I’ve got this about half finished. With luck I’ll finish tomorrow night. It’s the whole visiting my parents and hanging out for the fourth of July thing. Not to mention having the day sort of off with kids at home today. On the one hand, it gave me the chance to write. On the other… there’s that whole concentration thing.
So anyway, tomorrow night.
So we had a plan. Now all we had to do was successfully execute it.
Until Jenny and I had the ability to move, however, we couldn’t do anything but wait and listen.
I heard the voice I remembered from the video talking to Raptor again.
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Thanks to having fallen face down in the stairwell, I could only listen to what happened next.
A voice, the same voice that had been in the video conversation with Raptor, said, “Surrender. We’ve captured all your friends.”
Alex must have, because the next thing I knew, people were picking me up and carrying me to an elevator.
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Lee made us think through the circumstances in which we were willing to kill people.
Partially, I’m sure, it was because the circumstances in which you’re willing to kill dictate the sort of moves you need to practice. Partially, it had to be because when the moment came, you needed to recognize it and not hesitate.
We were close to mine.
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Four of them came through the door. They wore black, powered armor and helmets with wide, transparent facemasks. The armor made me think of police riot gear except riot gear generally included padding. This armor appeared be hard from top to bottom.
An automatic rifle hung under the right arm. Another weapon hung under the left. It reminded me of the Executioner’s paralysis gun.
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“Great,” Alex said. “Let’s put a plan together and get in there. It looks like simple get in, get out sort of mission to me. Anybody else?”
Brooke shook her head. “I don’t know… Something’s not right. Why do they think they can take on the Defenders?”
“You think it’s more than just the hostages?” Jenny said.
“How often do hostages work against people with powers?” Brooke said.
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“But we’re not going to,” Alex said. “Raptor’s not going to take on Syndicate L by himself. He’s got to stay here and direct the people who are still left, and, you know, most of them got the short end of the stick when it comes to powers, so what good are they?”
“Well,” I said, “they’re experienced for one. Powers don’t do much good if you don’t know how to use them.”
“Come on,” Alex said. “You’re experienced. You guys made national news a bunch of times. The Grey Giant, that conspiracy, the Executioner… That’s more than any of the no-names Raptor will be using. I don’t see why you’re being such a wuss about this.”
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I picked up my guitar from the floor and pulled it out of its vinyl case. Jenny didn’t say anything, but her expression probably meant, “I hope that’s not really for playing video games.”
The man stepped around the smashed hood, grabbed Alex’ door and ripped it off the car. A black mask covered the man’s face, but his black and red shirt showed massive muscles and a lot of skin.
That wasn’t a good sign. Only supers with an extreme resistance to damage went with a t-shirt instead of armor.
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I didn’t feel quite right about it the next morning.
Parts of the news report stuck in my head — the accidental activation of the weapons, for example. If someone had gotten hurt, it would have been our fault too.
Also, we hadn’t started the fire in the warehouse. Syndicate L must have done that themselves. They’d had something to hide there.
I wondered if we shouldn’t have just given the warehouse’s address to the police.
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Brooke opened another portal.
Through it I could see a warehouse filled with vehicles — delivery trucks, police cars, armored trucks, hummers, and a semi. It wasn’t full either. The information we’d gotten from Carlos showed that half the vehicles were out this time of day.
Brooke changed the scene to the inside of a delivery vehicle and Jenny climbed through. She did the same thing until Jenny sat in each vehicle.
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