DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) by Andrew Seiple Page A

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