“It was one of those two A.M. phone calls,” Vaughn said. “You know, the ones that are either going to be incredibly good, or incredibly bad.”
The cafeteria was mostly empty and lunch hour was mostly over. Vaughn had happened to pass my table on the way out. Courtney and Keith were sitting with me, so I couldn’t say much.
Continue reading Counterattack: Part 4
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
“Lumbering” wasn’t quite the word to use though.
It looked slow and clumsy, but it moved. Within seconds it had gotten past the piles of concrete on the street and caught up to us. It swiped at a line of Jennys with its arm, knocking some of them over, hitting others hard enough that Jenny discorporated them, probably just to stop the pain.
A few more Jennys appeared to replace the ones that were gone, but not as many as there had been. I noticed that none of the new ones had copies of my guitar and all of them seemed tired.
Continue reading Three: Part 15
They were in front of the building but beginning to run down the street. I landed next to them.
I ran around a couple Jennys to join the core of the group.
“This is bad,” I said. “They’ve got snipers and supers on the shops over there and a giant robot hiding off to the side of the Syndicate L’s building. Can you teleport yet?”
Continue reading Three: Part 14
So we had a plan. Now all we had to do was successfully execute it.
Until Jenny and I had the ability to move, however, we couldn’t do anything but wait and listen.
I heard the voice I remembered from the video talking to Raptor again.
Continue reading Three: Part 13
Thanks to having fallen face down in the stairwell, I could only listen to what happened next.
A voice, the same voice that had been in the video conversation with Raptor, said, “Surrender. We’ve captured all your friends.”
Alex must have, because the next thing I knew, people were picking me up and carrying me to an elevator.
Continue reading Three: Part 12
Lee made us think through the circumstances in which we were willing to kill people.
Partially, I’m sure, it was because the circumstances in which you’re willing to kill dictate the sort of moves you need to practice. Partially, it had to be because when the moment came, you needed to recognize it and not hesitate.
We were close to mine.
Continue reading Three: Part 11
Four of them came through the door. They wore black, powered armor and helmets with wide, transparent facemasks. The armor made me think of police riot gear except riot gear generally included padding. This armor appeared be hard from top to bottom.
An automatic rifle hung under the right arm. Another weapon hung under the left. It reminded me of the Executioner’s paralysis gun.
Continue reading Three: Part 10
“Great,” Alex said. “Let’s put a plan together and get in there. It looks like simple get in, get out sort of mission to me. Anybody else?”
Brooke shook her head. “I don’t know… Something’s not right. Why do they think they can take on the Defenders?”
“You think it’s more than just the hostages?” Jenny said.
“How often do hostages work against people with powers?” Brooke said.
Continue reading Three: Part 9