I took the catmecha down off the side of the highway, landing in the parking lot of some massive medical complex. I changed the mecha back into the shape of a van, drove around the parking lot, changing the van’s color and model a couple times when I thought no one was looking.

I’d put in the specifications for 20 different models and years of vans. The ability to adjust the van’s looks made it the perfect car for blending into the crowd.

We left the parking lot looking like a 70’s era Dodge van with an airbrushed picture of a woman in a chainmail bikini fighting a dragon on the sides.

Continue reading Not Exactly Hogwarts: Part 4 →

I considered my next step. We were on an eight lane highway with no median between the northbound and southbound. The only thing between them was a four foot high concrete barrier. That was on the left.

When I looked to the right, I realized that the lane must be a little lower than the road running alongside it because the concrete sloped down to the highway.

We were the second lane in from the right on the southbound side. Thanks to the catmecha’s legs, we might be able to move over the front of the red Chevy Cavalier to my left. I wasn’t completely confident though, that it wouldn’t step on the car’s hood, denting it at best, pushing the engine through to the concrete at worst.

That was the nearest we got to the side of the road. To the immediate left we had semi-truck, and whatever happened to be in the lane past that.

So, I went with plan b. Continue reading Not Exactly Hogwarts: Part 3 →

I wasn’t sure what I could do about that. Alex and his dad probably had good reasons for what they did. It wouldn’t be a good thing if something major came up, and they were too tired to help their team because they’d spent all day in the hospital healing people.

Realistically, they’d probably be better off allowing scientists to study how their healing worked with various illnesses and injuries than actually healing anybody.

I hoped they thought that far ahead. Continue reading Not Exactly Hogwarts: Part 2 →

Denver’s traffic sucked.

Driving in from Denver International Airport wasn’t bad at first, but then we got into the city. That’s when we began to experience everything I hated about driving in Chicago. By that I mean having to pay attention to more cars and lanes than I wanted to.

Two lanes would merge into three, and I’d have to watch from all directions as cars around moved across the highway in different directions.

If I hadn’t been driving I might have been able to pay attention to the bright blue sky, and how different the landscape was. Left to itself, Michigan is covered with large trees.

Colorado tends to be covered with grasses, and small trees, many of which are evergreens. Not only can you see the sky, but you can see for a long way on the ground. Plus, any time you get a little height while you’re in Denver—by going down a long hill, for example—the Rocky Mountains loom in the distance.

It probably says something about me that my strongest association with mountains is Mordor. Continue reading Not Exactly Hogwarts: Part 1 →