Category Archives: Book 04: Alien Machines & Evil Beatniks

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 6

19 Comments

Taking the phone, I ran down to the family room, and turned on the television. Dad frowned at me from the counter where he was eating cereal. “It’s a little early for television—”

“No, Dad, this is different.” I still had the phone in my hand. “You said News 10?”

“That’s it,” Kayla replied.

I didn’t watch TV in the morning, mostly because I wasn’t up, but I knew that normally News 10 gave a little local news and weather before cutting over to “The Today Show” for most of each hour.

It wasn’t cutting over. Terry Smith, the Very Square-Jawed male anchor sat at the desk with DebbieLynn Vonk, the Very Beautiful, Blonde, female anchor.

They were laughing as I turned on the TV, and they kept on laughing for a long time. Too long. As in, “How much longer are they going to show these people laughing,” long.
Continue reading Under 30: Part 6 →

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 5

14 Comments

“Yeah. That was in one of their last reports.” Vaughn said. “The one where they finally caught him. So what does ‘spirit of chaos’ mean exactly? Chaos powers? I can cause chaos without powers. Just ask my mom.”

“I don’t know,” Jaclyn said. “Grandpa told me he could make things happen, like just about anything happen, but the more it violated reality, the harder it was.”

“OK,” I said,”so what does he want?” Continue reading Under 30: Part 5 →

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 4

14 Comments

In my head, I tried to reconstruct the crime. Lucas was strong, invulnerable, and shot lightning. He had the exact same powers as his and Vaughn’s grandfather, the original Red Lightning. I couldn’t think of a way for him to steal the ring quietly, and without shattering the glass.

Shannon controlled darkness. Unless her ability to control darkness also allowed her to control light, I couldn’t think of a way for her to get at the ring. If it did, she could have melted the metal, but I doubted she could get past the glass either.

Besides, both Shannon and Lucas were nice. I’d never seen any reason they’d want to steal a magic ring. They’d seemed happy enough to be out of the hero business.

Julie? Even before she’d gotten powers, she’d shared a picture of Haley and I with a lot of people in both of our schools along with snarky commentary. That just made her a jerk, however. On the other hand, her power was to use her voice to command people. In theory, she could have commanded Lucas to pick up the bulletproof glass, and commanded Shannon to melt the metal circle by making a laser.

I wasn’t convinced she could have done it without anyone noticing, but who could know that for sure?
Continue reading Under 30: Part 4 →

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 3

30 Comments

“Oh yuck.” Sydney crinkled her nose. “I didn’t think that movie could have been worse, but that’s worse.”

Camille smiled a little as Sydney talked, but addressed me, “You made it sound like this was embarrassing for you. Was it? Come on, you can tell us.”

“OK. My grandpa told me what it did when I was twelve, and I tried it on my family’s cat. I mean, who was going to notice? We’d already had him neutered. Except there were a few things I didn’t know. One thing was that the genes that make a cat’s fur a particular color show themselves differently in each gender, so his fur started to change color. He’s normally orange, but female cats aren’t generally orange—”

Haley asked, “What color did he turn into?” She used the same, slightly disbelieving voice she used when asking things like how many days in a row I’d worn a pair of jeans.

Continue reading Under 30: Part 3 →

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 2

21 Comments

When we got back, we set the pizzas on the table, and people spread out around HQ’s main room, eating, and talking, sitting on the floor in little groups.

I sat with Haley, Sydney, and Camille which was weird for a whole lot of reasons. To start, Sydney was the sister of Haley’s ex-boyfriend Sean, who neither Haley nor I got along with. Camille was Sydney and Sean’s half-sister due to their late father having some kind of wandering penis problem.

Eating pizza with them, I found it funny that I hadn’t noticed till we bugged Sean’s house last year. Sydney and Camille looked like sisters—within limits, anyway. Like Sean, Sydney had blond hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Her face reminded me of Sean’s—as much as a girl’s could. As a freshman (freshperson?), she’d always looked a little young to me, but very “in-style.” If her personality were anything like Sean’s, I could imagine her growing into the sort of popular girl who regarded me as a lower form of life. Continue reading Under 30: Part 2 →

Arc 4.2: Under 30

Under 30: Part 1

34 Comments

The screen darkened, and the credits rolled. Travis brought up the lights, and people stood up to grab more pop. We’d put the cups and 2 liters on the main table next to the computer screens and keyboards. That may not have been the best idea, but nobody had spilled anything yet—except on the carpet, and that was no big deal. The original League had last renovated in the 1970’s, so the carpet was olive green shag.

Heroes League headquarters felt full, and it was, relatively speaking. We had all of the League’s grandchildren (nine of us), most of the former Justice Fist team (except for Sean, Jody, and Dayton), plus my friend Chris, and Cassie’s friend Kayla.

In short with the sixteen of us, we had more people with powers in the complex than some small countries had in their armed forces. Continue reading Under 30: Part 1 →

Arc 4.1: Haley

Haley: Part 11

13 Comments

I listened from a roof top while the police talked to people, and the specialist paramedics who drove the Box sedated Laser Guy (he’d begun to wake up). Cassie talked to them. Donna told the police everything, even showing them Rod’s room inside her house. They came out carrying the bag of money he’d stolen from Chuck’s Pizza.

That was nice. It made it feel the whole night of pointless fighting had been worth something. I didn’t think three or four hundred dollars had been worth the risk I might lose control, but he didn’t deserve to get away with it either. Continue reading Haley: Part 11 →

Arc 4.1: Haley

Haley: Part 10

8 Comments

When Grandpa McAllister taught us about the Change, he said, “It’s strange to say, but the war helped me with it. I got used to going deep. I got used to coming out. It’s like the torture drugs. Me and the rest of the unit spent a lot of our time behind enemy lines, so they trained us to handle torture. They tried any drugs they knew the Nazis used on us, and then when we got captured, we were ready.

“The Change is a lot like the drugs. Best thing you can do is get used to it. Go into a forest somewhere, and hunt down a deer, heck, a herd of deer. Do it enough times, and you’ll be able to come out of the deepest parts of the Change at will.”

“I don’t want to kill a deer,” I told him. “They don’t deserve that.” Continue reading Haley: Part 10 →

Arc 4.1: Haley

Haley: Part 9

26 Comments

Cassie didn’t wait to find out if he’d shoot. She swung her staff at him, hitting the laser encasing his right arm with one of the electrified ends. A bunch of different things inside the casing made popping noises, and I smelled electronics burning, a smell I know a lot better now than I did before I started dating Nick.

Laser Guy started doing what most of the League calls, “the lightning dance.” That’s when you get shocked, and it’s enough to make you flail around, but not enough to knock you out. I don’t know who started saying it, but between Rachel’s gloves, Cassie’s staff, and Vaughn’s lightning, there are way too many people flinging electricity around during team practices. I’ve been hit more than I want to think about. It’s irritating, and it hurts. Continue reading Haley: Part 9 →

Arc 4.1: Haley

Haley: Part 8

27 Comments

I hung upside down outside of Donna’s house, waiting for Cassie to knock on their door.

The final plan had turned out to be Cassie’s with a few tweaks, and maybe not enough, but there’s a lot to be said for simple plans. You don’t have as much to think about. Not that that automatically meant it was a good plan, but it was still better than a great plan I couldn’t remember.

Quietly I hung to the side of the window, slowly turning the little pieces of metal that held the screen in. I couldn’t remember their names. The house had the old style of screen windows. Modern screen windows let you control whether you have the screen or the storm window from the inside. In the old style (and I mean really old, like the 1920’s), you swapped the screen window out for the storm window when spring came.

So I was loosening the screen window so that I could crawl through if I had to. It seemed nicer than punching a hole in the wall or knocking down their back door. Beating up a little girl’s uncle would be bad enough. I didn’t want her to have to sleep in a hotel too. Continue reading Haley: Part 8 →