Read Online DIRE : SEED (The Dire Saga Book 2) by Andrew Seiple - Free Book Online

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