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
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.
Just for the record, folks, here’s a link to my publisher’s announcement about Legion of Nothing. The first volume is out for Kindle. Other formats will follow soon. I’ve got the epub version (for Nook, and most other ereaders) already, but there’s a little work to be done there, I guess.
Oh, and those of you who have read it (it amounts to “The Beginning” through “1953”), feel free to review it.
Reviews greatly help it get noticed.
EDIT: For that matter, if you’ve read the online version, feel free to review it too. You’ve read the story. The online version is simply an earlier draft.
The flunky started hitting himself, and screaming, his voice reminding me again that this was Davis, the guy who’d made the offer to Courtney.
I wondered for a moment how much damage I wanted to do to him. I had questions for him, after all, but that didn’t matter as much as I’d have thought.
Rook’s suits were pretty well constructed.
The bots wedged themselves into cracks, but they did a lot more damage to the powered armor than the person inside. Plus, after the first wave, I brought in a wave of EMP bots.
The first wave withdrew as the second settled on him. He stopped hitting himself for a moment, and adjusted his footing, probably in preparation for attacking me—or possibly escaping.
Then the EMP bots exploded. Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 10
Too quickly for me to see anything but a blur, Travis punched the guy in the face—if you could call a beaked helmet a face.
His punch hit the right cheek, denting it, and twisting the beak. The helmet made a crunching noise, and bent backward. It didn’t seem to bend further back than a human head could, but it didn’t seem to be capable of bending forward anymore.
Not that that mattered. Travis’ punch had knocked the guy backward. Continue reading A Kind of Small Crow: Part 9
I couldn’t see it happen, but at least one of the bullets hit. Vaughn fell, or maybe more accurately, lost control.
He flipped over a few times, dropping dangerously low. I would have lost track of him if it weren’t for the sonar built in to the stealth suit’s helmet.
His black costume blended into the night, but the helmet outlined his body, showing him as he nearly hit Grand Lake Marina Supplies. I say “nearly hit” because he didn’t.
He swerved right just as he was about to hit the “G” in Grand Lake.
Unfortunately, it was also an idea that I had to use quickly instead of thinking through the implications.
The last time I’d pointed the guitar’s explosive end at a guy in powered armor, it had nearly killed him. Only Alex’s ability to heal had kept the man from bleeding out.
Alex wasn’t anywhere around here. I definitely wasn’t going to have time to fly to California to pick him up.
When the laser hit, Rook’s armor glowed, reflecting the light, but not entirely. In fact, not for very long at all.
The laser drilled through, and light came out the other side.
Rook screamed, and I stopped firing, backing up, pulling my shoulder away from the claw that had pierced almost all the way to my skin.
Rook took a step toward me, but nearly fell over, his leg wobbling.
I tried to think of the next step.
The first Legion of Nothing book The Legion of Nothing: Rebirth will be published this month. Sadly, that means I’ve got to promote it. 1889 Labs, the small press that’s publishing it has a list of book reviewers that they’re undoubtedly going to give “Advanced Review Copies” (henceforth, ARC’s) to.
My plan is to add to that by giving ARC’s to comic book blogs (or sites) in the hopes that it might be reviewed there too. Actually, for that matter, I’m thinking I might contact a few sites that are generally oriented toward geeky things.
I’m aware of a few (the ones I personally read), but I know I’m not aware of every place that might review or promote the book.
Do you have suggestions?
Oh, and just for the record, here are some links related to this:
Legion of Nothing on Goodreads
Legion of Nothing: Rebirth on 1889 Labs site
My author profile at 1889 Labs (photo soon to come when I find one that doesn’t suck)
I grabbed the handle, and the door opened even as something in the back of my head suggested that he’d have expected us to run out the back.
Unwilling to randomly spray whatever was out there with the guitar’s laser, I aimed a wide angle sonic blast out the door with the speakers on both arms. Set at a frequency that generally set electronics to vibrate, the sonics had the potential to be devastating—provided we were facing rook-shaped robots.
If there were people out there, the best I could hope for was nuking their iPhone.