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→
Kals talked with Julie in a low voice, using words that were a mixture of English and Ascendancy. The Ascendancy was straight jargon transliterated or translated into English. Even the Xiniti implants couldn’t translate it very well, turning most of the words into sound waveforms—which I could maybe figure out her strategy given time, but not in the moment. I still needed more context.
The words themselves still didn’t make it clearer. An example? Kals said, “I’ll need you to do eight high mind squirts in a row in the low mind zug pattern I taught you earlier.”
As Adam took off the necklace and handed it to me, Daniel thought at me, This is a good sign. In my dad’s stories, this is the kind of thing that should have provoked violence and I don’t sense any coming except in the least likely of futures.
I took the necklace and looked at the buzzer. I’d been right to think that it looked like one of my earlier designs, but it wasn’t one of them. I’d made them available to other people at points, but I didn’t think I’d done so with the model this appeared to be a copy of.
Making a mental note to ask Amy if we could do something about him teleporting into HQ whenever he wanted, I stood up. I wasn’t the only one. Jaclyn, Haley, and Izzy had beaten me to it. Izzy was already in the air, hovering above her seat.
Tiger hadn’t done much when Adam first appeared in HQ, but this time, he’d made it to his feet and was already walking around the table.
He wasn’t growling, but watched as Adam walked toward the group, sometimes glancing over at Jaclyn as if wondering what she wanted him to do. Continue reading Simple Choices: Part 8→
I wasn’t the only person who noticed. Adam stopped what he’d been doing and his eyes widened.
If that surprised him, he recovered quickly, “Dr. Klein! I didn’t expect to see you. I knew you were Nick’s father. I just didn’t think you’d be here.”
I looked over at Haley. We were going to have to talk about this among ourselves and not just the two of us either—the whole team.
Of course, we had almost the entire team here already with the exception of Daniel, Jaclyn, Izzy, and Marcus. They were still out handling the police at Daniel’s house, or in Marcus’ case, traveling back from the fight at the factory.
Adam walked across HQ’s main room like a man who knew where he was going. To be fair, except for being large enough to hold a regulation basketball court plus an audience, the room was basically a big square.
My parents were there. Haley’s parents were there. Haley’s second cousins were there, both of them doctors and both of them trying to use the alien medical tech to save Travis’ life.
If that weren’t enough, most of the team was there. By the time you got out of work for two or three fights plus helping Kayla handle law enforcement’s questions, it wasn’t worth going back to whatever you’d been doing.
Haley’s lip curled, “Then I think you need to get out of here and let us discuss it. You know that we’re not the whole League. Some of us who aren’t here are going to need a minute to talk about this.”
“Some of us who are here will too,” Cassie’s hand brushed her gun.
Adam glanced down at it, his face hidden in the shadows, but his mouth seemed to tighten, jerking into a smile, “I’ll keep that in mind.”