Cassie: Part 5

“What grad school?” I asked. It wasn’t as if I’d know if he were lying, but maybe he’d stumble.

“Georgetown,” he said.

“Yeah? What professor?”

“Why? Are you in the program? Don’t get me wrong, but you don’t seem like a scientist type of girl.”

Compared to Nick, neither did this guy.

“What type of girl do you think I am?”

“The ‘having fun’ type.”

Whatever. So… Who’s your professor?”

“I’m taking a class from Dr. Blake. So, are you going to take the test or not? It’s just like an allergy test. I drop a little on your skin, and we see what color it turns.”

“Fuck, no,” I said. “I’m not the ‘taking tests from random strangers’ type of girl.”

His expression? A snarl. He looked like he wanted to hit me. And my thoughts? Go for it.

The blond guy (Rod) said, “Dr. Blake? Do you mean Dr. Donald Blake?”

“Sure, that sounds right. You want to help me out?”

“No. Sorry.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll be around.” He paused, gave me a look, and walked further down the line, stopping next to a couple girls around my age. They let him put three dots on their forearms with an eye dropper.

I’d been too busy talking (and maybe too pissed off) to notice, but there were a lot more people lined up than when I’d arrived, probably more than fifty of us standing on the sidewalk.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Meanwhile Rod started talking to Sam. I didn’t quite hear him, but it sounded like he’d said, “… he’s full of crap… Donald Blake is Thor in the comics…”

She said something too quiet for me to hear, but I didn’t need to. The way the man had tried to deflect my question about his professor told me enough.

Rod said something else to Sam, but now he was whispering too. I stopped paying attention, looked for the guy with the power juice, and I didn’t see him any more. Had he left?

I kept on watching, and I did see him half an hour later. Two guys were following him into the alley on the far side of the building, and even though the alley did lead to the parking lot behind Vee Club, it set off alarm bells in my head.

“Hold my spot,” I said, and not waiting for a reply, I sprinted down the sidewalk, pushing through the crowd.

Even with the sun low in the sky, it wasn’t dark yet, and so I could see down the alley. Maybe one hundred feet down the alley they turned right, disappearing. Vee Club’s parking lot was on the left—behind Vee Club. Where were they going?

I ran down the alley, passing the building to Vee Club’s right, a red, brick, plumbing supply store that had to have been closed since the 1950’s.

I didn’t even try to hide what I was, running as fast as I could, taking steps more than ten feet long.

I caught up to where they turned—another alley between brick buildings. I had no idea what they were. Neither had signs (unless you counted “No Trespassing”).

Not that I wasted time reading.

I made a wide turn staying roughly five feet from the building, guessing they might have someone hiding at the corner.

They did—another buzz cut guy wearing a trench coat. For real. I’d have laughed at the stereotype except he was pointing a 9mm pistol at me.

Seeing the surprise on his face as I passed him. I reached out, grabbed his hand, and squeezed.

Bones cracked under my fingers.

Then I punched him in the face with my left hand, letting go with my right. He flew backwards, hitting the wall, and falling to the ground.

Turning my head to look down the new alley, I saw the people I’d been chasing. They stood next to the back of a green van. The guy with the power juice held a pistol, and he must have been telling the other two guys to step inside.

As I began to run at him, he turned the gun away from them and toward me. Well, he tried.

My first step covered half the distance between us, and put me slightly to the left of him, meaning he had to turn even more if he wanted to hit me.

He fired too soon, and missed.

Hah. Jerk.

I turned my second step into a side kick, hitting him in the solar plexus, and knocking him backward. He fell, landing partly inside, his back hitting the bumper, and his head hitting the floor of the van.

I grabbed the pistol out of his hand, and bent the barrel. I felt a little bad about that when I noticed I’d bent a Baby Desert Eagle.

Oh well. It wasn’t as if anybody was going to let me keep it.

16 thoughts on “Cassie: Part 5”

  1. Poor Baby Desert Eagle 🙁 For shame.

    I have no idea how my brain made this jump, but for some reason reading this one I can’t stop thinking of the beginning of The Incredibles, with all the superheroes being sued and going away…

  2. Ooh, Cassie screwed up. No mask, using her powers in front of random strangers. You think she’ll be able to convince the two guys not to describe her to the cops? She also better hope there are no security cameras in those alleys.

    Not that upset about the Baby Eagle, though. Not a fan.

  3. talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. thats the way superhero stories usually work though things getting worse before they get better

  4. The culprits probably would have a hard time identifying her. From the description the entire confrontation lasted mere seconds before they were unconscious and she was moving pretty fast. Security cameras could definitely be a problem. Depends on how common they are, if the establishment even thinks to mention them, and if the cops are really interested in her. I imagine that in a world with lots of supers, the cops would be less anxious to expose the identity of a good samaritan trying to stay anonymous.

  5. First, a bit off-topic, but I’m a longtime reader and this is my first time commenting and I just need to say I absolutely love this serial, it is ridiculously awesome. 🙂

    Second, everyone seems to be forgetting that the government already very definitely knows Cassie’s identity and has a vested interest in keeping it under wraps, and her mother’s actual job almost certainly involves covering up this kind of thing if necessary.

    Now, the government, or particularly her mother, having to cover this up and get rid of a tape would be potentially embarrassing and might get her grounded or something similar…but her identity’s in no meaningful danger of actually getting revealed here.

  6. “He pointed and fired. But missed. Hah! Jerk.” – I got so used to reading things from Nick’s point of view, I forgot how cool the others could be.

    Also Jim, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

    And especially, thank you for writing this serial. Not only is it as Deadman said, “ridiculously awesome”, it is also such an inspiration to all of us that one day want to write stories of our own”

    Good job Mr. Zoetewey and keep up the good work.

  7. …I’m a little disappointed the characters pointed out about Donald Blake before I got a chance. And it’s not exactly a thing about him being Thor. It’s complicated. Donald Blake was the dead person Thor was shoved into and caused to come back to life.

    Dr. Blake taps his cane and kinda swaps with Thor, much like Rick Jones could tap the Nega bands together and swap with Captain Marvel and how Billy Batson could say Shazam! and turn into Captain Marvel.

    Note to self…DC Captain Marvel crossover with QVC network…title can be Shazamwow!

    And now, a joke about Thor that’ll make you want to kill me:
    “I’m Thor!”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Becauthe it hurtth.”

    *pops open a can, sitcom laughter issuing forth from it*

  8. Eh I’m not worried. Have you seen much surveillance cam footage? It’s usually grainy and out of focus. besides even if she is spotted/taped she just appears as some random super. It’s a big world how is someone automatically going to place her?

  9. I dont see why she couldnt have a gun…she has a sword that can cut through just about anything, she could kill a regular joe with a punch if she wanted to and enough skill to be able to do it easily. So is a handgun really that much more dangerous ?

  10. DWwolf, the sword can be blunted, since the original Going Commando liked to knock people around with it rather than slice and dice. She could kill with a punch, but she knows every well how and how hard to punch in order to keep that from happening.

    In most situations, though, a gun is a comittment to lethal force. We are seeing real life uses of rubber bullets, but when the majority of people get a gun pointed at them, they’re going to assume that the ammo is of lethal capability.

    While it’s true that seeing a giant super sword waved at you is going to make you think lethal force as well, they know that Captain Commando II is a legacy to Captain Commando I, who didn’t use the sword filet villains.

    Superheroes seem to be considered an odd offshoot of law enforcement in the modern time of the series, and cops are not supposed to pull out their guns to solve every situation.

    Plus, lethal force tends to bring about lethal force in reciprocation. It may be scandalous that police pepper spray the hell out of protestors, but you really have to watch if they were to start spraying them with bullets instead, ain’t that right Libya and Egypt?

  11. Gecko, that’s a really good commentary on force projection/management in RL, let alone in LoN.

    Dude, do you write at all?

  12. and just think, Bruce Lee and Kato are too fast for TV, how much would a camera notice a faster superhero? Flash is probably annoyed there are no pictures of himself in the yearbook.

  13. I’m afraid I don’t really write. I don’t think I have the kind of foresight and discipline to manage anything ongoing like this. I do get story ideas, but most of them just stay in the ole noggin since I just can’t get myself to write through it all the way. I’m also pretty hard on myself. I don’t like to read back through something I’ve written at all, which means errors get through, including on that particular post up above, like “every” instead of “very”, leaving out an instance of the letter “to,” a possible misspelling of comittment/comitment (behold, nature lovers, the rare hybrid: the elephino), and probably a charge of Cruelty to the Common Comma.

    I play City of Heroes a bit and I roleplay on there, but since I can’t manage the mission/story arc editor, I have some stories about one of my characters off in a forum that never gets read anymore. That’s about it.

    I even have quite the backstory for the character of Psycho Gecko, but I’ve never had an opportunity to just write it all out somewhere for reference. There’s an extremely limited audience on that one.

  14. Silas: I can see where you might make the jump. Cassie did some damage to the people she fought.

    Psychlone Ranger /Captain Mystic /Andrul /Deadmanwalking /Thomas /Gavin: You’ll actually get a little on the whole “no mask” thing next update. That said, Cassie acted mostly without thinking about it, one of the things that’s different from the other narrators so far (and thus, nice to write).

    And Deadmanwalking, I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Out of curiousity, how long have you been reading?

    Bill: I’m enjoying other perspectives. The goal is to write one for all the League members. With any luck, it’ll teach me something about writing different characters in first person.

    PG: I was torn between explaining where the name came from or leaving it as an Easter egg for readers. With regards the joke about Thor’s name, Neil Gaiman actually made a similar joke in Sandman, so you’re in good company at least.

    DWwolf: The comment about not being able to keep a gun was more about stealing opponent’s guns than being allowed to keep guns. Given the right situation, the government might even encourage it.

    For those of you in in the US, I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving. For those outside, I hope you did too, but since it was just another day, that’s no big deal, eh?

  15. @Psycho Gecko of course we of the league would be happy to see your story I am sure you are a much better writer than you give yourself credit for

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