DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3) Read online

  “HE’S NEW.”

  The statue punched me in the mask. I tensed, as the sound of shattering clay filled the air...

  But it wasn’t my mask that gave. He looked annoyed as he pulled back a stump, fired clay showing rough and brownish-orange in the stump of his wrist.

  “Actually, he’s really old. So, you gonna back off and surrender now?”

  As I watched, black streaks extruded from Jian’s shattered wrist, and writhed together. Asphalt? Yes. It twisted, reshaped itself, formed into the shape of his old hand. He was pulling substance from the material he was standing upon. Good, he could regenerate.

  “SURRENDER?” I inquired. “YOU POOR BOY.”

  I slammed a micromissile point-blank into the statue, sprayed him into a million terracotta fragments, and turned to face the whirling sphere of my power armored foe as he darted away. “DIRE’S BARELY GETTING STARTED!” I yelled, cycling through the missile array as I tossed number five explosive warheads his way. I wasn’t particularly trying to hit him, just keep him busy. And where my shots missed, the missiles kept on going, to the detriment of the entire city block. Cars blew to fragments, store windows exploded into blasts of jagged glass, brickwork crumbled and exploded, and a gas station burst into flames with a low CRUMP and a cloud of greasy smoke.

  And then my world was fire, and I hissed through my teeth as I watched the thermal signatures climb. The impact gel was bubbled, expanded, and I aborted my missile barrage to punch the gravitics and get out of the worst of the flames. Right, right, couldn’t ignore the elementalist at my back.

  “Don’t call me boy!” the round-armored hero shouted, as I turned to re-acquire Semper Fire. He’d moved, gotten to new cover. I hesitated, dialing down to concussion missiles. Didn’t know if he could take explosives, didn’t want to kill the guy.

  “The name’s Cue Ball!” And then the idiot slammed into me.

  Overstressed and heated, the worst pockets of impact gel swelled with absorbed kinetic energy and burst, sending jets of blue goo spraying behind me as I staggered, bathing Cue Ball in the goop, and puddling on the torn pavement. I rocked within the harness, more violently now since I’d lost most of my padding. Annoying! The armor was taking a beating ahead of schedule.

  And then it struck me. Their tactics were sound, too sound for improvisation. This was practiced... not necessarily for use against me, but for foes of my caliber.

  I whirled, spread my arms wide and seized Cue Ball, drop kicking him through a nearby condemned factory. Dust and asbestos sprayed as I completed the whirl, pointing a gauntlet at Semper Fire. He froze in the act of forming another ball of flame.

  “FREEWAY, YOU SLY DOG. THIS IS A TEAM, ISN’T IT?”

  He materialized to my left, outside of my mask’s visual range. “Got it in one. We’re calling ourselves the Icons.”

  He was trying to draw my attention away. I snorted, punched on one of my port-side cameras to track him, and piped the feed to my HUD. “HAVEN’T HEARD ABOUT THIS YET. IS THIS YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL OUTING?”

  “More or less. Some minor stuff, not big enough to make the news.” We could have been talking about a football game. Well, if you ignored my mechanized roar, anyway.

  “SO, DID YOU STEAL DIRE’S TECH FOR THE KID, OR DID HE DO THAT ON HIS OWN?”

  “Hey!” Cue Ball shouted, his battered form rolling through the factory’s chain-link fence. “I didn’t steal anything!”

  “EXCEPT FOR THE BASIC PARTS, THE DESIGN, THE AESTHETIC, AND THE ON-BOARD FORCEFIELD.” I commented. “THOUGH THE IDEA TO STICK YOURSELF INTO WHAT WAS DESIGNED TO BE AN EXPENDABLE DRONE AND RISK YOUR NECK AGAINST SOMEONE WHO KNOWS MOST OF THIS MODEL’S WEAKNESSES... WELL, THAT’S ALL YOU, KID.”

  He sputtered. Freeway and Semper Fire didn’t react, beyond tensing and shifting. To my right, terracotta shards drew together with black asphalt. A speckled clay warrior rose to face me. Then he made a chopping motion with one hand, and another statue formed from the broken road next to him, this one entirely black.

  They were stalling.

  “SO. IS THIS THE PART WHERE BALLISTA LEAPS UP AND TRIES TO KILL HER?”

  Freeway looked away. I noticed sweat streaking down his neck. He looked exhausted. Why? The others tensed.

  “SOMETHING SHE SAID?”

  “Ballista went vigilante last week.” Freeway said.

  “OH.” That changed things. Heroes are heroes so long as they obey the societal rules that had arisen to give civilization a means of coping with a world full of powers. If heroes got caught breaking them, they would lose the protection and support of established hero culture and the government bureaus in charge of policing them. And if they screw up badly enough...

  “MURDER?”

  “Manslaughter,” Freeway said, sharply. “That’s the charge. He hasn’t been convicted yet.”

  “CAN’T SAY SHE’S SURPRISED. HE WAS ALWAYS SLOPPY.” Ballista had been aiming to maim or kill me, back when we’d first met. Though he’d had cause, I had to admit.

  Freeway glared at me through his goggles. “He’s worth ten of you. And you want to talk sloppy?” He waved a hand around, at the casual destruction that I’d unleashed, the damaged and burning city block that crumbled around us as we spoke. Water geysered from pipes broken under a torn street, and sewage seethed out, brown stains in the fountaining froth. “What the hell purpose does this serve?”

  “IT’S A SURPRISE,” I said. “ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR BY THE EVENING NEWS CYCLE.”

  “Where are the people?” Semper Fire's voice was muffled by the gas mask. I kept an eye on his flames, the fire between his hands frozen at beach-ball-size. “What did you do with them?”

  I grinned. Of course Freeway had taken the time to check, see if there was anyone he needed to evacuate before his team engaged me. I chortled to myself as I imagined his puzzled face, as he went through door after door at superspeed, and found every building, every car, every street within a nine-block radius empty. Everyone gone, in some cases swept away in the middle of whatever they were doing.

  That had taken some work to set up. But it was worth it. This plan called for property damage, fatalities were out of the question.

  “THEY’RE SAFE. SAFER THAN YOU, RIGHT NOW.”

  They shifted, looked to each other. Well, except for the terracotta warrior. With his reinforcement called up and complete, he chopped his hand once more, and another one started rising. They had different faces from him, I noted. Each one was an individual. Interesting, but not relevant. I filed it away for later research.

  “I dunno lady,” Cue Ball said, rolling in a small circle. “There’s four of us, and you’re leaking an awful lot of blue goo right now. Looks kind of important. Need an oil change?”

  “WELL, IF YOU THINK SHE’S WEAK, COME THEN. DIRE IS NEVER WEAK. COME AND FALL,” I said, turning my back on Semper Fire... and shifting the camera to cover him, as I beckoned at Cue Ball. Now or never.

  Everything happened at once.

  “Go!” Freeway called out, and made several sharp gestures at Jian, the terra cotta man. Hatches along Cue Ball’s sides spat out several modified Destructorbs that shot toward me. At the same time, Jian shouted a rapid-fire slew of words, and his created asphalt warriors charged me. Across the way, Semper Fire ran to the side, and hurled a fireball in my direction. I sped aside, easily—

  And then my cape was over my face. I snorted. Freeway, you old dog. Thinking he’d catch me with the same trick twice? I blinked in a pattern, the cape turned translucent to my vision thanks to the fiber-optic weave I’d put into it...

  Too late.

  The first burning asphalt soldier slammed into me, sludgy and sticky and half-melted from the heat. Tar splashed over my segmented plates, gumming up the works and covering my auxiliary camera.

  The fireball hadn’t been meant for me, at all. I tried to hover back, but the tarry soldier clung to me, hung on like a barnacle, and slowed me long enough for the other to leap and grab onto my shoulder. I threw
most of him off with a quick swipe, but half of him remained, stringing down and gumming up my works further.

  And then the first Destructorb hit me, stuck to the asphalt, and started chirping its self-destruct sequence. Four more followed in rapid succession by the time I’d blasted the first asphalt soldier into bits. I ascended into the air, pawing at the spheres, failing to dislodge them.

  “And that’s game!” Cue Ball called. The beeping rose to a crescendo...

  “Shift seven nine!” I whispered into my interface.

  It was a hell of an explosion. Five Destructorbs blowing up at once had enough force to take down a tank or APC. I watched from behind the heroes as I phased in from the teleport. It had carried the inner layers of my suit with me, leaving the damaged silver and black outer layers behind. Fragments pattered down, as the Icons watched for the smoke to clear.

  I didn’t give them the chance. A quick click set my particle beams to human tolerances, and the first shot took out Freeway, sending him flying back into a parked car, where he slumped bonelessly to the ground.

  Jian Hu Ren called out something and charged me, but not before my next shot hit Semper Fire in the gut. He tumbled to the ground, clutching his abdomen and rolling in pain. Then the terracotta warrior was upon me and another micromissile to the face scattered him into fragments. Wouldn’t keep him down, but it’d keep him busy, which was all I needed as I jogged through the rubble and leaped upon Cue Ball.

  “What the hell—”

  “AND THIS!” I roared as I grabbed hold of one dented curve of his armor. “THIS IS WHY—” I ripped a plate free, hucked it over my shoulder. “—YOU DON’T TRY TO USE—” He tried to roll away; I reached inside his suit with my free hand, found a motivator, and crushed it. Half of his armor unfolded, and he yelled as it jammed. “—THE VILLAIN’S TECHNOLOGY—” I hoisted him into the air, and peeled him like an onion, pulling plate after plate away, until only he was left, thrashing in the minimally-armored interface suit at the center. “—AGAINST HER!” I finished, and threw him to the ground.

  It was a gentle throw. Probably didn’t break any ribs. Still, he sprawled there, shaking. “What the hell? You’re...” He looked at me, at the black hyperceramic layer, still stained with a few bits of blue residue where the layer of impact gel had abutted it. “You’re like one of those Russian dolls. How the hell many layers do you have, lady?”

  I looked around at his scattered armor plates. “MORE THAN YOU, EVIDENTLY.” I heard internal reservoirs hiss, as the lower level of impact gel components mixed and refilled, causing me to swell a bit. Ready for another round!

  A gentle clang, and I rocked a bit as something struck my back. I looked behind me to see Jian Hu Ren, half terracotta and half asphalt, pulling back a shattered fist for another punch. “OH PLEASE. LOOK, JUST TAKE YOUR PEOPLE AND GO. YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE HERE FOR PHASE THREE.”

  “Jian!” Cue Ball called. He followed it up with the unknown language again. Chinese? Probably. Something in that area, anyway.

  The soldier paused. I gave him a nod, then went airborne. He watched me go, scowling, before he scurried to collect the other members of his team.

  I activated my comm. “Situation?”

  “They’re on the run!” Vorpal said. “In pursuit.”

  “What? Why? Are they wounded?”

  “No, they just broke off.”

  “Before you say anything, I’m keeping an eye out for traps.” Bunny broke in. “And chokepoints, and ambushes. Nothing, they’re beating feet towards Siegebreaker.”

  Butterflies ran up my spine. This was it. “Bunny? Vorpal? Get clear. Get out of there, now.”

  “I can catch them!” Vorpal snarled.

  “Abort!” I snapped. “That’s an order.”

  “Do it, love,” Bunny urged. “There’s a reason for—”

  Minna’s comm opened up. “Crusader is here.”

  The comms fell silent for a second, as I bit my lip. This is it. This is it! I glanced around, adjusted my course until my destination was just to the north. The Westmarket Water Treatment plant, a sprawling complex of pipes, rust, and thundering engines.

  It needed to go away. I figured we could probably manage that. This, and the other destruction up to this point, was a solid part of Phase Two.

  “Pulling out,” Vorpal said, subdued, her voice quavering with frustration.

  “Covering her retreat,” Bunny confirmed.

  “Martin?” I asked.

  “Off the roof. Almost to the street. I heard a rumble, I think—”

  The sonic boom rolled across the city, as a gold and white figure descended from the clouds, cape fluttering ivory in the sunlight. Gleaming golden-bronze armor covered him head to toe, topped by an old-style knight’s helmet, holes speckling the front around the mouth and eye-slits revealing calm hazel eyes. His cape was white, with a long red cross breaking up the color.

  He was shorter than I’d thought. Shorter than my current ten-plus-foot armored suit by half.

  The helmet turned, clinking softly against the gold breastplate in the stillness. He surveyed the destruction around us, looked to me.

  “Why?”

  “MULTIPLE REASONS.”

  The eyes found me. They were harder now, as he searched my mask. “None of them suffice. Whatever they are, they were not worth this.”

  “Scare.” I whispered into my interface, and my mask’s eyesockets glowed a hellish red.

  Crusader shifted. He looked amused.

  On the ground below I saw Jian with Freeway and Semper Fire tossed over his shoulders, trudging south as fast as his terracotta legs would take him. Cue Ball lingered, staring up at us, before he came to his senses and ran for the hills.

  “I ask you to surrender.”

  “DIRE WILL NOT.”

  “I ask you to return the people you stole.”

  “THEY ARE SAFER WHERE THEY ARE RIGHT NOW. SO DIRE REFUSES.”

  “Very well,” he said.

  He moved, and I darted aside, pushing my gravitics to full power as he shot past me, but he was turning around for another pass. He was nimble, and I didn’t think I could outmaneuver him for long. “Minna?” I whispered over the comm. “Now!”

  A scream from my interface, as green bars grew, turned blue, and topped out at pure white levels. With the impact gel and the energy deflecting layers gone I was free to use the best forcefield I’d ever built. And thanks to the infrastructure I’d spent the last few weeks hacking, it was fueled by the broadcast power of the city itself.

  I stood, hands on my hips, and Icon City stood with me. “Make it beautiful,” I whispered, as Crusader drew his fist back, and hit me at the speed of sound.

  A clap of thunder. The crystalline scream of every window of the buildings around us exploding. A grinding, ripping WHUMP as the factory I’d thrown Cue Ball into collapsed from the spreading force of the punch. Rotors whirred above as the news choppers scrambled for distance, then rode the wave.

  And when the glass fell silent, when the helicopters settled like nervous bees, when the final few girders of the factory finished their fall, I still stood there in midair. Hands on my hips, unmoved.

  My app chimed, confirming optimal photo conditions, and my grin threatened to burst my face. The footage was going out live, and newspapers across the globe would have us on their front page come morning.

  Crusader pulled his hand back and stared at his gauntlet. At the dents along the knuckles.

  “HER TURN.”

  I raised my fists, he raised his, and my lunging knee caught him about six inches below his belt buckle. He flew backwards and I was on him, fists hammering into the armor, pounding him with every bit of force my servos could generate. He twisted and turned, taking the blows to no discernible harm, but it gave me the chance to get in close. I knocked him off balance and tackled him, drove him over the wall of the waterworks, into the main pumps of the compound. Machinery gave before us, exploding into steam and shrapnel, but neither
of us cared. I hammered him, hammered him with every striking surface on my armor, pounding him like a madwoman.

  After he found I wouldn’t let up, Crusader gave up on soaking the strikes and started hammering back. With every hit he upped the pressure, and I watched the forcefield’s power bars dance and writhe even as the force of the punches blew machinery and buildings away around us, turning the water processing plant to rubble in the space of a minute. Finally, my reserves low and his punches slowing, we broke and staggered back. Rubble pattered down from above, raining from where we’d sent it skyward.

  I checked my damage reports, winced. The forcefield hadn’t aided me when I was striking him, it wasn’t built for that. My gauntlets were shredded, one of the kneepads was off, and several of the main actuators had blown. I hadn’t even noticed.

  I turned my eyes to Crusader. He was half-crouched, arms wide and defensive. His armor was dented, a long rip across his breastplate revealing torn cloth below. Ripped spandex showed at the seams and the joints, where my stray blows had caught what the armor didn’t cover. I smiled under my mask... and the smile faded, as I saw the tear in his breastplate start to seal, metal flowing together like molasses going over pancakes.

  “SELF-REPAIRING ARMOR?”

  “Orichalcum. It remembers its true form.”

  I had no idea what that word meant, but it mattered little as realization struck.

  “YOU DON’T... AH, YOU DON’T WEAR IT TO PROTECT YOURSELF, DO YOU?”

  “No.” And damned if I didn’t get the impression that he was grinning under that helmet.

  “YOU’RE FAR TOUGHER THAN THE ARMOR.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “YOU WEAR THE ARMOR BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO BE NAKED AFTER EVERY FIGHT.”

  “More or less, yes.”

  “HUH. WELL, THIS NEXT PART IS GOING TO SUCK, YES?”

  “For you? Oh yes.”

  And then he dove on me, and we were back to it.

  This time he wasn’t holding back.

  I pulled more power from the city, while Minna worked the switchboards we’d rigged. My suit gobbled it up, sucking more and more from the infrastructure. All around Icon City, I knew that lights were going out, cars were grinding to a halt, airships were drifting as propellers went quiet, and computers glitched and powered down.