Tag Archives: Izzy

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 6

10 Comments

“And he’s got a shield, a weak one, but quite sophisticated. Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s aware of me now. I don’t think he’s got any real range, so he’s got no idea of where I’m at, but he’s coming to the window now. Don’t look up. He’s nervous, but not all out scared. While he’s not much of a telepath, I’m getting the feeling he’s powerful at something.”

Not looking up, even though I wanted to now, I concentrated on the traffic. It wasn’t dense, but cars drove down both sides of the road.

Three story brick buildings stood on both sides, some dark brown, some red, others tan or gray. All of them from the turn of the last century, some with satellite dishes hanging from the brick. It felt like some of the older sections of Grand Lake except there you’d be into newer construction within a few blocks. Here it felt like I’d only seen old buildings except for the really, really new ones that looked like glass from top to bottom.

Chicago definitely had more taxis too.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 6 →

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 5

15 Comments

I brought the van to a stop in front of them. Daniel sent a quick telepathic hello at me almost at the same instant I noticed him, not saying anything about all the other stuff flying around in my head just then.

I felt grateful for that.

The van didn’t have side doors in the middle of the van, so Daniel and Izzy had to crawl over Haley’s seat. The van’s second row of seats didn’t have windows, but on the other hand Daniel was clairvoyant, and Izzy had some kind of extra-powerful sonar. They could deal.

A little quickly, Izzy said, “Hi,” to us and pulled on her seatbelt—not that she needed one. She did need a winter coat though. She wore a green, fleece jacket that could handle anything Berkeley, California was likely to throw at it, but stood out in the Midwest.

On the other hand, Izzy could probably survive in Antarctica wearing that jacket.

Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 5 →

Arc 6.2: Chancy Connections

Chancy Connections: Part 4

12 Comments

On a Saturday morning two weeks later Haley and I drove to Chicago. It was early March, and February’s snow melted on each side of the freeway, brownish near the road.

Two weeks seems like an awfully long wait when you consider that there may be aliens out there who want to cause all of humanity to die horribly. It’s more understandable when you think about the logistics of it all. Initially we didn’t know exactly what we were looking for. All the ship knew was that a suspiciously large number of objects that used materials common to alien technology were going through the postal service, UPS, Fedex and other mailing services in or near Chicago. They were being picked up from P.O. Boxes, and delivered to empty buildings, and from there they disappeared.

Except we’d found a common name between a couple of the post office boxes, and a signature—Chancy as in Chancy Smith, Chancy Jones, and Chancy Sirianni.

I had a hunch, and I’d directed the ship to search whatever it could find that had Chancy in the name, and it had. Continue reading Chancy Connections: Part 4 →

Arc 6.0: The Unusual Suspects

The Unusual Suspects: Part 2

18 Comments

In the distance, a muffled voice said, “Dad? Are you up there?” The voice sounded like it belonged to someone male and around my age.

Lim said, “I’ll be down in a second.” Looking back at the camera, he said, “Do you have anything else? I should stop working for the day.”

“Nothing,” I said. I’d never even thought about whether he had a family. He was old enough to have kids around my age, and it was easy to imagine he might be married, but it hadn’t come up.

“Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if something important happens,” he said as we hung up.

From all the places I’d seen in the background when I’d called him—spaceships, naval vessels, wilderness, and cities nowhere near Washington D.C., I wondered how often he saw his family, and how much he could say about his job.

Continue reading The Unusual Suspects: Part 2 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 7

19 Comments

Then Travis turned his attention back to Daniel’s dad. “OK, you said that your dad, the Mentalist saw this coming. What did he see?”

Quickly shaking his head, Mindstryke said, “It’s not exactly like that. For my dad, Daniel, and I, precognition comes without a lot of control at first. Seconds in the future are easiest. Everything else comes unasked for, but over time you become better at directing it. The problem is that there isn’t just one future, there’s an infinite number. Some of the differences aren’t much, but they’re there.

“My dad got to the point that he could see futures as collections of connected events, and even look for specific outcomes. He gave us patterns of events we should look for and a few spots where we can intervene. Mostly though, we can’t. We guess it’s because you’ll become too reliant on us, and unprepared when you need to handle things yourselves.

“And that leads us to today. We were going to wait on handing over direct control to you, but we can’t. You’ve just gotten too much attention. As of now, the League’s business issues need you to have the power to make decisions. We won’t have time to handle it. The staff doesn’t have the authority.”

“The staff?” Travis sounded confused. “The only staff I know about is Kayla.”

Continue reading Spin: Part 7 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 4

18 Comments

Quickly Haley said, “I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but were you planning on going in costume? I don’t think any of us have real clothes along.”

I thought about that, imagining going into restaurant as we were. For all I knew, Izzy might sometimes use what she was wearing as workout clothes. Plus, eating with the Rocket suit’s helmet on was possible, but ugh…

Then I said, “Do you think IHOP does take out?”

She said, “Nick, everybody does take-out.” She straightened up in her seat. “So let’s go. I’m hungry too.”

From behind us, Cassie said, “Good. Because if you were going to say that we shouldn’t get food, I was really going to argue.”

Continue reading Spin: Part 4 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 3

14 Comments

Mindstryke nodded. “She’s right, but it’s not going to be all bad. It’ll be hard to deal with at first, but it could be worse.”

He glanced to the right, toward something off camera. When his eyes were on us again, he said, “You’ve just experienced what would be a life changing event for some capes. You stopped St. Louis from being destroyed and did it with minimal loss of life. If you want, you’ll be interviewed every day of the week. People will want to pay you thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars for product endorsements. You’ll be celebrities.”

He stopped, gave a sigh, and continued. “I’ve known a lot of people who used events like this to change careers. They stayed in just far enough that they were visible vigilantes, but they spent the rest of their time being ‘the man who saved St. Louis.’” Continue reading Spin: Part 3 →

Arc 5.9: Spin

Spin: Part 1

12 Comments

Haley landed the jet in the parking lot between the storage building and the factory.

We’d arrived less than an hour before, and aside from a little debris from the bombs, it didn’t look much different. It was lighter (past the factories and warehouses, the eastern sky glowed), and the tornado sirens were still going, but it was close to the same.

An inch of snow still covered the ground, and the temperature felt cold—if not as cold as Michigan.

For that matter, all the buildings that had been standing when we arrived were still standing. The ones that weren’t visible from here.

Still, it felt like we’d been there a week.

Continue reading Spin: Part 1 →

Arc 5.8: Chance & Fate

Chance & Fate: Part 11

17 Comments

Tapping my fingers on my palms, I brought up our group’s location. Daniel and Izzy’s location came up as “Unknown”—which didn’t necessarily mean that they were dead. It could mean that the bomb had kicked out enough of an EMP that it killed their comms.

For that matter, if their signal came through, I realized, it didn’t necessarily mean that they were alive.

The thought that I needed to include people’s health in the next iteration didn’t distract me enough. I was still aware that Izzy and Daniel might both be dead or near to it.

The bombs weren’t nuclear, but they obviously included materials that I wasn’t familiar with. Even if they were only briefly radioactive or poisonous, they could still kill.

Then Daniel and Izzy’s status flickered from red to green. A good sign.

Continue reading Chance & Fate: Part 11 →

Arc 5.8: Chance & Fate

Chance & Fate: Part 8

12 Comments

“So, do you think you can handle it, or if it even needs to be handled right now?”

Daniel went quiet. Then he said, “I just swept the area telepathically, and at least five of them are awake. Plus, even though my precognitive ability is pretty vague, I get the sense that the bomb’s going to take out the city if we don’t attack. Actually, I think it’s got a good chance of going off if we do, but it’s inevitable if we don’t.”

In the background, I heard Izzy say, “Have him call the Defenders.”

She was completely correct. This was exactly when we needed to call in the Defenders.

“Did you hear that?” Daniel spoke quietly.

“Got it. Just a second.” Continue reading Chance & Fate: Part 8 →