As the video finished, I wondered what Ray intended to do next, and wished I’d left some roachbots on their cars and in their stuff. We’d found them only to lose them again, and we could use the warning if they attacked us.
We’d only barely survived attacking them.
That being said, Ray seemed like the kind of guy who searched for bugs, probably obsessively.
I sighed, and slumped a little in my chair, taking my hands off the keyboard.
We were completely over-matched.
Short of nukes, I couldn’t think of anything that could really hurt Prime’s people, and I didn’t want to kill them. I just wanted them to go somewhere else and leave us alone.
The only thing I could think of that might help would be using paralysis — except that would be temporary, and might not work on everybody.
Well, I had one other option, flying in with the jet, and blasting away with the main guns.
According to Grandpa’s documentation, the main guns worked against battleships, and spaceships. They had a good chance of doing more than just stunning Prime’s people, but that was because they had a good chance of burning them down to cinders.
I needed to come up with something less draconian.
Hypothetically, I might be able to set up a situation in which their regenerative ability ran out of stored fat to use for energy, and started cannibalizing muscles, leaving them weaker than a normal person.
And then what would we do with them? Pass them on to the police? The authorities would only be able to hold them if they kept them on a starvation diet. Otherwise they’d leave, destroying anything between them and freedom.
Well, assuming the police had no useful techniques for keeping them inside.
Thinking about the people who would die if they didn’t, I wondered if I had to get used to the idea of killing. I didn’t want to.
Could there possibly be a way to manipulate them into leaving us alone, dividing Prime’s people from Ray for example? From what I’d just seen, that seemed possible. We needed the right motivation, something stronger than whatever hold Ray had on them.
Maybe Lee would know what to do.
I tried to push it out of my mind, and walked home. It was supper time anyway.
* * *
After supper, I lay on my bed, trying to decide what to do next. I thought about checking email, but most of it would be about stuff I didn’t want to think about anyway.
Playing video games seemed irresponsible.
The best thing I could do had to be going back to HQ and working on the suit. And that was pretty depressing by itself. Sure, I knew where to look to find the problem with the right arm’s sonics, but I’d been pounded by Prime’s people. Who knew how many more problems the suit had now?
My League phone rang. I considered ignoring it, but it was Haley’s ring.
I got off the bed, grabbed it from the top of my desk, and answered it.
“How’s Travis?”
“He’ll be alright. They don’t think there’s any organ damage. That was the big worry, and they still have some things he’s got to watch for… His ribs will be healing for a little while, but they don’t know how long. It’s three to six weeks for normal people. Nick, he won’t be able to fight.”
“I know. I broke a couple ribs in that fight with Sean. Maybe Travis can train Kayla how to use the communication system. She asked me for help in the middle of everything.”
“It was her first time.”
“I know, and I can see how Cassie would bring her in, but I wish I’d known beforehand.”
Haley didn’t say anything.
“Right,” I said. “I should have done the same thing with Chris, but it was a lousy time for Cassie to make the point.”
“I don’t know, but I wasn’t calling about her. Do you mind, if I come over?”
“That’d be great. I’m just a little surprised.”
“Travis doesn’t need me around. He’s fine, but he’s sore, and he’s really grouchy.”
We talked a little longer before we hung up.
As I lay down again, I realized I felt a little better. The idea of hanging around with Haley sounded a lot more pleasant than worrying alone.
Someone knocked on the door.
It couldn’t be Haley already. I got up, feeling the muscles in my chest and back as I walked downstairs.
I’d be even more sore the next day.
As I got to the bottom of the stairs, the door opened. My mom said, “Nick, it’s Daniel.”
Mom went back to the computer in the family room as Daniel and I stood together in the kitchen.
“Hey, I didn’t know you’d be coming.”
“I wasn’t. I started thinking about this afternoon, and I decided to drop by.”
“Uh…” I tried to figure out some nice way to say Haley was coming over, and realized that there wasn’t a polite way.
“Oops,” he said. “I’ll leave when she gets here.”
At least he wasn’t mad.
We went up to my room. Daniel sat down at my desk. I sat on the bed.
“So what’s up?”
“We’ve got to find Ray. Not right this minute, but starting tomorrow for sure.”
“I know–“
“No,” Daniel shook his head. “You don’t know. I caught a little bit from his head during the fight. Not a lot, because I was busy, but a little. Nick, we’re scaring the crap out of him. Almost no one ever surprises him because he’s super paranoid and tries to plan for everything, but we’ve caught up with him twice. He dismissed the first time as luck, but now he’s decided we might be competent, or we’re being used by someone who is.
“He’s decided that he needs to deal with us sooner.”
His ribs will be a little while. You forgot to add sore in there.
Who will find who first, What’s going to happen tune in next week and see what happens.
I’m scared shitless.
Thanks Jeff Pegues, for suddenly turning it into an old 80s style tv show… 😛
I’m wondering if the jet’s weapons have ever been used. And what they fire. And the range on them too. Rather, just the specs in general.
The “kill or not to kill” conundrum must be hard on every superhero. On the one hand, if they’re trying to be role models and symbols for good, it’s kind of hard to claim benevolence if you’re actively killing criminals and villains. It certainly ups the ante on the “anti-vigilante” stance.
However, if Batman had killed the Joker how many lives would he have saved? But then, there’d be no awesome stories.
In this case, Prime’s people are friggin’ deadly — no wonder Lee didn’t hesitate to take off Prime’s head. Nick’s playing with the big boys now, he might not have a choice but to prepare for real war.
The seventh paragraph isn’t quite perfect –
“The only I could think of that might help would be using paralysis” – I assume there should be the word “thing” after “only”.
And Nick might as well just give up and head over to headquarters, cause pretty soon the whole team is going to be at his house…. Or he could go hide at Chris’s…maybe he could hide there period!
And oh why do we “humans” make 18 year olds have to deal with these issues?
Thats howyou end a story arc..with a cliffhangar
It’s all so much simpler in Japan. Over there when you beat someone up they become your friend, so there’s no need to worry about permanent solutions.
At least that’s what the comics teach us.
Ah, good old Japan…the place where Spider-man has a giant mecha.
It is a good idea to be scared of Ray, but the fact that he’s scared makes a big difference. Scared people make mistakes. They also have breaking points, when the fear gets to be too strong for them.
Lightbulb!
It’d be irresponsible to leave a group like that intact, even elsewhere. So you need a way to scare them off and away from each other.
If only there was a way to make it seem like there was a traitor, or multiple traitors, in the group, feeding out information to defeat their rivals. Maybe make it seem the traitor is Ray. Or Prime. Or both Prime and Ray. With their psychic blockers around, it would be tough to have someone go in psychicly and make sure everyone in the group is loyal. It’s even tougher if the only psychics are thought to be traitors. Ray’s team too, to break up Ray’s band worse than a deadly assassin version of Yoko Ono.
…I really hope I’m not potentially spoiling things, Jim.
Silas: They’ve been used, but not during the story so far. Weapons range from lasers to torpedoes. The range varies based on the density of the atmosphere.
Psycho Gecko: Don’t worry about it. Even if you were close, there would still be key differences in detail…
Jeff, Notto Mention: Thanks for noticing mistakes. They’re fixed (probably).
Working through the archives, ill leave my prediction here. Lee is behind it all. The promise was to get him ready, and lee views this as a trial by fire, demanding that the new rocket learn how to kill when needed
Batman did kill the joker but he was to cool so they brought him back. Them later retconed batman so he dosnt kill.
I hope at least 1 of them gets killed. Maybe then they’d grow some balls.
Dame nick feel like not want to live, he and his friends almost dia bút he can’t focus to upgrade or fix armor just because he boring? This is huge problem!!!