I fell into the third floor from a height of around ten feet, taking down the nearest section of drop ceiling along with me, bending the metal grid downward, and crashing through the nearest tile as a couple more fell out of the grid.
It wasn’t what I’d call an inspiring entrance. Continue reading Transitions: Part 11
Firing off several goobots, I saw them race around my teammates and explode into a gooey mess that hit the older man with the Swiss Army knife along with two women in suits, a short blond woman in her 20s and a freckled woman in her 40s.
The strands reached into the crowd, hitting a few more people I couldn’t see as well along with the ceiling and the floor. I’d designed the bots to spread out and hit something that wouldn’t move. Continue reading Transitions: Part 10
Jaclyn and Izzy stepped into the warehouse as the red beams of lasers appeared in the smoke. Izzy grabbed a missile out of the air, crushed it, and threw the pieces to the ground before smashing through one of the building’s undamaged bits of wall.
I’d have fired off the anti-personnel lasers to give them cover, but between the explosions, smoke, fire, and moving figures inside, I wouldn’t be doing them any favors. Continue reading Transitions: Part 9
Minutes later, I was running through the plan with Jaclyn and the Probationers. Jaclyn had heard all of what we had in the process of keeping the rest of the team involved, but she was listening in as she ran to Indiana.
Not only couldn’t I see her face, but I only saw one of the Probationers as he sat in the jet they were flying. All I could see of the Atoner was his red and white costume, the metallic gray of his exoskeleton, and the gadgets that hung from it. His helmet covered his face, giving a hint of light brown skin and dark, black hair.
Even though Grandpa had helped train him, all I knew about the man was that he’d killed his team while under mind control and changed his name to the Atoner afterward. Continue reading Transitions: Part 8
“I’m most worried about the mechs,” I said. “If we can do it without killing anyone on the floor, I’d like to start this thing by aiming the main gun at the lower level of the warehouse. Plus, as much as I’d like to investigate the Abominator generator, destroying it might be the better choice. If you think about it, if they’ve got one Abominator artifact, they might have more.”
Raising an eyebrow, Daniel said, “I didn’t even think about that, but you’re right. If they managed to find something like that and get it working, they’ve probably got more working.”
“Yeah,” Cassie nodded, “exactly that. The lab I grabbed the gun from didn’t just have the gun.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 7
Cassie tapped her comm, “Can you see if they’re Tara’s clone or do they look like me?”
Talking over the wind blowing in the background, Izzy said, “No. I’m only guessing it’s the True because of their height. That’s about all I can get.”
“Huh,” Cassie stared out the window toward the campus and shook her head. “They’ve got enough copies of Dad, male and female. It’s messed up.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 6
Through my implant, Hal showed me the two buildings on Eden Tech campus only with a kind of mist that seemed to be centered around the lower level of the corporate building.
Cassie’s gun absorbed ambient energy to work, mostly electromagnetic and gravitational from what I could tell. What this absorbed, I wasn’t sure yet. It might be the same but on a bigger scale. It might be something that I couldn’t imagine until I studied it.
Daniel thought at me, That’s interesting. Abominator tech. No wonder they’ve set up telepathy blockers.
I thought back, Seriously? Crap. Continue reading Transitions: Part 5
“Hey, everybody,” I raised my hand to get their attention, “Hal just told me where my cousin Anastasia works. I think I told you all about her—well, except for Izzy. Ana’s the cousin who told my Uncle Steve about a contract to work with Armory, the guy who Cassie, Daniel, Yoselin, and I gave to the Feds. So, she’s got some kind of connection to all of this and it’s probably through work. She’s also an engineer. Oh, and it sounds like wherever she’s working is trying to duplicate the self-repairing feature of my armor. I don’t know what’s up with that.”
Vaughn raised his eyebrow, “I don’t think you mentioned the bit with how they’re trying to duplicate your tech, but what do you want to do about it? Break in or, I don’t know, make an unexpected visit as yourself?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 4
I wasn’t sure I liked how he phrased his last sentence, “Uh… Check on it? Did you lose it or something?”
He laughed, “Not exactly. We sent it to a safe place. You’re not the only person who’s ever asked us to pick up a bad guy’s stuff. In fact, we encourage it. Legally speaking, it’s the best choice. If you take it, you’re stealing evidence. If we take it, the prosecutor can use it at trial—which is much better.”
“I know. My grandfather told me about that. Plus, it was covered at Stapledon. So, where is it? Can we visit or is it so top secret that nobody can know the location of the vault?” Continue reading Transitions: Part 3
“God, yes,” Cassie stared up at the screen. “It was every bit that bad and they didn’t do the worst of it. That was Adam—remember Dark Cloak? He made some kind of deal with the fey that turned lets him call on weird shit out of faerie for help. Plus, you know what? They deserved it. They weren’t holding back. They were going for the kill.”
“Except,” Daniel caught her eye, ”they were under someone else’s control when they did it. They might have done the same thing on their own, but they didn’t have a choice.” Continue reading Transitions: Part 2