Cassie: Part 26

When I said the League jet appeared, I meant it literally. In one moment I heard an engine’s roar coming closer. In the next, the jet hung above the roof, floating lower until the door opened, and Daniel walked down the ramp.

Then he stared for a second at the hundreds of dead frog-things on the roof.

For Rod, Sam, and the rest, it wasn’t Daniel walking down the ramp. They saw the Mystic, third generation telepath, and a member of one of the most famous telepathic families in the world.

Plus, Daniel was kind of hot even if that wasn’t obvious through the mask.

Anyway, he walked down the ramp in his costume—black with silver accents—tall, and sounding calm.

“Everybody on board, and be quick. We’re in a little bit of a hurry.”

Waving people past me, I said, “A hurry? Why?”

“We called the Liberators, and they told us that only authorized aircraft are allowed near D.C. right now.”

“Why isn’t the League jet authorized?”

“Officially, they said we’re too young. Unofficially, I think they looked at the jet’s specs and realized the main guns could turn the White House into a burning hole. They sounded excited we were coming at first, but when we got closer they wanted us to land the jet at Baltimore’s airport, and fly in on our own. That’s forty-five miles away. We decided to turn on the shields and sneak in.”

The last of my lookalikes stepped into the jet.

Daniel smiled, and told me, “So everyone’s in. We’d better move.”

We walked up the ramp, and the door closed behind us.

From the front, Haley said, “Shields are up.”

A new hum started.

“I didn’t know we had shields,” I said, walking up to the second row of seats, sitting down, and pulling a seatbelt across my body.

Daniel sat down in the next seat over. “We’ve never had much of a reason to turn them on.”

“Just once,” Haley said. She wore her Night Cat costume. From behind, I couldn’t see much more than gray.

Next to her in the Rocket suit, Nick said, “Yeah, and that was a mess. I hope this goes better.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Daniel said, “if we get in trouble, I’m sure my dad or Isaac Lim can smooth it over.”

“That must be nice,” Rod said.

Remembering how much Sam and he disliked that guy who was part of the Liberators and what he’d said about legacy heroes in general, I cringed a little inside.

“It’s better than getting in trouble for getting you guys out,” Daniel said.

I was about to cut in and tell Rod to relax, and that the rest of the team were okay when Daniel talked to me telepathically.

Daniel: Don’t worry about it, a lot of legacies are jerks.
Me: I know. I’ve met a few lately.
Daniel: Right. Well, anyway, I thought I’d talk to you privately a second.
Me: Go for it. I’m not busy.
Daniel: Here’s something you should know. That guy in the suit? John? He said he didn’t know he was working for the Nine. He was lying. He knew the whole time. Right now he’s trying to figure out the best way to escape. I’ve passed it on to Haley. She’s setting something up with Isaac Lim.

I looked up at Haley. She was texting somebody on her communicator.

Daniel: The reason he’s got all these girls who look like you is that they knew you could operate Abominator tech. What they didn’t know is that your dad took you to Grand Lake. They’ve been watching adoption agencies and foster families on the East Coast for years, I guess. And thanks to the Cabal’s stuff getting out, they’ve been testing for powers. Not just with them either. I guess they’ve got plans for people with powers. Unfortunately, he’s got enough of a mental shield that I can’t just scan him for them.
Me: I managed to step into the middle of everything this time. Do you know what’s with the frogs? Why are they invading?
Daniel: No idea. We’ve been following the Double V forums. No one seems to know. It looks like they’re losing though.
Me: Ok. About the Abominators… Can you sense the gun? Its Abominator made, I think. Its an AI.
Daniel: No. Not a thing, but you know what? You’ve got this system activated in your brain that I’ve never seen before. I can’t touch it mentally, but I can sense it’s there the same way I sense mental shields. It’s weird.
Me: Do you sense any changes? After what Lee told Nick…
Daniel: No. Nothing. Aside from the newly activated part of your mind, no other changes.
Me: Good. Watch me, okay? If Abominator tech messes with my head, someone’s going to have to stop me. It’s not going to be easy. You saw the roof.
Daniel: I know. I’ll watch, but I wouldn’t worry about it for now. You’re normal.
Me: I’m my dad’s female clone with a splice of alien DNA. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s normal.
Daniel: You know what I mean.
Me: Yeah.

Ahead of me, Nick seemed to be doing a lot with the controls. All the alien technology in the jet made it impossible to tell if we were even moving—especially with its shields blocking the windows.

All I could see was inky blackness. No stars. No lights.

And then it all changed. Haley said, “Shields down.”

Nick said, “Hey everybody, we’re about to land at Baltimore Washington International Airport. The frogs aren’t anywhere near us. You’ll be safe until it’s time to go home.”

Through the windows, I suddenly saw planes, runways, and hangars. We floated over them, landing on the helipad. Men and women in suits were waiting next to it for us. I had a feeling the FBI was going to get some interesting stories out of John.

After that I’d be able to go home–my real home. I could take the jet back to Grand Lake with everyone else. Except I ought to let Mom know. I thought about that. She’d called me ages ago, and I’d turned off my normal cell phone once I got into costume. I didn’t dare guess how many times she’d called me since then, or how worried she’d been.

She was going to kill me.

24 thoughts on “Cassie: Part 26”

  1. “She was going to kill me.”…somehow I was expecting the gun to have the last word in some sort of ironic twist.

  2. IC: I wanted to get the gun in more prominently, but it didn’t really work without making this ending scene somewhat longer.

    SilasCova: No problem. I’m sure more stuff about it will show up in the future.

    Everybody: In the next update, we’ll be back to Nick, and to more normal Legion of Nothing, which is to say off to the next thing (college, the Stapledon program).

  3. I’ve been really enjoying the other persectives. Not that Nick’s PoV isn’t its own sort of fun, but I’ll kinda miss being inside the other’s heads. Maybe Jim will decide to slip these sorts of stories in on a regular basis. *nudge nudge, wink wink*

  4. Luke: You will see more of them. I’d like to do something with every character on the team. Ideally, I’d also like to do one from each of the original League’s perspective as well as characters like Larry/the Rhino, and eventually Lee.

  5. Oh Jim, I just wanted to let you know I play Champions Online and my main character Guardian uses power armor. It was hard to resist the urge to strap an electric guitar to his back and I may end up doing it anyway!

  6. Gun: “OH CRAP, YOU’RE MOM’S LIKE TOTALLY GOING TO KILL US!”

    By the way, I kinda have to wonder if one of the Captain Commando-alikes that they stole might have been the one from the Legion porno. You can see how it would be a legitimate concern.

    Or even if Nick hears some giggling from the group of them, turns around, and sees them turn away from staring at him, and overhears something about that well known “extension.”

    Anyways, I guess they’re out of D.C. now. They didn’t even get to take a good look at the sights. The Jefferson Memorial. The Awesome Abe Life-Size Memorial. The Capital Rotunda. The Capital Treadmill that the Rotunda got back in September to work off some weight. The Clinton Memorial, sponsored by Trojan. The Washington Memorial, sponsored by YellaWood. The Tomb of the Unknown Captain America Impersonators. The Space Nazi War Memorial, dedicated to the time they defeated Nazis living on the moon in a colony resembling a swaskita that flew flying saucers. And, coming soon, Seaworld’s new Frog Man War Memorial, starring Bfhlhku’kley, who has been taught how to jump through a flaming obstacle course or risk being shot.

  7. I can’t help but feel that it’s some glorified internet-driven B movie like Snakes on a Plane. And yet, I feel I must go see this thing whenever I can.

  8. Notto Mention: The next time I do one of these, I’ve got to make a point of having our regular characters interact with each other. When I’m writing from Nick’s perspective, you only get what matters to him, and that’s limiting.

    Andrul: Can you make the guitar fire lasers in Champions Online?

    PG: References to that movie will show up again, and it will likely make things awkward.

    PG/Mazzon: I feel like I kind of want to see that movie while simultaneously fearing it. It’s a potentially fun premise, and it would be sad to see it done badly.

  9. this is the reason i go on this site so often to hear things about movies about random space nazis. o and also because I like getting subtle spoilers from Jim

  10. Gun: “THEN WE’LL KILL HER BEFORE SHE GETS THE CHANCE!”
    Cassie: “Shut up, Gun

    Oh boy. Now Andrul is getting into the act of brilliant fan lines to LoN.

  11. So, shouldn’t someone be doing something with those Cassie look-alikes? I presume they stand a good chance right now of getting on TV and someone who knows Cassie might notice that she looks a lot like them. This also means that the Nine basically know what the real-life Cassie looks like, which could make trouble for her (and the other supers around her) in the future.

  12. College already huh? Somehow that feels so fast. Nick still feels like that kid I met in chapter one. He’s moving on with his life and everything is changing, oh no!

  13. PG: How do you find such awesome stuff as that? I’m English and I still found them awesome 😀 Teddy Roosevelt one is my favourite 😀

  14. @PG: thanks for those links. Awesome.
    @Jim: It doesn’t shoot lasers but maybe I can convince the developers the change that.

  15. I’m guessing since the ship wasn’t supposed to be there, attacking the floaty ring thing might’ve been a bad idea.

    Really interesting stuff about Cassie all through this arc! (It’s so interesting how an initial backstory just doesn’t fit into the narrative sometimes…) No real resolution on frogs in the end, but I don’t know that they needed one, somehow that invasion felt more secondary to me anyway. Also, did not peg suit-guy as being a liar, but it makes sense – so handy having a telepath around.

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