Tag Archives: Marcus

Settling In: Part 3

I tried to dive to the right, but I’d already lost control of my legs.

I crumpled, and fell to the roof of the building. I fell sideways, and then rolled halfway on to my back—”halfway” because I was mostly on my arm and right side of my back, and partly on my rocketpack. It wouldn’t let me roll all the way there.

The other guy—the only guy with an exoskeleton still standing—had pulled out a paralysis gun too. Continue reading Settling In: Part 3

Settling In: Part 2

Marcus followed them, lengthening his legs as he jumped, and stretching his arms to grab the ledge on the other side. His leap reminded me of a frog somehow.

If it weren’t night, I could have blamed it on his green costume. I only recognized him because I knew he was coming, and because no normal human could stretch like that.

Frog-like or not, the way his shape briefly blocked the stars made me think of Batman cartoons—which ironically brought me back to reality. Continue reading Settling In: Part 2

Under 30: Part 30

They came toward me even though the Rocket suit had risen one hundred feet above the ground. Many weren’t more than shapes with legs—squares, triangles, rectangles, but those were some of the smaller creatures. The larger ones shouldn’t have seemed ominous at all, but they were big, and they shouldn’t have been flying.

But I still haven’t said what they were, have I?

I was being attacked by infrastructure—stoplights, telephone poles, city buses, trains, rails, roads, power lines, police cars, firetrucks, and more, some of it mixed together, not all of it from our time. Continue reading Under 30: Part 30

Under 30: Part 29

Marcus had managed to resist, but I didn’t know exactly how.

If Daniel had been there, he could have told me. Better, he could have helped. Well, maybe. A telepathic link might have opened him up to Evil Beatnik’s influence.

Obviously Marcus had had more control of his body than Evil Beatnik had, and a considerably weirder physiology. That couldn’t hurt. Continue reading Under 30: Part 29

Under 30: Part 28

Evil Beatnik didn’t have an easy time of it.

Marcus started to twist toward me, but one leg shrunk, and he fell over. He began to push himself away from the ground, but it wasn’t simple. Long spikes had grown out of Marcus’ legs, sticking themselves into the ground.

I couldn’t see it to know for sure, but judging from the way Marcus’ legs and body shrank, I suspected I couldn’t see half of what Marcus had sunk into the ground. Continue reading Under 30: Part 28

Under 30: Part 27

Evil Beatnik said, “Yeah?”

He snapped his fingers, and the music stopped. Then he let out a breath, and gulped in another. Losing the music wasn’t the end of the world. It had served its purpose. The way he’d snuffed it so easily bothered me more.

Then I guessed how. In the reports Jaclyn’s grandfather mentioned that he could make things happen, and the more probable it was, the easier. He’d described fighting Evil Beatnik as fighting someone with the power of Murphy’s law—anything that could go wrong would. Continue reading Under 30: Part 27

Under 30: Part 26

The rhythm of Bongo Boy’s clicking drew me in, but not entirely—not nearly as strongly as he had with drums.

I could think—barely—I half wanted to stand there, quietly waiting for orders.

I pointed my right arm at him, set the sonics to choose the most resonant frequency for the wood, and narrowcast a big pulse of sound as he brought the two shards together with a wooden click. Continue reading Under 30: Part 26

Under 30: Part 25

“Yeah, right,” Vaughn said. “Cause we’re going to let you guys run away, and keep on robbing banks, and protesting with monkeys. That’s totally brilliant.”

Unless Evil Beatnik planned to use magic to tell Justice Fist to stop, I didn’t know how he’d do it. I supposed he could use a cellphone if he didn’t care about the rain. That said, in this case, the rain would destroy Mr. Beacham’s cellphone, and Evil Beatnik probably didn’t care.

Continue reading Under 30: Part 25

Under 30: Part 21

“Doing about it?” Jaclyn said. “We were working on a plan to stop them, but we can go to the riot.”

The Marvelous X shook his head. “Please don’t. We’ve reason to believe a villain named Evil Beatnik is involved. You’ve likely never heard of him because he hasn’t been seen in years, but he can influence young people. We’ve organized a number of heroes that are too old for him to control. They’ll take care of him soon enough.”

“You’re sure about that?” Continue reading Under 30: Part 21

Under 30: Part 20

And he didn’t just remind me of Mr. Beacham, this was Mr. Beacham—with 100% more beatnik.

I adjusted the picture, scrolling away from the monkey on the balcony and back toward Mr. Beacham, and his hangers on.

Having recognized him, I knew who the woman with him was—Mr. Beacham’s girlfriend. She’d visited the school once. Was she with him because she thought he was Evil Beatnik, was Evil Beatnik controlling her, or did she somehow like Evil Beatnik? Had they… uh… I put the thought out of my mind, but it opened up a lot of relationship questions.

Could Haley and I survive something like that? I liked to think we would, but you never knew. Worse, the deeper we got into this whole superheroism thing, the better chance we had to find out.

So I put that thought out of my mind too.

Continue reading Under 30: Part 20