Tag Archives: Alex

Courtesy: Part 38

Having talked through our battle plan in a dark garage lit mostly by the lights on the far end, we started on stage one of the plan.

By moving to the far end of the room and letting Izzy passively construct a picture of what was ahead, we learned that we had one level between us and the main event. That level, so far as we could tell was empty—which was an interesting choice.

To my mind, that meant that it was empty to make it more obvious when someone attacked or maybe because they had an area of effect weapon they planned to activate on intruders. Tara thought I had a good point. So, we waited. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 38

Courtesy: Part 16

We all looked at City Hall and the parking garage next to it. As seeds of humanity’s destruction went, it was unassuming. Little more than multiple floors of concrete with ornamentation styled to fit in with the buildings from the 1880s that stood around it—sort of.

It was still a big grey box.

I wasn’t sure whether the city owned the parking garage and allowed Grand Lake Parking to run it or whether Grand Lake Parking owned the building and rented the lower floors to the city on some kind of long term lease. Either way, the lower floors connected to City Hall below the ground.

We all hovered there looking at them. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 16

Courtesy: Part 2

My mom had been depressed and unwilling to talk about the fact that Rachel and I were following in our grandparents’ footsteps for months after her block had fallen. Of course, part of the process had included being kidnapped by Ray and the Cabal and freeing herself so that she couldn’t be used as a hostage against Rachel and me.

Linking mental manipulation with traumatic events couldn’t be good for someone. Life as a superhero was filled with traumatic events and Major Justice had to live with that.

Realizing that I had an expert on the call, I said, “Kals, if you can see this, what do you think of Major Justice?” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 2

Everybody’s Got One: Part 9

“We should step into a different hall, or better yet, a classroom.” He pointed down the hallway to our left. “How about that one?”

It didn’t look bad.

Earthmover had molded the whole installation out of rock, and he (or someone who worked for him) had kept an eye on aesthetics. The track lighting illuminated reddish-orange rock. Paintings and photos on the walls showed pictures of the West—the Rocky Mountains, the city of Denver at night, desert thunderstorms, and mesas. There were several doors in the hall, and windows let us look into each of them from the hall.

“This way,” he said and walked through the closest door. Continue reading Everybody’s Got One: Part 9

Everybody’s Got One: Part 8

Tara grinned, and when she did, I was reminded that whoever had designed the supersoldiers she was descended from, had obviously been designing for looks too. Not for the first time, I wondered why. Still, she was in a good mood, and considering the memories I must have brought up, that wasn’t a bad thing.

“I hope you don’t think I’m telling you he’s a bad person.” She paused but didn’t give me time to respond. “He’s not. It’s just…” She stopped. “You know that I grew up in Infinity City. I grew up on the run from the True, the supersoldier group my parents left. They worked as muscle all over the city, training me the entire time because they knew the True would want me too.

“When we came here and I enrolled in the Stapledon program, the guys didn’t first of all think of me as a soldier. They thought of me as the new, hot girl. Some of them had a betting pool on who could ‘score’ with me first. I didn’t think anything of all the attention at first, but when I thought about it, I put everything together. After that, I got angry.” Continue reading Everybody’s Got One: Part 8

Faerieland: Part 46

“If you think you can do it, I’m all for it,” I said.

Alex grinned. “Trust me. I’ve seen worse, and it worked out. Now, can you take off your glove?”

I thought about it, checking my HUD for alerts. There weren’t any left. “Assuming the repair systems worked, yes.”

I used my right glove to set the left gauntlet to split and be absorbed into the left forearm. It worked. That didn’t surprise me and it shouldn’t have. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried it after all, but it was the first time I’d tried it after the suit took massive damage.

“Oh,” Haley said, staring at my hand. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 46

Faerieland: Part 45

Taking a risk, but not much of one, I switched the view from sonar to computer enhanced night vision. That gave Haley and me an excellent view of the dragon running down a street in between big suburban houses, unknowingly tearing up flowerbeds, and smashing a Volkswagen Beetle.

As Artaxus smashed a silvery, reflecting ball on a pillar, the air in front of him began to shimmer.

In the next moment, the shimmering had spread across the road, and solidified into a half circle. The dragon blocked much of the view, but I could see a grassy field and a castle wall towering over it. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 45

Fresh Meat: Part 5

“No way,” I said, wondering how he’d gotten his powers activated. It wasn’t exactly a casual thing. The League had the first known working device to do it. It hadn’t been hard for me to make it work, but I’d had the benefit of my grandfather’s documentation.

I knew that the government had their own devices. From the news and personal experience, I knew that criminal organizations also had them. I wasn’t aware of anyone outside of those two groups owning any, but almost everything they needed was available on the internet now.

Corporate devices couldn’t be far away if they weren’t already out there.

Jaclyn’s mind obviously went along the same track mine did. She put down her hamburger, and said, “He can’t still be using power juice his uncle brewed. It’s illegal, and they wouldn’t allow him into the program, would they?”

“He’s not,” Courtney said. “I asked him.”

Continue reading Fresh Meat: Part 5

Stardock: Part 30

Unshielded engines were a spaceship’s weak point in combat. That and anyplace they predictably thinned the shields—like weapon hardpoints. Anyone who’d trained on spacecraft knew it. There were a host of techniques to minimizing your chances of dying—ranging from special shields to keeping changes of direction brief. It wasn’t as if you slowed down very quickly in space.

Most of the defenses were oriented toward spaceships though because any living being that attempted to sneak past working engines would quickly become well done.

I had every reason to hope that didn’t apply to Izzy. Continue reading Stardock: Part 30