Slumping into her seat, Tara shook her head before turning to look around at the group, “I’m sorry. I need to get out of True headspace for a little while. It’s exhausting to look at the world that way even though I know we need it. We need to find Master Martian first, though, and from what I was seeing, we need to find him today. When the Dominators know we met with Bullet, they’ll go after Master Martian and maybe after the woman too.”
We followed Stephanie down the hall toward the exit while she asked us questions that pointedly weren’t about what we were doing here. Except for her hint, they didn’t make any other reference to the last time we’d been together either. I followed her lead, answering her questions and choosing not to go in directions that might make her listeners suspicious.
As we reached the room we’d first entered—the one with the big TV and the two long couches facing it—she stopped, “I heard about what Cassie’s been doing—organizing multi-team training sessions at your property in the U.P. I think you’ll find plenty of people here who will be interested in working out with you. Personally, I think you’ll want to be careful about who you invite. Some people around here hold grudges. You know how that is.”
It might not be fair to either Gifford or Hunter, but I’d never particularly liked either of them. Gifford and Gordon came from a legacy hero family, the kind that lived in private compounds and didn’t interact much with normal people. Hunter’s mother was a legacy superhero,celebrity, and superhero stage mom (from what I’d seen).
She had a reality TV show about her life in Hollywood called, “Diva!” To judge from the online commercials, Hunter and Gifford appeared sometimes.
Also, and here’s where the unfairness came in, Gifford was interested in Haley. It hadn’t caused problems because she wasn’t interested in him, but it didn’t make me like him more. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 4→
Bullet stopped wiping his face, “Who was she really? Do you know?”
“No,” Daniel continued to watch him, “we were hoping you might know. We’re guessing she’s one of the Dominators.”
Looking over at Daniel, Bullet stuffed his handkerchief back in his pants pocket, “I’m going to kill her.”
“You don’t know where she is,” Tara said, her voice level and controlled. “You haven’t seen her since and you haven’t been looking because she controlled you so completely that you never tried. What makes you think that you could?” Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 3→
This wasn’t a good time to ask. Or, thinking about it some more, it struck me that it might be. I could save asking about Adam until the end, just before Tara brought up something if she was going to do that. If he kicked us out at that point, we wouldn’t lose anything.
It might not be the best way to look at it, but it was at least practical. Plus, I felt confident that Tara thought the same way.
Bullet frowned, either at the hint of an accent in her voice or because he had no idea who Yoselin was. Maybe both. He didn’t linger on it, though, opening the door for all of us.
We stepped into one side of the big windowed room we’d seen from the outside. It extended into the second story with a walkway going around the edges and another extending across to the other side. While the architect might have intended it to be a living room, I could see hints of another purpose in the layout.
Two long couches and a few freestanding chairs pointed in a rough “V” shape toward the large TV at the front of the room. It could pass as the briefing room of a large team. Noting the number of gaming consoles and controllers on top of the coffee table in front of the TV, I had to bet that it was a younger team. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 1→
Bullet said nothing for a few seconds, but then added, “Yes. I’m part of another project now, but it’s one that I think you may already know about. I’ll send you the location. You can visit whenever you like, but give us some warning.”
I noted the “us” as he talked and wondered if I should ask more, but decided not to, “Sure. Today’s okay, right? We could be there before noon, depending on where you are.”
“I…” She stopped, “I don’t know. After everything, I have an excuse, but I know I can’t really do that. What I really want is to talk to him. After they removed him from doing anything except for a couple of combat classes one year, I never got to talk to him about everything he’d done. He nearly got me expelled from Stapledon after I was harassed by children of his friends. I never got to hear him say why he thought that was right.”
Nodding along as she spoke, Vaughn asked, “Are you looking for an apology?”
Tara shook her head, the muscles around her mouth tight. “I know better. I’ve even thought it through… dispassionately. I know it’s a waste of time. I’m not going to get anything out of him, but I still want to go.” Continue reading Memories: Part 9→
Tara paused, her expression unreadable, “But I don’t think it’s as easy as I’d guess from what we saw. From what I’ve read about the Dominators, they need more time than that to make what they’re doing permanent. Also, Bullet knew and liked the person who threw the dart and he wasn’t surprised to see her.”
“Her?” Vaughn’s smile widened, “People tell me I see women everywhere, but there was nothing in that voice that said woman to me. Well, it didn’t say ‘man’ either. It was kind of fuzzy.” Continue reading Memories: Part 8→
Over the team radio channel, Bullet muttered, “Give me the okay and I’ll turn the freak into Swiss cheese.”
Len jumped over a pile of snow, landing less than ten feet behind Master Martian. “You know the policy and you know why.”
In October of 1954, the Feds came to an unofficial agreement with the superheroes of the period, agreeing to leave them alone as long as the body count didn’t get too high. My grandfather had told me about the negotiations. As the highest-profile team of the day, the Heroes’ League had to be there. Continue reading Memories: Part 7→
The Legion of Nothing: A Series of Online Superhero Novels (Updates Monday and Thursday)
