DIRE : BORN (The Dire Saga Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

responding. Siegebreaker nodded back.
    “Right sorry, I'll dial it down.”
    More discussion, and I frowned.  No way to listen in without getting closer, and to do that I'd either have to lose the mask or become the center of attention. I didn't like either option. On the other hand, I wasn't too fond of the idea of going back to bed without answers.
    After a few seconds, it occurred to me that I had something useful for this. I removed my backpack, and crouched down behind an abandoned car. Old me had left myself four useful devices: The mask, an electronic controller that was basically a universal remote, the forcefield generator, and a small scouting drone. That last one seemed the most useful for the situation, so I rummaged around inside the pack, found the ball drone, and looked for a good angle. After some searching, I found one. Now let's see, how did it activate... ah. There.
    I tapped the drone against the street, and a prompt popped up in the mask.
     
    ACTIVATE Y/N
     
    I twisted the ball until Y was highlighted, and tapped it again. A glowing outline appeared around my hand, and I put the ball on the ground. A circular shutter opened on the thing, and a screen appeared on my heads up display, showing what the drone 'saw'. I twisted my hand, and the drone tilted as the screen shifted to examine the underside of the car. A little bit of experimentation with hand gestures gave me arrows, which set it in motion. I straightened up as I rolled the thing down the street, past piles of rubble, and along the curb. It was silent and small, and as I got it within about fifty feet of Tomorrow Force a new prompt appeared
     
    AUDIO AVAILABLE: LISTEN Y/N
     
    Yes. Yes I did want to hear. That's the point of this little exercise. I swiveled my hand, knocked against the hood of the car to select “Y”.  And voices faded in...
    “No bodies, beyond the WEB remains?” That was Doc Quantum. His voice was rich, calm, relaxed. The sort of voice one would want their most respected leaders to have. Then his words sunk in. I wondered if they'd found the tunnels full of WEB corpses, or just the ones that had died in the building.
    “Nada. This whole building must have been empty. Strange, you think that'd get noticed in this part of town.” Siegebreaker's was mechanical, and deep. Still recognizable as human, though.
    Kinetica tossed her head, and blonde hair flew as she folded her arms. “The right bribes to the right cops and dealers and no one would notice. This part of the Brownstones is all gangs and goodfellas. At least its emptiness means less dead, and if they're all WEB then I can't say I'll mourn too much.”
    “But why this building?” Quantum pondered, one gloved hand rubbing the short beard that protruded through the chin slot of his mask. “That was definitely thermite in the mix that destroyed an entire floor. There was something here that WEB wanted badly enough to draw attention and squander at least two squads of troopers.”
    Siegebreaker sighed, a rolling rumble of sound. “But no clues as to why the power grid's down, here or anywhere else. I was hoping the timing wasn't a coincidence. That maybe we could find some answers.”
    Quantum shook his head. “We can't rule it out or verify it one way or the other. Not here, not now. At any rate, there's not much good to be done here, and the him arby needs us patrolling, keeping the peace. Everyone good to go?”
    Him arby? I must have misheard that.
    I started the ball rolling back to me, and a voice crackled down from the aircraft. “Hang on. Movement at eight o clock.” I froze, stopped the drone with a gesture. There was someone up there, monitoring from above.
    A tense minute, as the rubble shifted. I could hear them moving around, looking, but the lens was at a bad angle to see anything. Quantum's voice was loud and clear, at least. “Schrodinger, can we get some lights down here?”
    Well, shit. I rolled the lens around, looking for cover, and found