Category Archives: Arc 8.3.5: Precision

Precision: Part 10

Because the van’s dashboard was still in civilian mode, I couldn’t even send out bots to try to follow her. I pulled out my own phone, holding it to my side, and angling it with its back toward the back, so that people behind me couldn’t see the screen.

The “presence” screen showed that Kid Biohack’s communicator was on and placed him in the factory’s yard.

There had to be another way to find out whether he was alive or not, short of running out there. Continue reading Precision: Part 10

Precision: Part 9

I swallowed. I’d met a woman who used eagle themed powered armor. She’d been a professional mercenary who worked for Rook directly, and indirectly the Nine. She’d been in Rook’s headquarters when we broke in to rescue Cassie. I’d assumed that she’d survived the headquarters blowing up, but hadn’t expected to see her again.

I hadn’t beaten her as much as escaped from her, so this wasn’t good news. Continue reading Precision: Part 9

Precision: Part 8

We pushed our way back to the van, leaving and undoubtedly violating laws about staying at the scene of a crime in the process. I wasn’t sure how many heard the first part of the conversation, but there were a lot of people at the end.

Of course, that was when Kid Biohack was there. Back when it was Alden and Jillian talking, it wouldn’t have appeared to be anything more than normal conversation since he’d been out of costume.

Still, someone might have listened to all of it. In that case, the police would be very interested in anything Jillian would have to say. Continue reading Precision: Part 8

Precision: Part 7

Jillian’s boyfriend straightened up, letting go of Jillian’s arm, and standing in between her and Kid Biohack. Meeting Kid’s eyes, he said, “I told you I wasn’t going to do the hero thing after graduation. The system’s corrupt, and I know you know it. We talked about it back—” and there he blinked, “—in days we can’t talk about.”

Jeremy glanced over at me, and I guessed he’d recognized the same thing I had—the slack-jawed look of a guy whose psychic block had kicked into action.

Haley grabbed Jillian’s arm and whispered into her ear while pulling her backward, and nudging Camille and the guys next to her.

That was the smart play. Getting a ringside seat at what might be a superpowered fight was not. Continue reading Precision: Part 7

Precision: Part 5

In the background, I heard Courtney continue. “His text said that he was corralling everyone else.”

Jillian stood a little taller than Haley, and she’d braided her hair—which went halfway down her back. Just like the last time I’d seen her, she wore a flannel shirt over a t-shirt.

Courtney backed in as Jillian stepped inside—Jeremy and I didn’t have a particularly large room. We each had a closet on either side of the door, forcing everyone to move into the main area of the room, and stand next to our bunks and the desks. Jeremy’s was covered with a mixture of physics textbooks, science fiction paperbacks, old anime DVD’s, and books about conspiracy theories. Except for my laptop and the textbooks I couldn’t get as ebooks, mine was nearly empty.

Courtney pulled out Jeremy’s chair as Haley sat on my desk. Jillian and I stood in the middle of the room next to the bunk beds.

All of this meant that I couldn’t ask Haley anything about the power juice. The big questions being whether Jillian had some on her or whether she’d already drunk it or what? Continue reading Precision: Part 5

Precision: Part 4

When I opened up the pictures on my laptop, it was the speedster I’d seen first—the one that wasn’t glowing—the guy. He’d run back to his origin point, but there was no sign of the woman.

I stayed up for another ten minutes, waiting to see if she’d show up too, but she didn’t. When I woke up the next morning, there hadn’t been any further alerts. Maybe the north end of the route was where she lived.

Maybe she’d taken a cab back? I had no idea. Continue reading Precision: Part 4

Precision: Part 2

Despite the new details, we’d collected, there wasn’t much to do in the van, and we all left for our respective rooms—within limits anyway. Vaughn, Courtney, Haley, and I all lived in the biggest dorm on campus, and so we walked together. Haley and I broke off from the rest to talk about next weekend—which wasn’t a Stapledon weekend—planning to spend some time together.

Vaughn and Courtney talked a bit as they walked off, but I doubted that they talked for long. Their rooms were on opposite sides of the dorm.

When I finally walked through my own door, I found Jeremy working through physics homework at his desk, laptop open, his screen lighting his face.

I finished the homework I had left and then used my laptop to review the speedster sightings the bots had detected so far. It was just the two I’d found out about on the way back, but in both cases, they started on the southeast side of the city. More interesting, they came in view of my spybots within half a mile of each other. Continue reading Precision: Part 2

Precision: Part 1

We were back in Grand Lake late Sunday night. I planned to drive about half the Grand Lake University group back to campus. Jody’s parents lived only a few blocks away, so Dayton, Jody and Sean walked over there and to pick up Jody’s car. Julie and Shannon took their own way too.

That left Haley, Travis, Camille, Courtney, and Vaughn riding back to campus in the van with me. It filled all the seats once you included everyone’s luggage. I probably could have adjusted the van to compensate, but I couldn’t show up to the university’s car garage driving any other version of my van than my own.

Arriving in the Cat Mecha would have been funny, though. Continue reading Precision: Part 1