Outside of shock, I didn’t have much of a reaction.
When I hung up, I turned to Daniel, who had undoubtedly been listening to both sides of the conversation, and asked, “So now what?”
“We go to the hospital. This is going to be big.”
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 2
The next day we stepped out of school and into a media circus.
Sometime between last night and that afternoon, the reporter’s story had been taken up by the Associated Press and a video of Keith’s transformation had gone viral. Reporters stood at the bottom of the steps. Vans with satellite uplinks parked alongside the sidewalk. Photographers and cameramen stood waiting.
Continue reading Hysteria: Part 1
I couldn’t think of a person I’d least like to hear say those words, but it didn’t really matter what I thought.
Sean, still limping a little, but off the crutches he’d been using since our fight, pushed through the crowd. The fact that Dayton, Sean’s much larger friend, walked with him undoubtedly helped with the pushing.
Ignoring Vaughn, he said, “So what do I do?”
“Just hold out your arm.” Keith put drips of each liquid on Sean’s forearm.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 6
“Well… Where are you meeting?”
Keith said, “Nowhere much. The school parking lot. It’ll be quick.”
He grinned at me. “I’ve a majorly cool demonstration of what I found out.”
I wanted to ask him about it, but he must have read that off my face.
He started walking down the hall toward at the stairs. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll show you when I show everyone else.”
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 5
Even though my life didn’t get immediately stranger as a result, the “national discussion” of the problem got heated. Some people hailed the unnamed leaker as a hero standing up against the potential for government tyranny. Other people described the person as a traitor who had endangered national security out of misguided idealism.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had a consistent party line.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 4
I was about to explain when the news scanner program started beeping at me. I sent the results to the big screen on the wall.
Titles of articles that linked to websites cascaded down half the screen. The other half showed pictures of ongoing news stories on all major networks. I clicked through them, staying just long enough to get the gist of how each one was reporting the story.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 3
How do you respond to that? Saying, “How cool. Would you mind showing me your grandfather’s lair?” seemed a little off somehow. The question I really wanted to know the answer to, “So are you planning to build a new set of armor and hunt down the Rocket in revenge?” didn’t seem quite like the right thing to say either.
Keith and Courtney didn’t share my hesitation.
“So they’re just giving you his stuff?” Keith talked loudly enough that people at the tables around us looked in his direction.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 2
A lot of people care about superheroes. They’re cultural icons. Like fashion, movies or television, heroes bring back memories of the times they caught the public imagination. For most people, the Allies’ and Axis’ super soldier units will be forever associated with World War 2, the Grand Lake Heroes League with the 1950’s and 1960’s, Wonder Eye with the 1970’s, and grim anti-heroes (like Vengeance) with the late 80’s and beyond.
Some people go beyond caring and into obsession — we’re talking much more than following their favorite hero’s exploits in the paper and buying merchandise. I’m thinking about Keith and his girlfriend Courtney who were the biggest fans of Guardian I’d ever met.
Continue reading Chemistry: Part 1
We managed to escape reporters only because crossing the street had gotten Brooke out of range of the devices that stopped her from opening a gate.
We couldn’t go immediately because we couldn’t leave the mech operator — both because Alex wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and because we didn’t want the mech operator to wake up and run off.
The Defenders took out the remaining Syndicate L people within a couple minutes. Blue Streak and several SWAT teams arrived while they were still fighting and joined in.
Continue reading Three: Part 17
When the brightness and the thundering boom of the explosion ended, I saw that the guitar’s charge had turned a chunk of the mech’s chest into a smoking ruin.
It fell backwards, crashing onto the street.
The left arm beat the ground with jerky flailing motions. The shell muffled the sound of screaming, but I could still hear it.
“Oh God, oh God, it hurts…”
Continue reading Three: Part 16