DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) (2 page)

“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?