As I drew near, I saw the angel’s blade and felt a dull ache in my mind, realizing that the being I faced had some connection to the Artificers.
I also realized that even though I’d gotten a decent sleep, I’d used my minimal Artificer abilities to the limit yesterday in the jet.
Except for the time I’d manifested Lee’s blade and fought Magnus (?) in that vision, I’d only ever managed to use my abilities defensively. Knowing how I felt, I wasn’t sure I’d even manage to do that now. Continue reading Regression: Part 12→
The next hour was dominated by inserting implants into people. It wasn’t much work, but the egg didn’t spit out implants instantly. It made one at a time and each had to be physically manufactured, loaded with software, and tested.
While I could describe the process in a sentence, each word encompassed thousands of actions, all of them culminating in a device that hooked into the body as, for all practical purposes, a secondary brain—a support brain, maybe? Continue reading Jody: Part 8→
Vaughn stopped, and frowned, “I mean, I probably can’t do much of anything up there except for throwing lightning inside the jet or my suit, but it’s still the moon. It would be cool. It’s just that the more I think about it, the more I think I’ll be a lead weight—no powers except where they could do more damage than help.”
Looking up from my screen at the table, I said, “We can think about it. It’s probably a bad idea, but if there are… I don’t know… Selenites or something up there, for all we know there might be a secretly inhabitable area. It’s not like that never happens in comics.”
The creature bellowed and all eight arms flailed, but it didn’t fall. The lightning hit and the creature’s body absorbed it.
Bits of electricity whirled around its arms before disappearing.
Still impossible to understand, the giant’s mouth opened and shrieked, but that wasn’t the attack. The attack came in the form of lightning thrown from its hands. Continue reading Before Midnight: Part 11→
I stumbled sideways, realizing that Haley crouched underneath the soldier’s punch.
She didn’t stay there. Even as I realized what was happening, she was already punching back—and upward.
Hitting him in the middle of his diaphragm, she’d have killed a normal person with her strength and winded even some of the tougher supers. Continue reading Before Midnight: Part 10→
Though the scream consumed most of my mind, enough was free to notice the splatter of blood and brains and know that that it could be me next.
Despite what I might have hoped, that knowledge did not give me the strength to pull my mind together and concentrate enough to resist it.
Whatever shields Daniel and his parents put in and maintained in my mind weren’t helping either. They were designed to prevent someone from breaking in. The orange man’s scream was more of a psychic electrocution. Continue reading Before Midnight: Part 9→
Urin dropped it into my hand. The outside felt as smooth as it looked and I felt a prickle of energy.
I considered trying to interact with it more, but I wasn’t skilled enough with anything Artificer-related to do it casually.
Looking up from it, I asked, “What is it? Do you know who made it?”
Glancing up from my hand with a frown, he said, “I was hoping for more of a reaction from it. Very well. I don’t know anything for sure, but my assumption when I got it was that either the Abominators made it or that it had been made by the Artificers and found by the Abominators. It was supposed to help find the Artificers’ creations.” Continue reading Before Midnight: Part 8→
Rachel gave a quick grin, “I hope you’re not blaming it on me, but that’s about right. I still can’t navigate hyperspace on my own. The Cosmic Ghosts dropped me off over Earth and disappeared. I floated down from orbit on my own and as I floated down, I felt something. It wasn’t a hum. It felt more like gathering energy. Then I felt a pulse. That’s when the hum started.”
“Right,” Amy said. “They’re going to set something up for the end of the week. I asked why it couldn’t be sooner and it’s what you’d think. They all live in fear of Magnus. They don’t want it to be obvious that they’re going anywhere and don’t want it to be obvious that they returned. It takes time to set it all up.”
“Huh,” I remembered how far Ruthie Shaw had been from anywhere. “I knew they were on the run, but it makes me wonder how much of a risk it is to get them together.”
Amy met my eyes, “One that they’re willing to take because they’re afraid that not doing it will be worse.” Continue reading Courtesy: Part 65→
I thought back to the fight in the playground with the initial version of the mushroom zombies, trying to remember what Hunter had said that he’d done.
In that same moment, I had a flashback to talking to my grandfather in this space, gathering my thoughts to explain the logic of the design decisions I’d made. Knowing that Guardian had interned with the Heroes’ League at one point, he’d probably had the same sort of conversations except about tactics instead of design decisions.
