“That works for me,” I said. “Is Hal saying we all go in at once?”
Jaclyn’s words came out in a rush, “Not exactly. He thinks one group goes in hard and fast to attract attention. Another goes in quietly. A third stays in position here so Portal can move people in to help as needed.”
Remembering what Brooke had said earlier about not being able to teleport inside City Hall thanks to interference, that meant as close as people could get. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 19
There weren’t a lot of people on the streets—mushroom-controlled people that is—but the people that were there stopped and stared.
I mean, sort of. With mushroom flesh covering their faces, they had no eyes or ears, merely slick skin. They pointed their heads at the fairy horde emerging from the portal and froze. Then as one, they retreated into City Hall, the parking garage, or any of the half-a-dozen office buildings nearby.
I wondered for a second if this meant that they still felt fear, but couldn’t help but note that they’d disappeared as one, meaning that if they did, they had to wait for orders to express it. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 18
We all looked at City Hall and the parking garage next to it. As seeds of humanity’s destruction went, it was unassuming. Little more than multiple floors of concrete with ornamentation styled to fit in with the buildings from the 1880s that stood around it—sort of.
It was still a big grey box.
I wasn’t sure whether the city owned the parking garage and allowed Grand Lake Parking to run it or whether Grand Lake Parking owned the building and rented the lower floors to the city on some kind of long term lease. Either way, the lower floors connected to City Hall below the ground.
We all hovered there looking at them. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 16
Over the comm, Vaughn said, “I hope they got everybody inside because this is all for nothing if you get everyone except for one guy—like in horror movies.”
Samita replied before I could, “I told the Wizards’ Council what the zombies do and the Council said they’d figure it out.”
Vaughn’s name blinked on the screen, “As long as the Wizards’ Council has it covered.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 15
I asked, “Is that prescience or a guess?”
“Both,” Daniel said. “It’s the first place I imagined trying knowing that Bouman is now part of this mess, but then I directed my prescience at what would happen if we go there. I’m feeling the potential for things to go very badly or very well. Because the potential is so extreme, I’m thinking that it has to be the center of everything. We’ve just got to go in knowing there are no guarantees.”
“Or at least going in with as much information as we can,” I said. “I’d think that would improve our chances.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 14
“For right now,” Vaughn said, “I’ll be happy to keep everyone here in the air and uninfected—extra bonus if I can also help the city, but I’m not holding my breath there.”
Sean’s name blinked, “I’d be holding my breath if I didn’t know I just fall unconscious. Do you guys have more of your suits?”
“I don’t know if they’ll work for you,” I said. “I designed them to resist electromagnetism, but any suit on you will be at ground zero all the time. We might have a suit that doesn’t use nanotech back at base. There’s probably a way to get it out safely. Nanotech suits should work for everyone else if we have enough.
“If we don’t have enough, we need to get you guys far enough out of town that you’re safe.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 13
A year ago, I might have taken what Guardian said as a criticism or threat, but now I saw it for what it was—he didn’t want to destroy the city even though it made a lot of sense.
Looking over at Daniel as he flew next to me, I tried to give Guardian what he wanted, “Well, first of all, you know what’s under the League’s base and in our storage rooms. Blasting the city won’t destroy all of it and the rest will be available to anyone who comes by. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 12
The pressure in my head increased. It wasn’t unbearable or even painful, but it felt like it filled my head.
Over the comm, I asked, “Is anyone else feeling this?”
Everyone seemed to say yes at once with Kals’ voice rising above the rest to say, “It reminds me of an Abominator psi-bomb. I caught the edge of one once when the Ascendancy put down a rebellion we were involved in.”
“You think this is a psi-bomb,” Daniel asked. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 10
Could the mushroom zombies replace Arete’s missing parts or access his memory? The latter option would represent a major security leak both for the Defenders and the Nine.
It didn’t seem likely, but if it was possible, I didn’t like it. From what I’d seen of it, even acting collectively the zombies weren’t very smart, but if they could integrate Arete in, maybe they could be. Plus, what if they could reproduce his powers in the mushroom zombies?
We needed to end this, but we’d have to figure out where to hit it. We’d destroyed the “brain.” We’d need to figure out where the backup was or if it could operate as some kind of swarm without a center. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 9
My mom had been depressed and unwilling to talk about the fact that Rachel and I were following in our grandparents’ footsteps for months after her block had fallen. Of course, part of the process had included being kidnapped by Ray and the Cabal and freeing herself so that she couldn’t be used as a hostage against Rachel and me.
Linking mental manipulation with traumatic events couldn’t be good for someone. Life as a superhero was filled with traumatic events and Major Justice had to live with that.
Realizing that I had an expert on the call, I said, “Kals, if you can see this, what do you think of Major Justice?” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 2