Category Archives: Arc 5.1: Ready or Not

Ready or Not: Part 6

Bits of light sparkled around the end of the barrel. I waited to see if it did it again. It didn’t.

Good. Then I didn’t have to put it back in the locker.

I put on a little speed, and joined everyone else by the jet. Haley had touched the door, and it opened, lowering to the ground, and altering to become a short stairway.

Sean looked down at the gun and said, “What’s that? You looked like you were talking to it.”

Not even waiting for me to answer, he reached out to take it.

It fired.

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 6

Ready or Not: Part 5

Daniel, I thought at him, Why not you?

I’ve never liked being in charge, and I’ve had to do it a lot. Besides, we all need leadership experience and you managed to avoid it when we were switching off. Plus, and this is the most important reason, you’ve been part of the whole thing from the beginning. You’ll see stuff I’ll miss unless I go through your head, and search for every last bit of related stuff.

I could see that, and I did remember him hating being put in charge of things at school. He’d gone to the only Jewish day school in the area, been the grandson of a much loved Rabbi, and was tall and good looking as well. People tended to give him more attention than he wanted.

So okay, he was right, but how was I supposed to butt into Sean and Sydney’s family fight and actually make them listen?

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 5

Ready or Not: Part 4

Haley’s voice came over the speaker. “What’s Sean doing here?”

On the monitor, both Sean and Sydney looked around, neither of them sure where Haley’s voice had come from.

The two of them stood inside a sewer pipe. The door in front of them was made of concrete covered in reinforced steel.

That wouldn’t be much of an obstacle.

Sean wore his Justice Fist costume—green except for a white triangle that had a green fist inside it. Sydney appeared to be completely covered in gray metal.

She turned her head in Sean’s direction, scowling as she said, “He wouldn’t let me go alone.”

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 4

Ready or Not: Part 3

Haley barely let him finish before jumping in. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ You’re not going to do anything. You just told us so, and we can’t leave her there.”

Guardian’s jaw tightened, and he said, “We’re going to do something, but we’re going to do it right. Even if you know where she is, and it isn’t a trap, they’ll still be expecting an attack. I’m not going to throw high school students up against Rook and possibly more of the Nine’s people. If anything, I’m going to send in experienced people. Time to stop talking, and give me her location, I’ll get as far as I can.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a part of me wanted to remind him that some of us were college students, but I doubted that arguing technicalities would get me anywhere.

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 3

Ready or Not: Part 2

I clicked for more information, and realized that it wasn’t Cassie’s new communicator sending the signal. It was her old one.

The old League had alert signals that allowed them to show status using green, yellow, and red like ours did, but didn’t allow them to send sound or pictures—just location.

They’d been great at what they could do, but I’d replaced them last spring. Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 2

Ready or Not: Part 1

Haley and I sat in League HQ. The League’s twenty foot high TV screen showed nothing—just blackness.

Nothing had worked out.

OK, nothing might have been stretching it. We’d brought Marcus, Travis, Vaughn, and Courtney to one of Haley’s cousins, a doctor, who did what he could for them. Then we left, and they stayed.

None of them were unconscious, and if we got into the air, we might be able to detect Rook’s plane with the League jet’s sensors.

We couldn’t. So after a few circles around Grand Lake, we landed the jet, and went back to HQ’s main room, and sat there in a room the size of a basketball court, calling people and leaving messages.

Continue reading Ready or Not: Part 1