The Nine’s Headquarters. Unnamed Island. Present Day.
Edward Alan Branch, Night Commander of The Nine’s control center, couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the day took a turn, but it had.
Standing up from his desk to the side of the control center’s main room, he walked to the tinted window. Mirrored on the other side, so the staff couldn’t tell when he was looking, it allowed him to watch them without being so obvious. Continue reading Stage One: Part 4
Original Heroes’ League. Unknown Section of Rain Forest, Brazil, October 1959:
Dr. Madness’ War Machine lay in pieces in the clearing in front of the cave.
It had been massive. Longer than 300 feet and taller than 50 feet near the back, where the conning tower had risen above the hull, it gave the middle finger to aerodynamic design in more than one sense. Continue reading Stage One: Part 3
“Me too,” I said, “but either way, I don’t have a better idea.”
“I don’t either,” Haley said, staring past me into the night.
We were over Florida by that point. Our rendezvous with Prime would be over the Everglades in a spot that Dr. Transylvania described as “abandoned by humanity.”
My suspicion that “abandoned by humanity” meant “populated by vampires and alligators” was given a little life by the looks of the place. There weren’t any lights, but a scan of the area as we arrived showed weeds, wooden buildings that leaned as if they were about to fall over, and concrete foundations partially covered by dirt and weeds. Continue reading Stage One: Part 2
My alarm rang too early, if I could call it ringing. My implant woke me by ending my sleep cycle and bringing me to consciousness the way my body would have if I’d gotten a full night’s sleep and woke as dawn’s first light entered the room.
That wasn’t going to happen here. We were in a bunker with no windows and lots of concrete. The closest the room came to color was the dark red carpet in the section of the main room where we held meetings, and Control followed our suits’ feeds. Continue reading Stage One: Part 1
Jaclyn sent me a message via her implant, “You mentioned it.”
Ignoring her, I replied, “Both of you should get them. Everyone else did yesterday. I’ve checked on the specs, and they’ve been designed to work even with people who have magnetic powers.”
In the back of my mind, though, I did remember that the implant could be used to immobilize someone at the command of a Xiniti citizen—which might be useful if Dominators got past their buzzers. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 9
From there, the day turned into planning sessions, the first with those of us who hadn’t been drugged. By the afternoon, even those of us who had been drugged were with it enough to participate.
From there, it grew into a cast of thousands or at least it felt like it. We had everyone—Amy, Tara, Samita, Rod, Alex, Brooke, Jenny, Sean, Dayton, every member of the original Justice Fist but Jody, and every living member of our original group. If that weren’t enough, Dr. Transylvania, Ape Nasty, Prime, and his second-in-command attended remotely. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 8
“Good. We don’t have a timeline yet, but given that we need to rest and it needs to be as soon as possible, we might hit them early in the morning, but dawn would be coming soon.”
Dr. Transylvania nodded, “Not all of my servants are vampires, and we’ve had centuries to work out a system for operating in the sun.”
He looked past me into the lab. “I’m impressed with your setup. We should get together one day to discuss technology. My interest in robots and swarms has been minimal, but when I see you operate, I’m reminded that my use of magic sometimes distracts me from investigating areas that might be useful.”
A few minutes later, we’d closed out that conversation, and I’d passed off his information to Kayla to bring him into planning meetings remotely. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 7
“I didn’t either. After the government went after you, I thought all the areas where you’d set up communities had been identified.”
“Right,” Prime grunted. “They got the Cabal’s breeding program. We hid the people we cared about. The Cabal didn’t need to know about them, and they didn’t care. They wanted a supply of soldiers descended from us. We made sure they got one, but we kept our families out of sight. This isn’t the first time that the leadership shifted, and the new people used the Dominators on us. We have backup plans for how to handle it. We needed to know where to aim them.”
“Do you have transportation? We’ve got a jet, but we can’t hold more than fifteen without cramming people into the bathroom and engine room.” Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 6
With Sean up, we didn’t have any reason to stay. We’d given everyone some privacy when they woke up, limiting the attendees to Alex and me and moving conscious people over to the side rooms.
It had been Alex’s idea. As he put it, “With poison, people sometimes vomit or… worse.”
No one needed to ask what was worse. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 5
I get it; I thought back, and I’m glad you’re worried about lowering your ethical standards, but I think this is an okay exception. We’re talking about the possible destruction of Earth. That doesn’t come up too often.
I felt relief and then a stab of worry from Daniel, but he replied, In our lives, we’ll see more situations that we can justify exceptions than most people. Tell me if you think I’m being too cavalier with other people’s personalities. Because it does matter. It’s the right choice for now, but for all I know, that distrust I added might migrate to his thoughts about his father, and they might not ever reconcile or might attach to all his relationships, making him less connected to anybody. It shouldn’t be an easy choice. Continue reading Bigger Things: Part 4