Tag Archives: Bullet

Courtesy: Part 8

The tendrils died at an alarming rate. Even though Hal downplayed the effectiveness of the anti-personnel lasers, he could fire off multiple beams at multiple targets. They wouldn’t have been effective against the mushroom central brain he’d destroyed, but against these tendrils it was good enough.

The tendrils sizzled and stopped moving. Somewhere in the back of my brain, the part that distantly remembered breakfast, I wondered if these were edible mushrooms and hoped they weren’t psychedelic.

Psychedelic mushrooms did grow in Michigan. I’d checked Wikipedia once. Continue reading Courtesy: Part 8

Roll The Dice: Part 9

“Self-replicating?” I stared at the cloud of spores obscuring the baseball diamond.

Supers emerged from it, most of them covered with a light dusting of spores. By most, I meant almost everybody but Jaclyn. Jaclyn wasn’t covered because I’d designed her suit to be as close to frictionless as I could.

The other two exceptions were Bullet and Theo. Bullet flew out. He wasn’t covered with spores because he floated upward in a bullet-shaped force field. Theo was spore-free for a more obvious reason—almost anything that touches superheated plasma burns. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 9

Roll The Dice: Part 7

A few of the bullets shot away from his hand toward Gordon as Gifford shouted, “No!”

The Rocket suit’s sensors showed the air in front of Gordon becoming more dense, maybe not to force field levels, but enough to matter.

The bullets hit the barrier and began to be blown to the left when they discorporated. Continue reading Roll The Dice: Part 7

Roll the Dice: Part 6

Noticing the wind, I wondered about Gordon. He did have a temper. I remembered at least one time he’d nearly lost it with me. All the same, this seemed different. I’d never seen him lose control of his powers out of anger.

Of course, maybe I’d never seen him angry enough.

On a gut level, I didn’t quite believe he could be this angry at whatever offenses he imagined I’d committed without also being goaded into that anger either by Dominator work in his head or something else. Continue reading Roll the Dice: Part 6

Old Friends & Enemies: Part 3

Bullet stopped wiping his face, “Who was she really? Do you know?”

“No,” Daniel continued to watch him, “we were hoping you might know. We’re guessing she’s one of the Dominators.”

Looking over at Daniel, Bullet stuffed his handkerchief back in his pants pocket, “I’m going to kill her.”

“You don’t know where she is,” Tara said, her voice level and controlled. “You haven’t seen her since and you haven’t been looking because she controlled you so completely that you never tried. What makes you think that you could?” Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 3

Old Friends & Enemies: Part 2

This wasn’t a good time to ask. Or, thinking about it some more, it struck me that it might be. I could save asking about Adam until the end, just before Tara brought up something if she was going to do that. If he kicked us out at that point, we wouldn’t lose anything.

It might not be the best way to look at it, but it was at least practical. Plus, I felt confident that Tara thought the same way.

You’re right on that one even without telepathy, Daniel told me. Except for Yoselin, we’re all on the same page. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 2

Old Friends & Enemies: Part 1

Bullet frowned, either at the hint of an accent in her voice or because he had no idea who Yoselin was. Maybe both. He didn’t linger on it, though, opening the door for all of us.

We stepped into one side of the big windowed room we’d seen from the outside. It extended into the second story with a walkway going around the edges and another extending across to the other side. While the architect might have intended it to be a living room, I could see hints of another purpose in the layout.

Two long couches and a few freestanding chairs pointed in a rough “V” shape toward the large TV at the front of the room. It could pass as the briefing room of a large team. Noting the number of gaming consoles and controllers on top of the coffee table in front of the TV, I had to bet that it was a younger team. Continue reading Old Friends & Enemies: Part 1

Memories: Part 10

Bullet said nothing for a few seconds, but then added, “Yes. I’m part of another project now, but it’s one that I think you may already know about. I’ll send you the location. You can visit whenever you like, but give us some warning.”

I noted the “us” as he talked and wondered if I should ask more, but decided not to, “Sure. Today’s okay, right? We could be there before noon, depending on where you are.”

“That will work. Send us your ETA once you know. You can land your jet on the lawn.” Continue reading Memories: Part 10

Memories: Part 7

Over the team radio channel, Bullet muttered, “Give me the okay and I’ll turn the freak into Swiss cheese.”

Len jumped over a pile of snow, landing less than ten feet behind Master Martian. “You know the policy and you know why.”

In  October of 1954, the Feds came to an unofficial agreement with the superheroes of the period, agreeing to leave them alone as long as the body count didn’t get too high. My grandfather had told me about the negotiations. As the highest-profile team of the day, the Heroes’ League had to be there. Continue reading Memories: Part 7