Category Archives: The Legion of Nothing

Arc 7.7: Go Time

Go Time: Part 5

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My hand hit the door, and it melted away, leaving me in the Cohen’s house. I sat at the table where I’d sat many times over the years. A picture of the Cohen family hung on the wall nearby—Daniel, his mom, dad, brother and sister posing together at the beach.

Hanging on wall near the picture was a series of hebrew letters in burnished metal. I’d been told what the words on it meant before, but I could never remember. I stared at it for a moment.

I glanced over at the pile of books piled on the end of the table. As usual, they were mostly about interior design and art history.

A pile of paper sat next to them.

Then even though she hadn’t been there before, Daniel’s mom was sitting in the chair across from me. Just like in any normal dream, I found myself simply accepting this. Continue reading Go Time: Part 5 →

Arc 7.7: Go Time

Go Time: Part 4

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I left not long after that, finding another student waiting in the hallway outside her door. It was a guy I’d seen, but didn’t recognize–one of the freshmen.

“If you’re here for Ms. Hemming, I just finished.”

He muttered, “Thanks,” and then his eyes widened, recognizing me.

I smiled and started walking toward the labs. I probably could have introduced myself, but I didn’t want to make awkward conversation that amounted to “You’ve heard of my grandfather, and of me to some degree. Nice to meet you.”

Vaughn probably would have stayed and talked a little. He was good at that kind of thing. Continue reading Go Time: Part 4 →

Arc 7.7: Go Time

Go Time: Part 3

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Ms. Hemming waved me into her office. “Take a chair.”

She shut the door behind me, as I walked inside. Pikes Peak rose among the mountains viewable from her windows.

I sat down in one of the chairs across from her desk. Unlike every therapist’s office I’d seen in cartoons, it did not have a couch–not that I expected to see one. My dad was a clinical psychologist. He didn’t have a couch. Continue reading Go Time: Part 3 →

Arc 7.7: Go Time

Go Time: Part 2

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Daniel grunted something unintelligible, but didn’t wake up.

I imagined an air horn, an old one that varied in pitch, ranging from a normal tone to a ragged, scratchy one to a painful screech.

Then, thinking back to our fight against Evil Beatnik, I started imagining a chorus of air horns, all of them slightly out of tune, endlessly repeating the only part of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” that I could remember—the refrain.

Daniel raised his head. “That’s got to be against the Geneva Conventions. What time is it?”

We both turned toward the alarm clock. It was 5:48am. Continue reading Go Time: Part 2 →

Arc 7.7: Go Time

Go Time: Part 1

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I woke up with my head on the lab table. Wood wasn’t the most comfortable pillow. I pushed myself up, trying to remember what I’d been doing.

The satbot lay on the table. I’d finished it, tested it, and it worked. Then I’d tested the other bots’ ability to connect to it. Haley and I had tried it out in Denver, and it had managed to connect. The phonebot had managed to successfully impersonate a house’s landline, and the mobile connection bot had been tested in every way possible outside of Turkmenistan.

I checked the time on my cell phone. It was 3:42am.
Continue reading Go Time: Part 1 →

Arc 7.6: Remote Control

Remote Control: Part 6

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I let out a breath. “This seems to be escalating. I don’t know if we’ve got any enemies from the magical end of things, but we’ve got spies. You said it was a fairy or from Faerie, but do you get any sense of place? Like maybe Turkmenistan’s got it’s own fairy tales?”

Amy frowned. “I don’t know this world’s history or magic very well. I’d never even heard about Turkmenistan before this year, but wouldn’t that be like Afghanistan or Pakistan? So jinn, maybe, but I don’t think it was a jinn. It didn’t feel like it had that kind of power.”

Putting my arms on the table, I crossed them and leaned forward. “Something small, and not so powerful?” Continue reading Remote Control: Part 6 →

Arc 7.6: Remote Control

Remote Control: Part 5

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Haley kicked her shoes off and literally leapt across the room, landing on all fours. She hadn’t transformed. However her body worked, she was already stronger and faster than normal humans even before a transformation.

As she crouched, she sniffed the air near the doorway.

Almost simultaneously with Haley’s leap, Amy touched her gem, setting off an explosion of red, darker red, black, white, and pink. Continue reading Remote Control: Part 5 →

Arc 7.6: Remote Control

Remote Control: Part 4

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Izzy’s forehead wrinkled. “Why do you think that?”

“I’m not sure, but I think she may have talked to the invaders in their native language. Anyway, I know that somewhere in there Amy used magic to transform a little in their direction. Something like that. That whole battle’s a little blurry at this point.”

“I think you’re right,” Daniel said, glancing over at Izzy and then back to me. “Judging from the way she made that shield and that she can fly, her magic is pretty flexible. It’s worth a question. Who do we talk to if it doesn’t work?” Continue reading Remote Control: Part 4 →

Arc 7.6: Remote Control

Remote Control: Part 3

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I tested the satellite bot for a while, and then I started to think about the next generation of roachbot. I’d started out creating armor with the nanotech I’d designed, but I ought to be using it to construct roachbots. If I did it right, I’d only have to perfect a design, and then I’d be able to create hundreds if not thousands of them trivially.

Better yet, it would probably make for a faster design process since I’d be able to do the work within a CAD program instead of physically constructing every version. Continue reading Remote Control: Part 3 →

Arc 7.6: Remote Control

Remote Control: Part 2

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I blinked. I knew that Lim probably had an agenda, and felt fairly sure that in a choice between me and the government, Lim would choose the government, but I couldn’t fault a man who’d sworn to serve the United States for actually doing his job.

Plus, when it came down to it Lim had admired Grandpa as the Rocket, and I had a hard time believing he’d deliberately screw the League over without a reason.

Something of that must have shown on my face because Gordon sat a little straighter in his seat. “I’m not saying anything other people aren’t saying. Look, you weren’t here before the program exploded. Continue reading Remote Control: Part 2 →