“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
“But we’re not going to,” Alex said. “Raptor’s not going to take on Syndicate L by himself. He’s got to stay here and direct the people who are still left, and, you know, most of them got the short end of the stick when it comes to powers, so what good are they?”
“Well,” I said, “they’re experienced for one. Powers don’t do much good if you don’t know how to use them.”
“Come on,” Alex said. “You’re experienced. You guys made national news a bunch of times. The Grey Giant, that conspiracy, the Executioner… That’s more than any of the no-names Raptor will be using. I don’t see why you’re being such a wuss about this.”
Continue reading Three: Part 8
I picked up my guitar from the floor and pulled it out of its vinyl case. Jenny didn’t say anything, but her expression probably meant, “I hope that’s not really for playing video games.”
The man stepped around the smashed hood, grabbed Alex’ door and ripped it off the car. A black mask covered the man’s face, but his black and red shirt showed massive muscles and a lot of skin.
That wasn’t a good sign. Only supers with an extreme resistance to damage went with a t-shirt instead of armor.
Continue reading Three: Part 7
I didn’t feel quite right about it the next morning.
Parts of the news report stuck in my head — the accidental activation of the weapons, for example. If someone had gotten hurt, it would have been our fault too.
Also, we hadn’t started the fire in the warehouse. Syndicate L must have done that themselves. They’d had something to hide there.
I wondered if we shouldn’t have just given the warehouse’s address to the police.
Continue reading Three: Part 6
Brooke opened another portal.
Through it I could see a warehouse filled with vehicles — delivery trucks, police cars, armored trucks, hummers, and a semi. It wasn’t full either. The information we’d gotten from Carlos showed that half the vehicles were out this time of day.
Brooke changed the scene to the inside of a delivery vehicle and Jenny climbed through. She did the same thing until Jenny sat in each vehicle.
Continue reading Three: Part 5
“Let’s do it this afternoon,” Alex said.
“Seriously?” I said. “We’re not prepared. I’m not, that’s for sure. Also, I mean, we don’t even have any sense of when the best time would be.”
“Nah. We got all that stuff from Carlos, you know, Technomage’s kid. Brooke, show him.”
Brooke reached across the table and touched my hand, putting us into mental contact.
Continue reading Three: Part 4
“I’m not supposed to.”
We stood outside another massive house in the same subdivision. This one had probably won some kind of architectural award. I say that because it looked strange. All white walls with huge glass windows that stretched from the first floor to the top of the house, the house curved and bulged all over, reminding me of a collection of toadstools.
A little boy sat on his bike in the driveway. He couldn’t have been more than ten.
“My dad said I have to ask him first.”
Continue reading Three: Part 3
Even from the sky, it looked like a huge house. Shaped roughly like an “L,” it had space for an outside pool and a tennis court, and rose three stories at the point where the two wings met. The short side faced the Pacific ocean.
In Michigan something similar could fetch a million dollars. In California, I didn’t dare speculate. The crazy thing was that in Michigan there would be space around it and probably some forest. Here, it crowded the edge of the lot and ten other houses of the same size stood right next to it.
I landed on the deck.
Continue reading Three: Part 2