FOR NONLETHAL TAKEDOWNS.”

Silence for a minute. “Jesus.” Grim summed it up. “Any sensory enhancements?”

“THERMAL. ZOOM-ENHANCEMENT FOR DISTANCE. SOME AUDIO ADJUSTMENTS POSSIBLE IF NECESSARY. AND A GEIGER COUNTER FOR TRACKING THE PAYLOAD.”

“Okay, that’s going to be handy. We’ll have you on that, then, if you’re amenable to it.”

“OF COURSE.”

“That just leaves you.” He turned to Vorpal, who smiled.

“Vorpal. I cut things.” She gestured to her rapier. “Can summon energy around my blade; fire, electricity, some sort of cryogenic aura. And something that cuts through anything.”

“Ohmygawd!” Whippoorwill shrieked, and bounced. “Can we call the plant things jobberwhackies? Please? Please can we call them that? Then Vorpal’s sword can snacker snick them!”

“I don’t think that’s the actual name of the things in the poem...” Gravedigger offered.

“Sure, fuck it, they’re Jobberwhackies,” Grim said.

“Yay!” Whippoorwill shot two thumbs up.

“Right,” said Vasquez. “So here’s what we’re thinking. The armor goes in as a straight-on assault. We’ll lure out the... Jobberwhackies... and keep them suppressed while the rest of you—”

“NO.”

He frowned. “Excuse me?”

“YOUR TEAM IS MAINLY ARMED WITH HEAVY CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS, YES?”

“Yeah.”

“THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE THAT MIGHT SLOW THEM DOWN IS THAT REPEATING RPG.”

“Okay, we can check out multiples of those. We’ve also got heavier stuff in the armory.”

“HEAVIER IS A START AND WE’LL WANT TO LOOK AT THOSE, BUT IT STILL WON’T BE ENOUGH FOR A HEAD-ON ASSAULT. YOU MIGHT WOUND ONE BEFORE IT RIPS YOU TO SHREDS. YOU WON’T SURVIVE AGAINST MULTIPLES ALL AT ONCE.”

He puffed his cheeks out, blew air from his lips. “Alright. You have another plan?”

“AS IT TURNS OUT, SHE DOES...”

CHAPTER 19: VERSUS VECTOR

“Forty percent of winning most costumed fights that involve groups are figuring out how to match up your powers against theirs so you come out on top. Twenty percent's your skills. Ten percent's using the environment to your advantage. Five percent's your attitude. The other twenty-five percent? Sheer goddamn luck. Because things NEVER go to plan.”

--Grim, leader of the Graveyard Gang supervillain group

Our little strike force moved in at midday, carried by black vans to our destination, ten miles away from the cabins on the other side of some fairly thick woods. We were on the only hill higher than Vector’s elevation anywhere near the place. I used the transit time on the trip to make some phone calls. The first one was to Martin, and he picked up immediately.

“Hello?”

“Martin,” I spoke from the privacy of my helmet, “this is Dire. You have Bunny?”

“Yeah. What the fuck happened? I got back to the power station, and it was MRB central. Fuckers followed me for a few blocks, but I lost’em on the highway.”

“Long story. Turns out Morgenstern came through with a payday, and an armor fix, but in return we have to destroy the flowers.”

“Huh. How do I know Morgenstern ain’t got a gun to your head right now, makin’ you say this stuff?”

I snorted. “First off, he wouldn’t care about you one way or the other. You don’t have any evidence worth a crap against him, and you’re on the run anyway.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus. It’s you, all right. But yeah, I got Bunny. She’s here, she’s pissed.”

“All right. Going to need your help. Can you get over to the east of the city, near the ambush spot?”

“Sure, what do you got in mind?”

“Morgenstern’s man didn’t say anything about the escape plan after we’re done. Leads Dire to suspect that it’s going to be an every-costume-for-themselves situation. She needs backup to get out of here. You’ve pulled her metal hoop out of the fire often enough. Up for one more time?”

He laughed. “I’m there. Bunny says to save some for her. She really wants to shoot somebody right now.”

I laughed, and hung up as the van ground to a halt. I floated outside, followed by Vorpal. Around me, five of the armored troopers were filing out of the van, and the Graveyard Gang piled out of a couple of grungy, beat-up pickup trucks with tarps stretched over the backs. Tarps that twitched and writhed as Gravedigger activated his power, and about twenty groaning corpses pulled themselves free of the blue plastic, and started to file into formation.

Vorpal took a half step back, and muttered something. I shook my head, and looked through the trees, toward Vector’s hideout. I zoomed in to maximum range, examined the area. The van was still in place. Two of the cabins were shuttered. The last three were covered with vines, and a quick swap over to thermal sight confirmed what I’d already guessed.

“THREE KAIJU IN THE CABINS,” I rumbled, as softly as my modulator would allow. Then I panned my vision down through the wilderness preserve, looking for more signatures. It took some time, especially in the full heat of July, and I had to swap back and forth between thermal sight and the zoom enhancements. “SOME HIKERS, A FEW DEER. NOTHING ELSE THAT LOOKS LIKE A MUTANT.”

“Any of those hikers could be Chaingang,” Vasquez said, his own modulator scrambling his voice. “The more we evade the better.”

I gave out distances and locations. “MIGHT NOT BE ALL OF THEM. THERE’S ENOUGH TREES THAT DIRE CAN’T SEE EVERYTHING ALONG THE WAY.”

Grim nodded. “Your Geiger counter got any range to it?”

“PRACTICALLY NOTHING. A FEW HUNDRED FEET.”

“All right. Everyone got their headsets?” That had been my idea, and insistence. Morgenstern’s techs supplied all of the Gang and Vorpal with their own tacnet. They weren’t trained with it, but I was tapped in and running overwatch through my HUD, and I’d gotten a fair amount of practice from playing with Die Kriegers’ setup. This would let us coordinate a bit better. It was certainly an improvement on Vasquez’ original plan.

Everyone checked in, save for Whippoorwill. For our own safety we had her muted. Shouldn’t be a problem between Deadweight partnered with her, and me watching her through the tacnet.

I looked around at the hilltop. An old ranger station, long vacant. A few houses, on the other side of the hill. “SET UP THE JAMMER,” I told Vasquez. He nodded, and fired up the bundle of scrap that I’d cobbled together before we launched the operation. Nothing fancy, just enough to prevent the houses on the other side from calling the authorities too early. Our own communications were strong enough that they’d be unhindered.

While he set that up, his squad was busy with the missile batteries. No micromissiles here, these were military hardware, each of them enough to turn a cabin into chunks of wood and scrap. We only had about ten shots, that was every warhead in the armory, but it would be enough to get in a good opening strike.

“We’re moving,” Grim told me. I nodded. They’d be hiking most of the way. We’d given them two hours to get into position. He assured me his team could handle it without powers. I knew I couldn’t make it without exhaustion, and had my doubts about Whippoorwill, but he knew his people better than I did.

Vorpal went with them, clad in her costume, with a few machetes strapped to her sides. Her powers were blade dependent, so breakage was a possible problem.

“ALPHA TEAM, ARE YOU IN POSITION?”

“Hicks here. We’re good.” That was the lady Vorpal had been talking with, I thought. She and the rest of the jetpack-equipped Troopers were across the lake from the Professor’s lair. Sadly, that part of the shore wasn’t as remote; there was a quite full picnic area in use right now. But their black vans were parked in a parking lot, with tinted windows hiding the contents therein. When the time came, they’d burst out and be gone before anyone could panic.

As for me, my part was yet to come. I’d have to wait for about an hour, give or take.

The waiting was the worst of it. I distracted myself by keeping surveillance on the cabins. Time passed, and little changed as I checked through the Graveyard Gang’s cameras, and watched them jog through the trees. They were doing pretty well, actually. I couldn’t have kept up that pace. They’d probably be in position early. I adjusted my plans for their average rate.

Then my channel to Grim opened up. Private, two-way between us only. “Doc? Got a second?”

“Doctor Dire or Dire, and yes, she does.”

“Aces. Look, something you should know here; I want Vector to survive.”

“Why is that?”

“Let’s just say I might need a favor from a mad scientist who’s good at biology and leave it at that. Our real objective here is the flowers, yeah? It’s just Morgenstern who wants him dead, right?”

“The client wants him dead, yes.”

“Come on now, we both know it’s Morgenstern. But anyway, he left that to Sanchez, not us. Probably because we charge more for wetwork, but that gives me some wiggle room... if you’re on board with me.”

I considered it. “Vector’s killed. He’s a walking plague risk.”

“For noble reasons, as I hear it.”

“The project he was working on was anything but noble.” I wondered, though. He’d bailed out of that, sabotaged the flowers. I’d gotten a snootful of them, and noticed no changes. Not yet, anyway. What did they do?

Grim chuckled. “Yeah, but Morgenstern’s no paragon himself. So they say, anyway, never met the man personally. Look, just... think it over. We’ll take out the flowers, fight the monsters, and if it comes down to it and Vector escapes I’ll ask no questions and owe you a favor.”

“Dire makes no promises.” I said. Good lord, dealing with supervillains was complicated. At least back when I was killing gangers, that was pretty black and white.

“Not asking you to. Guess we’ll see how it shakes out. Break a leg, Dire.”

“Hopefully not,” I replied, but I was talking to a closed channel.

Well. Time for me to get moving.

“SHE’S GOING,” I told Vasquez. He nodded, and I took to the sky.

One good thing about the jammer I’d assembled: while it only covered a few miles around it on the ground, it went up quite a ways vertically. The airport wasn’t far, but they wouldn’t get me on radar if I stuck to the area the jammer covered. We were well away from the southern flight paths. While there was the possibility that someone might see me, the setting sun to my west gave some protection there against observers from the east. And the population to the west was fairly negligible for miles. Even stuck crawling at fifty miles per hour, I wouldn’t be too obvious.

My biggest worry was flying heroes, or those with extra-sensory powers. But nobody disturbed me as I whispered through the skies, the wind whistling about me, and after enough minutes, the clouds were slipping past me cottony bit by cottony bit. Once I was above the day’s cloud cover I relaxed, and when I was ten miles up, I sighed in relief and started slipping south, toward a good approach vector.

A vector to Professor Vector. Heh. I’d tell that to Martin later, he’d love it.

I waited there, clearing my head of thoughts. The plan was ready. Everything was just about in place. If it worked, we’d save the world. If it failed, well, things would get bad somehow. Didn’t know exactly how, but it would probably involve plagues.

I checked back in with Grim. They were about as close as they could safely get, and resting. “Everyone good?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” he whispered. “Easy workout. Walk in the park.” Through his tac-cam I saw a sweating, sitting Whippoorwill flip him off, and I stifled a snort of laughter.

“Ready to move again?”

He looked around, and his team nodded. Vorpal nodded a second later, looking a little winded herself. They’d arrive a bit tired, but it shouldn’t matter.

“Good. Once we begin, head out.”

“Will do.”

I flipped back over to Vasquez’s channel. “Let’s do this.”

From above, the puff of flame and smoke from the missile firing off the battery was almost undetectable. A firework, or a bonfire flaring up before being smothered.

The explosion of the van a few moments later was much easier to see. One second there was a black van parked next to the cabins, the next second it was metal bits and fire as the hydrogen cell went up. Then there was movement, green movement as the woods appeared to shift, and engulf three of the cabins. Those were the kaiju, I knew.

One of the cabins went up in flames as the second missile struck, and the woods boiled away from the fire, pulling back in a wide radius. I grinned.

Even from ten miles up I could hear the inhuman roar, the same loud shriek I’d heard back when I was fleeing down the street away from a plantlike abomination. They were hurt, and they were letting the world know. I zoomed in just in time to see a shirtless man and a white-clad figure burst out of one of the non-kaiju’d cabin, and gesturing toward the other non-kaiju’d cabin.

“Eyes on Vector,” I reported. “Chaingang is with him.”

“Can you snipe?” Vasquez asked. I shook my head. My targeting systems weren't optimized for this range.

“Nope. Going to have to leave him to the Gang. Grim?”

“On our way. Staying low.”

“Good, and— there!”

Chaingang was spawning more of him, sending them running into the empty cabin. The hims were coming out with boxes, carboard boxes full of greenery.

Another kaiju’d cabin went up in fire, and another shriek filled the air.Vector pointed toward the north, toward our missile battery. I watched as the greenery flowed away from the cabin, and headed north. “Kaiju are moving!” I said, grinning. “Repeat, we’ve got a moving grove.” I’d heard that turn of phrase somewhere and thought it was cool. Nobody laughed at it, but eh, that was fine.

“Dire’s beginning her approach!” I called, as I turned, and aimed myself toward the cabins, going from zero to full gravitic thrust. “Chaingang’s evacuating the flowers, staying on sight. Three Kaiju heading to the battery! Vector’s... just gone back inside.” Interesting. Gone to retrieve some weapons, or save some other stuff? I thought he’d just flat out run. That was a surprise. Well, maybe he’d come out again.

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.

“EVIL BIOLOGIST IS MAKING PLAGUE FLOWERS, DIRE AND HER ALLIES ARE DESTROYING THEM.”

“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.

Could I trust him to do the same?

“ANOTHER QUESTION. THE POLLEN FROM THESE FLOWERS. IS THERE A CURE?”

“Well, I, I suppose, but why?” He blinked. “It doesn’t do anything by itself, it just makes it easier for my own other solutions to affect you without... side effects.”

“NONETHELESS, IS THERE A CURE?”

“Well, no. But it’s not permanent. Couldn’t get this batch to have a lasting effect before Morgenstern—” He cleared his throat. “In any event, the effects of this batch wear off in a few months. No way to really notice, either, it just gets absorbed and cleared by cellular replacement.”

No, I decided. This was a man who had learned from his mistake. This was an acceptable risk.

I gestured with a hand. “OPEN THE BOX.”

He hesitated, and I flared my mask’s glowing eyes. “OPEN IT!”

It was full of flowers. “TAKE ONE AND GO.”

“I... what?”

“DID DIRE STUTTER?”

“No... I... you’re sparing me?”

“YOU WANT TO FIX THE WORLD?”

He took a deep breath, let it out. Hope filled him, and I knew how fragile that emotion was. “Yes. With all my heart.”

“THEN GO. AND REMEMBER DIRE’S MERCY.”

I took the box from his hand, and awkwardly, he seized the biggest looking flower, tucking it into his labcoat. I turned, curled into a ball, and whirred away down the tunnel, leaving his fate in his own hands.

I opened the tacnet. “Vector escaped. Dire managed to grab the last of the flowers from him, though. What’s the situation, Grim?”

“Burning the last of the kaiju. As soon as the big fight’s done, the sorta-truce with Freeway’s over. We’re going to bug out here and let him finish up this one once it’s weak enough.”

I nodded. “Good. Vorpal?”

“I don’t have a good way of escaping. Can you pick me up?”

“Easily. Team Alpha?”

Hicks responded. “Recovered our downed trooper. We’re bugging out.”

“Good. Beta?”

Vasquez responded. “If it’s all over but the crying, we’ll bug out as well.”

“Fine by Dire.” I burst out the end of the tunnel, darted out of the cabin, unfolded and chucked the last flower box into the fire. “Vorpal, your ride’s here.”

A blue and grey shape darted back from the waterline, evaded a few vines, and ran towards me. I scooped her up, and flew south, through the trees. “Farewell, all. Good work.”

Grim’s channel clicked on, privately. “You too. Thanks, by the way.”

“Don’t be. Vector escaped under his own power.”

“Uh-huh. See you ’round, Doc.”

When we were a few miles clear, I looked to Vorpal. “DITCH THE HEADSET.” She yanked it off and tossed it in the canopy of a passing tree.

Ten minutes later we were holed up in the old stone quarry I’d hidden the armor in the last time we pulled off an ambush. A quick phone call to Martin, and he showed up twenty minutes later, with a very grumpy Bunny riding shotgun. Literally. She had her scattergun in her lap, hidden under a newspaper.

Once in the back of the van, I decanted from the armor, stretched the kinks out. “Job well done.”

“Yeah?” Martin asked.

“Stop the van,” I said.

“Why?” But he did it.

“Six million in the bank,” I said.

He slapped the wheel, hunched over it, and when he straightened up he jerked his head back to stare at me. “Bu-what?”

“Yeah that’s why Dire told you to stop the van.” Vorpal and Bunny laughed, but Bunny looked a little stunned, too.

“Six million?” She asked.

“Villainy pays.” I shrugged. “Less morally conflicting, too, when you’re whomping other villains.” Although it wasn’t, really. I’d agonized over Vector, before deciding to give him another chance. Before letting him go.

Martin started the van. “Okay, Miss six million in the bank, have you figured out where the fuck we’re going now that we don’t have any lairs left?”

“Actually, it’s taken care of. Before the mission, Dire went ahead and used some of the payment to rent a vacation cabin on the lake.” Vorpal shot me a glare. “The opposite side of the lake, relax. Ah, you’ll have to de-costume, Vorpal.”

“Yah, yah.” She stripped down in the back of the van, and I tossed her the clothes I’d stored in the armor’s utility compartment. A flicker of motion caught my eye as I did, and I looked back to see Bunny adjusting the van’s mirror slightly. Was she? She was! She was using the mirror to watch Vorpal change without being obvious about it.

Huh. Maybe I could recommend a good, open-minded woman to Vorpal after all.

Well. Business first. I gave directions to Martin, and he pulled the van out of the quarry, up the road, and rejoined traffic.

I waited for him to adjust the mirror back before I broke the silence. “So, Bunny, any plans for the future?”

She shrugged. “My gang fucked me over. There’s good people there, but if the higher ups are corrupt, there’s no fucking point. Everything we tried for, all the good we did, it’s all tainted now.”

“Not all of it.” I said.

She flicked her eyes to me, and rubbed the back of her head. “No. I guess not all of it.”

“Do you have any place to go?” I asked.

“No place that’s safe. No family left in this part of the country. Shit, if the mob’s after me now, and they will be, I need to stay away from them. I’d just drag them into danger.” She looked out the window. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well...” I said. “If you want, you can take your time. Vorpal’s staying with Dire for now, too.”

“Yeah?” Martin said, shifting the mirror to study me.

“Yes. She’s a good friend, and Dire trusts her at Dire’s back.” I smiled at Martin.

Bunny studied Vorpal out of the corner of her eye. Vorpal, for her part, put her feet up on the side of the van, and lay back, relaxing as best she could. “Kirsten.”

“Hm?” I asked.

“My name is Kirsten.”

I nodded. “No name besides Dire, sorry. And Martin’s Martin.”

“Just call me Bunny.” Bunny said. “All my friends do.”

“Yah?” Vorpal studied her, offered a slow smile. “There is a story behind that name?”

Bunny smiled, friendlier than I’d seen her grin before. “Yeah. But it’s best told after a few drinks.”

“Well, the two of you are the least wanted people in the group right now whose faces aren’t known to the authorities, so you can do a beer run once we get to the cabin.” I said, grinning.

We passed the ‘Arbor Haven’ sign on the lonely dirt road, pulled through tangles of obscuring trees, past cozy little cabins nestled back among them. Various cars and trucks studded the driveways, and I saw barbecues in full swing, tourists enjoying a closer communion with the outdoors.

A tall, blonde figure was sitting on the porch swing of Number Sixteen, and Martin gasped to see her. “Oh yeah! This is where you stashed her?”

She clambered to her feet, and a shorter figure bumbled out of the trees where she’d been playing. Both of them moved to intercept the van as it pulled to a stop.

Martin popped the door open, climbed out. “Minna! Long time no mfff—”

She seized him and hauled him in for a kiss.

I looked to Anya, who looked back at me gravely. Behind me Vorpal and Bunny laughed and cheered.

“Ice cream?” Anya asked me.

“Sure.”

She took my hand, and led me into the cabin.

It was nice inside, all hardwood and country kitsch, various farm implements and settler’s tools hanging from the walls. I’d chosen a place with multiple bedrooms, and now I was glad of it.

We’d just pulled a carton of Double Fudgie down from the freezer, when Martin and Minna crashed through the door, still kissing. Martin fumbled behind him, managed to get the door shut on the third try.

Anya giggled. I watched, leaning against the wall and helping myself to spoonfuls of sugary cold goodness.

The van started up outside, and I frowned. “Dire’s armor is in there.”

Martin jerked his face free for a second.“They’re just doin’ a beer run!”

The reprieve didn’t last, as Minna hauled him upstairs toward the bedrooms. With one last ‘eh, what can you do’ expression on his face, he let himself be dragged along.

I looked at Anya. Anya looked at me. We both looked at the big television in the corner.

“Mr. Roberts?” She asked me.

“Sure, let’s see if he’s on.” I could use a reminder that someone liked me, just the way I was.

We had to turn up the volume to drown out the racket from upstairs. Minna was being pretty noisy.

Much later, with Anya curled up and sleeping in my lap, I heard feet tread on the stairs behind me. I glanced over to see Martin, wearing one of Minna’s fuzzy bathrobes, working his way down. He nodded at me, a big-ass grin on his face.

I scooted over on the overstuffed couch, ignoring Anya’s sleepy protests. “Dire is starting to get a little concerned about Vorpal and Bunny. They’ve been gone for hours! Not answering their phones, either.”

Martin laughed, folding himself into the couch. “Relax. Vorpal just got out of a serious fight. Most people who come through life or death shit, they got ways of celebrating once they’re clear. Probably won’t see them till tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Jesus. Keep forgetting how young you are. Feels like the birds and the bees talk... ah, hell with it. They found a hotel somewheres and they’re fucking like weasels.”

“Oh.” That made sense, I supposed. “Odd. They could have just used one of the bedrooms.”

“They’re bein’ polite.”

“Dire wouldn’t have cared.”

“I would’ve. Well, before I found out Minna was here, I mean.” His grin had nothing to do with modesty.

I chuckled. “That’s good then. Was a bit concerned for you.”

“Yeah?” He studied me for a moment, grin shrinking a bit. “You’re... okay with this?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t she— oh.”

I think I understood what he was asking. He was asking if I was going to be jealous, due to his sexual relationship with Minna. I gave it consideration.

“Yes. She’s fine with it.”

“Good.” Martin glanced upward. “Sounds like her shower’s stopped. Guess it’s time for round four.” He stood, then glanced down toward Anya. “I’ll put her to bed before round four if you want.”

I nodded. “Please. Dire’s legs have been numb for the last hour or so.”

With her gone, I turned down the volume on the public television channel I’d been watching, and let a documentary on lemurs bore me to sleep.

In the morning I woke before the others, headed down to the lake, studied the landscape across the water. No sign that a costumed battle had taken place there the other day, or any sign that life had changed because of it. Just boats out on the lake, revelers on vacation, and the woods beyond. I gathered small stones up, and cast them across the rippling water.

What a week!

I’d gained a fortune by the average person’s standards, enough seed money to cement the wealth I’d need to begin my major projects. I’d gained another nemesis, in the form of the fickle and foolish Timetripper. I’d battled with heroes, dug up an unlikely truth about a corporate mogul. I’d gained and lost a time machine within a matter of days, and saved three friends from fates worse than death. Four if you counted Anya, though her fate probably wouldn’t have been horrible.

Plunk! A stone sunk into the depths. No, not horrible, but not right, either. To be raised by her mother’s rapist and murderer... no, I’d saved her from that. Couldn’t see any way he would have made a good parent.

I’d also gained a new friend, and made some contacts. All at the cost of a few painful beatings, a lot of equipment, a fully-stocked lair, and much effort. It had been worth it, but so many parts of it had been touch and go. Sloppy. Risky.

“She’ll do better next time,” I muttered.

And then there had been Vector. I hadn’t planned the final confrontation at all, and it hadn’t gone the way I expected. I’d come prepared for a blustering, prideful, jerk of a villain with megalomaniacal schemes and a last-ditch fight with the world at stake. Instead I’d found a man. Just a man, who wanted to change the world and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Had I made the right choice there? I thought so, but only time would tell.

Tires crunching on the road, and I headed up to the back of the cabin, stared through the patio doors as the van pulled up, and Bunny and Vorpal piled out. The heat in their eyes as they looked at each other was visible even from this distance, and I chuckled to see it.

They bore with them buckets of fried chicken, and the smell drew the others down from upstairs. I watched Martin and Minna greet them, Anya following behind, thumb planted firmly in her tiny mouth.

I put a hand on the glass, smiled. I’d go in and join them in a bit, but for now it was enough to watch them. Enough to know they were happy.

Today we'd celebrate.

Tomorrow, the real work would begin.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thank you for reading DIRE:SEED! I am grateful for your patronage.

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Andrew Seiple