Tag Archives: Vaughn

Courtesy: Part 15

Over the comm, Vaughn said, “I hope they got everybody inside because this is all for nothing if you get everyone except for one guy—like in horror movies.”

Samita replied before I could, “I told the Wizards’ Council what the zombies do and the Council said they’d figure it out.”

Vaughn’s name blinked on the screen, “As long as the Wizards’ Council has it covered.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 15

Courtesy: Part 13

“For right now,” Vaughn said, “I’ll be happy to keep everyone here in the air and uninfected—extra bonus if I can also help the city, but I’m not holding my breath there.”

Sean’s name blinked, “I’d be holding my breath if I didn’t know I just fall unconscious. Do you guys have more of your suits?”

“I don’t know if they’ll work for you,” I said. “I designed them to resist electromagnetism, but any suit on you will be at ground zero all the time. We might have a suit that doesn’t use nanotech back at base. There’s probably a way to get it out safely. Nanotech suits should work for everyone else if we have enough.

“If we don’t have enough, we need to get you guys far enough out of town that you’re safe.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 13

Courtesy: Part 12

A year ago, I might have taken what Guardian said as a criticism or threat, but now I saw it for what it was—he didn’t want to destroy the city even though it made a lot of sense.

Looking over at Daniel as he flew next to me, I tried to give Guardian what he wanted, “Well, first of all, you know what’s under the League’s base and in our storage rooms. Blasting the city won’t destroy all of it and the rest will be available to anyone who comes by. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 12

Courtesy: Part 6

By the time I did notice that Gifford, Hunter, and other members of Major Justice’s team as well as Shifter were sinking toward the ground, they were shouting at Gifford who was staring off into space.

Was he too tired or had one of the mushroom tendrils gotten lucky and hit him? Either way they were dropping into range of not only the tendrils’ shots (which might not get through the wind), but also the clouds of spores that puffed outward whenever the shots hit something. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 6

Courtesy: Part 5

I didn’t love the idea that the military team might be puppets of the mushroom zombies, especially since they included (ex) Mayor Bouman, a telepath, and Logan who’d been friends with Vaughn, Haley, Sean, Dayton, and Jody back when Haley was dating Sean.

I wondered if the military team included anyone else. Three seemed too small of a group—not to mention underpowered vs our team. When Logan transformed in high school, we’d beaten him with equipment smuggled in under our formal clothes. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 5

Courtesy: Part 1

As Jaclyn finished, Vaughn frowned. Unless I missed my guess, he wanted to say something and couldn’t because he was in the middle of the same crowd I was. Without a Xiniti brain implant, it’d be as obvious as taking a call on a cell phone.

“Hey,” he said to Arete, “can we have a second? You’re asking us to hide something really big. We’re going to need to talk amongst ourselves for a second—which includes talking to people who aren’t here and are just watching.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 1

Roll the Dice: Part 18

“You really think it’ll be easy to get him to call it off for today? From what I’ve seen so far, it was a challenge to even get him to admit we were in the earliest stages of a zombie apocalypse,” I used my HUD to take a quick look to see where we were with that.

There weren’t any nearby at all—not even among the trees. I’d adjusted the suit’s sensors to detect them and set the implant to watch for movement.

At this point, Vaughn had stopped hitting them with lightning and Amy hovered above the forest, staring downward, doubtless trying to detect them with magic much as I was with technology. Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 18

Roll the Dice: Part 17

Jaclyn’s voice came over the comm, “Exactly that. If you’ve got something that will let me destroy them, I’ll take it. I feel useless. Building barriers is nice, but it’s not enough.”

I burned down another zombie and said, “I’m sure we’ve got something—even if it’s the Burrito Gun.”

Jaclyn gave a long pause before replying, “The Burrito Gun? Does that even have a setting for fire?” Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 17

Roll The Dice: Part 14

Major Justice sputtered, “We… We don’t have anyone in reserve. Every available person is in the fight.”

Except for the first word or two, he sounded honest. I said, “Great, but if someone new arrives, please send them in. I’m not sure how we win this.”

“We’re all here,” he grunted. “We’ll win this.”

Then he closed the connection. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 14

Roll The Dice: Part 13

When the lightning stopped, I could see smoking zombie bodies all the way down the road. Many of them were charred to the point that they were unrecognizable or at least they would have been if they were human.

Had they been human, I’d have been horrified at the devastation. Given that they weren’t human, I could only feel disappointment that it wasn’t worse. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 13