Then he started laughing. I’m pretty sure I even heard a “Mwha-ha-ha” somewhere in there. Then the communication ended, leaving me to hope that it was an ironic “Mwha-ha-ha,” because an unironic “Mwha-ha-ha” would be a cliche.
It called up mad scientist vibes at best and at the most horribly wrong end, it reminded me of how Artificer technology had been designed to destroy civilizations either through madness or temptation and runaway self-interest. Continue reading Stage Three: Part 2
“All of them,” I said as my words echoed throughout the room. “Did you know that you’d reused a base that the original team already destroyed once? Dr. Madness used the same cave in Brazil. Did you choose it because the entrance looked like a skull, or is there some supervillain base rental service?”
Dr. Mind chuckled. “Syndicate L provides many services to supervillains, but you must know that. They didn’t provide me with that cave. Dr. Madness tipped me off that it existed. He was a kind man in his way.” Continue reading Stage Two: Part 3
Former photocopier technician? Was Hal making a joke? Either way, Ben was too stuck to the wall to get to the shattered photocopier.
I’d started with the people next to the far wall because of the high potential ratio of stuck people to goobot fired. It wasn’t a bad decision either. I covered more than 20 people in my version of Silly String before anyone on the far wall realized what was going on.
When they did realize it, they began moving away from the wall and running to the right—a reasonable move, given that I’d started from the left. Continue reading Stage One: Part 10
As we neared the end of the hall, Izzy said, “Here,” swerving to the left of the elevator and punching the wall.
Jaclyn swerved with her, their arms a blur, leaving a hole wide enough for four of us to jump through at a time—which they did the moment they were done. We followed, all of us seemingly in Syndicate L’s armor, some flying, others dropping at the safe speeds that my anti-gravity tech allowed.
Haley didn’t bother, using my goo gun tech to fire off a line and swing down to the floor. Continue reading Stage One: Part 9
From there, the day turned into planning sessions, the first with those of us who hadn’t been drugged. By the afternoon, even those of us who had been drugged were with it enough to participate.
From there, it grew into a cast of thousands or at least it felt like it. We had everyone—Amy, Tara, Samita, Rod, Alex, Brooke, Jenny, Sean, Dayton, every member of the original Justice Fist but Jody, and every living member of our original group. If that weren’t enough, Dr. Transylvania, Ape Nasty, Prime, and his second-in-command attended remotely. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 8
It would have been over right there if it had never occurred to us that someday we might be exposed to a Dominator and be without a buzzer.
The bad news, of course, was that we hadn’t had access to Kals or anyone with Dominator training. We did have Julie, but unlike the Dominators in the Human Ascendancy or serving the Nine, she hadn’t been taught from childhood. She’d picked up what she could by experimentation and what the teachers in the Stapledon program knew the Dominators could do.
Still, it was something—enough to practice with. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 50
Arete shook his head, “You’re bluffing. There’s no way this Xiniti could pass that on to the rest. There’s no Xiniti Mars base and even if there were there’s no way they’d find out for hours.”
I don’t know how often you encounter people whose understanding of the world is so far from yours that you absolutely despair of bridging the gap, but I hope it’s never for anything important.
In that moment though, I barely knew where to start. I tried, “Look, there is a Xiniti base at the LaGrange point near Mars. It takes the speed of light more than three minutes to get there. If you’re communicating back and forth to a Mars rover it might take 15 to 45 minutes to communicate back and forth, but that’s partly just technology and it’s not technology we’re using. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 49
South Beach Surfer blinked and pulled the bracelet up to her lips, talking into it.
As she did, a lone zombie ran into the charred area below us and spat a glob of something out of its mouth. South Beach Surfer saw it even as I said watch out, pointing my laser at the zombie and cutting it in half and then widening the beam to burn more of it at once.
The glob didn’t hit her. Like Gordon and Gifford, she controlled air, aiming the gooey mess away and into my beam where it burned away. Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 16
Nodding, I said, “Then I guess we’d better go do something that’s obviously stupid.”
“It’ll be fine,” Cassie said, “Mr. Sparkles is looking forward to it. I don’t think he quite understands that we’re not going out there to slaughter them.”
I eyed the alien gun in it’s holster on her belt. Using it to its full potential would get us in more trouble than I wanted to imagine.
Haley’s mouth twisted as she glanced down at it, but she said, “I think we need to get out there. Is everyone ready?” Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 2
I could see how Major Justice or the Nine might have come up with the idea though. Having people barrage you with requests that you surrender, some of them people you know… Well, it didn’t feel good.
Knowing that it had to be a ploy took a bit of the edge off, but I wondered if they’d done this before and to whom.
Then another thought hit me, “If you all are getting deluged with texts like I am right now, forward them all to Hal.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 7