Tag Archives: Cassie

War: Part 13

I read the transcript and then played back the entire recorded conversation for everybody. Russell Hardwick stood in his home office, pacing the hardwood floor, cursing, and talking on his cell phone.

“The Impregnator disappeared? How did that happen? And why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

From there it devolved into shouting at the person on the other end, and Hardwick never did say where he’d kept it, or anything useful.
Continue reading War: Part 13

War: Part 12

Chris glanced over at me. “I thought everybody knew.”

“I told Lee. When everybody went over the plan, I thought that I’d either have to do remotely guided missiles, or ask you. After you said yes, I told Lee, and I must have forgotten to tell everyone else. Sorry.”

With everything else going on, the important thing was that our escape had been taken care of, right? And anyway, back when we’d been dealing with Justice Fiend, the Maniacs, and the Ball, Cassie had been more than a little suspicious of Chris.

She wouldn’t have been the only one, and I didn’t want to deal with it.
Continue reading War: Part 12

War: Part 11

For a moment, Lee and I must have been the only people who realized that Prime was dead.

He grinned as I looked up from the head, and saluted me with the bloodied blade. In that moment, someone shouted, and it seemed like everyone turned to see him standing in front of Prime’s body.

“Rocket, grab the head and dump it someplace!”
Continue reading War: Part 11

War: Part 10

I checked the the sky, searching it for Vaughn’s cloud.

It floated above the field, smaller than most clouds, and, it struck me, smaller than the last time I’d seen it.

Daniel hadn’t been joking about not being alone in the air. At least fifteen people flew toward the cloud, dark figures outlined against the moon and stars.
Continue reading War: Part 10

War: Part 9

Bluish sparks surrounded Rachel’s gloves, and the man let go, trying to grab her, but only passing through her body without touching anything.

Knowing that he was strong, and guessing he might be able to rip my armor off, I gave the rockets some fuel, and shot into the air, hovering forty feet above the ground. Continue reading War: Part 9

War: Part 7

Prime stood at the front of the crowd. He didn’t look like someone who had lived most of the way through two millenniums. Under the single light, his brush cut, blond hair shone. His face, all hard lines, but still smooth, could have easily passed for thirty.

As we stepped closer to him, he pulled a sword out of his trench coat. Between Lee’s teaching, and Daniel showing me some books on Roman history, I recognized it as a gladius, the Roman legions’ traditional sword.

Behind me, Marcus muttered, “There can be only one.”
Continue reading War: Part 7

Graduation: Part 25

Standing at the podium, Principal Williams stopped the ceremony.

He held up his hands. “Everyone please be quiet, and stay where you are. We’ve called an ambulance, and they will need the aisles to be clear.”

Not everybody listened. Sean pushed his way out between the aisles of folding chairs, ran across the field, up one of the short stairways, and into the bleachers, joining his family.

I couldn’t blame him for that. Continue reading Graduation: Part 25

Graduation: Part 23

I didn’t stop trying to fix the arm, but it would be hard to imagine a worse week to try to fix it than my last week of high school ever.

I didn’t get back to working on things on Monday night because the whole family got talking. With Grandpa and Grandma Klein visiting from Minnesota, that happened easily. Grandpa had taught cultural anthropology at the University of Minnesota, worked for the U.N. in the 1960’s, and had friends all over the world. Continue reading Graduation: Part 23

Graduation: Part 18

After they hung up, I sat back and thought about it. If I were going to skip, when and how would I do it? I wasn’t going to be able to get my parents to write a note. The block only prevented my parents from recognizing what was going on, or stopping me from doing it.

I decided I’d skip tomorrow. Maybe Rachel could call the office and pretend to be Mom? She’d probably get a kick out of it. Continue reading Graduation: Part 18