I could see how Major Justice or the Nine might have come up with the idea though. Having people barrage you with requests that you surrender, some of them people you know… Well, it didn’t feel good.
Knowing that it had to be a ploy took a bit of the edge off, but I wondered if they’d done this before and to whom.
Then another thought hit me, “If you all are getting deluged with texts like I am right now, forward them all to Hal.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 7
“We’ve done this a few times too often,” I said, realizing I was talking only as it came out of my mouth.
“You call, come up with some kind of ultimatum, compare me and everyone on the team to spoiled children, and then you attack us and get your ass handed to you. You should do something different and I don’t mean attacking us with even more people.
“If you want to do something that surprises me, be kind and respectful of others. Treat me and the whole group as if we’re capable of making reasonable choices and you’ll probably get reasonable choices out of us.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 6
Lim hung up, leaving Haley and me standing there together next to one of the cubicles in the command area of the main room, all of our friends and some family in cots on the other side of the room.
We didn’t have anywhere else to send them—nowhere convenient anyway. Daniel’s family had relocated to the Midwest Defenders’ base in Chicago after the fight. I’d been thinking about asking Guardian about that yesterday, but not until after we’d talked last night.
An attack on HQ wasn’t out of the question. The simulations I’d seen this morning included a few different attacks and that was one of them. Continue reading Isolation: Part 5
I held the phone up to my ear and said, “Hi. What’s the bad news?”
Lim gave a small chuckle, “It’s good to know you’re paying attention. That’s what all of us involved in teaching you have been aiming for, but you’re right. It’s not good news. It also isn’t terrible news, but it’s bad in what it represents.” Continue reading Isolation: Part 4
With that thought, I gave up on worrying about Jody until I had a more solid reason to worry about him. I considered asking Daniel or maybe Tara, but I knew that Daniel was sleeping without even looking.
Our childhood link did that much even if it didn’t allow me to borrow his powers while he was unconscious. Continue reading Isolation: Part 3
Waking up the next morning wasn’t great. HQ had a bunch of cots and I’d slept in one even though I could have stayed in my bed upstairs.
Even on high alert, I couldn’t recommend it. I couldn’t blame the soreness in my body completely on the cot, but I doubted that it helped. Still, it was safer than being in the house—just much less private, considering that all of the cots were in HQ’s main room.
I’d barely pulled on clothes and sat down at one of the computer cubicles when we got the first call of the morning. Continue reading Isolation: Part 2
They didn’t arrive to attack us that afternoon or even that evening or night. It was a little disappointing after all the warnings. We went on high alert for the night, taking turns staying up and not leaving HQ.
We could have all slept and let HAL watch for intruders, but we decided it was better to have two people awake, armored, and ready for action. Besides we had a lot of people. No one had to stay up that long. Continue reading Isolation: Part 1
Kayla laughed, “You haven’t spent half the time talking to him that I have. At least he’s respectful to you. He thinks I’m some kind of no name peon.”
I couldn’t imagine what he said to her that made the way Major Justice treated me seem respectful.
She looked down at her phone, “Oh, and he’s gone. I guess he wanted to sneer at me one more time before they attacked.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed, “You didn’t tell me he was being nasty to you.” Continue reading Simple Choices: Part 11
Kals talked with Julie in a low voice, using words that were a mixture of English and Ascendancy. The Ascendancy was straight jargon transliterated or translated into English. Even the Xiniti implants couldn’t translate it very well, turning most of the words into sound waveforms—which I could maybe figure out her strategy given time, but not in the moment. I still needed more context.
The words themselves still didn’t make it clearer. An example? Kals said, “I’ll need you to do eight high mind squirts in a row in the low mind zug pattern I taught you earlier.”
Julie meanwhile, furrowed her brow at first, but then smiled and said, “Got it!” Continue reading Simple Choices: Part 10
As Adam took off the necklace and handed it to me, Daniel thought at me, This is a good sign. In my dad’s stories, this is the kind of thing that should have provoked violence and I don’t sense any coming except in the least likely of futures.
I took the necklace and looked at the buzzer. I’d been right to think that it looked like one of my earlier designs, but it wasn’t one of them. I’d made them available to other people at points, but I didn’t think I’d done so with the model this appeared to be a copy of.
Keon had the skill to do it. He’d been at Stapledon before Adam disappeared and so had other techies. Continue reading Simple Choices: Part 9