“I hadn’t asked him… I haven’t asked anyone.”
Cassie’s voice rose as she talked. “Well, don’t skip him. I told you he’s been feeling left out.”
“Ok. I won’t. You told me about that.”
As the words escaped my mouth, I realized that I’d committed to bringing him along—which meant I ought to call him.
“Good,” Cassie said. “Are you going to let him know, or should I?”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Do you have anything else? I should probably call him now.” Continue reading Chance & Fate: Part 3
Jeremy hung up his towel inside his closet, and said, “Is this major?”
I didn’t know I was that easy to read.
I looked away from the computer, and up at him as he stopped next to my desk.
“Seriously,” he asked, “How big?”
And the crazy thing was, I really could tell him. Daniel had telepathically blocked him from passing on information to anyone outside the League.
On the other hand, the less he knew, the better. If Daniel didn’t maintain it, the mental construct would dissolve on its own eventually.
I stared at the screen. “You’re kidding.”
[They’ve been ordering the appropriate materials for the last three months.]
I typed, “How do you even know this?”
[Your grandfather assigned me the task of tracking materials that might indicate the presence of Abominators or other aliens’ technology on Earth.]
I thought about the implications of that for a second. Certainly aliens were the obvious possibility. Grandpa’s technology was generally twenty years or more ahead of current tech. It didn’t seem like a big stretch to think mine might be too. Aliens were a real possibility.
I thought about it a little more. I couldn’t just consider aliens. Another armor designer might be behind it. Syndicate L, one of the few big criminal organizations not dominated by supervillains, had a guy, and whoever he was, he was pretty good.
I’d been attacked by enough of his work to appreciate its effectiveness. This might be his headquarters.
“I’ve got a new direction though,” I said. “Rachel said I discovered this myself somehow, so I’m thinking that what I should really be doing is whatever I’d be doing normally if I didn’t know.”
Haley nodded slowly. “That sounds good. What do you think you’d be doing normally?”
“Tonight? Well, I was going to work on a new Rocket suit which is kind of the same thing as the suit I’m making for Cassie at the base level. It should solve the problem where I can’t carry around a decently powerful suit—once I figure out how to make it lighter anyhow. Anyway, I’m sure I’d be working on Cassie’s version even if Rachel never visited Infinity City, or those alternate universe versions of us never showed up.”
For a moment, Haley’s pupils began to widen into slits. She blinked, her mouth tightening, and they became normal.
“I hope so.” She said, ignoring what had happened.
More than a year into dating her, I knew better than to draw her attention to it. Continue reading Doom: Part 6
I could open the suit’s faceplate, and did.
Haley looked the suit up and down as they walked toward me. “Is that yours or did you get it from somewhere?”
Still wishing I could take the suit off, I said, “I made it but I deliberately used other people’s designs. I brought in Chris to help. He’s figured out a lot of his grandfather’s stuff. Plus I made the joints similar to how Armory did joints back in the 1980’s?”
From the expressions on their faces, none of them knew who Armory was. “A mid-tier hero who became a mid-tier villain, and disappeared after the island he lived on blew up. He did his joints differently than most armor designers.”
Camille stared at my knees, and grinning, said, “I completely see it now.”
I bent my right knee forward, and the knee reformed, the layers splitting and coming back together.
She blinked. “I… actually do see it.” Continue reading Doom: Part 5
Cassie sat back on her bed, leaning back against the pillow. “So, when’s it going to be ready?”
“Uh…” I thought about that while the suit continued to post messages about testing the systems.
“Well, there are a couple different issues. The first one’s easy. The second is going to depend on you. See, first off, I need to get the suit’s boot up time down to something reasonable. Right now you can get it on in maybe a minute, but by the time it’s done testing everything, twenty minutes have gone by.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? That’s worse than when you put the suit on by hand.”
Once I was off the call with Rachel, I checked the time, and it was seven-fifty something, so I walked toward the lab.
I would have gone there from the beginning if I’d thought it through. I wasn’t quite finished with Cassie’s suit, but I was almost finished, so if I was in the lab when I talked to her, I’d be able to show it to her more easily.
This was great logic, but it didn’t account for one possibility—that Cassie might call a little early—which she did.
I heard the phone ringing from both directions—behind me at the main table, and ahead of me in the lab.
I broke into a run, crossing the old, olive green carpet, dodging forty years worth of the original League’s mementoes, trophies, and awards in their cases. As I did it, I remembered that I’d left my socks and shoes in front of a register in the main room.
Obviously, I wasn’t going back for them, but the lab didn’t have carpet at all.
Walking over to the school’s parking garage turned out to be every bit as cold as I thought it might be.
I hadn’t thought to wear my boots, and when I cut across the lawn, snow got into my shoes.
During the drive across the city, the van’s heating system warmed up enough to melt the snow still on my shoes. By the time I arrived at the house I’d inherited from my grandparents, and taken the elevator down to the Heroes Leagues’ headquarters, my feet were cold and wet.
I felt every inch the budding supergenius as I walked to the front of HQ’s basketball court sized main room, leaving wet footprints on the carpet.
I finished all my homework by seven—giving me more than enough time to get to headquarters, and finish what I was really excited about—Cassie’s armor.
I closed my laptop, pushed back my chair, and stepped away from my desk. Then I looked out the window. From the third floor of DePuit Hall, I could see most of Grand Lake University’s main campus. Lights came from dorms and lecture halls, standing out in the night, and illuminating the snow that covered the grounds.
It was January in Michigan after all, and that meant winter.
I considered whether I really wanted to cross the city in weather this cold. I’d fixed up my van, but I’d paid more attention to adding armor than making it comfortable.